Random Thoughts

My friend Shannon is the queen of "random thoughts" and this post is inspired by her.

Yesterday, I took the day off of work thanks to some overtime comp hours. Despite it being a gorgeous day, I went to the dentist since I had been putting it off since we got here (mainly due to the cost). As the hygienist cleaned my teeth and poked me with all her pointy metal instruments of torture, I watched the TV on the ceiling.

The distraction was great for ignoring all the pain. I thought I could totally be a spy and withstand torture if only a TV were in the room! The video that was playing was all about the creatures that live in the oceans. There was no sound, but it didn't matter. They showed dolphins! And I thought..."how awesome would it be to be a dolphin?!?" It looks like they play all day by jumping out of the water, twirling around a few times and diving back in.

And as the show went on, they showed many different types of fish, shark, and other squishy floaty things, I thought "how boring would this show be if there were only one type of fish in the sea? And how many people in this world love watching these shows, but look down on or make fun of people who look different from them? How boring would this world be if we all looked the same?"

After the dentist, I did some shopping and some eating at my favorite sushi place (where some chic totally allowed her germ-filled child touch three pieces of sushi - and she only bought two of them! What the fuck?!? Of course I alerted the employees of the shop. Loudly!)

I grabbed a bus to go home and ended up with a very friendly bus driver. I love that! Every time someone got off the bus and said "thanks driver!" (as they frequently do here), he said (sometimes shouting) "you're welcome!" even if he was busy taking fares from new passengers. When we reached my stop, and I departed from the bus, I too thanked the driver. And he responded with a genuine "you're welcome". And it made my day just a little brighter. I like it when the bus driver truly hears the appreciation from passengers for driving our asses around all day for only a $1 or so.

Later that evening, we met up with some friends for drinks, and other friends for dinner. As we sat at the table with our friends at a fabulous little Maori restaurant, and the entertainer came around with his guitar and asked us where we from (as he did with all the tables) I was genuinely shocked to realize we were all Americans. Until that moment, I was just with a group of friends in a cozy NZ restaurant catching up on the week's events and sharing stories of days gone by. The moment passed, and soon we were all once again just friends enjoying a meal together and chatting away the evening.