Your Guess Is as Good as Mine...or Not...

I took a group of middle school students to New York for three days last week.  We had a blast!  The first day we spent the afternoon in lower Manhattan and at one point we passed a construction project.  One of the kids ran up to where I was and asked,

T: Ms. R...what is that?
Me: A building.
T: I know they are building a building but what is it going to be?
Me: How would I know?  I don't live here. Your guess is as good as mine.
T: I think it is a car factory.
(ok.  maybe not as good as mine...)
Me: It's probably not a car factory...considering we are in the middle of the financial district of New York City...
T: Oh, true, true.  Maybe it's a banana factory.

There is a moment of complete silence since I initially have no idea how to respond to this comment...

Me: A banana factory??
T: Yeah.  At least that way they don't have to melt the metal.
Me: How are they going to grow the bananas in that building?
T: Oh.  yeah.  I forgot you grow bananas.

Pet Peeve

I have a pet peeve.  Well, I have several, actually, but I am only going to talk about one...



...people who drive their spiffy sports cars...10 MILES UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT!! 


I mean...COME ON!...I'm not asking you to break the sound barrier or anything...just go the speed limit.  Seriously!  It doesn't look right.  On the one had you are driving a machine that says, "Look at me...I am flashy...I am powerful...mere mortals wish they were me..." but your speed screams, "Look at me...I am in your way...I am inept...mere mortals would run me over if it were legal..."  What? Do you think that you need to go slow so that everyone can get a better look of you in your retirement fund?  Time to get over yourself...  Accelerate.  (It's the pedal on the right.)

Todays rant is brought to you by a 45-minute commute.

Holiday Memories...

If I had had my computer I would have shared this memory closer to Thanksgiving.  Not because it is a Thanksgiving memory (because it is not...it is not even a holiday memory) but because I was reminded during Thanksgiving.

I spent Thanksgiving in Knoxville with my brother and his family. On the way there I saw a guy trying to get to Johnson City. I know all the warnings about picking up hitchhikers...but there I was, wondering if I could shift some of my stuff and make room for this guy.

See, my dad used to work in Portland, OR. And we lived in Twisp, WA (about 400 miles away) with my grandparents. And after work on Friday, he would hitchhike all night so that he could spend Saturday with us only to leave Sunday morning so he could be at work Monday morning. And I wonder how many people passed him by because they were afraid to pick up a crazy person... But to those of you who stopped to help him get home to his family...thank you.

Oh, and someone else stopped for Mr. Johnson City before I could and hopefully he was able to spend his Thanksgiving with his friends and family.

Moments from Mondays Gone by...

I know that it has been a while since I've shared a Moment from Mondays Gone by but I was thinking about youth trips today.  Working with the youth at my church is the part time job that I am giving up to go back to school so I realized that I will not be going on a youth trip...at least for a while.  So...I am sharing one of my favorite youth trip moments as previously shared in another blog post.


We Were Making Great Time Until…




I went to Virginia this last weekend with our high school youth group. We took 3 vehicles…the van (an 11-seater), the bus (a 15-seater), and my personal car. We left the church at 5:30ish so had to make our way through DC traffic. Once we got off the beltway the van and the bus moved into the HOV lane. I, however, only had one individual in my car and was unable to do anything but watch them leave me sitting in traffic.



About an hour and a half later, while eating dinner, one of the youth leaders says, “Hey, where’s Janet?”



Meanwhile, back in my car, my co-director calls as says, “Where are you?” and I’m thinking, “uh…not very far from where you left me…” (skipping ahead…) I pull over at this scary gas station to wait for them. After going inside for my own dinner (Coke and Cheetos) I go back outside to sit in my car. I realize that the scary gas station is seriously in the middle of nowhere. It is pitch black out, it is late enough that there is very little traffic, I look over my left shoulder and notice that there is a creepy motel on the hill above the scary gas station and suddenly realize that no one would be able to hear me scream…



Half hour later I have a passenger and I am the caboose once again. And after one more bathroom break we started to make great time until…









…we hit the…







…tree.





Yes…all three vehicles.





Yes…the same tree.



The tree happened to be hanging over the highway. The van driver saw the tree at the last moment, swerved slightly and only ended up with a cracked windshield and a bent antenna. The bus driver didn’t see the tree until it was trying to get on the bus and ended up with a cracked windshield, a missing antenna, broken running lights and a completely sheared off side mirror. The bus was large enough that it bent the tree as it went by so it snapped back into place just in time for me to drive through it. I muttered a soft “ooew. I shouldn’t’ve hit that.” Thankfully, my car suffered no damage…because she’s short.



All in all, no one was hurt, we got to our destination and we all had a great weekend!