Breathing Words

What should one do with the past gifts of ex-boyfriends?

My first boyfriend gifted me with a huge collection of X-Men comics, a stack of Beatles records, and a nice Veritech wall scroll that is hanging on our wall right now. Cool gifts. Useful gifts. (The big teddy bear he got me a few months before we broke up… well, I left that in New York as a plaything for my roommates’ clawing kitten.)

My second boyfriend never gave me anything except food, but we were only together for a month.

My third boyfriend tried, but each of his gifts was a pale shadow of a gift for me. Meaning, he had a general idea what I liked, but his gifts were gifts for a cousin and not for a girlfriend. It wasn’t his fault. I was his first girlfriend, and he didn’t really know what he was doing. So here I am, stuck with a Swarovski ice skating bear and a Tiffany’s heart pendant necklace. Pretty things. Useless things. I’m thinking of selling them on craigslist. Of course, I just searched for the necklace today and couldn’t find it. I looked in the Tiffany’s box, and found the bear. So is the necklace in the box for the bear? No idea. (He also gave me a huge stuffed Charmandar when I was going through my Pokemon phase. Charmandar lives with my sister now and is the couch for the smaller stuffed animals she has. Also some hentai, but English-dubbed! Terrible mistake. I should sell that too…)

T is very good about his gifts. He thinks ahead, researches if necessary, and doesn’t just pick any old thing that is generally related to my likes. Of course, I’m his first girlfriend too (not counting the adolescent fling he had in high school). So, really, in that light, my third boyfriend just sucked at gift giving. But this year, T and I agreed not to exchange Christmas gifts, which is a great relief to both of us. It’s been hectic holiday season, and it’s really difficult to top each year. Although, I did just re-new Playboy for him, so that sorta counts as a Christmas present.

I still might get something for him if an idea pops into my head. I do enjoy making him feel guilty…

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_333143015.html

Alas, I’m not on the list, nor is T or any family members on my side. But maybe some of you are!

So last night there was a fire in a commercial building right near the Bally’s that I go to work out at. The fire department was called to the scene at 4:56 p.m. (or something like that) and the fire raged for a good two or three hours. The area was grid-locked, and probably very dangerous since there are quite a few commercial buildings all lined up together. Winds were (are) insane too.

Normally, mom and I head to the gym around 4 p.m. and leave at about 5:45 p.m. to pick up my sister. But yesterday, we went to the mall first and shopped longer than we planned. So we decided to skip the gym and make a few extra rounds of the mall as our exercise. When we left the mall, we saw heavy black smoke in the horizon and turned on the radio to hear that it was taking place right where we usually would have been on any other weekday.

T didn’t think it was too much of a close call, but I did. I see it as God watching out for us.

A few weeks ago we had a similar close call. We had a meeting with our accountant but we were early. Since I wasn’t too familiar with the area, I decided to drive around and explore. (I like doing that, it helps me learn streets and get my bearings.) We went to a department store, walked around for 10 min, and started driving again. I drove down this unknown street for maybe 3 minutes before I decided that there was nothing interesting to see. We turned around and headed back. Right at the exit of the shopping center where we had just left, a huge big-rig was crossing our path. Traffic was light, but definitely slowed on either side. There were other big-rigs trying to get by as well. I thought that maybe the driver miscalculated his turn radius and got stuck. But as we inched by, we saw the small, black sedan wedged underneath, right in the center. That’s when I saw the other people gathered around. No one looked panicked, so I think the person was able to get out, but I’m not sure. I do know that three hours later, on our way home, police were at the site, nothing had been moved, and traffic was jammed from all sides. Now, I don’t think that I would have been the car wedged under there–I’m not that reckless, just kinda fast… But then incidents like that really make you think, “If it was just one minute sooner (or later)…”

And of course there was that time our front tire blew out on the 134 freeway in the middle of the afternoon (when traffic is pretty heavy) and I lost control of the car and we spun like 3 times and went from the number 1 lane all the way to the number 4 lane without hitting a single car. Mom and I got out, unhurt, a little dizzy, and saw the row of cars and a big truck just stopped maybe 300 feet away from us. An off-duty cop drove up and helped us. A tow car came and changed our tire. A police officer came and slowed traffic (which had picked up once we moved to the gutter) so that we could get back on the freeway. And that was that. I laughed about it. Mom says, since it happened right in front of where Dad is buried, that there was some divine intervention involved. And I totally agree.

God is in my life every single day. It’s such a huge relief.

This was too funny not to share. From http://www.collegehumor.com/.

Street Fighter: The Later Years

Part One:

Part Two: