A New Friend, A Compliment and Flipping the Bird

That’s been my day this Monday.

I’ve been indoors since my last post, working on that needlepoint project, watching television, enjoying my solitude ─ except for Friday, when I went down to the Community Room just long enough to check the bulletin board for what movie was showing at that evening’s Movie Night.

No movie was posted to the board.

Church Lady, working on a word puzzle, was the only senior in the room.

This being my first contact with a senior I could pump about last Friday’s showing of Monster’s Ball, and wanting to know how the seniors reacted to those raunchy sex scenes between Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Barry, I “slyly” worked in “How are you … bla bla bla bla bla ... How was movie night last week?”

Now Church Lady walks with her back hunched over, like she’s carrying a heavy burden. I don’t know if it’s a medical curvature of the spine issue or a poor posture habit (I think habit), and she also sits hunched over. When I mentioned last week’s movie night, she got highly animated, sat straight up (so for sure it’s a habit) and said, “Girl! We were shocked! There was some stuff in there!”

“It wasn’t like it wasn’t something we never did, but we were embarrassed” and put her head down to look at the floor indicating how people in the room had reacted and not made eye contact with each other.

ROFLMAO!

I didn’t think to ask if anyone had walked out, but I assume everyone was too stunned to move.

Church Lady went on to say there was a huge bruhaha AFTER the movie, with questions being asked as to whose idea it was, who provided the DVD and why it wasn’t reviewed before being offered to the seniors.

She said there was a lot of “it wasn’t me” going around.

So now my quest is to find out if no movie night this last Friday is a consequence of complaints about what was shown the previous Friday.

Running out of supplies, it was with great reluctance I put away the needlepoint project today and ventured out into the world to run errands. Reluctant because, you know .... people.

I’ve amazed myself in how much progress has been made on that needlepoint project in one month but, ten to twelve-hour days, at the expense of grocery shopping, PokémonGo hunting and exercise (except for that one day I worked out on the indoor bike and threw in some yoga) made the difference.

Progress: September to December

Progress: December to January

At any rate, the first people encounter was a woman pulling up in the parking lot of Trader Joe’s playing a tape I recognized the voice as being my spiritual teacher.

I approached, explained that was my teacher of 35 years she was listening to. She said she was led to the teaching 5 years ago. We felt such a kindship at lucking into a like-minded individual that we hugged each other and exchanged numbers.

So, a new friend.

Then, as I was heading to the car, a girl commented on my camo leggings, saying how cute they were, asking where I purchased.

“Oh thanks”, said I “Walmart, online”.

“Oh, soooo cute”.

So, a compliment.

THEN, I stopped by Victoria Gardens, with plans to do a little walking, hit up the PokémonGo stops since I was in the area.

After parking the car, I walked to a sidewalk, stopped, turned on the app to check for the nearest Stop when, all of a sudden, I hear this female voice yelling from a passing car, “Do not text while walking! and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla”. I couldn’t tell what else she was saying as she cowardly sped away.

Since I wasn’t able to yell back to her that one, I was not walking, I was checking my phone while stopped; and two, I wasn’t texting, I was playing PokémonGo, I made my thoughts known by standing where she could see me in her rear-view mirror, arm raised and flipped her my middle finger until she drove out of sight.

So, I momentarily lost my religion for a bit and flipped a stranger the bird.

Two good people encounters out of three.

I may give it another go tomorrow, head down to interact with the seniors on Pizza Tuesday.

We’ll see.