Just Put It On My Tab

My little chapel is right smack dab in the middle of a lovely residential neighborhood. So every Sunday I feel really guilty that I have to park in front of somebody's house. The parking lot only has about 20 spaces, which means that the other 500 of us that come to church between 9 and 2 have no other choice than to invade the neighborhood.

Poor neighbors. Its gotta be a trial to have all of your discretionary parking taken over by a fleet of minivans and Honda Accords every single Sunday. I feel for them, I really do.

This past Sunday, they made an announcement from the pulpit reminding us to be considerate of our neighbors and to not park illegally. They will do this when the cops are seen in the neighborhood writing up tickets, its the church friendly way of saying, "if you parked like an ass go fix it before you get a ticket, idiot."

I thought back to my own parking job ... close to a driveway, but not blocking it -- wasn't as close to the car behind me as I'd thought and so I probably could have moved further back but was too lazy to get back into my car, start it, and reverse 5 feet ... and concluded that I was not in violation.

If you are ever parking in Residential DC, let me share with you a little fact that I learned when I returned to my car. You need to be five feet away from any turn out (including driveways) or else you will get a $50 parking ticket.

Le sigh .... If I had a boyfriend for every ticket I've gotten I would be Pam Anderson right about now.

Two other points of (mild) interest:

1) They made the original announcement about parking (which I suspect meant "there are cops out there") at about 9:30 AM. I didn't get my ticket until 11:50 -- TEN minutes before I left. grrr. Were they just out there handing out tickets for two hours I wonder? Perhaps they ran through a whole pad of tickets and had to come back to make sure all of us serial parkers got what was coming to us.

2) I turned in my monthly tithing check that day too. Made it quite an expensive day to be Mormon.

(Do you think I could deduct it from the next tithing check? Seems like a grey area that should be explored. What if I just deduct 10% of it? Would that work?)

Wherein I'm Blessed For Going to Church

I go to church regularly, but some days its a real struggle. 9 AM is such a HARD time for me to be anywhere. Especially because I love to stay up late, as I think I've mentioned before. And Friday and Saturday nights are sacred because they are the only two I can really stay up as late as I'd like. So this morning there was the usual battle with myself over whether I should stay in bed or get up and go to church. It was a long and bitter fight, but in the end I got up and went. That's the nice thing about church, even when I don't want to go, I'm always glad when I make the effort and go. It's always worth it. (Plus afternoon naps are so delightful.)

So anyway, after church I was standing in the hallway talking with some people when this guy came up to me and said, "Is your name Gretchen?"

And I was like, "Yes" on the outside, but on the inside I was like, "Oh crap. Do I know this guy? I don't think I do, but I wish I did because he's crazy cute!"

And he said, "Do you recognize me?"

Unfortunately, I had to say no. Oh WHY!? WHY did my answer have to be no?!

But he pressed on, "I don't look familiar to you at all?" He seemed so disappointed that I didn't know who he was that I considered 'fake remembering' him. But I didn't; I just apologized and asked his name (hoping like crazy that I'd recognize it). Which was when he told me that he was the brother of one of my favorite roommates from BYU. A roommate that I've been looking for for years! I Google her about every 3 months, but I can't find her. Do you guys have friends like that? They get married, change their names, and just seem to drop off the map. And HERE! - here was her handsome and very cool brother delivered neatly into my life to solve this mystery. He should have come with a bow on his head.

As we talked, all of these little details started creeping back. Things like the names of the other members of the family, what their parents do and where they lived, and oh yeah, that he and I went out on a date or two once upon a time. He reminded me that we went to a Thai restaurant that had really slow service and was named "Wok Right In" (naturally). He obviously has a top-notch brain because that's a lot of detail to remember about a date that happened 13 years ago! (I can barely remember the event at all - but I don't blame myself. That was like a century ago. Geez!)

So anyway, I can't decide what I'm more excited about. Getting back in touch with my long-lost friend, or renewing my friendship with her brother.

But, as excited as I am, I'm also a girl and so I'm just a tad self-conscious that he was able to recognize me so easily. I know I look young, but do I still look just like I did at 19? I don't consider my college years to have been my most attractive years. They were full of frumpy clothes, bad skin, and other horrors like feathered bangs. I hope I'm not having a relapse.

Found: Unexpected Religion

As you might expect, Saturday night was a big night for Halloween parties. Georgetown generally turns into a giant costume party as people parade up and down M street in their costumes. (Presumably they are going from bar to bar, but the effect is a giant parade).

In the midst of all of Jack Sparrows and tarted up she-devils walking the strip, I was surprised to see this little scene:

On one corner stood Moses with a woolly beard and shepherd staff. On the opposite corner was Pharaoh, with a very stylish headdress and a golden crook. As they stepped off of the curb, they saw each other and rushed forward screaming:

“Let my people gooooo!”

“Moses, Come back to meee!”

Then they crashed together in the middle of the crosswalk to fight with their staff and crook like Luke and Darth.

It was awesome. Whoever said kids today don’t know about religion, clearly needs to spend a little more time cruising the streets of Georgetown.

Obligatory Camp Report

I'm back from my week of camping with 70-odd teenage girls (aka Girls Camp) and I feel like I should give you all a full report on the tomfoolery and shenanigans that went on. But you probably don't really care, do you? I doubt you care that my skin was practically pan-seared off of my body during the 100 degree/85% humidity days we had. Nor do you care that the bathrooms for our campsite were about 100 yards away, requiring a walk that resembled a Mario Brothers game: through a field, up a hill, across a road, climb over a fallen log, dodge several tree roots, find the only stall with toilet paper, and capture the princess. This made my 3AM trip with The Trots particularly memorable.

In fact, the only things I could tell you about this trip are rather embarrassing and therefore things that you'd be likely to use against me in the future. Wouldn't you? Like the fact that I abandoned showering by Tuesday, and by Saturday my hair was cemented into ponytail shape with 42 layers of sweat, sap, dust, grease, smoke and mosquito guts. Or that I voluntarily sang every camp song I knew, and even faked some that I didn't know. Or the fact that I manipulated my leadership powers to get my 9 twelve year old girls to do everything I didn't want to do myself like carry water, chop firewood, clean my dishes, and act like Sherpas bringing my camp chair and other belongings with us on all outings so I'd have somewhere to recline while they continued to do my bidding. I even made them practice their First Aide skills and dress some blisters on my feet. Feet that, given my state of dirtiness, should have required a bio-hazard suit before approaching. It was very good to be queen.


Perhaps most embarrassing though, are the cheesy little notes that I left in my girl's mailboxes. I really maxed out the cheesiness by liberally using scrapbooking paper, ribbon, multi colored pens, stencils, stickers, stamps, and shame of all shamefulness Lame Double Meanings.

• "You're the 'Reisen' camp is so fun!" - attached to a baggie of Reisen candies
• "High Five for Camp!" - attached to a plastic hand clapper thing
• "Chews the Right" - attached to a baggie of gumballs

I'll tell you what, once you start down that Molly Mormon road, it quickly becomes a very slippery slope. I was glad there wasn't a scrapbook handy or there would have been some real damage done.

Suffice it to say, I did a lot of things that were outside of my comfort zone. I handled the cooking, cleaning, hiking, dirtiness, and usual camp craziness with style and aplomb. But dealing with the girls was a little more tricky. I found coddling girls that were missing their mommies particularly challenging. What do you say to kids who think 1.5 hours away from home is too far? I wanted to say, "Suck it up kid. You'll be home in 4 days, and your mom needs a break from your whiney face." Obviously I didn't say that. But I'm sure whatever drivel I came up with sounded pretty insincere. Sympathy isn't my strong point.

The best part about the Girls Camp though was the abject adoration of these little girls. They apparently loved being bossed around, and didn't mind being my personal slaves. In fact, they thanked me for it. And I got several notes such as these:

• "You're a Flippin Sweet Camper!"
• "You are the Best Leader at Camp! I love you!"
• "I love you! You're the Best. And you will never look old."

That's right. I'm the Best and I will never look old. I think that just about sums everything up.