very few things in life can compare to a casual sunday afternoon spent outside in the backyard, having a cookout with the neighbors, knitting, talking, hoola-hooping, and watching the Bears

me, my bike, and rain.... 

i decided to opt out of a car pool today to a teacher supply warehouse today in order to ride my bike a good distance, as opposed to the 5 minute ride to school. now that i live about a mile away from school, i'm missing the 25-30 minute morning and afternoon rides i used to have.

on the way back i saw the sky getting really dark ahead of me. in a matter of minutes, the rain was coming down. But it wasn't bad. unlike the tornado conditions of two weeks ago, this was a very welcomed cold shower. the kind of rain i love.

dead squirell

it was such a beautiful day today. the sun was shining, the temperature was just right, birds were chirping, and sirens were few and far between. Perfect day for a morning outing with the kids, right?

it seemed all was going well. 5th-8th grade were all enjoying themselves, divided into groups, each working diligently on their assignment. then we got to the playground.

there, laying across the second swing from the left was a dead squirell. someone had purposely suffocated a squirell with a plastic grocery bag, tied the bag in a knot around the squirell's neck, then tied the bag to the swing.

what kind of person would do that kind of thing? not only to kill an animal in such an awful way, but then to leave it on a children's playground. a place where little kids go to play.

it bothered the kids at first, they shreiked and shouted about the dead squirell, but then they seemed to stop noticing it. they just avoided that particular swing. while i would only sit in the swing farthest away from the dead rodent, even 1st graders swung happily on the swing right next to it.

i sat back and watched as the kids played around the squirell, laughing and having a great time. it kind of reminded me of Graham Green's short story, "The Destructors." if you are familiar with the story, you might know what i mean. if not, then this paragraph means nothing to you. but kids just get used to awful things like that and it doesn't even bother them anymore.

don't get me wrong. i hate city squirells. they are nasty, dirty little creatures. and if it were a squirell killed by a dog or a car, or natral causes, that woldn't have bothered me so much. But it wasn't. It was tortured and killed by some punk who is so influenced and jaded by the world around him that he has no concern or care for even a little animal.

like i had previously stated, i made it to romania with absolutly no problems. my visitng friend, however, was not so fortunate. She was supposed to arrive pretty much the same time i did on friday, but she missed her flight and didn't come in until sunday.

my mom and i went to pick her up from the airport in buc after church on sunday. It's about a 2-3 hour drive, depending on traffic, and depending on how many times mom gets lost. there is a way to get to the airport that goes around bucharest instead of through it, making it faster. If you know how to do it. Since there are absolutly no signs directing you, it's not an easy thing to learn, and mom has yet to learn it. But we made it to the airport only having to turn around and ask for directions twice.

the way back was a totally different story. we were doing well. between the two of us, we were remembering turns, which was kind of hard because we also had to remember where we messed up so we wouldn't mess up in the same place again. Although we tried hard, somehow we missed a turn and ended up on the old highway toward Pitesti, which is the direction we wanted to head, but we wanted to be on the new highway. it's easier when you don't have to dodge wagons, herds of sheep and cows, wandering chickens, and inexperienced or drunk men on bikes.

i took out the map, figured out where we were, and had a plan to get us back two where we wanted to go. unfortunanly, the roads on the map do not match up with the roads that are acctually there. most little village roads are not on any map, and there aren't signs telling you where to go when a split in the road comes.

we came across two guys on mopeds, and mom decided to ask them for directions. one of them just rode off, but the other told us to follow him, he'd lead us to the road. so we followed this little puttering moped going about 30 km/h on unpaved, deeply rutted country roads. apparently this guy was the village's most popular person. litterally, every 5 seconds, he'd beep his little horn and wave and call out to people he knew, and then they'd stare at us.

but we made it to the highway and back to slatina safely, and only 20 minutes late for the wedding banquet, which really is pretty much on time.

today marks an important day in history of me. Today, for the first time in 3 years, my luggage and i arrived in romania at the same time.