Grocery shopping with Foreigners

I’m beginning to think that my foreign roommate is having a negative affect on my dreams. Last night I was driving home from a basketball game at Mora between Indiana and Notre Dame, with Lucas and a kid on my baseball team nicknamed “Glass.” I have no clue why they were in the car. Anyway I went the wrong way and ended up in the mountains of Brazil (does Brazil even have mountains?) Realizing we had to turn around, we began crawling down the path which had somehow shrunk to an edge with a severe drop-off. (Recall, I’m afraid of heights…)

Then, when Lucas stopped near an eagle’s nest with baby eagles in it, and I couldn’t get around him, I flew, (just like the car disappearing, now I was a bluebird?) and ended up getting eaten by a seagull. Terrifying, but also sad that it took me until this morning to realize that I had driven up the “mountain” as a human… and should have been able to just drive back down, worst-case scenario. By 10 AM, I was already feeling retarded for the day.

The feeling continued as I went on a FIELD TRIP with my journalism class... yes that's right, we're back in Kindergarten. We headed to a public radio station about 4 blocks from campus and crammed ourselves into a very small room for the "tour." After about 5 minutes, I was sweating. After 30 minutes I noticed a thermostat on the wall... 78 degrees, no lie. And the director of operations droned on and on as if nothing was wrong with the situation, and kids continued to ask meaningless questions “So what’s YOUR favorite broadcast from this station?” “Who picks the songs?” “Do the volunteers get paid?” Finally I’d had enough.

As the hippie standing behind me edged in front following his frustration in not having had a chance to have HIS question answered, I quickly slid to his old position and headed out the door. It wasn’t until I had reached the bottom of the stairs that I realized I had a follower. I offered a nod as if to say, “good choice,” and we went our separate ways.

I'm telling my dad I made a friend. That's close enough, right? He'll be proud.

It was about lunch time, so I feel that it's only fair to add a break for you as well, and offer today's Words of Wisdom: For the sake of your kitchen, bottles with pop-up tops are best to be shaken while closed. If you hypothetically didn't close the bottle while trying to mix hypothetical orange kool-aid in that type of bottle, you might have a good 5-minute cleanup period ahead of you.

I felt bad about hating on my roommate simply for forcing me to have a strange and horrible dream, so I took him grocery shopping following some random cleaning of the kitchen. Try shopping with foreigners, it's actually kind of fun. They act like it's some big treat to go to the store, since they have no car, and then spend time examining different foods and reading the backs of each item before carefully selecting their FIVE items. It took about 30 minutes for him to pick out five items, doing so with a big smile on his face. I also had a smile on mine, but for different reasons.

And for those who are going to ask whether I intend to bring him along with me the next time I go grocery shopping, the answer is yes. I may tire of the careful search eventually, but I really hate grocery shopping by myself. I'm always worried the weirdos in the store might start talking to me.

After a one-hour session on mental toughness and confidence building, we headed to practice to work on backing up bases on doubles. What that entails for a pitcher is heading to the mound, pretending to throw a pitch, and watching the pitching machine launch a ball about 300 feet over your head. Talk about confidence boosters. If I ever get hit as hard as this machine "hit" me today, I'll probably commit suicide, which all pitchers almost did in our fairly tough running regiment today. I guess it was just not a good day for pitchers.

After climbing out of the cellar earlier in the year, I managed to reclaim my spot as "worst foos ball player on the team", losing two of three to who is now the first runner up. I know after winning one I should have walked away, but having a table in the locker room is just too tempting.

Well there's your basic Tuesday I guess... oh, and the shower situation hasn't resolved itself yet for those who are clearly concerned.

Tonight's excerpt from "Life's Little Instruction Book:" Before buying a house or renting an apartment, check the water pressure by turning on the faucets and the shower and then flushing the toilet.

Enjoy.