Day Trip Up the Coast

On Friday Heather and I took a day trip up the coast to Santa Barbara. We didn't go because we had a breakthrough of feeling well enough to live life again. On the contrary, we were both feeling pretty crummy. Heather has been trying to pass kidney stones for the last several weeks, and my attacks had been coming more frequently and by Friday I was entering day three of almost constant nausea. But we figured that we had been stuck in our house pretty much all week, and if we're gonna feel crummy, we may as well feel crummy during a chill day in Santa Barbara. We're so glad we went.

We kept getting the giggles during the drive out because we would be chit-chatting away, laughing about Georgie or talking to Georgie when all of the sudden one of us would groan in pain or moan with nausea. We decided we wouldn't have wanted to spend a day like that with anyone else, because neither of us had to worry about ruining the joy of the day for the other person. Both of us knew we were both in pain and feeling icky, both of us had the same amount of sympathy and compassion for the other, and both of us knew how to keep our humor about us as we battled through our discomforts.

We got side-tracked by the Camarillo Outlets on our way to Santa Barbara. There was an item or two Heather was on the look out for and I thought of a few things I wanted to find at discount prices, so we took a walk around the loop of stores. We parked right in front of Bebe where I spotted one of those dream outfits...the kind where you look at it and realize that is how you were born to dress. Which one of these outfits do you think caught my eye?


Were you right?

I just had to try it on. LOVED it on even more than on the mannnequin. Unfortunately, even at the discount outlet price the whole outfit would have been probably around 200 bucks. Anyways, I really like this style.


We made it to a few kids clothes stores, a cosmetics store, a few womens' clothing stores, and approached the end of our time at the outlets by a stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Heather asked if I was going to be up for a caramel apple after our lunch, and I surprised myself and Heather by saying yes! Because of my nausea the previous two days and that morning, not much had gotten past my lips, and the stuff that did get forced down my throat I had no appetite for. But I was so thankful that while I was walking around the outlets, my nausea disappeared! It was replaced by the start of one of my painful attacks, but at that point pain in my back was welcomed if it came with a break from the nausea. We bought our caramel apple and saved it for after our picnic lunch.

Our last stop before packing back into the car was at a toy store where Heather and I set out on a look out for a small toy to get Georgie for being such a good girl. We came across a basket of Beanie Babies and agreed that we would each select two animals that we thought she would like and then let her choose from them. I saw a gray goose with a bright orange bill and feet that I was pretty sure she would be attracted to. I also went out on a limb and selected a dragon from among the rest of the animals. Heather found a polka dotted bear and a red rooster. We set all four animals in front of Georgie and asked her which one she wanted. She slowly and meditatively glanced at each animal, starting with the rooster, moving on to the bear, then to the goose, and ended with the dragon. She then extended her pointer finger and with the rest of her fingers curled up to her palm, decisively pointed to the goose. Heather and I laughed so hard to see the intense thought that she had put into her decision and the effort with which she had pointed. We promptly bought her animal of choice: Honks, the goose.

When I got into the car I realized that my attack was growing with remarkable acceleration. By the time we were back on the freeway I was constantly moaning and groaning, the pain was beginning to draw tears, and I could no longer answer any of Heather's questions...talking was just too much. I had already taken my pain medication and wasn't going to be able to take it again for another four hours, so Heather made the decision to make an emergency stop at Walmart for some advil, a drug I can safely take with my other pain medication. About 20 minutes after I took the advil, either it really did kick in or my attack naturally ended and I felt normal. No nausea, no pain. And I was hungry. :) Oh, hunger with a non-nauseas appetite is such a blessing.

We had a picnic at the beach in Santa Barbara, on a huge grassy lawn before the sand.


We all joyously devoured our delicious lunch prepared by Heather. Marinated stir-fried chicken and broccoli in quinoa with watermelon and blueberries on the side. I was so thankful to have an appetite for a meal. It was the first meal I had actually enjoyed in literally days.




Beauty shots:








Dramatically savoring my apple:


After lunch Georgie and I played a game of tag:




Heather and I took turns taking model shots with Georgie:








We all joined forces for a footsie photo:


Georgie and I reverted again to a game of "I'm-a-gonna-getchu!"







Heather and Georgie played around together:




Hugs and kisses (WAY better than Hershey's...):





Heather and Georgie drank out of cute little sippy cups:
Beautiful babes:


Georgie decided she NEEDED to carry the 10 lb. lunch box. It was so necessary. It was a little too heavy for her though, so Auntie Hayley had to hold it above the ground while she walked with the strap around her shoulder.








Georgie and Auntie Hayley teamed up to "get" Heather:


Then we packed up our belongings in the car and went to dip our toes in the sea:








Heather said this photo is for Brent. Here you go, my Brent.

We drove home after dipping our feet into the water. Wonderful relaxing day. I was SO thankful that God gave me a window of feeling normal so that I could maximally enjoy our food and our playtime at the beach. Sure enough, after dinner when I got home my nausea returned. It really was just a little window that God provided me. :)

That day I got a phone call from my surgeon's office. It was one of his nurses, who wanted to know how how I was feeling. When I had seen the surgeon on Wednesday he was very surprised that the kind and amount of pain medication he had prescribed to me wasn't helping with the attacks, and was further surprised the next day when I called to tell him that my new prescription didn't work either. So on Friday the nurse had the surgeon on the other line while she talked to me, and after I described to her my nausea and my intense tear-drawing attacks, she put me on hold while she spoke to the surgeon. They told me that if I got one of those attacks during the weekend, I needed to call the office phone, and the operator would direct me to the on-call doctor who would tell me decisively whether or not I should return to the ER. After that phone call I felt very taken care of and appreciative of my surgeon and his office. I'm so thankful they're taking my pain so seriously.

My colonoscopy consult is tomorrow. I'm praying that the colonoscopy can be this week.

Saw the doctor(s) today.

I went to my primary physician today for several things including an x-ray of my shoulder. Her initial reaction after seeing the x-ray is that everything looks normal, and that my pain is probably coming from the ligaments, therefore she got an appointment set up for me with a physical therapist. So many doctors to see. I also spent pretty much the entire morning at her office trying to pee into a little cup and not being able to. Arg arg arg arg arg. That was probably the 16th urine sample I've needed to give in the last three weeks, most of those were requested at the hospital, where they couldn't seem to keep on record that my pregnancy test was negative. And with all of these samples being requested of me, I am becoming increasingly unable to grant their requests, no matter how much water I drink, or how warm the water is that I dip my hand into while I try to fill their little cup. TMI* my friends? Well, sorry. :) (*Too Much Information.)

I also saw my surgeon, who had consulted with my primary. They both noted that I have a high eosinophil count in my blood, indicating that I may be suffering from some sort of parasite, so that would explain my inflamed lymph nodes. (The biopsy of the lymph nodes was normal, it looks like the lymph nodes were simply doing their job, that's why they were inflamed.) Neither of them could tell me how it would explain my pain. But still, my surgeon ordered one more sample of blood to be taken, and if my eosinophil count is still too high, then I'll be sent to an infectious disease center, and suddenly the sound of that makes me feel like I should be wearing a huge "CONTACT ISOLATION" sign on my back. :)

Good news is, he prescribed me new pain medication when he heard that the stuff he had me on initially wasn't working for my attacks, and so far the new stuff, though it doesn't take the pain away completely, makes the pain MUCH more manageable. Thank you, Father.

And I'm also still going to have the colonoscopy.

I'm tired. I've been running around all day and I think I accidentally did too much. Tomorrow Heather and I agreed to REST as much as possible. I'm looking forward to that, and am so thankful that my schedule isn't pressing so that I'm ABLE to just simply rest when I need it. Thank you again, my loving, caring God.

Just realized...

...that a lot of you don't have access to Heather's blog, and must feel kind of in the dark as to what is going on with me health-wise. :) Sorry about that. Here is a summary to catch you up.

• My symptoms sound exactly like gallstones or gallbladder disease, so when my blood work indicated nothing wrong with my gallbladder, my doctor ordered an ultra-sound to look for gallstones, just to double check.
• When my ultra-sound showed no gallstones or any indication of inflammation or anything, I saw a surgeon who said my symptoms still sounded like I have a malfunctioning gallbladder, so he ordered a HIDA-scan to test the function of that silly useless little organ that causes people more harm than good...sorry, I guess that was my little bout of ranting and raving. :)
• The day that I had my HIDA-scan, last Monday, I got a HORRIBLE attack that lasted like six hours, and for the last two hours or so the pain was so unbearable that Brent and Heather finally decided it was time to take decisive action. I called my surgeon on the emergency line. I was told to go to the ER, tell them whose patient I was, and I would be admitted to the hospital that night and would have my gallbladder out sometime the next morning.
• Sure enough, I was admitted that night, and the next day was told to prep for surgery. I had just taken my earrings off and bobby pins out and had made sure I was all bare under my hospital gown when my surgeon entered the room and informed me he had JUST cancelled the surgery. He had finally gotten my HIDA-scan results which had indicated my gallbladder is perfectly normal, so before rushing off to remove a potentially healthy organ, he ordered an endoscopy because the only other thing that has symptoms similar to mine is a stomach ulcer.
  
• The endoscopy the next day showed a perfectly healthy stomach. Surgery for the removal of the gallbladder was back on for the next day, both my GI and my surgeon thought that was the wisest course of action, explaining that there are plenty of things that go wrong with the gallbladder that won't show up on any sort of test or scan.
• Next day the surgeon put me out, cut me open, stuck a camera in me and investigated my gallbladder before removing it. No sign of it being unhealthy, no inflammation, no scarring, nothing. It is perfectly normal and fine. He didn't take it out. It's not the cause of my pain. Grr. He took a look around at the rest of my visible organs, everything else looks normal and fine. My lymph nodes in that area were oddly very prominent and inflamed, so he took a biopsy and sent it to patheology (sp?). Still waiting for the results, I'll get them at my appointment tomorrow. In the meantime, he's not sure how swollen lymph nodes could relate to the cause of my pain.
• Before they sent me home from the hospital my doctor ordered a CT-scan so that they could clearly check all the organs that weren't visible to the surgeon during surgery. Everything looks normal and healthy. My pain is still a mystery, and still sounds like gallbladder disease, but isn't gallbladder disease.
• The next step is a colonoscopy, something I'll have done within the next week or so.

That was a long summary. :)

Hooray.

I'm feeling good this morning. Especially after I emailed the professor who I'm doing research with this summer, letting him know I'm feeling back to normal and would like to start working with the telescope on campus again, and he told me that we will begin observing the night sky starting tomorrow at 7 pm. That is exciting for two reasons: 1) This will be my first experience with the telescope in the observatory this summer, and 2) I have twenty-one hours still to rest up for the big event. I have to admit, I was kind of getting weary at the thought of going to campus and working today if my professor had asked me to come, I think it was my body telling me that it is still recovering from surgery and would like a little more time to heal before I get busy again. Thank you God, for the time you've given me to rest and heal, and thank you for such an EXCITING event to look forward to tomorrow night!!

Yesterday I felt very sophisticated and cultural. Brent's dad had six tickets to one of the premiere shows of the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna, so he and his wife invited Todd & Ashley and Brent & Hayley to join them. If you've never heard of the Pageant of the Masters, it is a pretty awesome show. Let me try to describe it...imagine seeing a beautiful oil painting, like Da Vinci's The Last Supper, but instead of it being an actual painting, you see that all the human figures are REAL HUMANS, not just brush strokes. In the Pageant of the Masters people dress up and pose in positions to resemble popular works of art, it is amazing how absolutely still they can pose in some of the most awkward positions, and how truly "painted" the humans look. They even posed as famous sculptures, one of my favorites was their rendition of the top of the Paris Opera House. I think my favorite painting that they recreated was one that had three trapeze artists in mid-swing and jump, I don't know HOW they posed to look like they were floating in mid-air like that. Absolutely amazing.

On the way down to the Pageant Brent and I played a game in the car where you take turns slapping each others hands as hard as you possibly can, and you see who gives up first. The one who gives up first loses, obviously. Brent had me start out the game by slapping him first, so I held nothing back and gave him the full force of Hayley's stinging palm. Poor guy gave up right away, his hand turned bright red. :( After a minute or two he decided that giving up right away just wasn't gonna cut it, so we began the game again. He claims he was holding nothing back from me, but I'm sorry, his slaps just didn't phase me. All but one of my slaps killed him, but he couldn't figure out why his weren't affecting me, until his mom pointed out to him, "Brent, she's on pain drugs!" He gave up the game right away, we were laughing so hard. I wonder if my pain medication for my surgery really let me be the stronger for that game. :) So funny.

When we arrived at the site of the Pageant we had about an hour or so before the Pageant started so we walked around the art festival that was set up. Brent is totally the artist between the two of us. He actually sounded sophisticated as we walked around observing things...while I was saying things like, "Ooo, pretty," or "Weird," or "I like that one," or, "That's kinda cool," he was saying smart things like, "He must have used a mixture of charcoals and pastels for that." I guess that's what getting your degree from the Art Institute of Santa Monica will do for you. :)

Did you know that I had to stay home from my brother's wedding and the Ukraine mission trip this year? Each day I'm longing ever more to be in Ukraine with my family right now. My mom has been super super good about emailing me stories from their time over there. She's letting me know of all that she observes God doing over there, the things people are being taught, etc, and she also lets me in on the silly little moments of light-hearted interaction between the American team members and their/my Belarusian friends. OH, I want to be with them.

Rufichka...I miss ya. We should totally talk. :)

Little blurb of an update

So the weekend turned out to be very enjoyable. Saturday night when I got home from the hospital, Heather cooked me the meal I had been craving for several days: grilled cheese and tomato soup. And an ice cream Drumstick for dessert. We watched Bend it Like Beckham, a movie I greatly enjoyed in the theater years ago and then practically forgot about until Heather suggested watching it on Saturday. Even more enjoyable the second time around. :)

Finding a comfortable, non-painful position to sleep in that night was difficult, and it took probably a good forty-five minutes. But I finally succeeded, on my side/back, putting the weight of the left side of my back on a body pillow propped up against me, my right arm extended above my head. My right shoulder has been KILLING me lately...for the past several months it's been constantly throbbing and every little once in a while I wake up in the middle of the night in crazy pain radiating from deep within my shoulder. Ever since the surgery the constant throbbing has been even more intense, and surprisingly enough the nurses suggested getting my shoulder x-rayed, as it sounds like it might be a bone issue. Weird, huh? When it rains it pours, when it comes to health issues with me and Heather. :)

I woke up the next morning a little weirded out because I was in NO pain from my surgery, though I had taken no medication the entire night! It was a wonderful blessing. I felt well enough to go to the second service of church, I was so thankful to be surrounded by believers who cared for me and to praise the God who has taken such good and tender care of me.

After church Heather and I picked up In-N-Out on the way home to enjoy with Anton & Marietjie and their girls, who were kind enough to come and visit us. They stayed for a couple of hours and right before they left we dove into my treats of Rocky Road ice cream and Drumsticks. Sweet friendship. Marietjie is always such a comfort. She mixes just the right amount of lighthearted chit-chat with more serious encouragement. God uses her a lot in my life.

When it came around to dinner time Heather was feeling worn out herself, so we decided that rather than try to deal with a potentially fussy Georgie at home or try to prepare dinner for ourselves, we would go to the Valencia Mall to walk around and work up an appetite for Chili's. While at the mall Heather made a stop at Popcornopolis where all of their popcorn, even the yummy flavored stuff, is gluten-free! She chose three different bags for herself and was then informed that with the purchase of three bags, a fourth came free. She asked me which flavor I wanted and I chose....drumroll...Rocky Road. (When did I become such a fan of that flavor?) I was about to text Brent and tell him that he needed to help me get through an ENTIRE bag of Rocky Road popcorn that I had ALL TO MYSELF, until I realized that I was a wimp because Heather had just purchased for herself THREE WHOLE BAGS to gozzle up before the popcorn goes bad. :)

The Chili's dinner was awesome. I just recently became a fan of white fish, because during the time that I believed I had gallbladder disease, one of the crazy "helpful" diets I was on required that I could eat no meat except for white fish. I never knew I liked it until I was forced to try all the yummy varieties with all the yummy ways of fixing it. Anyways, Chili's Talapia is delicious.

While we were waiting for dinner I discovered that the pain medication, the stuff that the doctor sent me home with to deal with the mystery pain that I get in my back and stomach area after food, doesn't even seem to mask the pain. Oh well. Heather said that the stuff I'm on never worked for her, either, so please pray that when I talk to the doctor today she would prescribe me stuff that does work for me.

My next appointment with the doctor is on Wednesday. Please continue to pray that the doctors would quickly figure out what is wrong with me and that there will be some sort of solution. I'm not sure of what exactly they will be looking for during the colonoscopy, but I'm praying that they find the answer as to what is wrong with me. If no answers come as a result of all these tests and such, I don't see any option but elimination diets, to see if perhaps this is just some strange food allergy. I'm not looking forward to the possibility of living with this vague and ambiguous pain, never knowing for sure what causes it. I want to pray that rather than just trust God through it, that I would actually be happy and content because of what He teaches me through it and how He draws me closer to Him through it.

But nonetheless, now is the time to still pray that God would reveal to the doctors a solution to my pain!

Pictures

Aren't the flowers pretty? The small bouquet is from Harrison and Vika, the larger one is from Brent. I was telling Brent that he picked out the perfect flowers...I would have chosen that bouquet for myself. Not that I often or ever pick out flowers for myself. :) Such sweet little blessings. Little treats like that added up to make my overall experience at the hospital a sweet one instead of a discouraging one.

I keep finding more evidences that Heather is the perfect loving sister to come home to after surgery. This afternoon I came home to a clean home, washed and dried laundry, and a well-stocked kitchen. She's been ever so attentive to my needs, and has added taking care of her recovering sister to her already hectic schedule. She drove me to pick up my pain medication and the rest of the afternoon she's been cooking for me, getting water for me, encouraging me and such. I finally went upstairs to take a shower this evening and found this sweet care package:


It included some of our favorite shampoo and conditioner (she had noticed that I was out), cotton balls (a product I was also out of), my favorite razors (again, out of and after five days in the hospital desperately in need of), spray hair gel that I love but have never owned, a cute little TinkerBell tin, a sassy tray for all of the items, and a sweet encouraging card from Heather and George.

Hospitalized?

Wow, life has really slowed down for me in the past weeks, and especially days. I should have seen it coming, though. For the past nine months I've been experiencing frequent achiness in my back, burning and nausea in my stomach, a constant throbbing deep in my shoulder, and heartburn that is only reigned by downing the prilosec day after day. During the last fall school semester my symptoms were annoying and slowed me down in my studies, so I saw my doctor. After running some blood work to check for possible gallstones or ulcers and not seeing any signs of either in my blood, her best effort was to put me on prilosec and see if that at least helped with the heartburn. For a few months it seemed to take care of most the symptoms, actually.

During the spring semester all of my symptoms began to bleed through again, but only slightly...I was busy with a LOT, and didn't want to pay attention to the symptoms. New boyfriend, getting through my physics classes, co-leading a small group, preparing for my summer missions trip, teaching college algebra twice a week, who has time to pay attention to irritating abdominal pain with a schedule like that? But now that I've been laying in the same hospital bed for five nights in a row, I reflect and see how God has one by one eliminated the things that crammed up my schedule, and how He brought my life to be about one thing: getting healed of whatever is ailing me.

It was soon after school, teaching, small group and Bible study took a break for the summer that my symptoms were not simply bleeding through the prilosec, but were becoming so intense that every attack knocked me off of my feet. My family and my sweet Brent observed many of my attacks and they all became increasingly concerned for my health. Heather listened to all my symptoms and observed my pain and was convinced that I was suffering from what ailed her last summer: gallstones. My family and I agreed that I needed to start getting more active in figuring out what was wrong with me. I did get more active in figuring this out, but slowly. I've been seeing doctors for weeks now, and lately have been told that if I get pain that is unbearable, I need to go to the ER.

So last Monday I got that unbearable pain. Brent drove me to the hospital, and after waiting in the ER for three or four hours, I was admitted to a very comfortable single room on a floor with very kind, reassuring and attentive nurses. And it was in that little room and on that floor with those reassuring nurses that I lived my life for the following five days.

Friends and family have been SO super kind to me while I've been here. Especially my sister Heather and my sweet boyfriend Brent, both of whom pretty much completely rearranged their schedules just to be with me and care for me during my time in the hospital. Brent was by my side almost constantly, he's always faithful to draw a smile from me even when my body's at the lowest of it's lows. And I'm so thankful that Heather saw it as a necessity to find a way for her to spend her days at the hospital with me...I don't know what we would have done if her dear kind friends hadn't stepped in to watch Georgie those three days in a row. Having Heather with me to comfort me and help me talk to doctors meant the world to me.

Man oh man, there are so many people who I just want to thank so much, God really blessed me with a lot of love from family and friends during my time at St Josephs. Would you believe, Harrison and Vika Hays, recently married on June 28 in Minsk, Belarus, stopped in LA for a few days before they flew for Hawaii, and came and visited me while I was waiting for surgery! I felt so privileged to be able to see and hug the newlyweds so soon after their marriage. They are SO CUTE. Such darling little love-birds. They made me laugh a lot, and they brought me flowers. :)

Before I went to bed my second night there, Brent's family and my friend Ashley came to visit me. They brought me a special gift of Bath and Body Works sweet pea scented bath products and a sweet pea scented candle because they remembered that is one of my absolute favorite scents. :) It was so fun to just light-heartedly chat with them, and at the end of their time with me they gathered around me, joined hands and prayed with me. I was so grateful to have believers surrounding me, to know that we were all petitioning the same great, loving, all-knowing God.

Heather has been updating my situation on her blog quite consistently, that's why I'm not giving you a play-by-play of my time at the hospital. I guess that's why this post seems so random and disorganized to me. :) I'll just end with one final thing.

For those of you who heard John Piper's last message at Resolved this year, my final couple of days at the hospital really helped the truth of his thesis sink in even more than it did in that auditorium. Usually I look forward to any opportunity to undergo anesthesia or sedation...have to admit I love that medically drugged up feeling. :) My hours after my endoscopy, for which I was sedated, were heavenly. Ok, maybe not heavenly, but wonderful. I expected the same cloud nine state for after my gallbladder surgery, but instead woke up being wheeled out of the operating room with entirely different, more disturbing sensations. For one, my tummy felt like it had been ripped apart and thrown back together. People were surrounding me on all sides tugging at me, putting an oxygen mask on me, trying to talk to me, asking me why I was crying, and through it all the most sickening nausea was overcoming me. I eventually begged them to take the oxygen mask off, and they replaced it with one of those horrible nostril tube thingies. I then told them I was extremely nauseas, so they gave me medicine which they promptly discovered didn't work for me. :( For most of the next six hours I was frozen in the same position, trying to wait out the debilitating nausea until it was time for me to try new nausea medicine. Those six hours were torture...I was dry-heaving, moistening my continuously dry-mouth with icky-tasting cotton swabs, and trying to sleep off my nauseas, sore-tummy state. At one point God was gracious enough to remind me of John Piper's sermon. I still remember how I felt during those hours, and am reminded that the revulsion I felt and the revulsion I still feel at the thought of those hours after my surgery can remind me of the revulsion God feels over my sin. And that thought TOTALLY magnifies "the scream of the damned." In three hours on the cross Jesus Christ paid the infinite price for my infinitely revolting crimes against God...the thought staggers me.

If you think of it, please pray that God would continue to give the doctors wisdom in figuring out what's wrong with me. It is a little discouraging to have spent five days in the hospital with invasive procedures and come home without an answer as to what is ailing me. But I can rest assured that God is all-knowing, that He is in control and knows what is best for me.

Anyways, I'm home now. :) The one I've missed the most is Georgie, and I'm finally getting to hang out with her again. She's been really cute to initiate a few hugs and kisses.

Heather is taking REALLY good care of me. She went shopping for all the comfort food she could think of, including my favorite kind of ice cream: rocky road. She even caught me trying to lift up Georgie for a kiss and had to remind me that I shouldn't be lifting because of my surgery...so thankful she's here to remind me of stuff like that, it's scary when the pain in my stomach from my straining muscles doesn't remind me. LOL.

The Perfect Breakfast Scramblet

Thaw a single serving of frozen spinach; drain. Slice Trader Joe's Fire-Roasted Red Peppers into thin strips, add to spinach. Add about one tablespoon of diced onion to the spinach along with finely shredded mozzarella cheese. Crack one whole egg and two egg whites into a mixing bowl, add about a tablespoon of milk to the eggs, beat until you get even consistency. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil, turn on the stove to high and pour the egg mixture into the pan. Let the egg mixture sit and cook until bubbly, and sprinkle the spinach mixture over the surface of the eggs. Then, using a spatula, begin scrambling the mixture until the eggs are fully cooked. Accompany the eggs with toast and a cup of coffee in a sentimental mug. Eat the scramblet off of a crab plate just for fun. For maximum enjoyment savor the breakfast during the first fifteen minutes of Regis and Kelly.

Experiences.

So the Saturday after Brent left I was still feeling under the weather, so I decided to just really relax at home the whole day. But alas, when home happens to be the place where your parents and younger brother live, and your parents and younger brother go to the matinee showing of Prince Caspian and ask you to please come along too, the movie theater becomes the new location of total relaxation. I'm glad I went, it's always fun seeing movies with my family. They made a stop at Costco on the way home, a stop which turned out to be great fun because it was my first time going to Costco with my dad and brother...I got to witness for the first time my dad's genuine delight in sampling every single taste-test, I got to witness my dad's endurance, perseverance and resolve in waiting in line at the fudge-sickle taste-test table (when they give out whole fudge-sickles for free, apparently Dad Hays can't resist), and I got to go to the produce section and see for myself that no fresh peaches were available for sale. If I hadn't seen it for myself I would have been discontent for the rest of the evening, as I was really craving a peach that day.

The four of us got a craving for a summertime grill-out dinner for that night, so we stopped at a store that sells food in reasonable quantities and got some dinner fixings. We had fresh-ground chuck patties on onion burger buns, corn-on-the-cob, potato skins, two different kinds of salads, and Dad's Old Fashioned Rootbeer in glass bottles that completed the picture. For dessert we had single-serving Haagen-Dazs ice cream cups. During dinner we watched the Apollo mission documentary, "In the Shadow of the Moon." Wonderful evening, I was so grateful that my body was apparently healed from its trauma as the food didn't bother me one bit!

Sunday was awesome. Our church's focus for the month of May is on missions, and Rick Holland's sermon in Crossroads was on Psalm 117: "Praise the LORD, all nations; Laud Him, all peoples! For His lovingkindness is great toward us, And the truth of the LORD is everlasting. Praise the LORD!" Rick titled his sermon "The Purpose for All People." He started out by quoting some guy who said, "Little is much if God is in it," applying that "some guy's" words to the brevity of Psalm 117. Rick pointed out that the mission of the Church is the mission of God: to make His name famous among the nations of the Earth. He said that if you understand the purpose of this Psalm, you can't help but want to evangelize! Rick drew from this passage two exclamations to recover the motive for missions. The first is that the reach of God's praise is universal, drawn from verse one. The second is that the reasons for God's praise are amazing: His kindness is colossal and His faithfulness is eternal. Rick's message was short and to the point, he ended early so that we could break up into groups of three or four and pray for missions in general and our own evangelistic efforts in our day-to-day lives. I was extremely encouraged by the sermon, eager to get back on the mission field this summer, eager to look for evangelistic opportunities right here in LA, and eager to support our church missionaries from right here, their home base.

When I got home I went to work rearranging my room. The layout of the furniture in the room had been bothering me for a while, it just looked to me like a bunch of necessary furniture was stuffed in the room college-dorm-style, simply to serve the purpose of furniture and not to create a comfortable, pleasing to the eye, homey atmosphere. It took me about a couple of hours I think, I got four major pieces of furniture switched around, got a lot of organizing and cleaning done, and when I was finished I was pleased that my room felt like a home again.

My older brother Harrison came to spend the night with us that night, just for fun and the fact that he had the day off of work the next day. Heather and Georgie came to spend the night with us too. I LOVE it when the whole family is home together, especially when everyone decides to stay the night. Girls' slumber parties are a blast, but the bestest slumber parties ever are when all of my siblings are home and we decide to pile into one room for the night, just so that we can go to sleep cracking jokes and making each other laugh, and so that we can wake up in a similar fashion. :)

The next morning I woke up early to go have breakfast with Marietjie at Abbey Lane. Oh wow, it was SO GOOD to spend one-on-one time with Marietjie again. The spring '08 semester was a crazy one for both of us, so I think it had been literally months since we had last spent time together just the two of us. We decided to meet at Abbey Lane at 8:30 am, and when we arrived I don't think either of us wanted to ever look at our watches...I was kind of hoping time would stand still. We had plenty of serious, encouraging conversations, and plenty of light-hearted, giggly and silly conversations. And all of our conversations were over awesome food! Man oh man, it was my first time at Abbey Lane, that place is just up my alley. I fell in love with the atmosphere the moment I stepped inside, the service was polite and personable, and the food was fantastic. I love going to places like that with Marietjie because we both appreciate the atmosphere in the same way and for the same reasons, and we both have the same food tastes. We started the morning by ordering two Italian macchiattos and splitting a Greek omelete. So delicious. After our breakfast we ordered two more cups of coffee, sat and talked and talked and talked and then realized that we could no longer stand simply sitting and talking over coffee when we were sitting so close to the display case filled with awesomely yummy looking cakes! We ordered a piece of German chocolate cake and got refills on our coffees, and contentedly munched and sipped as we chatted the morning away. Before we knew it, it was 11:45 and therefore really time to go. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with my siblings and niece. Most of us were just doing our own things, working on our own projects, but all in the same room so it provided for fun laughter and chatter. One of my favorite moments of the day was putting on dance music and ballroom dancing with little Georgie. She loves dancing with Auntie Hayley.

Tuesday was an exciting day in that I began working on my summer research project on campus at CSUN. The campus has had an observatory telescope since before I ever even came to the scene, but it has been out of use during my entire time at CSUN so far. The Physics and Astronomy department faculty decided this summer was a good time to put the telescope to use again, and they chose me and one other astrophysics girl to do faculty-guided research with it this summer. For the next couple of weeks I will be getting to know a CCD camera and this awesome computer software that goes with it, and when we're ready we will hook up the camera to the telescope, take images of distant objects, galaxies, etc, and use the computer software to analyze our images. For now, I'll be going to campus for an hour or two a day and just playing around with the computer software, really getting accustomed to it. Exciting stuff.

After my time on campus I drove out to meet Holly at, guess what, Chocolatine again. (I can't get enough of that place.) Before we ordered we asked Hugo to describe to us the delicious-looking pastries we saw in the display case, and I was intrigued when I heard him saying things like "Here you see a flourless *this*, or "this is an almond-flour *that*." I got my hopes up that maybe it would be worth it to bring Heather, my poor sister who cannot have wheat-gluten, to Chocolatine to experience the atmosphere and some wheat-free goodies. I kept that thought in the back of my mind and went on with enjoying my time with my best girl friend. We ordered what is quickly becoming our favorite hot drink: nana chocolate. Like hot chocolate, but much thicker, richer, and served with chili pepper and thick homemade whip cream on the side, to add to taste. The chili pepper adds such a rich warmth to the chocolate drink, and Holly and I both agree that while the whip cream does wonderful things for the nana chocolate, it is also extremely pleasant in your mouth by the spoonful. :)

After my time with Holly I rushed off to my friend Ashley's house. Ashley, you may remember, is dating Brent's brother, and it is because of Ashley that I was introduced to Brent...see my posts from February. Ashley and I had agreed that we needed to have a slumber party while our boyfriends were in Hawaii. We first split a meal at Stonefire Grill, all the while being in two places at once because we were both texting our boyfriends like crazy, sending and receiving pictures from them, and laughing a ton over our high-tech conversations. On our way home we stopped at Blockbuster and rented an Audrey Hepburn chick-flick, one that I managed to stay awake through when we got back home, but my mind wasn't really on it because of texting and talking on the phone with Brent. Ashley had a similar experience with her boyfriend and Brent's brother, Todd. :) That slumber party was a blast, it was just so good to be with Ashley who this week is in exactly the same boat as me and who totally understands when I need to take time out of a conversation with her to talk with my boyfriend, because she was doing the exact same with her boyfriend who this week is also enjoying a Hawaiian vacation with his family.

The next morning we enjoyed a homemade smoothie in her backyard for breakfast before I was off to school again for more research. In the afternoon I took it easy, working on some projects that I'd been wanting to get around to for a long time, but never was able to during the school semester. That evening I spent with Heather and Georgie, laughing, dancing, cooking, eating, and watching the first season of the Mole. :) Heather, by the way, is really good at finding quick, easy, gluten-free meals that taste FABULOUS. When you're at her house you hardly notice that it's a gluten-free place because everything she serves is so tasty and complete, it doesn't leave you feeling like you're lacking in anything. For dinner that night we had chili-parmesan chicken and quinoa mixed with sauteed spinach and pepper. Yum.

The next day Heather and I decided would be the perfect day to travel out to the Simi mall for one store in particular: Anthropologie. For her birthday last January my family chipped in on getting her a gift certificate to that place, but she wanted to wait to use it until she was settled into her new home here. Before we left I called Chocolatine and spoke to Hugo about Heather's celiac-disease, and he said that if we came to the cafe that afternoon, he would be there to guide us with our orders, making sure that everything we enjoyed was gluten-free. So Heather and I decided to take the long way to Anthropologie, stopping at Chocolatine on the way. We started out by ordering drinks, Heather ordered an iced chocolate and I asked for a cappucino. After savoring our drinks a bit and exclaiming over the cute dishes and general French ambiance of the place, Hugo came to take our dessert orders. When he remembered that Heather was the one who could not have gluten, he whisked her away to the dessert display and gave her a run-down of all of her options. Heather chose the flourless lava cake for us to split. Hugo presented it to us with a raspberry and cream sauce in a matter of minutes. It made me so content and almost made me want to tear up to watch Heather enjoy the cake. I've never really said that my older sister was cute, but in this instance she was absolutely adorable. Upon putting the first bite in her mouth, her eyes took on that look that a cat gets when it purrs and finds something soft to knead, and she faintly and delicately uttered a "Mmmmm, wow, yeah, this is good." After every bite she nodded and looked at me with those contented cat eyes. This process was repeated every time she put a bite into her mouth, but her utterances varied each time, only slightly, though. "Mmmmm, so good." "Mmmmm, this is really good." "Mmmmmmmmmm." I remarked that she seemed to be really enjoying it (is there a simpler, more "duh" inducing comment I could have made at that moment?), and she responded by saying, "Don't you think it's good? Imagine, I can't eat things like cake anymore. Imagine how you would feel if you were able to eat this wonderful cake after having to stay away from cake for so long." The trip to Chocolatine with Heather was the most rewarding trip to the cafe so far. We ended our time there by ordering two truffles to go, but only after Hugo thought long and hard, and even double-checked with one of his French interns to be sure that all of the truffles were wheat-free. When he finally determined that all the truffles were safe for Heather, he let us take our pick. We chose a chili pepper truffle and a white chocolate filled with creamy milk chocolate truffle. Heather enjoyed both of them immensely.

We got back into the car and made our way to our ultimate destination: Anthropologie. We were so thankful to find that the store was having an awesome sale, so Heather was able to get quite a few adorable and Heatherish things for her home with the gift card. The decision of what exactly to get was not an easy or quick one...imagine walking into a store with 2,497 adorable, perfect items and only 3 items that are simply not cute enough to spend money on. I think we probably spent an hour in the store, slowly browsing through all the houseware, longingly glancing at the clothing and shielding our eyes from the childrens' section because Heather had promised to me that she would not spend her gift certificate on Georgie. Heather eventually came to rest on two darling dessert bowls, a set of four darling dessert plates, and a darling tea towel with an owl on it. I hope she'll have pictures of the items on her blog soon. I didn't get anything, but I saw an outfit that I wish I hadn't have seen because I started to genuinely wonder how I could go on with life without owning that outfit that seemed to scream "This is how Hayley likes to dress, so why doesn't Hayley dress this way?" I also found a journal type book covered in red leather, with rusty gold letters on the cover that spelled "DESTINATIONS." Inside the book were sections to record travel experiences and restaurants worthy of note, there was a map of Europe, there was almanac type information, and plenty of other categorized journaling sections that made me want to buy this little book and keep it in my purse constantly, especially during overseas trips, to record my experiences as I experience them. Yeah, Anthropologie is one of those stores that you feel bittersweet about entering. You have a ball of a time exploring the store, but you feel incomplete leaving empty-handed. :)

Anyways, that's how I've been enjoying myself so far this week. Still, the event I'm most looking forward to is when a certain plane touches down at LAX this Saturday and a certain man steps off. :)

Summertime living is easy and oh so fun!!!

I just can't get over how fun this summer is so far...and for me, it's only been officially summer for two weeks now! My last final was two weeks ago today, but all the fun started on Tuesday, May 13. It was the day after the cruel day of three hectic physics finals (though it was brutal having all of them in one day, I'm SO thankful I got to get them over with early in the week), Brent and I spent the whole day together doing nothing spectacular really, but it was just a blast to be together for the first time with the weight of school off my shoulders. I drove to his place and after a yummy lunch we installed a new stereo system in my car, thanks to his friend Mike who gave me the system as a hand-me-down!! Ok, so the truth is Brent got maybe half of it installed (I maybe helped unscrew a few bolts or something, but Brent had most the know-how and did most the work) before the spring heat got to us and we decided to take it all to Best Buy, have them do the work of installing it while we chilled at Dairy Queen. I still hold that that was a fabulous decision. :)

The next day Brent and I were supposed to accompany his visiting extended family to Malibu for a beach day, so when his family backed out we decided that we still weren't going to pass up the perfect beach weather. On the way out to Malibu we determined that Chocolatine would be the perfect pre-beach lunch place. It was Brent's first time at Chocolatine, so I was thrilled to get to experience it with him after having sung its praises to him so many times before. I got my favorite lunch item there: a warm goat cheese salad. Brent got a tasty looking ham and cheese grilled sandwich, I think, and we both got their delicious iced chocolate drink. While we were enjoying our meal, a troupe of about six French boys, about 9-11 years old I would guess, clamored their way into the cafe and rushed the truffle display case, for on top of the display were plates of free pastry samples. They were all talking loudly to each other, bantering back and forth in French as they greedily stuffed their hands and mouths full of the free goodies. I was giggling to myself as I watched the scene, and giggled even more when Hugo, one of the French cafe owners, emerged from his counter delicately carrying a tray with a hot drink, gruffly telling the boys to get out of his cafe, this wasn't a...a..well, anyway, go away and come back only with your mothers!! Get out! Hugo slapped some of the boys on their heads, and they all smirked and giggled as they clamored out of the cafe. Hugo looked a little ruffled as he served the hot drink he was carrying, and just as he was taking his place behind the counter again the entire boisterous troupe entered the cafe again, this time closely followed by their mothers. Hugo laughed as he related the previous events to the mothers, all the while the mothers were laughing, shaking their heads and holding their heads in their hands. The whole party asked if the private room were available for them, so they were speedily on their way out of the main public room of the cafe...thank goodness. I enjoyed the entire scene immensely, but the boys were a little to loud too allow for a peaceful, enjoyable meal with my boyfriend. :)

After our meal we stopped at a cool-looking cigar shop across the street, not for cigars themselves, but for the boxes they come in. Brent had told me that he was wanting cigar boxes for his room in which to keep some small items that needed a place, and so I was delighted to have a reason to go into this particular cigar shop that I've been eyeing ever since my first visit to Chocolatine. I've just been trying to come up with a legitimate excuse to enter the shop because it just looks so cool from the outside. Brent and I entered the shop in our beach wear, me in a sarong and tank-top and Brent in a t-shirt and shorts, and I don't know about Brent but I felt a little out of place in the much-more-expensive-and-classy-looking-than-I-had-ever-imagined shop. I kept my chin up high, though, as the millionaire-looking, cigar-puffing shop keepers eyed us from behind the counter. Brent explained what he was looking for and asked if they had any empty cigar boxes in stock. No one said anything for about five seconds, until finally one of the shop keepers slowly nodded and said, "You know, I think we do. Let me go check." He walked out of the room and a few minutes later returned with two perfect, classy looking cigar boxes. Brent got really excited, said they were exactly what he was looking for, and asked how much? The man shrugged and said, "Oh, you can just have them." I felt SO proud to have seen and suggested the shop that would not only have the perfect boxes Brent was looking for, but that also would give us the boxes for free! Brent gave me due credit. :)

On the way to the beach we found a pretty view and got out of the car to take a picture. The camera seemed to think that the pretty view was us, not the scenery behind us, but here it is anyway. :)

The beach was awesome. We actually spent most of the time just sun-tanning on the sand, and as I had my mythology class final the next day, we took turns reading each other stories from my mythology book to help me prepare. That turned out to be REALLY fun, we had such a blast reading to each other that we decided we didn't ever want to return to the beach without a book to read! We saw a pod of dolphins...I say that a trip to Zuma is incomplete without seeing dolphins. It was six o'clock before we knew it, and the wind was starting to pick up, but Brent convinced me to take a quick, 30 second dip in the ocean before we headed to the warm car by emphatically saying that we're not yet old enough to not do fun crazy things like getting in the ocean even when it's too cold to do so. We both ended up really glad that we forced our bodies in the water...how could we have spent four hours at the beach without touching the waves? Silly me for thinking it could be possible. :)

Have you noticed I've ended all paragraphs so far with a smiley-face? I guess I have to keep it up. :)

The next afternoon Brent met me at my place after my myth final with a little surprise. :)

His way of rejoicing in my rejoicing that school no longer has any claim on me for the summer! It looked even more special with the candles lit. We just chilled at my place and watched a movie that day while we waited for it to be time to go to Bible study.

Friday we spend with his friend, Scott, who was visiting from Arizona. We went to lunch at Olive Garden before we spent two hours at the bowling alley. I've been bowling more in 2008 than I have in the previous two years, I think, all thanks to Brent. He and his friends enjoy it so much. On this particular bowling day I decided to give up just getting through the game by disinterestedly shoving the ball down the lane whenever it was my turn. I figured that if Brent likes bowling so much, I may as well learn some strategy so I can eventually actually compete with him. Brent and Scott were fabulous teachers, I actually feel like I know what I'm doing now when my turn to bowl comes up! I think it's just gonna get better and better from here. Watch out, Brent Tyler, your days of clobbering me at bowling are coming to an end. :)

Saturday and Sunday are days I shall not speak of...I woke up feeling a slight nausea that only grew and grew throughout the day...Brent and I spent Sat with Scott and one other friend, Mike, we ate at a restaurant I shall not mention and never want to hear mentioned again, and when I got home at nine o'clock that evening I went to bed nauseous, feverish, and with chills. The next day was not a good one. The only highlight was when Brent came and visited me for a little while in the afternoon, I'm so thankful to God that during his visit my nausea was lifted! It came back only as he was leaving, weird, huh? Well, let me re-phrase a sentence..one of the only highlights of Sunday was Brent coming..the other highlight was finally submitting to the fact that I would and could not sleep while experiencing the full-force of the nausea and fever, and therefore crawling out of bed to watch Sabrina at 2 am. To me, there's just something so soothing about watching a chick-flick in the middle of the night when I'm sick as a dog. Sadly, the trauma my body experienced on Saturday and Sunday left me weak and extremely sensitive to food for the following three days, so Brent and I couldn't do the same type of vacation-y type stuff we'd done the previous week. Monday I did manage to spend the evening with his family celebrating his brother's birthday, and Tuesday in the evening my parents, brother, Brent and I went to my awards reception at school and a dinner at Mimi's after, but other than that the sickness of the weekend made me feel pretty blah about doing anything else. :) (Really just for tradition's sake...that paragraph really didn't deserve any sort of smiley-face.)

Wednesday, however, I was not going to let be claimed by my sickness. It was the day before Brent would leave for his family vacation in Hawaii, and we had saved the Wednesday before his departure for a special day-trip to Santa Barbara. We visited a botanic garden that we had set our eyes on when looking through a travel magazine, it turned out to be a really cool place with lots of intriguing flowers to study, breath-taking views, and almost-pant-inducing hiking trails. :) (Again, I know the smiley-face really doesn't fit there, but I'm telling you, I've got to keep it up.)








After our time at the garden we tried out McConnell's ice cream parlor, Heather had suggested it to us, telling us it was the best ice cream she had ever tried. It was yummy, especially the waffle bowl, but I still hold that Haagen-Dazs is my favorite place to get a scoop...oh man, you can't beat that simple yummy richness. But hey, if any of you think you have a parlor that serves a better scoop than Haagen-Dazs, let me know. I'm not about to stick to my guns about that place, I'm all about finding the best ice cream there is, and if you drop any names, I'd be more than happy to try it out. It's never a bad time for ice cream. :)

We went to the Santa Barbara pier after our ice cream, watched the skate boarders at the skate boarding park for a while (you have to admit, the best part about watching amateur, wanna-be-macho skate boarders is seeing them mess up or fall or something...their reactions to their mistakes scream "Uh..I hope nobody saw that." I laugh and laugh...discreetly, of course. :) The pier itself was great fun. Extremely windy, but extremely pleasant, probably mostly because of the company. :)

The only thing that sounded good to Brent for dinner was Olive Garden's stuffed chicken marsala, so on the way home we stopped at the faithfully delightful restaurant in Oxnard. I was feeling extremely sick after the ice cream, so I didn't eat much, and was wondering how I was ever going to manage feeling so sick all the way home until Brent agreed that I could drive his snazzy new car home. Driving my boyfriend in the the sporty stick made me feel oh so special and was the perfect diversion to get my mind off of how awful I felt. When we got home I crashed on the couch and we watched the finale of American Idol, but of course I fell asleep before the winner was announced. :)

Overall, it was a really special day, though. :)

The next day I dropped off Brent and his friend Mike at LAX (they went to Hawaii a few days before the rest of his family), and my companion has been gone ever since. :( But he returns on Saturday, I can't wait to greet him at the airport! :)

Psalm 25

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

Remember your mercy, O LORD,
and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

For your name's sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.

Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.

Do you ever have one of those weeks where one certain Psalm jumps out at you, and no matter how many times you read it and pray it, you can't get enough of it, and you can't get over how much it's the cry of your own heart?
Thank you, God, for Your Word, and for giving us the words to pray when we don't know how to pray.

almost there...i can make it...right??

Two more weeks of classes. One presentation. A ginormous paper. Two lab books to complete (experiments to understand). Homework to finish. Four finals. All will be over within 21 days. It sounds glorious and haunting all at once.

This has literally been the most tough-to-get-through semester ever. School-wise. Only school-wise. :)

I'm actually quite happy. :)

This is the first semester ever where I sit down to tackle homework or wage war against quantum physics and after two minutes decide I don't care anymore about turning in complete homework and my thought is to surrender to quantum physics; I want to back off the subject with my arms up and say, "Ok ok, remain your mysterious self. I don't need to understand you."

Ok, so I haven't actually surrendered. And I've only turned in a few incomplete assignments. Overall I'm doing ok this semester, and I'm aiming to finish strong, but I don't think it would happen unless the very thing that is causing me to have such lackluster interest in school this semester was also the "thing" that is encouraging me every step of the way! When excitement in one area of your life seems to completely overwhelm that in the other areas, the "excitement" in the other areas, comparatively, seem like disinterestedness. Thankfully my source of overwhelming excitement helps me to remain excited in what I'm learning at school...and if by now you don't know who I'm talking about, read my last three posts.

Before I go, my rolling backpack, after a full semester, has yet to become something natural to me. It is still completely unnatural and quite literally has a mocking mind of its own. It's already gotten me all twisted and caught up in the turnstiles in the Oviatt Library...if it was possible to relate that story without showing you the humiliating positions the backpack had me in in public, I'd write about it. For now all you need to know in order to believe that the roller-monster has a mind of its own is that it likes to kick my flip-flops off as I'm walking, sending them skidding forward on the sidewalk with unbelievable velocity, flirting with the possiblity of kicking the people walking in front of me. My heart stands still for those seconds as I pray for the flip-flop to finally come to a rest, trying to imagine what my response would be if the flip-flop did, in fact, hit a sidewalker, causing the sidewalker to turn around, look twenty feet behind and there behold a girl with one bare foot sheepishly/awkwardly running with a devilish rolling backpack to grab hold of the flip-flop that apparantly she had kicked towards the sidewalker just to be funny. LOL. That's all I have to say.