Finger

You'd think I'd be over all of this amniotic band syndrome silliness...  As much as it is a part of me and no matter how much I accept it, I'll still always wonder why and what if things were different...

I must say that I am very thankful for living in Wisconsin.  I'm thankful for the coworkers I deal with, the friends I have, and the people I see at church.  Because no matter where I am or how much I may consider some one a friend, no one has asked me about my hands.  Maybe those friends are waiting to catch me alone or waiting to be good friends before asking, who knows?  But I haven't had to lay my whole life story out to acquaintances only to hear awkward silence followed by a mumbled, "I'm sorry" or something along those lines.  It's been nice to actually keep this knowledge to myself.  But it's also weird.

Maybe Utahns are more open with asking personal questions.  Or they're more nosey.  I'm sure I'm the nosiest person out there (yeah I kill the cat all of the time with curiosity).  And while there's nothing wrong with people asking me about my hands (usually, I'm not stand-offish when it comes to my hands), I just feel like the conversations can get very one-sided.  For example, having people ask me when I worked in retail, they didn't know me and had no business asking, yet they did.  And I didn't force them to spill their whole life story about why their eyes are blue or why they're so tall (you get my point, maybe).

It's nice not having to talk about it constantly.  But I still catch the subtle stares.  They look when they think I'm not watching.  Or when they're caught off guard by watching me type.  I do have to give people credit with how fast they can regain their composure and act like they didn't just witness something completely bizarre.

I'm happy with my hands.  Happy with who I am.  But some days, I have to indulge in the what-if's and how life could be different.  And while I'll never be able to answer the why's, I at least take comfort in the fact that God knew what He was doing when He created me.

On a completely different note (and not so personal), we went and saw Wicked last week.  It was awesome. I had a few reservations about it at first because of all the girls I've heard sing the songs (not so well, but kudos to not caring what I or others think).  But the musical was awesome.  And I look forward to the next one I get to attend.

The Music Hall or whatever it was they performed in was nice.  But it wasn't really built outwards.  Rather, it was built upwards.  The rows went up three seats as you went higher.  I was a little afraid of the height.

And before the musical, we went to a Mexican restaurant downtown.  It's probably the closest we've come to with good Mexican food out here (did I mention Wisconsin's like it completely bland and without spice?).  And while we were eating, we got to witness our first protest rally.  Now, let me remind you that Madison is super-super liberal, and it's a huge college town (think opposite of Logan's ultra-conservatism, and if you thought Logan was a college town, it's not big at all).  Anyways, can you guess what the protest was for?  It was for the legalization of marijuana.  I'm pretty sure I could count the people over the age of 30 joining in on the protest with one hand.  It was a lot of hooded, baggy pants, makes-you-want-to-pin-a-"Trouble"-sign-on guys.  Very interesting...  It certainly made my day, haha.

Accent

It's more than official.  I have a Wisconsin accent.  Want to hear it?  Give me a call, and you can laugh at my dialect.  I can't help it.  I assimilate to the people around me.  And even though I'm laughing very hard when I hear those thick Wisconsin accents, I can't stop my own from starting...

How is my brother doing now?  His ACL is torn.  And he has a hairline fracture.  He needs surgery done on his knee.  But that can't be done until after the fracture heals.  So, a few extra weeks of not moving.  But at least he's okay and doing better...

A lot of traveling is coming up for me.  I'm getting nervous and oh so excited....  When I go on-site, I'll be doing 12 hour shifts in the hospitals.  So, that leaves very little time to check out the sites.  I probably won't sleep a whole lot either.  Oh well.  I'll be in Atlanta Halloween weekend.  I'm planning on going out a day early, so I can spend Saturday with my family.  Then I'll be working Halloween night and Monday night.  The night shift; we'll see how that goes (think Wisconsin accent on all of the "o" sounds - kind of nasally sounding).  And the weekend after that, I'll be in Zanesville, Ohio.  A new city.  I don't think I've ever been outside of an airport in Ohio.  So, this'll be fun.

I need a good camera to take lots of pictures.  I might actually be able to justify that if I used the camera a lot and enjoyed taking lots of random pictures.  But no, taking pictures is more extra random work for me when all I want to do is take in the sites...

Prayer

Prayers for my brother please...

Fly

So, this week has just gone by quick.  A lot of stuff has happened.

Jared and I flew to Georgia Saturday morning to visit my family and pick up his 'new' old car.  It was Gizmo's first time in an airplane and he did fairly well.  He didn't understand why he had to stay in a small bag on the floor instead of just sitting in my lap.  He was a little scared at first.  But as long as he saw me and knew I was there, he did fine.

Georgia was hot!!  I should have brought shorts with me.  But considering a huge nasty storm had just barely left the Madison area before we went to the airport, it was only 50 degrees here.  It was nice saying hello to my family.  But the visit was too short.

And then come Sunday morning at 4 in the morning, we began our 14 hour drive home.  It was interestingly long.  At the beginning of the drive, Jared and I switched driving shifts every couple of hours, so the other person could sleep.  This left the effect of the drive feeling a little shorter than it actually was.  But we arrived in Madison at 6 pm and were glad to be home.

Then I find out that my brother was hit by a car Saturday night.  He was walking his dog when the car hit him.  He went unconscious and the next thing he remembers is being in the hospital.  You could see his skull in some places on his head and his knee took a lot of the impact.  He's lucky to be alive.  And (note this is all second-hand information and I am completely biased when it comes to the police department in the West Jordan/Murray area), it sounds like the police aren't planning on further investigation into this crime since there is little information to go off and why on Earth would good, perfect police officers want to soil their shoes over someone they consider to be a low life and not something to concern themselves over....  Mess up once, and you're a screw-up for life as far as they're concerned.  Anyways, I'm very suspicious of this incident truly being an accident.  I do think it was intentional, but I don't know the motive (but I can guess and speculate).

And then my work week came along.  Right now, we're hosting a lot of clients.  It's like a big super conference.  There's over 9000 people on the campus.  It's super-super busy.  I've been helping with some of the transportation volunteer shifts.  And let me tell you, directing traffic and telling cars to stop is scary.  Number one, they're a lot bigger and can cause a lot of damage to you.  Number two, drivers do extremely stupid things around people directing traffic that can scare the hell out of them without the driver ever realizing they did something worrisome.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I am considering getting another reconstructive surgery done on two of my fingers on my right hand?  The fingers are partially webbed, and I want to remove the webbing to give my fingers more functionality.  My doctor said she'd approve the consult to the hand surgeon when I'm ready to pursue it.

My life in a nutshell...  Hahaha.  Too much going on.

Gran Torino

This was a movie I wanted to watch, but I didn't fully understand what it was about.  But it's definitely worth watching.  I recommend it, and I can't truly say how good it was without giving it away.  Disclaimer: there is a lot of swear words and racial slurs.  Clint Eastwood's character is a racist, grumpy old man.  I didn't think anything of it because my grandpas are both grumpy old men who tend to say racist things also.  So, his character fit right in with how I view old men...  Anyways, the movie deals with the older generation accepting the newer generation and finding out that race is only skin deep.  That's not doing the movie justice, but I recommend it anyways.  I can also state the fact that this movie brought tears to my eyes (yeah, I'm an emotional girl).