it's like thunder and lightning, the way you love me is frightening

anne and i went to pho so for dinner tonight. i love that place. and i will show you why:


these are pork and shrimp rolls. and they are fabulous. i get these every time we go. i also get some chicken pho. and i feel so fancy when i eat it... even though it's not fancy at all. so we're sitting there enjoying our pho and some lovely conversation when who should walk in, but two dudes from church. we wound up sitting at the table with them while they ate. hopefully they didn't mind the fact that we decided to join them. though really, they knew we were going to be there since i had posted on my facebook that we were on our way to pho so. so really, i think that makes us even. they crashed our restaurant, we crashed their dinner.

after dinner i really wanted some ice cream (it was probably daniel's detailed description of a sundae he got at baskin robbins that put the idea in my head). so we made our way to coldstone creamery, where i got french vanilla ice cream with pound cake in a waffle bowl. we then went back to the house where i put a blanket on the front lawn and brought out a lantern and ate my ice cream while reading some stuff for church. after a bit i noticed some flashes of light in the sky and i was worried that lightning was coming... and then i realized it was coming from the same place in a regular pattern. i started to pay a bit more attention and realized it was the fireworks display from the baseball stadium. i stretched out on my back and enjoyed the free fireworks show. if you've known me very long you know how i dearly love fireworks and it was just a wonderful treat to get to watch some from my lawn. after the fireworks were over i stayed outside for a while watching fire flies loop by. until the actual lightning started and i packed it up and headed inside.

now i'm listening to and watching the evening's thunderstorm roll through. i don't know that i will ever get used to them. the lightning is the worst part. it conjures up images of scary movies in my head. every time the lightning cracks i expect to find a face illuminated in the window. and the idea of that really, really creeps me out. i wish the mental image would go away... but i'm stuck with it.

at any rate it was an extremely enjoyable evening. even though i didn't get the laundry done i still feel like i accomplished a lot. a lot of more important things. laundry will always be around, evenings like tonight won't.

in the past few months i've had a lot of odd experiences where things just seem to work out in odd ways. odd odd odd. like i will just not be expecting something to happen and then it will either happen in an unexpected way or something else will happen or i will get some sort of message that makes everything ok. here is the latest story:

a few months back i was having a really rough time dealing with a confrontation and my buddy nate suggested that i read the book critical conversations. i tried to find it at a couple bookstores without any luck and gave up and forgot about the book. so last night i was talking to my sister about a situation i'm currently working on. my sister was saying that i needed to confront the person and i sort it out but i really was like meh i don't want to have that conversation. anyway, i get to work this morning and i have an email from a random company saying would you like a free copy of the book critical conversations? if so please send a message to such and such email address. so i shoot over an email asking for details on what i need to do thinking there will be all sorts of conditions. a couple hours later i get an email back saying your copy of the book is in the mail.

so random. i'm the kind of person that has always looked at that kind of thing as a call to action. a confirmation that yes indeed action is required. who knows.

today my work buddy was attempting to cheer me up as he is often wont to do. he said don't worry one day when we don't work here we'll get married and there will be kids and a white picket fence. and i said do you know what i want to do? i want to go to school to be a massage therapist! and he said that would be great, you could do awesome things like go on cruises for months and work giving massages. and i said i don't want to do that! and he said well, why not? and i said i couldn't abandon our children! at which point he looked at me like i was the crazy one. so it's only funny when he talks about our future children but not me?! so not fair.

speaking of jokes that aren't funny, we had this lady coming in today and her last name with knotts. and the boys proceeded to make lots of jokes about how she can help boy scouts and sailors with tying knots. and i said yeah why don't you ask her if she owns the berry farm! at which point i got blank expressions. and i was just like dang it you guys, if this was california you would know what i was talking about! and they were just like uhmm whatever. it's sad when jokes are geographical... and you're in the wrong place!

i wish there was some place doing a haunted house right now. i would totally be down with that!