I'm stitched up, outta my mind.

It was warm and not raining enough this weekend that I helped my dad outside at his house to funkify the mailbox. It was just your average blah kind of mailbox, a wooden post, with a black box and a red flag, and a tattered spring wind flag thingamajig. Now it's much more fitting to his 'endearingly eccentric' persona he's going for. It's bright yellow with a white post, new letters, a freshly painted red flag, and his bright hawaiian shirt wind flag thingamajig. I love it. It's cheery and makes me giggle now when I go to his house. I definitely think it's endearingly eccentric. It totally fits him. With the exception of another mailbox on his street that just went full-on big wooden lighthouse, it's probably the cutest one in his 'hood. And now he can say 'my house is the one with the cheery yellow mailbox' as a directional to others. What more could you want?

I might get to do some field consultation work this week. Maybe. I'd really like to get out and do some before school starts up again next week. It's been frustrating because every day that my boss has been going out to do consulting, I've had to go to the doctor. First last week and then again today. I had a mole on my face that the doctors wanted taken off. I had to go to somebody who did plastic surgery work rather than a regular dermatologist. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it didn't hurt at all, and the only weird thing was the stitches, which I'm kind of never that comfortable with. They just always look so gross. I've had stitches once before, when I nearly cut an index finger off with a can opener in college. That was way worse than this and when I showed the doc that scar he said that will probably be the kind of scar I'll have on my face now. It's very small and probably won't even be noticeable unless you knew me before today and knew I had a mole on my face. I was kind of attached (haha, double meaning there) to that mole and was a little sad to see it go. I thought it gave character to my face in its own little way and now I'm kind of just like everyone else with no real distinguishing feature on my face. Except for the next week while I sport old school mickey mouse band-aids across the right side of my face all Disney gangsta-like. I wanted some cooler band-aids that had things like 'Ninja Fight' and 'Jousting' and 'Shark Bite' written on them, but my town couldn't deliver. The best JC could do was 'collector's edition' Mickey Mouse bandages. Who collects band-aids?

You know that Lupe Fiasco song, "The Show Goes On"? I have an obsession with that song. Every time I hear it I start doing this kind of impulsive bouncing dance thing. I like the original tune of "Float On", but I don't have this sort of reaction to that song. Lupe's just got something. It's almost uncontrollable. Here's a linky link to it so you can get your uncontrollable bounce on as well: http://youtu.be/Rmp6zIr5y4U

The sweetest thing happened this evening when a little girl, probably about 7 or so, rang my doorbell and held out one of those lemonade juice containers that's actually shaped like a lemon? Do you remember those? I hadn't seen one in ages. But anyway, she had a couple of dollars stuffed in it and was collecting money door to door to send to Joplin. It was really cute and touching. I had already donated the money that I was able to give. I donated to the animal rescue down there who I've been following because they've got a lot of happy reunion stories in the aftermath of the storm. They put up pictures and stories of reunions between families and the lost pets. It's really heart-warming, which is what I need hear about when these things happen. Only seeing the terrifying pictures or hearing the terrible stories and hearing about all the deaths is a problem for me. I totally understand the need to get the word out about disasters and the problem I have is that I can't turn away from it. If I could be made aware of what's happened and then just turn off the tv or not web surf to that news site to read about it, I'd be better off. But I can't. I am not a good candidate for helping out with those types of disasters because I have major nightmares about that stuff. Even just watching those pictures on the news all last week, I kept having nightmares about it. I'm kind of easily disturbed or something, I don't know. But, the animal shelter stories have helped because I'm able to read the happy endings, so to speak. Or maybe just the happy middles. But, it's nice. And it's not the terror stories. Although, one woman did have a boa constrictor and that was kind of scary. I admire the volunteer who plucked that thing out of the rubble and rescued it for its owner to come and reunite with. I would probably have shrieked and attempted to kill any snake that I found. Anyway, the little girl in my neighborhood was really sweet and what a nice thing for her to be doing. Her dad was with her and I thought this was some pretty nice parenting going on around here.