Il Pleut

It's Raining. And has been all day. But as the saying goes.."The peaches must be sold!" Wait, that's not the saying...someone should inform my boss. She was always just about to let me go home and close my stand when the rain would let up for a few minutes. Thinking it was bound to let up for good any minute (despite the flash flood warnings) she instructed me to wait out the bad parts of the storm in the truck, and to sell peaches when it wasn't raining. Just another one of those days that makes you look around and wonder what you're doing with your life!

I've been thinking alot about that lately. After work on Saturday, I did some shopping in Downtown Greenville and then got a Caramel Frappachino and walked down to the Reedy River Falls Park. I happened to stumble onto the Wachovia Rhythm of the Tropics Festival. I had no idea it was going on, and just turned around a corner to find bands and people and food everywhere. It was fun to just wander around, getting lost in the crowd. I watched some of the performances including a Latino Hip-Hop group complete with Shakira-like dancers, considered buying some interesting food but refrained after seeing high prices and long lines. I ended up sitting on a stone wall across from the water falls. I love to just sit there and observe the scenery. You have rolling green hills surrounded by little stone walls. There are people scattered around the park..some partaking of a picnic on blankets, others posing for family pictures, or playing catch with their dog. There are couples holding hands on the swings, and kids sliding down the gentler slopes of the Falls. It takes you back to some other time, and really has an uncanny ability to slow life down. It is the perfect place to go and think things over.

I thought about my life. I thought about my disappointment at not finding a career job. My frustration at not really getting connected to a social atmosphere and new people here. I longed for friends in Florida. I found comfort in being closer to family. I smiled as I thought about my planned trip to Florida in a few weeks. My mind wandered through confusion as I thought about the guy I see everyday at work that I'm pretty sure likes me alot. I consider my responses if he ever does actually ask me out. He is Mexican, which isn't necessarily a problem, but is very different. I consider the line between giving new opportunities a chance, and reacting to the first chance that comes along. I don't want fear to make decisions for me...if I reject someone out of fear of what others will think, or what differences will arise that is not right...but niether is accepting them out of fear that I'm being judgemental or stemming from lonliness. I have been in relationships in which I was loved...and one in which I loved...I long for a relationship in which I can both love and be loved. Until I find that, I guess any opportunity is worth at least a little exploration, because who knows which will be the one? I don't know how long I spent sitting there, listening to the bustle around me, and the low roar of the Falls before I decided I should head home. I didn't really decide anything, or come up with anything profound...but I did feel incredibly refreshed and prepared to take on whatever comes next in my life at the crossroads.

I'd like to take a moment to welcome my good Venezuelan/French friend to the Blogsphere. She has recently launched her own blog entitled Vida and can now be found in my links. I'm not too sure she's decided to keep up with it yet, but what she's posted so far is great, and I look forward to reading more!

As mentioned earlier in this post... I have decided to pay a much needed visit to The Sunshine State. I plan to arrive in Gainesville on July 8th. The current plan is to then spend a couple of days in my hometown of Cocoa. I will then return to Gatorville to spend the rest of the week. I leave for home on Sunday, July 16th. I'm very excited about spending the time with my friends, and resting in blissful familiarity! If you have time to hang out that week, be sure to let me know!

Roche, Papier, Ciseaux

Rock, Paper, Scissors. Tonight we watched one of the silliest shows we've ever watched. Well, maybe the craziest thing since the National Spelling Bee. We watched the USARPS Tournament on A&E. That's the United States of America Rock Paper Scissors League. I saw the listing on the T.V. Guide channel and had to turn it over to see if that was really what it was, and sure enough, people were actually playing Rock, Paper, Scissors! The "players" were all talking about their different strategies and trying to psych the other players out...it was crazy. Even crazier, perhaps, was the tournament it spawned in our living room. During the first commercial break, Mom, J and I rocked...we papered...and we definitely scissored! I don't think we had a clear-cut winner...we all won and lost some matches. We came to the conclusion that there is a very small amount of strategy that goes into the game...an aspect of predicting what the other person is going to throw based on what you know about them. I believe that when playing strangers in a tournament, however, it's pretty much just luck! It was a crazy show to watch, but we had a really fun time playing a simple childhood game and finding patterns in what we each chose to throw. The winner on T.V. got $50,000, but we got about that many laughs! One...Two...Three...?

Occupé

Occupied. Sorry I haven't posted lately, but things have been a bit crazy around here lately. My Mom has recently started a new, full-time job out of the home. My Dad is in New Jersey again. My work schedule is changing and getting more complicated everyday. I found out yesterday that the owner isn't able to open the new store on Batesville RD as planned, but is going to have me work the stand on 291. I even get to drive the company flat-bed truck! I have always liked driving different vehicles, so I think that will be fun. I also miss driving a truck since my dad sold our F250 monster truck (my first car). It chugged a ton of gas, was broken down almost more often than it ran, did not have a CD player, or air conditioning, but it was one of the biggest non-commercial things on the road, sounded amazing, and was a lot of fun to drive! My boss also plans to work me everyday, so that will be nice for my checking account! Also, since I'm not the only person working this stand, it should be easier for me to get off for some trips I want to take over the Summer. I have a family reunion coming up, and I'm pretty sure I need to make another trip to G-ville sometime soon, I'm really starting to miss my friends!

In addition to working at the Orchard, I've been trying to advance my job search. An extended family member of mine has recently started working for a company in Alachua, FL that handles donor tissues for transplant. I am excited by the idea of returning to the greater Gainesville area, although it is far from my family again. At this point, I'm applying for any career job that I will be able to afford to take. RTI (the Alachua company) isn't currently hiring Microbiologists, but there is one tech job I'm looking into, and I plan to send them a resume to see if anything happens. I've also found a staffing agency in NC that handles Lab personel exclusively, so I've sent them a resume as well. As for now I'll just be selling peaches and waiting for a sonic boom.
It's a busy week and an even busier time in my life...stay tuned..I'll try to update more often!

Je m'appelle Calamity

My name is Calamity. I don't know what it is about me...a natural tendancy, my left-handedness, or maybe I just don't pay enough attention, but for some reason I'm rather accident prone. I often find myself in random situations such as when I ended up under a boat on the loading ramp holding on for dear life to the tongue of the trailer, or when I ended up hydroplaning into the sliding glass doors at Publix, and I can't forget numerous injuries sustained in my Conditioning class. At Cocoa High I played on the girl's Soccer team and recieved the award for Most Injured Goalie...sustaining a concussion, a busted nose, sprained neck, hyper-extended knee, and several bouts of bursitis. In my softball career I've now been hit by the ball twice...once in the leg and last week in the head. Now I have another incident to add to my long and distinguised list...I fell on the camping trip!

The weekend was a blast overall! It was so nice to spend the time outdoors, and my family really got along great. We still camp in tents, which I really prefer to campers because I feel that a motor home doesn't really give you the same camping experience as does a tent...and actually I sleep better in a tent. We brought along my hound, Socrates, and I really enjoyed spending the time with him as well. He was kinda nervous and over-protective at first, barking at anything or anyone that went near our site, and the first night he paced around the tent alot and made me take him out three times. By the end of the weekend, however, he settled into the laid-back lifestyle as he trudged along trails, napped in the shade, met a fish, slept throught the night, and absolutely refused to eat anything healthy (much like the rest of the family).

We went camping at a Greenville County Park called Pleasant Ridge only 25 minutes from my house. We got there early and set up our two tents and got all the supplies squared away. Over the weekend we did some swimming in the lake. They have a roped off area. Honestly the swimming was probably my least favorite part...the weather here hasn't really warmed up enough for a long enough time to raise the entire lake's frigid temperature...so you swim along and go from shallower areas of nice warm water, to cold pockets that chill you to the bone. It was still refreshing though in the heat of the day when you were approaching the melting point.

We also did some fishing...although it took us until the last evening to figure out the perfect time to fish. The fish start biting at 6 PM, and you have from then until dark when the Rangers close the lake. That last evening we finally caught some fish...I caught 5, J caught about that many, and Mom got one. Dad, unfortunately, didn't catch anything but a few trees. It was funny because for once Mom, J and me were rigging, baiting, casting, and taking the fish off our own lines leaving Dad free to fish. Or as it turns out, free to catch a tree ;-) Everyone has their days... All the fish that we caught were small brim and were released after caught. Socrates did not know what to think of the fish...he kept tilting his head and perking up his ears as he tried to figure out what it was as it flopped around on the line. I have a picture of his first encounter that I'll post later.

We had some very interesting neighbors at the campsite. On one side of us was a Preacher and his family that were taking the weekend off. We really got along with them well. Socrates was tied up between our sites and their son would try to get him to come over to their site to play with him. They also gave him some scraps, so by the time they were packing up to leave I think Socrates was half tempted to load up with them. In the course of our conversations with them, I told them that I was looking for a Microbiology job, and it turned out that the woman works at Cryovac, a local company that often hires Microbiologists. She works for the Credit Union there, but her mother works in a lab, so the last day she gave me a phone number to call to inquire about a job. It was a really neat and random connection that seemed a bit more than coincidental to me, so I'm definitely going to follow the lead! Our other neighbors were a bit more sketchy, but provided a great deal of entertainment. It was a man and I believe his girlfriend. I'd seen him many times working out at the YMCA that I go to, so we talked about that and had a nice introduction and went about our business. Then he came over and talked to us forever. We all thought he was kind of crazy, but seemed nice enough. We ended up learning all sorts of interesting things about him, like that he lives off alimony he gets from his ex wife because he raised their son alone while he went through a brain tumor diagnosis. He also apparently teaches Pilates at the Y. One morning I looked over and saw him doing what looked like either Tai Chi or Pilates while smoking like a chimney. That struck me as particularly interesting and funny and probably best describes the randomness of Donnie. Throughout the weekend we would see him doing all sorts of different activities...like riding a bike, sleeping outside on his air mattress in the middle of the day, playing on one of those kids park merry-go rounds, and even clogging to bluegrass music at another campsite. It was weird and funny.

One of our favorite things to do at the park was to walk a Nature Trail that led from the camp ground up to the lake. Along the way there was this really pretty little waterfall that you could walk in and around. It made little shallow pools of water around it that were fun to walk through and allowed us to cool off without having to swim in the lake. This brings me full-circle in this post, back to the reason my name is Calamity. On Sunday afternoon, we stopped by the waterfall on our way to go fishing. We all, including Socrates, went walking in the shallow pools and walking over the smooth rocks. Socrates, a bassett hound not particularly found of water, liked walking in and drinking some of the water but preferred to hop from rock to rock. I was holding him on the retractable leash and standing on a rock on one side of a pool when Socrates suddenly took off and jumped two rocks over (as it turned out, just a bit farther than the leash would extend). I was jerked off the rock I was standing on...leapt toward the nearest one, but slipped on the slick stone and splashed down in a pool. Unfortunately, my left elbow landed on a rock getting cut and bruised, my right wrist and left knee were also scraped up in the process. The worst thing affected at the time, however, was my ego...as there were a couple other people nearby to watch the whole event. After the fact, I've been most affected by a very stiff and sore back, which I apparently sprained as I twisted and fell. That has made work at the Orchard very difficult and painful, but with some modifications and medication, it is quickly recovering.

As I said earlier in this lenghty post, the weekend was great and I am so very glad we went. We are planning to go on many more camping trips now that we've found a place we like up here. We already have a list of things we want to buy or do next time to make things go even more smoothly. Next time, I am also planning to get my own site, since I already have my own tent so that we will have more room and even more importantly...more level space on which to spend our time (a problem we did not encounter while camping in FL).

A few sites down from ours there was a group of girls camping. They came in and met there from different colleges...one as far away as Virginia, others from here and Georgia. It reminded me of an idea Kathy had a while ago for a group of us to meet in Georgia or somewhere and camp for a weekend. I still think that is a great idea and we should think about doing it sometime in the future...it looked like fun. Their little reunion really made me miss all my friends :-(

Thanks for reading the post...I know it was long. I will post some pics soon.