Angels in disguise

I'm sitting in Starbucks, at the community table. A lady walks in and sits next to the man across from me. Everything is okay for a while but things soon start to get interesting.

The lady goes to the counter and comes back with a Venti hot water, a Venti cup of ice, and another empty, Venti-size, paper cup. She proceeds to reach into a rather large, canvas bag and pull out a bottle of milk.

First, she adds a couple of tea bags (also from her bag) into the hot water. She then opens the milk and pours it into the empty, paper cup. Once her tea has steeped for a few minutes, she pours that into the cup with the milk. After mixing them with a spoon (also pulled from her bag of holding), she pours the mixture over the ice.

Now that her hot tea is prepared, she pulls an array of containers from the, seemingly, bottomless bag and starts spreading them all over the table. These containers are filled with various items...tomatoes, onions (very strong ones, at that), mayonnaise, bacon bits, and a few other things I'm not quite sure of.

She begins by placing the onions and tomatoes on a napkin and chopping them up with a plastic knife. The onions are so strong, my eyes are watering. Once everything is chopped just right, she throws it all into the empty Venti cup (the one she used to mix her milk and tea). Now, she reaches back into the bag and pulls out a rather large bottle of yellow mustard. She squirts it into the cup until the bottle starts making a sound that, at first, I thought was coming from her (yes...THAT sound). She puts the lid on the cup and shakes it vigorously.

By now, the gentleman across from me is packing up his things and rolling his eyes at me as he tells me to have a nice day.
The lady slurps down her lunch, getting some strange looks from everyone in the coffee shop. When she's finished, she throws everything except the iced tea back into her large bag, pulls out a bottle of Power Aid and a laptop, and settles into her chair.

She is now watching something that has her laughing out loud while, occasionally, looking up to watch the others in the room.
I catch her eye and she smiles. What normally would irritate me, has brought tears to my eyes.

This woman reminds me of, well, me not so long ago. I don't know her story but she's made a huge impression on me. She's an angel. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I'm the only one in the shop who sees her that way.

Starting Over

It's called 'Starting Over'. Something I've done a lot of over and over again through out my entire life.

It's been a long time since I've added anything to this blog. Almost five years, to be exact. Guess it's time to get up, dust off my ass, and start writing again.

So, where do I start? So many things have happened over the past five years. Too many things to list at this moment but I'm sure they will all come up in future posts.

Right now, I want to hit on something that has been on my mind a lot lately...

JOB HUNTING

I've been on that wild ride for almost a year now and it's not fun. 

I miss the old days when you actually walked inside a business, filled out an application, and met someone face-to-face. I've been job hunting for almost a year now and I feel like I'm not closer to finding something as I was 10 months ago. I'm starting to think it's impossible to find something after having been unemployed for so long. No one wants an older woman who has spent most of her corporate years doing temp work. Add the years of being a caregiver and that makes it even harder. Skipping the face-to-face aspect is unfair to those of use who are hard workers with a good personality and a professional attitude. So, I drudge on. Keeping my fingers crossed.