The Subway Experience

So, this is the place. I'm sitting in the Subway (restaurant, not the dirty gritty place where you catch the underground train) where my husband goes every day after work. As often as possible, which is pretty much every day. He lovingly invited me to join in his reading time whenever I wanted. And, like a vampire, I accepted the invitation and might do so from time to time unless he rescinds it (in which case I might float backwards out the door, but I doubt it.) Apparently I've been reading entirely too much Sookie Stackhouse. True Blood Season Three is available for pre-order, Amazon keeps telling me every other day. I think Amazon is spying on me at night.

Our oldest son has a work party to attend this evening, to which he was allowed to invite his family. So the husband and I are going. I was fairly certain that 'family' meant spouses and kids, but Zach's pretty excited to have us come, and his boss said it was all right, so we'll be there. He looked at a car last night in Middlebury, but it wasn't exactly ... how should I put it? Oh... drivable. There's another car in the mix... I took a picture of it today to show him, so we'll see if he likes it or not. I think it's pretty sweet.

The Subway crew seems nice, which is a complete 180 from the Subway in Middlebury.

I suppose at some point I should do some Christmas shopping... Amazon sent me a few things. Maybe they spied on me when I opened the box? They could have little cameras in there... "Oh, she's reading Sookie Stackhouse novels, maybe she'd like True Blood Season 3 when it comes out... we should ask her on a daily basis if she would like to pre-order it at a reasonable price with free shipping until she caves like a spelunker." Or maybe I'm paranoid. Either one of these situations are equally feasible in my mind. I know they can spy on me because of the little Google Map satellite dude. You can click on him and drag him and drop him on a map and it will show you what he sees which, if you get close enough, is my house. The little Google Map satellite dude can see my house from my driveway. FROM MY DRIVEWAY. And if he can get that close, he can look through the window and feed information to the people at Amazon. I'm just saying.

I think I scared the little girl in the next booth when I made a mad dash for the booth my husband likes to sit at when it became available.

I've had a bend-over headache all day. You know that feeling you get when you drink a Slushee too fast? Brain freeze? That happens to me sometimes when I bend over to pick things up. It goes away quickly, but it's been happening all day long, which is irritating. I think it's lingering from the caffeine withdrawal headache I had last night because I chose a margarita over the rest of the Mountain Dew in the two liter. To be honest, the Mountain Dew might have won had it not been two days old. If I have to drink it out of a two liter, it's got to be fresh. Bubbly. It should go 'ffffrrrrssshhhhhh' in my face when I open the lid. I wonder if you can catch OCD? I think I got a case of it from my husband.

I really wish I had the money to get my engagement ring fixed. There's always something else that happens before I can do that. This time it was a mix of Christmas and my car getting fixed, though that was a lot less expensive than I'd dreamed it would be. And it runs almost as well as it did when I first got it. I'm anxious to see what my gas mileage will be at the end of this tank. I can already tell it's better than what it was before!

In addition to reading books here and there, I've also been reading a lot of commentary in my Bible. I have the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha. I've never read the Apocrypha before, which is the non-canonical books that are not traditionally used for doctrinal purposes. I re-read the New Testament this year (all of those books don't count towards my 100 since I've read it all before), and then there is a lot of informational pages before getting to the actual Apocrypha. Geographical information, explanations of the 'evolution of the Bible as we know it', telling all about the different versions and when and under what circumstances they were translated and published, weights and measures and other info. I just have another two chapters of that and then the books of the Apocrypha. I'm not sure what to expect, because I don't know anyone else who has ever read them. There's a book called "Bel and the Dragon" which sounds pretty interesting to me...

I decided that I need to start a Christmas Club for next year. I'm sick of it coming to Christmas and having no money to buy gifts with, worrying about how to pay the bills over the holidays, and charging up the credit cards when I don't want to put another cent on them. I figured if Steve and I each put in $10 a week from our tip money, we won't even really notice it's gone, and then in November when we get it out, we'll have more money than we ever have for Christmas before! (I know, it's not a lot... that should tell you how meager things usually are for us at the holidays!)

Speaking of the holidays, I want to talk about a few songs that irritate me. One just because it's annoying, and one because it makes me mad. First, "Christmas Shoes". I'm not a big fan of any song that is written for the sole purpose of bringing its listeners to tears. I find those songs particularly sappy and usually refuse to listen to them. So when I first heard this song, it just annoyed me. The premise is that this little boy goes into a store to buy some pretty shoes for his mom because his dad says she's going to meet Jesus tonight, and he doesn't have enough money for the shoes so he looks at the next guy in line and expects him to pay for it. Yes, that's the actual premise of the song. But, you know... it's all prettied up and stuff. But what bugs me is, if your mom is going to die tonight, what are you out buying shoes for? First off, spend time WITH her! You're never going to see her again! She's dying! Second, how are shoes going to help anything? She's going from a bed to a coffin, she's not walking anywhere. And the lyric is something about how he wants her to look pretty when she meets Jesus tonight. He's Jesus! She already looks pretty to Him! Shoes are not going to help this situation in the least, so put them back since you can't afford them anyhow and you're just making the guy in line behind you feel obligated because you're little and sad looking. That's akin to begging. Actually, it IS begging. You belong at a subway in Italy trying to confuse tourists into giving you money to help them buy tickets. *See Italy Blog

The other song that bugs me, and for a real reason, not just because I'm a jaded cynical wench... "It's Called Christmas (with a Capital 'C')". Here, the song begins with a comedian in the background making fun of people who celebrate things other than Christmas. Talking about how it used to be okay to say "Merry Christmas" to a Jewish guy, and no one thought anything of it. Ha ha ha. And the whole song is upbeat and rhythmic, in a brainwashing sort of way, with people chanting about how everyone should say "Merry Christmas" because apparently if you say "Happy Holidays" it means you're not a Christian. Well, here are a few newsflashes for you: #1, not everyone IS a Christian. #2, YOU are not a Christian if you're making other people feel bad about themselves for not being a Christian. #3, saying the words "Merry Christmas" does not make you a Christian. And #4, for the love of God, saying Happy Holidays encompasses not just Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, it also takes care of the end of Thanksgiving and the New Year! So, even if you say Happy Holidays to someone, you can still in good conscience feel superior in your fake Christianity because you celebrate Christmas and they don't. Okay, that might have been a jaded, cynical rant anyhow. I just didn't know it was going to be until I wrote it.

The husband showed up -- time to stop writing and start reading. It takes up less space.

SJS