Confession Tuesday

My lovely PO Box

Dear Reader,

We are attempting to have summer here, but it's been in the 60's and overcast.  Sometimes rain.  While this part of summer sucks (there is no better way to say this), I love where I live for other reasons.  Small town life.  Beach, water, mountains in all directions.  Heron.  Kingfisher.  Eagles.  And deer & bear.   But geez, I'd love a little sun.  

But it's Confession Tuesday, Confess-sun Tuesday! so I better share my sins.

To the confessional--

Yesterday I went to the post office.  When I went in, there was this woman I've never seen dressed in a large pink hoodie (over her head) and smelling of some sort of discount perfume/powder.  She had a cane to help her walk because of her weight.  She was quite bubbly and making jokes, almost flirting with R., one of my favorite postal workers.  She said she wanted to pick up all of her mail.  She took out ID.  She laughed and said something about her father also being named R.

I finished my mailing and went to check my PO box in the next room.  A ton of cool things for Crab Creek Review and a couple things for me.  But also a note that something larger couldn't fit into my PO Box.  So I went back into the mail post office area.

The woman, the bubbly, flirty woman was now completely in tears.  She was crying and I was trying to eavesdrop to figure what happened in those three or four minutes I was away.  I heard her say something about large women in America.  She apologized for crying.  R. was kind and told her not to worry and it was okay.  She said something about sadness.

She thanked R. in Spanish (though I don't believe she wasn't Spanish, R. is though).  He said (appropriately), "De nada, senorita." And then she added, "Bonita."  Which I thought was odd.  (For those of you who never took spanish 101, bonita means pretty or beautiful.  And maybe it was her name, but I tend not to think so.

Anyway, this is a LONG way of saying, I confess I so wanted to know the inside story, how in 3 minutes she could go from giggly, flirty, jokey, to crying terribly.

I ran scenes through my mind, did she receive a package from someone who has suddenly passed away?  A letter from someone breaking up with her?  A foreclosure notice?  Did she flirt with R. and he discouraged her advances since he's married now?

There was a part of me that was bummed I missed the scene.  Yes, I am that person.  The person with enough time that I hang around to see how things play out just because I am ridiculously curious about human interaction and these small moments in post offices, grocery stores or whatnot.

I love to watch people and listen to them.  I love to see who fights with who, who flirts with who, who holds the door open for who and who lets it close in another's face.

I confess I am planning on asking R. what happened the next time I go to the post office because inquiring minds want to know.  I kind of feel like a desperate housescribe here, but what on earth happened in those 3 minutes?!  Oh and when I find out, I'll tell you too.

~

I confess I splurged and bought an iPad because when I tried it in the store I went to iBooks and saw that I could download all the classics for free.  Free! Anything in the Gutenberg Library is available at NO cost!   All of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, and the list goes on and on.  If you know me, you know that books are my security blankets.  It's hard for me to leave the house without 2 or 3 tucked in my purse.

I had a visceral reaction when I realized the amount of free books available and how many I could carry easily.  It was as if my English major heart grew three sizes that day.

I love my iPad and have downloaded one paid for book-- Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (it was $12).  But the rest of the books on my shelf are free.

There's also an app called StoryTracker that I'm exploring to track my poetry submissions (the few I have).  I know, after my post about my index card system.  No worries, the index cards are still around.  I'm just seeing if this will work (so far though, it's pretty wonderful).

~

I confess I'm still in my winter body (which is about 5-10 pounds heavier than my summer body).  And hopefully, I'll be downsizing soon or I will not have any clothes wear as they are about a size smaller than what I'm wearing now.  (Note:  I don't diet -um, I love dessert, I just naturally gain 5-10 pounds each winter and then lose it in the spring-summer when the weather warms up...of course this year with the cold weather, I just haven't lost it yet.  Oh well, I'll make for a curvier summer poet, which is fine with me, there are a couple pairs of capris that stretch...)

~

I confess I see blue skies out my window, so this would be a good time to end this post.  I'm thinking beach day!


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