"It Makes Them Hard"

I went on my first run of the year tonight.  I always start out going such short distances and by the end of the summer I can go a couple of miles.  You know, a couple of nice, slow miles.  :)  Tonight, I don't even think I went half a mile and it was VERRRY slow.  Probably someone could walk faster than I ran tonight.

The "parenting fail" of the day was when Gracie fell off her bike.  She has a teeny tiny little tikes bike. Observe a similar bike I found online:   

Now hers of course, has metal handle bars with ribbons coming out of the ends and a yellow banana seat.  You know my kid has to have a bike with a banana seat.  The basics are there - plastic, crazy colors, and four wheels.  Well, Gracie fell off of it today.  And not just a little bit.

She flipped over the handlebars.  And landed on the concrete.  Face first.

Don't worry, her shades broke her fall.  (That girl has more pairs of sunglasses than Jacob and I combined!)  She must have bit her tongue, because there was a little bit of blood there, and a small (honestly, it was pretty tiny) goose egg on her forehead.  The sunglasses escaped with a minor scratch.  

In my line of work there is this civilization that we call "scanner land".  "Scanner land" is made up of all the people, many of them with (honestly) nothing better to do than to listen on the radio so that they can call us and ask questions about things that they heard going on in their neighborhood or that their sister's license plate was read over the radio and they want to know why.  I'm sure there are citizens of "scanner land" who are perfectly normal, pleasant people who enjoy listening to some occasional radio traffic while reading the newspaper and drinking their morning coffee.  I just never talk to any of the normal ones. 

Well tonight, "scanner land" got a treat.  I'm not much for sexual innuendos, but tonight they got to hear me say "it makes them hard" over the radio.  How. Embarassing.  What I MEANT to say was, "it makes IT hard".  IT, people.  IT. 

No one called in about that one.  I guess I made things perfectly clear. 

Naked Man

Do I have your attention? 

Traumatizing story.  Last night on my way home, I'm driving down my block and sure enough, I find a pair of athletic shorts in the roadway and I say to myself, "Hmm, that's odd." and I drive around them.  I actually had to swerve to get around them. 

A couple of blocks later, THE EXPLANATION of those shorts was doing naked little privates-hanging-out  pushups at the corner, one block away from my house. 

I work at the police department people.  I know this guy.  I didn't even really have to look at him (MEANING HIS FACE HIS FACE) and I knew who he was. 

So I reach in my purse, eventually find my phone and call my friends down at the police department.  All I really say is, "Hey...naked guy...corner of *Maplewood and *295th Street." and I also guarantee that they knew who it was, but I went ahead and said, "Is it *Michael...?  Let me see if it's *Michael."  (and there are lots of giggles going on in the background at about this time). 

Then he started running toward me. 

NAKEDLY. 

So sure enough, he talked to me about how God wanted us all to be naked and in our true form through my window on my car.  I was on the phone the whole time.  Up for a bit of a religious debate, I partook (just a little bit).  Basically, he was just saying that he was unashamed to be naked and I asked if God loved me less because I wore clothes.  Then he said God wanted us like Adam and Eve.  Then I said that Adam was a sinner.  And he said something about how after he sinned Adam was ashamed.  And my debate was that God gave him that shame.  And everyone was a sinner, so we should all have that shame.  AND God wants us to respect all laws - the laws of Him and the rules of our worldly leaders.  (Be IN the world, but not necessarly fall into the sins of the world.)

THEN I really wanted to just say to him, "*Michael" and I'm hoping at this point that he would have said, "How do you know my name?  I never told you." and then I would have said, "God sent me.  And he wants you to put your clothes back on." 

And that's how I would have solved the world's problems last night. 

I was VERY VERY thankful that my window on my Chevy Malibu is up a little higher than your average mid-size sedan. 

*Names and streets changed to protect the "innocent" and traumatized. 

Friday Fun Facts

I read a few blogs who do this, so I'm going to give it a shot.  We'll see if I think it's fun.  Here's how it goes:  every so often you just share 5 little funny, quirky, or thought-provoking facts of your life.  So here we go...

1.  I have a degree.  I graduated with an Associate of Arts in Music from Cowley College and also a Bachelor of Music Education from Emporia State University.  ESU was ranked 3rd in the nation for teacher's colleges in...I believe 2007.  First and second were some crap colleges from South Carolina and Iowa or something. 

2.  My sister and I used to have fist fights.  We were NOT besties.  Naturally, I would kick her tail every time she tried to pick on me (she was always the instigator - I'm a lover, not a fighter).  Now we are best friends.  She lived in Virginia for a long time, but now she's back in Kansas (well, technically Missouri, but she's pretty much in Kansas).  I am so blessed to have her back. 

3.  Speaking of being blessed I am a Christian.  I love me some Jesus.  I grew up going to the Church of Christ, but wasn't ever saved/baptized until 2006, when I was 20.  I've known about the father, son, and holy ghost my whole life, but always said I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I was getting into before I dedicated my life to Him. 

4.  I use the top row of the keyboard to type numbers.  This is the nature of my job.  We type a lot of numbers, but if you use the keypad then the system we use goes all crazy and starts screaming jibberish at you and then you fall behind.  And in my job, falling behind can be very very bad.  Like, it could even cost lives in certain situations.  So I just submit to the crazy computer system and type with the top row of numbers.  How's that for being cooperative? 

5.  I've remembered to set out the trash for 2 weeks in a row.  Because usually I forget. 

Is that a car stereo in your pants or are you just happy to see me??

I work at a police department.  It's awesome.  My job is honestly the coolest job ever. 

I get to answer 911.  The other day, I picked up a phone line and a man was calling to report that he had just witnessed someone walking down the street who had a car stereo in his pants. 

How the guy knew the item was a car stereo I do not know. 

There was also a man who had called to report that there were out-of-state cars parked at a local hotel. 

"...?..."

Sometimes there are just no words.  I'm going to have lots of stories for you, folks!  I love my job.