I could probably count about five weeks that have been as bad as this one in my entire life and the dull meeting lodged in the middle didn't help. I sat for the forty five minutes allowing my ears to pay attention-- but my mind numbed...my eyes blurred...I began to...check...out. My usual doodling turned into something more. I was hoping it could be a more artistic, Freudian expression of my sublimated emotions from the week but when I came to and finally glared down at the page, this umm...interesting...thing glared back at me:



Is it a head lodged in a plant box? A plant box lodged in a head? Are those leaves or bananas? Did I shade or did I just use the pencil to draw as many straight lines next to each other as possible? Is it a girl whose face has grown leaves instead of the occasional ugly hair? Is it a bad, almost repulsive metaphor for the jungle of my life? I don't know, because as I was listening to licensing information and thinking about a person who acted horribly, and remembering that it is quite possible someone is sabotaging Honda, my hands did that.

When my brakes went out on Tuesday morning I took my car into the mechanic and he said in his rolling Lebanese accent "What we are all wondering is how you got here in this. Scary?"

Um. Yeah, buddy. I had to use both feet, pray to God, and use the emergency brake repeatedly in order to stop for ANYTHING.

Then while they fixed the front brakes because the brake fluid lines had been cut (CUT?!) and worn out the pads, they noticed that the wheels were...bald. So when they removed the wheels, the rear brake fluid lines began to break. Then spew. Then well..the rear brake pads and fluid lines had to be replaced....and so it went. Honda got a make-over and she still looks like I rolled her straight out of a scrap heap that didn't even bother charging me the entrance fee they were so excited to get rid of Honda.

Instead of giving the entire rundown of the about-as-fun-as-a-root-canal occurrences of the week I will just say this: I discovered someone I loved and trusted is not only completely selfish but a total lying sack of....ahem. Anyway. Now here's why it make me angrier than the average bear: This is about the third person who has profoundly (and I don't mean like, told someone something I told them not to-- I mean BIG stuff) betrayed me in a single year. Which doesn't make me so mad at them, as it makes me wonder:

Where is the "STUPID" sticker on my forehead?

There have been moments this year when I have begun to think that the only people telling me the truth were people who were telling me the truth but lying to someone else in order to tell me that "truth".

So. Gross.

Uncle Fritz is very, very sick and all alone in Germany and my aunt and I can't fix it. Not yet, anyway.

And then I got the six kittens back today. I loved them for about a week when I thought they were just in the place for awhile and desperately in need of care. Now they're stronger-- huge, even, and ready for homes. But will the woman who gave them to me let me start adopting them out? No. Why? I'm not sure. Now I'm thinking I should move out and give the apartment to the kittens.

However, on the bright side, I did have the most wonderful evening last night at my dear friends' church down south. These people are AMAAAHZING at what they do and they have incredible friends who help out on occasion who are absolutely wonderful living testaments to the love and joy of Christ. Their youth are pretty fantastic too. It was a great night.

It was made even better when I met a wiry, pixie-looking fifteen year old girl who wants to own her own car dealership someday and plays on the golf team at her school.

Yes, CAR DEALERSHIP. Never heard that dream before.

"I want to have a dealership with like, high-end cars...I mean...I'm obsessed with them."

For the life of me I could not figure out HOW she obtained this obsession but it amused me to no end that she has it.