I am absolutely exhausted today. Continue reading “A Sign-off to a Hectic Friday”
Tag: Reflection
Are Drawers for Organizing or Disorganizing?
As I sit here at my desk tapping my nails on the desk trying to decide what to write for my next post, my mom is downstairs loudly rummaging through the kitchen drawers looking for the nail clipper. “Where’s the nail clipper?” She yells. Immediately, I know that is my queue to go investigate. I rolled my eyes and sighed.
I take a few steps out of my room and shout back, “It’s in the first drawer.”
“It’s not there!” I groan and drag my feet down 10 steps down into the kitchen and start rummaging through the drawer myself.
I look down into the drawer and my eyes popped out like Spike the bulldog. Didn’t I clean this drawer just a few weeks ago? Or was it a few months ago?
I shuffled through the content looking for the nail clipper and I too cannot find it. “It’s not here! Maybe it’s in your room.” I yell while wondering, could it have accidentally fallen into the garbage? Both of us are a little forgetful these days what with our work and our GMAT exam’s coming up. One of us could have used the nail clipper and attempted to put it back into the drawer but missed it and landed in the garbage.
As my mom finished rummaging her room, she came back down while I went back up to rummage through her room some more. The second I arrived on the landing upstairs, she shouts triumphantly, “I found it!”
Whew. Now I can finally go back into my room and write that blog post. Given what had just happened, a light bulb lit up in my head. However, after seeing that mess in the most used drawer in the entire house, my head begins to pound. Because this means that within the next two weeks during my mom’s time off from work, I’ll have to spend a day reorganizing the drawers. Throwing away any expired coupons, no longer usable receipts, and other scraps of paper.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Seeing the picture above is just the topmost drawer. You don’t even want to see the bottom three drawers but here’s just a little sneak peek at the next drawer down…
It is filled with used/unused plastic bags from grocery shopping for storing meats, vegetables, and wonton/dumplings, potentially important invitations and other unimportant mail, and all kinds of junk I don’t even want to know. Then there’s the two more drawers which I don’t even want to know what kind of mystery is hidden there.
Really makes you think about the purpose drawers serve, doesn’t it?
Aren’t drawers suppose to provide some sort of organization? To help us find things more easily? So we don’t have to run all over the house looking for the thing we need right at the moment?
The Beach
There are no words to describe what I’m feeling right now. I lean my head sideways to get a look at the dashboard to check the time for what feels like the millionth time on this trip. I wish my mom would just park the car already. Even though it’s been the most exciting day I’ve had in a while but it’s also been longest day I’ve had in a while. Right now, I have just got to get out of this hot and stuffy car.
“Why can’t they make bigger spaces?” Mom mutters frustratingly at the wheel as she passes yet another spot.
It isn’t that the spaces are too small for her 1984 Toyota Cressida, it’s because she doesn’t know how to back-in parallel park. Apparently, her friend, Simon, up in the front doesn’t want to help either. He just keeps giving her suggestions and want to take no action to help.
My mom turns on her blinker, another round, here we come, I let out a quiet moan and rest my head on the headrest. Hot flash anger ascends on the inside as I drum my fingers impatiently on the door handle. My left arm remain sweaty and pin down by the arm of the giant baby snoring soundly in the middle.
“Maybe you should just try parking in the parking lot.” Simon suggests.
Uh oh, he is one suggestion too far. All day long, he’s been making suggestions to my mom. Don’t leave the AC on in the car, it will ruin the engine. Keep the speed at 65, it’ll save some gas. I can feel my mom has just about had enough. Her grip of the wheel tightens and her eyes stare straight ahead, maybe too straight.
She is like a volcano about to blow, a grenade with the cord pulled. Don’t blow, mom. Don’t blow. I try to send the thought to her as our eyes meet in the rear view mirror. It doesn’t work.
“If there are no parking out here, there definitely not going to have any parking in the parking lot.” She snaps.
The car suddenly becomes ghostly silent. I can hear the engine humming tiredly as my mom directs the car to the end of the block again. This time, instead of turning on the right blinker, she turns on the left and swerves into the left lane. She stops at the light with her blinker still blinking.
I didn’t dare ask any questions since she is so close to losing it. I concentrate on the tic tac tic tac of the blinker and stare out the window. It’s then I suddenly realize, there isn’t anything to turn left to.
We are under a sky-walk and to the left was lined with sidewalk. Where is she going to turn left to? Has she gone crazy with anger?
The light turns green and she slams her foot on the gas pedal. The car lurches forward. She lightly taps on the brakes at the approach of the next light. The left blinker remains blinking and no one in the car dares to ask her why.
When the light turns green again, she releases the brake and lets the car slide forward. About three feet later, she stops again. What now? I wonder and lean against the window to stare at the green light.
Soon, the light turns yellow and the incoming traffic slows. Then she does something I never imagine she would do on such a narrow road. She turns the wheel several rounds and steps on the gas. In a matter of seconds, we are on the other side of the road.
My heart pounds with fear and adrenaline while she executed the turn. It is by far the most thrilling thing I have experienced on this trip and it takes my mind off that we’ve been circling the block for 45 minutes looking for a parking space.
After the turn, she resumes her position in the right lane and lightly dips on the gas to cruise the car smoothly on the road. That smooth driving was soon interrupted when she suddenly slams her foot on the brakes propelling me forward. Thank god I wore my seat belt.
This time I know exactly what’s happening, she has found a large enough parking space. She switches on the right blinker to signal the cars behind her as she slowly steered the car head-on into the space. I sigh with relief as I press the release button on my seat belt with my free hand.
I open the door and step out, sliding my left arm from under the snoring kid in the middle. It is unbelievable that what happened just now didn’t wake him. He let out a sound that resembled a pig as I slide my left arm from under his arm.
I roll my eyes and step onto the sidewalk. My sleeping legs wobble beneath me while my arms numb and sweaty swing freely beside me like noodles. A short time later, I lift my arms and stretch to the sky, shaking off the numbness from sitting in a car for the last two hours.
“This is Huntington Beach. Everybody, please follow me.” My mom calls after everyone are out of the car.
I walk behind everyone and glad to see my mom’s mood lightened. After we cross the street, She was once again chatting with her friends. By the time we hit the sand, excitement course through me again as I immediately take off running toward the water. I’ve been waiting for this moment all day, ever since mom said we were going to beach this afternoon.
When I finally reach the water, I let the cool breeze come over me as I marvel the beauty and endlessness of the ocean. I finally made it. I stretched my arms into the sky and whispered, I am here.
Image: shellycalcagno.wordpress.com
Do these people ever care about the price tags?
Do you know someone who buys things without looking or caring about the price tag? Continue reading “Do these people ever care about the price tags?”
Day #3: No work Government Shutdown Stinks!
It is the third day that my mom stayed home this week. Continue reading “Day #3: No work Government Shutdown Stinks!”
A Wild Wild January
It is finally February, the weather in January this year had been so wild. As I was watching the weather report last night on the news, I couldn’t help thinking that I actually experienced that. I mean last year was so warm and dry that we experienced drought in the summer. Last month alone, there were 20 something days of snow, 30 days of haze and fog, and 1 day of freezing rain. Not to mention the subzero temperatures that are rarely faced in Salt Lake City. Worst of all, I had to take 2 weather days off school, which I’d never had to do.
Still, as I saw the snow pack total on the news last night, I just couldn’t believe when the weatherman announced that the snowpack total is only 84% for the month of January. I was like, 84%, the snow piles are as tall as a person outside my home. Someone in my neighborhood even had enough snow to make a large cute snow dog.
This picture was taken early January, trust me, there is a whole lot more now. Even this week alone, we received about half of foot of snow. Well, it’s been snowing nonstop from Sunday to Wednesday, what do you expect. Yesterday was started to get better and hopefully it will continue this way. I am so tired from shoveling all this snow that I am ready for it to end and hope that there won’t be another freezing rain storm soon.
This winter had been a long one and I am looking forward for it to end. By the way, did anyone catch the news about Ground Hog Day on Saturday? How soon will Spring Be here?
This is Another Story 