SmartCard

Yesterday I was the bus idiot.

I got on the bus and scanned my card.

Bad buzz noise.

The bus driver tells me I have insufficent funds. He starts driving while I frantically search my purse for my wallet. I turn to a girl who luckily I know (one of the few people I actually know)and ask if I can borrow $1.35 until I found my wallet. The man standing next to me tells me he has tokens. Both the girl I know and the man start rummaging around in their bags for money. She got hers out first. I took her money and paid the bus. (Good ding noise.) I thanked the man. I saw a friend sitting near the back. He smiled and seemed to laugh at a good joke.

I was that good joke.

So I continued, after paying the bus, to rummage around in my bag for my wallet so I could pay the girl back.

I had no wallet.

Let me repeat. I had NO wallet.

Panic struck as I looked at the girl I knew and said, "I don't have my wallet!" Panic. "I promise I'll pay you back!" She told me not to worry about it and that I could pay her back sometime with ice cream or something.

I felt ok at that moment until I realized that I would have to get to work by Metro and I didn't have money on my card. I didn't have cash or a card to put money on my card.

I panicked.

I called my roommate in desperation hoping she hadn't left for work yet. Too late. Then I realized that not only would I not be able to get back to work but I wouldn't be able to go out to dinner for Restaurant Week like I had planned.

I considered my options.

1. Walk home to get wallet. Be really late for work.
2. Get off bus NOW. Walk home. Be late for work.
3. Beg for money as people get off the bus hoping that enough can be scrounged up for the fare. Be late for work.
4. Mooch off my friend who lent me the $1.35 hoping she has a five. Be on time.

I went with option 4. If that hadn't panned out I would have gone with option 3, but luckily, I was able to borrow $10 from my new best friend and commute saver. When I went to stand on the platform to wait for the train, my friend, the smirking one in the back, asked me if I needed a dollar.

I felt bad about mooching all day.

Last night I ran to the grocery store. Bought Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge. Got cash back. Broke into my new best friend's apartment (with the help of Amy who lived there last year). Put the ice cream in the freezer, wrote a love note and left the $10.

Moral of the story: When you get of the Metro and you think, "Hm, I wonder how much money is on my card." You should really go check it right away because chances are you won't get as lucky as me and make a new best friend who has $11.35 to spare.

Ctrl+f

I wish there was a find command I could do for life. Like right now I’m supposed to look through a whole bunch of papers for something called Elizabeth City University. Boring, tedious, and so far fruitless. I wish I could just push Ctrl+f and type in and bam! I’d have it. Unfortunately life isn’t like that. But if it was I’d look for these things:

1. Perfect mascara
2. Husband
3. Perfect job for me
4. Ideal grad school program
5. Oh yes, Elizabeth City University

I feel like these need explanation so I’ll give the quick version, which if you know me usually isn’t the quick version but I’ll try.

1. Mascara—I’m always looking for the one to make my eyelashes look long and full. I’m a freak and buy lots. Even if I like one for a while I’m always looking for a new one. I found a good one but at $18 I can’t quite bring myself to buy it, but I probably spend more money trying cheap ones than just using the $18 one.
2. Husband—duh. Who isn’t looking for someone to love them/want to be with them? That’s self explanatory.
3. Job—although I have a good job now, but, it’s not really what I want. The problem, I don’t know what I want. So if Ctrl+f would find me what I need, I’d be really happy. And grateful. It’s not like I wouldn’t be grateful. I’m really grateful. And I’m grateful for my job now. (Thanks Amy!)
4. Grad School—Um yeah, I know I just graduated and I was so happy to be done, but as school starts up again I really want to go buy new notebooks, and pens, and markers (even if I wouldn’t use them throughout the course of the semester, or year) and I even wish I could go buy my textbooks. I always liked getting textbooks even if I had to fork over a lot of money. I think I just like getting new things. (Not necessarily new, but new to me.)
5. Elizabeth City University—Duh, the thing I was looking for. Which turned out to not be in any of the piles I was looking in and not even in our department. Had I been able to use Ctrl+f I would have known immediately it wasn’t in those piles. See how helpful it would be?

Mowi Siostra Richey

I recorded my personal greeting for my work phone today. I tried to “wing it” when I heard the tone but made myself stop, write it out and read it as I recorded.

You have reached Lauren Richey in Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you and have a good day.

As I read the recording I was reminded of making phone calls for the first time on my mission. My trainer lovingly wrote out an entire dialogue for me. I remember reading slowly and presumably roughly something along the lines of this:

Hello! This is Sister Richey from the Church of Jesus Christ. We would like to meet with you. Would tomorrow at (penciled in time) work for you ma’am? Thank you. We look forward to meeting with you then.

(Dzien dobry! Mowi Siostra Richey z Kosciola Jezusa Chrystusa. Chcialybysmy spotykac sie z Panem/Pania. Czy jutro pasuja Pan/Pani? Dzienkuje. Dozobaczymy!*)

I was so nervous. I remember turning our cell phone onto speaker so my trainer could listen in. The first couple phone calls were a cinch. (No answers.) Finally someone answered. I had no idea what they said past hello. I followed my script. Tomorrow did not work for them. I threw the phone to my trainer.

Fast forward one year. I’m the trainer. I write out the script for my companion. I left the slot for her name blank so she could reuse the script when she was a trainer someday. We placed the phone between us, speaker phone on, script accessible and she called. The first phone call went something like this:

Companion: Hello! This is Sister Richey from the Church of Jesus Christ.

Me (whispering loudly): Clinger! You’re Sister Clinger!

C: Excuse me! This is Sister Clinger from the Church of Jesus Christ. We would like to meet with you. Would tomorrow at (penciled in time) work for you ma’am? Thank you. We’ll see you then!

Hang up. Laughing. The best part about her introducing herself as me was that it was as if a weed was planted. She continued to make that mistake not only on the phone but when introducing herself on the street as well. I guess she heard me do it too many times!

*Please forgive my atrocious Polish spelling!

Mystery

I’ve decided to become a detective on the side. Now you’re wondering what kind of detective and what my first case will be. Actually, I have no real desire to be a detective, but I’m nosey and I want info.

So the mystery is this: I started my new job Wednesday. I don’t know what happened to the lady who worked here before me, but I’m guessing she didn’t retire. My desk was a mess. The equipment was dirty (equipment meaning the mouse, the keyboard, the phone, the calculator) and required some serious disinfecting. There is a pair of old lady glasses on the desk still; a Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Meal (it’s one of those meals you add water to and microwave); a foot massager under the desk and various bottles of lotion. The massager kind of grosses me out and I’m trying to figure out how I might get rid of it. The drawers are a mess and the small drawer under the desk that holds pens and things smelled like puke, or maybe sour milk. There was a huge pile of papers that were supposed to be recycled but why weren’t they? So I went through them. Some needed to be shredded (private info like social security numbers) and others could just be regular recycled. So as I’m cleaning everything I’m kind of grossed out. I suppose I am kind of a germa-a-phobe but I didn’t think I was. But when the dirt came off the mouse I was really kind of grossed out. And while I’m cleaning I can’t help but think that there’s no way I’d leave my desk in this mess. So it got me wondering what happened to the lady before me. Was she fired? Did she quit really fast? Was she relocated? My supervisor was asked what happened to her by another employee and she just answered, “She is no longer on the contract.” Hm… fishy. I told my roommate who works here at AID the name of the person I replaced and she laughed telling me that the lady was moved five times in the last year. So, I’m really wanting to know what happened to her now! Fired? Force quit? Just quit? Stopped coming to work? I NEED to know. But I’ll never ask. So I guess I won’t ever become that detective after all.

First day

I feel like it's my first day of school. I'm taking extra time on my hair (I'll probably have my picture taken), and I picked out clothes to wear last night. I hope I just make it there on time!

Happy Wednesday!

End of carefree summer

Today is my last day of not doing anything. That's right, I start my job tomorrow morning at 8. I'm a little worried about getting up real early because as of now my natural wake up time is 9, and if I have to be to work at 8 that means I need to be up and running a lot earlier than that. It's not like my BYU job that started at 8 where I could leave the house at 7:45 and get there on time. (Actually I was usually still getting ready at 7:45 and was generally running out of the house around 7:55 or later. I swear, there was always some kind of minor crisis every morning that prevented me from getting there on time. I think I might be missing the bus a lot out here.) But anyway this is my last day of my carefree, lazy DC summer. I'm really excited to start work. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet as jobs and projects will change daily. And I don't even know what department I'll be working at either (my position is basically contingent on where they have a need). All I know is that I will be working in the Ronald Reagan Building and that it's fabulously just around the corner from the American History Museum. I'm glad to start and I'm glad to finally get going! (Besides, I want a paycheck so I can decorate my room!)

Solitude

Until I begin my job (next week hopefully, keep your fingers crossed) I spend the days by myself. So yesterday after being lazy I finally went out to do something and that something was seeing Paper Heart. I took the bus, I bought my ticket feeling a little strange that I was seeing the movie by myself, but I figured when I bought the ticket they just must have thought I was meeting friends. Buuut, no friends, or fake friends for that matter came. I had a private screening for the movie. Yep, I was alll byyyy myself in the theater and I laughed as loud as I wanted, didn't turn my phone off, put my feet on the chair in front of me, and didn't feel self conscious about the big smile on my face for the awkward romantic parts. As far as the movie goes, I'd recommend the movie but not for everyone. It was slow in some parts, funny and clever in others, but still slow. I'm not sure I'd sit through it again, but there are definitely parts I want to see again.

After the movie I took a leisurely evening to get a manicure and then grocery shop (I would have gotten a pedicure too but I wore new shoes and had a raw skin patch and it sounded awful to have a cute Asian lady rubbing my sore). I missed the bus home from the grocery store by 30 seconds, literally, because I decided to stop in Subway for dinner so I walked home. And it was hot. Really hot. And by the time I got there my shirt was wet. And I was dripping sweat just like I did in Israel. But I had the pleasant surprise of having a new friend there wanting to go to ice cream and I never say no to ice cream. So we got our ice cream at ate it down by the water and it was the perfect end to a lackluster, boring day.

And yes, I took that picture while the movie was playing. It's not like I interrupted anyone's precious movie viewing. I was the only one there!