What does your keychain say about you?

Have you ever stopped to consider what your key chain says about you?

If a stranger looked at mine they would know that I own a foreign vehicle — based on the manufacturer’s symbol on the car keys and door lock remote.

By the mini silver abacus, which also includes a small gender symbol, one might surmise I have some interest in Asian things and/or math and that I’m a female.  All except the math image would accurate.

I also have two library cards,  a CVS card, a grocery store card and AC Moore Rewards card attached. From this you might guess that I like books and crafts and shop at a chain grocery store.

Finally I have a three fairly indistinguishable keys (house and office) attached and I’m not sure whether this tells anything about me unless you have Sherlock-like sense of observation.

What is on your key chain and what might it say about you?

 

Peeping Tom

Have you ever looked out your window and seen someone staring in?

I live in a basement apartment in a nice and mostly quiet neighborhood. My unit is conveniently on the same floor as the laundry room, which has no curtains over the small window in the far corner of that room.

Well, the other night I was moving a tall stack of my washed clothes to the dryer when I noticed my next door neighbor had a light on in his side room. Having only glanced that way, it occurred to me that there was a shadow of his head and that he might have been looking in at me doing my laundry. (luckily I was dressed decently this time).

I should add that this person, like several of my other neighbors, is a busy body who seems to know my business whenever we happen to chat while waiting for the bus. He’s the kind of person who calls the police when a car parks facing the wrong way on his street, or moves a garbage bin to the other side of the driveway so it won’t be on his part of the lawn (which is the part that is on a public access area with a sidewalk).

I finished putting the laundry in and headed back to my apartment, the entrance of which is the opposite way from the small window.

Glancing over my shoulder, I couldn’t help but notice that the shadow was still there.

I couldn’t help myself.

I turned around and squinted my eyes to see if I was imagining it. To see better I started walking toward the small window.

All of a sudden, the shadow of his face turned and his room went dark. I can only surmise that he saw that I had noticed him peeping in on me, the nosy old man, and had turned off his desk lamp to hide himself.

My upstairs neighbor had once warned me that she’d seen him looking down from his windows at our house — toward my apartment windows. I hadn’t believed her until the most recent incident.

It’s been a week or so since that occurred and the event had passed out of my mind completely until Tom and I (yes that is his name. Ironic isn’t it?) ended up on the same bus. I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t give me any eye contact on the bus or even say hello in response when we passed each other. It wasn’t until later that night that it occurred to me that I may really have caught him in a frequent act of peeping in on me and he was embarrased about it.

As far as I see it, it serves him right the old bugger.

 

Social blunders and spoon gifts

I have a talent for social blunders — blurting out statements that I later realize would have benefited greatly from a little forethought and consideration.

Luckily, I have friends who know this about me and see through it. Hopefully, they realize that my intentions are not malicious and that most of the time I strive to act properly and compassionately, be loving and contribute to the world around me.

I’m also quite scatter brained. It would be easy to say it’s because I’m self-absorbed. Whether this is true is up to conjecture (and I do not deny the possibility).

But I think it may be more accurate to say that I am easily distracted and therefore often fail to observe social cues and other events. I’m convinced that my mirror of self-awareness is not always facing the right way.

For example, today I searched the work pantry in vain to find a spoon with which to eat my yogurt. I was in a rush to get to a meeting.

Sitting at the round table with a fork and yogurt in hand, I looked down and saw a spoon next to my notebook.

I thought to myself, “I don’t remember finding a spoon.”

I set down my fork, took up the spoon and started eating without putting any more thought to where it had come from.

It wasn’t until my co-worker later joked with me about not thanking him for finding me a spoon that I learned he had set it down on the table and I hadn’t even noticed.  *Blush*

Yet sometimes, I am capable of slowing down my brain to observe my surroundings and enjoy LIVING here and now. It’s not until afterward that I reflect and wonder how it came about and what a wonderful life it would be if I could to exist in that world all the time.

 

old habits and elevators

So my company is renovating the bathrooms on our floor to make them more energy efficient or some such thing. As a result I have to take the elevator up or down one floor to use the facilities.

First of all, it feels silly to be taking an elevator to go up or down one floor partly because it makes me feel lazy. Also, in the amount of time it takes to get an elevator I could have taken the stairs, used the facilities and already be washing my hands. I would take the stairs but the stairs don’t allow you to get onto any floors except the lobby.  I’m guessing that’s for security purposes.

But a more interesting phenomenon has occurred as a result of the need to take a trek.

It seems I am so in the habit of getting into the elevator to either go to the lobby or the 10th floor that when I get into the elevator after using the “facilities,” I find the doors opening to the high-ceiling marble ground floor lobby and I’ll realize that out of habit I hit the “L” button. It’s happened at least five times this week.

I’m guessing that by the time I’ll have created new pathways in my brain to remember to hit the 10th floor button when I’m on the 9th or 11th, the bathrooms on my floor will be open for use again.

Anyway, that’s just another observation I thought I’d share. And here’s another one. Ok, to be honest one of the reason’s I’ve been so bad at writing frequently is that I’ve felt guilty about never updating you on the inauguration. For the sake of us all and because that was nearly a month ago. I’m going to admit that there will probably never be a part II.  My apologies.

 

Nice chicken

There are bad pick up lines and there are worse ones.

I was shopping at a local Latino grocery market where the prices for fresh produce and meat are particularly low because Latinos, statistically compared to many other cultures, cook among the most at home and for large families. In other words, they buy so much produce that those kind of grocery stores are able to buy food at lower prices and pass the savings on to customers.

Anyway, with a grocery cart of potatoes, leeks, carrots, onions, lemons and limes, kale, avocados bananas and plantain I was perusing the meat isle.

I was looking over a stack of “young chickens” wrapped in plastic on yellow Styrofoam plates when I noticed a man had approached and was not looking at the chickens but facing and looking directly at me. I continued to peruse.

“Nice chicken,” he mumbled.

 Unsure if I heard him correctly I said, “excuse me,” and looked up.

He had black rimmed rectangular glasses he was wearing a light blue dress shirt unbuttoned at the top and his skin was smooth and the color of mahogany (I know this sounds cliche but that really is the best way to describe his complexion). He had beautiful dark eyes and on a quick glance I saw his hands were ring less. He smiled.

“These are nice chickens,” he said, a little louder this time, and nodded toward the pile of poultry carcases.

“Yes they are,” I replied, unsure what else I could say and I turned back to face the stack of naked chickens.

I was pretty sure he was trying to say something to start a conversation with me but I was completely thrown off by his pick up line.

 By the time all this had registered and I had decided to try to talk some more I turned my head back in his direction and he had gone back to a grocery cart, never having taken a chicken, and he was turning down the cereal isle.

He glanced my way before turning down the isle and he disappeared.

Unsure what else to do, I also turned and went down the spice and baking supplies isle, also without a chicken in my cart.