OOweee

Today has not been a good day. First, I went shopping with my two ladies. I love shopping with Gracie, but no body likes to shop with blink...blink..... Angie. First, when Angie is with us both Gracie and I have to behave, no running, no yelling, not telling people we are looking for bugs to eat because we are birds, this takes a lot of the fun out of it. Second, shopping with Angie is akin to being buried in an ant hill, you know your toast, its just going to be a long and painful demise. Its a fundamental difference between guy shopping and girl shopping, or the stand and stare as I call it. I find what I am looking for and pick it up and put it in cart, move on. Girl shopping means finding what your looking for and then standing in front of it while discussing why it isn't exactly what you wanted but it might work and what you might need or want it for, then moving on and finding just one more thing that you might want or need and staring at it a while. (anybody have a spoon, I need to remove my eyes now)

Speaking of moving on. Lets. The next paragraph is solely for background information for my next story, and this story is about me instead of Gracie as my bad day continues.

Before we went to China to adopt Gracie, before I even became a Christian, Angie and I had a group of friends we hung around with. This group of friends involved between 4 and 6 couples that would meet at one couples house. They had a house on a lake and we would get together on weekends to party and swim or whatever was going on that weekend. We got to be pretty close with all of them, Angie even went away on a girls weekend or two with them. The guys did projects together and built decks, closets, and even a sea wall and dock at the lake house. We were a pretty tight group, or so I thought. This relationship lasted for years, but suddenly something went wrong. The people who owned the lake house suddenly had issues with us, this happened, in my opinion, over a simple misunderstanding about something. I think they had other issues with us, but this provided an opportunity to black ball us from the group. This was difficult at first, but as I was just becoming a Christian at the time I now believe it was God's plan and we were pruned from the group by Him. This pruning took place right in the middle of our adoption process, so most of them have never seen Gracie. We have seen a few of them at a wedding, and I still have a business relationship with one of the guys, but that's it. We have had no contact with any of them since and it has been something like 4 years now.

Background information over. Back to my bad day. Today, after shopping, I needed to run Angie to the bank to deposit a few of her paychecks. We pulled up and I hopped out of the car because it was raining and Angie didn't want to get out of the car. As I am walking towards the sidewalk I look up and see a woman walking along who looks oddly familiar to me but I am having trouble placing her. Angie is sitting in the car thinking the same thing. I am rushing a bit because of the rain and watching the woman instead of watching were I am walking. I might add that I am wearing flip flops. As I am distracted and rushing and flip flopping I trip as I reach the sidewalk. I then stumble oh so ungraciously behind said familiar face and crash rather abruptly against the brick wall of the bank and then land on the sidewalk on both knees. As I lie there bleeding from two toes, two knees and one elbow with my face planted on the concrete and my inappropriately low at this point jeans exposing my flowered boxer shorts due to the fact that my butt is wagging in the air, I remember the name that is attached to the face. I hear her voice ask if I am okay to which I respond," I will be". Both knees are aflame and my toes are aching but that's not as hurt as my pride at this moment. I am still face down and butt up at this point. Angie climbs out of the car to see if I am okay and recognizes Dominique as well. She (Angie) then asks what happened as I roll over, and Dom responds by saying in was her stunning beauty that made me fall down. I always loved Dom's sense of humor. A brief and friendly reunion ensues at this point, I am still laying on the sidewalk. I finally get the energy to rise and stick my hand up. Dom reaches down and grabs it so I stand (without pulling on her to much) and pull her hand to my waist and wrap her in a big ol' hug. I know now that everything is fine. I haven't seen her or her husband in at least 4 years but it appeared as though nothing was wrong and nothing had changed in all that time. The hug felt good, and I will miss her, but I also know this was a meeting in passing and it will be years before we run into each other again, hopefully next time I will be a little more gracious in our encounter. While I was in the bank Dom asked about Gracie and she got to meet her and see her for the first time. Angie got to see pictures of her three kids who are all grown up at this point, the oldest is 15.

So, one of the things I ask others when they do something dorky like this is, "so, did you learn anything?" It is only fair of me to answer my own question. I learned that when staring at women it is best to watch were one is walking. I learned that if your wearing flowered boxer shorts and jeans that are too big, wear a belt. I learned that if its raining and your rushing because of rain, you really need to lift your feet up or you'll ripe the skin right off your toes. I learned that just because your embarrassed doesn't mean that the other person is thinking anything other than worrying about you being okay. I learned that concrete and brick walls are very hard and unforgiving, I learned that when a person as large as myself falls down, it hurts and its not at all graceful. I learned that time may heal all wounds, but things that have changed will never be the same ever again.

You may now ponder the deep wisdom of the last sentence while trying to get the image of me with my flowered boxers wagging in the air out of your head. Yes I know this in not a pleasant image to have burned in your brain, but like I said, its been a bad day, so I just thought I would share.