Strays welcome

"Mom, who's the guy sleeping on the couch?"

That is a sure way to wake up in a hurry when you know there was nobody on the couch last night when you went to bed.

I usually leave my bedroom door open, but the door had swung closed last night. The dogs were in the room with me, and started barking up a storm around 4am this morning. I got up, checked the house, but everything was quiet and dark so I figured it must have been a neighbor setting them off. There are college kids next door who sometimes have parties, and I just assumed they were having another one last night and people were probably making noise as they went home. I let the dogs outside to go potty and to reassure themselves of nobody prowling around the yard, and thought I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. That seemed silly since even smoking friends don't smoke in my house, so I figured a neighbor must have had a fire burning. I brought the dogs back into my bedroom, went ahead and pushed the door closed again, and went back to bed. One of my dogs kept looking at me like she was expecting me to do something else, but again, it was 4am and I was sleepy...

Then Alex's question this morning. Sure enough, an unknown guy was sleeping on my couch. We kind of stared at him, not sure what to do. He looked early to mid 20's, was in "going out" clothes, and seemed like a normal person. Except I've never met the guy before. Finally I shook him a little bit and he opened his eyes. He looked around and was clearly very confused. I asked him if he'd slept well and if perhaps he wanted to go home. He asked where he was, and finally woke up enough to realize he had somehow wandered into a complete stranger's house and gone to sleep. And then he started to freak out a little bit. He kept assuring me that he was an honest guy, he had a job and paid his bills, he had no idea what had happened but he was so sorry, etc. He wasn't driving, he had been at a party somewhere and gone with someone from there out to another party, and had no idea where he'd last been or how he'd gotten here. He seemed to have lost his cell phone, so I loaned him my phone so he could call home but he got no answer. He put his shoes back on and prepared to leave immediately, but he was going about 3 miles away so I offered to drive him home. Alex took the guy's picture because he said nobody would believe him if he didn't.

The front door was locked and closed, so I'm not sure how Chris got in. The door sometimes sticks, so it is possible it wasn't completely closed last night even though it looked it. And that bothers me. I do live in a neighborhood that has had very little trouble the entire time I've lived here, so I'm still not excessively worried about security. I do believe I'll be triple-checking the doors tonight, though. I'm also enormously surprised that apparently my dogs bark loud enough to hear a mile away if someone dares to step onto the property, but they didn't have much to say about someone actually coming into the house. I guess they figured they'd warned me; I got up right when the dogs started making noise, but the house was dark. So how did this guy enter an unknown house, find his way to the couch in the dark, take off his shoes, and get comfy and go to sleep in the moments it took me to put on slippers and come out of my room?

We've had a number of stray animals gravitate to our house over the years, but this is the first time a human stray has shown up. I guess if you are in the neighborhood, feel free to nap on my couch! Just make sure to close the door behind you.

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I debated whether to post this, since I'm sure some of you won't find this nearly as funny as Alex & I did. Yes, it's a bit discombobulating. Yes, I'll make sure the dogs have free reign of the house tonight. Yes, the front door situation will be getting fixed very quickly. But no, I'm really not afraid. Either I have great faith in my guardian angels and God's timing, or I'm foolish and naive, but we were more bemused than scared. It occurred to me that this could be an interesting premise for a story line should I ever decide to write a book.

Laptop Withdrawal

Tuesday before Thanksgiving, my laptop died. Yes, I mean the laptop that was only purchased in July. It was working in the morning, I left to run errands, and came home to a non-functioning machine.

After spending over an hour on the phone with tech support (thank you God for Daniel in Indiana or something answering and speaking English!), it was determined that the hard drive had met an untimely death. Yippee... as it is clearly still under warranty, they sent me a new hard drive along with recovery disks to get the machine going. Those arrived after Thanksgiving, and then the new hard drive wouldn’t work either. It would start to load the recovery disks, then give a fatal error, then reboot itself. Over and over and over. This phone call to tech support landed in India to someone who didn't listen to the problem and merely assumed the recovery disks were bad and sent new ones. That’s not what online research was suggesting, and sure enough, 3 days later when the new disks arrived, I still had the same issue. Again, India answered the Help! call. *sigh* They sent a specific shipping box for me to send in the laptop so they can figure out where the problem is, and gave a 2 week estimate of when I'll get it back. The machine was sent in on Monday, so here’s hoping I can at least have it back by Christmas!

Ok, enough whining. Here’s a funny for you: A case manager – from America – called me after the 2^nd India experience. He apologized for troubling me, but said he was having difficulty understanding the case notes on my account and could I please give him a synopsis of the problem. Nice. How much money are they really saving by outsourcing?? Not as much as they think, if they have to call people back anyway...

Warm in the South? Not always.

I really do enjoy fall's cooler temps and pretty scenery. It doesn't get as colorful here as it does further up north, but it's a little more color than typically seen down where I grew up. (Let's just forget about all the leaf-raking that accompanies this glorious display. No, this isn't my yard, it's just in the area; my trees just turn brown. *pout*)


Although it can get remarkably cold here, it very rarely snows and when it does, you have to see it while it comes down because it melts within seconds of landing. Imagine our surprise this week to see the school's practice field one morning. We saw a few residential yards with a similar "decoration". We are thinking it was probably ice rather than snow, but still... it was fun to see! And it wasn't on the roads to worry about driving in it.

Out of the mouth of babes

For Alex's graduation last year, he had to write an essay about a hero in his life. He said most people were just writing something quick about a close family member, but he wanted to really put some thought into it. When Alex turned his essay in, his teacher actually contacted me to verify he'd written it himself! They read the essays out loud at graduation, and there were some real winners. The "My mom is my hero because she buys me stuff" was quite a thoughtful response, don't you think?

Apparently, the thought he put into it must have stuck with him, because this is his current tagline on one of his online games' chat boards:

"The best heroes are the people who don't even try to be one."

This caused me to look up his essay. They read it last, and it made half the auditorium cry. I publish it here with much maternal pride.

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My hero is…. Everyone.

You may ask, “What exactly is a hero?” You may think a hero is “someone who does great things.” My mom says it is someone who makes a positive difference in another person’s life. I think it’s more along the lines of “Someone who does good things, big or small.” You have one version and I have another, and I’ll bet someone else has another.

Why, you ask? You may not be “this” and you may not be “that”… But then again…is someone else? You may be one thing another isn’t. They may be one thing you aren’t. Can you say you are better then someone? Maybe at one particular thing…but overall we are all equals. Everyone can be a hero in one way or another. It may shock you but even you can be a hero. Whether one person is better in one sport and you are better in another, to someone you are a hero. You can be anyone, but still be a hero. Teacher, policeman, grocer, pharmacist, farmer, even a child, to someone someday you are a hero. You may be unnoticed, you may seem invisible, but you will be a hero.

Know this: There is no such thing as an ordinary person. You cannot be ordinary, you shall always be unique. Whether it is today or tomorrow, you make a difference. As long as you are doing good, you are a hero, however seemingly insignificant. Tall or short, thin or wide, homeless or CEO for a big company, you reader, can be a hero.

Be the hero you can be.

I am thankful for...

faith... family... health... a place to call home... and the vacation time I didn't take this summer that will supplement the severance package I received when I got laid off on Friday.

Yep, after 13 years of PATLive, I find myself free of the telephony business. I was really quite tired of telephone services, so there are some advantages of being forced to find a new line of work. Too bad I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!

I know this is a terrible time to be trying to find a job, both being so close to the end of the year and in our current economy. I also know that God is bigger than a bad economy and will provide. I'm not looking for work this week, I'm on vacation. I'd really like to spend next week doing some projects around my house that have been put off for much too long. After that, though, I'll need to start looking. Please pray that the right job will come my way.

Meanwhile, I'm off to keep counting my blessings. Food in the fridge... pets everywhere... friendships...