Okay.

This is for the wanderers-over.

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It's time I start thinking about where to go after this housesitting gig expires. R. and M. (who I'm housesitting for) return in just over two weeks. When they return they'll have had a seven week adventure across continents.

But despite the fact that I LOVE staying here and playing house with D. (it's pretty much my dream house) I'm starting to feel eager for my own little place to call home. I'm regularly browsing Petfinder, and checking Craigslist for good deals on furniture. I saw a listing that's SO PERFECT that when the realtor told me she couldn't show it to me today, it was an effort not to just beg to take it anyway.

I recently had something that seemed ideal fall through just because someone got there to check it out before me, so I'm hooooping soooo haaaaaard that this one doesn't fall through.

It fits in my budget, it's pet-friendly, reasonably warm and welcoming-looking, it's own unit, but with a shared yard (I like it that way), and a PERFECT LOCATION. I honestly didn't think I'd ever see anything in the community of Paia for anything less than $1500/month unless it was a shared situation.

Paia is such a great location for me. I'll save a shit-ton on gas every month, because it's closer to work, yet it retains a bit of the "upcountry" feel that I've gotten used to. It's a beach community and has lots of great cafes, shops, and nightspots. It's got a bit of a "hippie" feel to it, I guess, which I'm sure I'll get shit about at work. (For some reason they think of me as earthy vegetarian girl.) But whatever - a good organic grocery store and lots of parks and beaches is all right with me.

I have one friend who lives there, and I'll still be relatively close to D.'s family. (I think D. will probably split his time between wherever I live and with his dad.)

I shouldn't write about it before it's mine, but I can't help it, I'm so excited, and I reaaalllly hope it works out. The listing's right here.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

1. Must find an apartment.
2. Must furnish the apartment.
3. Must figure out how to make more money.
4. Must figure out why I haven't been accepted or rejected to grad school.
5. Must find a doggiefriend.
6. Must exercise more.
7. Must take more pride in my appearance.
8. Must not wind up old maid.

These are the last ten books I’ve read in the order from my favorite to least favorite:

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I've reached the point in any Lj hiatus where an update is just too daunting. Soooo....

Spanish-teaching ended. Some students made farewell signs and even gave me little gifts, it was sweet.

Housesitting at the moment with D. in a gorgeous house with a beautiful yard and garden. Two cats. We've been here about a month and have one more to go. Now I'm starting the hunt for an affordable one-bedroom or studio. Affordable is a pretty tall order on Maui.

The two cats are making me think dogs. I've been to the shelter twice, but I'm really not into any of the doggies here. Almost all are pit mixes and none look fun to pet. Will keep visiting again and again. (The shelter's right on my way to work.) But with some guilt I checked out Maui breeders and discovered there's someone breeding Cavalier King Charles spaniels...

The restaurant where I waitress and manage was voted Best New Restaurant on Maui, 2009, in the local paper. That combined with rave reviews on sites like Trip Advisor have been huge for business recently.

Started running again and it was like everything got unblocked. It was spiritual.

D. is always so calm, and I'm always buzzing. I think the atoms in our bodies must move at different speeds.

On weekends, I shift from life in a classroom to life in a restaurant, which is somehow more relaxing. As long as it's not too busy, it's just about people going out to enjoy a nice dinner, which is easier than dealing with a room full of teenagers who don't particularly want to be there.

D. and I snuck in some time for a movie yesterday before work. Saw District 9. It was good, I suppose, but disturbing and dark. There was a lot of violence, which was sometimes fairly graphic (heads exploding and stuff). When the movie let out, I saw a boy who must've been five or six. I thought I would never let a five or six year-old watch that kind of movie, and then I wondered if I was being too prudish. I remember being scared by Disney movies when I was his age, but these days it doesn't seem like kids are fazed by anything.

BHS found a permanent Spanish teacher who arrives sometime mid-September. Even though this has been a GREAT learning experience, I have to admit I'm relieved that there's an end in sight. I've been working seven days a week, sometimes double shifts up to 15 hours a day. I'm happy to be finally FINALLY making a little bit of scratch, but I don't know if I can handle months and months of this. I'm looking forward to new subbing assignments - English and social studies and shorter stints. I'm looking forward to trying out different age groups too.

So tired. Every day, so tired. I want to keep up with you, and I want to keep writing things here, but I just don't have much energy for it. I'm enjoying my stint as high school Spanish teacher, though, and I'm still learning so much every day.

I have an LJ friend who writes lots of movie reviews. I like them, because they're part review and sometimes part journal entry. Like if a movie makes him think of something from his life, he'll allow himself to write about it. Recently he did something kind of crazy and watched nine movies in a row. It sounded like torture, but also like something I'd like to try some day. Not now or any time soon, but someday when I'm sick or depressed or just down for it for some reason.

These days I'd like to have a movie marathon all about teacher-themed movies. Having spent enough time in a classroom (and especially now with a younger age group), Hollywood teacher movies annoy the crap out of me. Some charismatic and well-meaning rookie of a teacher faces a room full of hellbeasts who are on the verge of eating her for breakfasts when suddenly she says one clever thing (which resonates more with Hollywood movie-goers than it ever would with real teenagers) and then magically she's got them in the palm of her hand for the rest of the year. Just. Doesn't. Worklikethat.

The sixty hour work week is making it hard to keep up with my book per week regiment, but I made it with only a couple days overdue last week. It was Teacher Man and is Frank McCourt's witty autobiography about 30 years in NYC public schools. Even though I couldn't devour it as quickly as I would've liked to, I LOVED it for his candor in talking about his successes and failures over the years. I think a teacher's relationship with her class is like any other relationship. It takes constant care. You don't just make them laugh one day and then suddenly they're your best friend, giving you unconditional respect. Every day I'm learning the little things I can do, the reactions I can have to them, the activities I can organize, that makes the day go smoothest.

Today a student asked me what makes me angry. Then he said that I didn't seem like the type that ever got upset. I thought maybe he was being sarcastic. Had I given this class a lecture yet on doing homework or paying attention in class, on giving me respect? Had I preached to them on how they took for granted their publicly-funded education? Had I screamed and yelled? But it turns out he wasn't being sarcastic. Apparently I've kept my cool in that class so far. Well, that's a relief.

Working 56 hours a week, seven days. Not counting trips to Kinkos and after-hours planning and preparing. Will hopefully be able to catch my breath for a proper catch-up soon. D.'s awesome and sweet and gives me massages and listens to me tell him about my day.

Richard Chamberlain came in to eat at the restaurant yesterday.

The end.

Back from the battle field. No, I shouldn't think of it like that, but it seriously has been a little bit about surviving minute by minute.

Today's lesson plan was the most intensely immersion style that I've used so far. I started things off with a little pep talk, "You're not going to understand everything I say today, and that's perfectly normal. Please don't get frustrated when you feel confused. Relax, do your best to guess at what I'm talking about, and trust your instincts. It will get easier."

In a way it was a treat of a teaching experience. Every kid - whether smart or slower, teacher's pet or class disruptor, eager and enthusiastic or bored - are all starting from scratch together. And the thing about language acquisition is that every student has a different aptitude for it, and their past academic record isn't necessarily an indication of how successful they'll be with foreign languages. In other words, a kid that consistently flunks English and math could have a beautiful ear for pronunciation. A teacher's encouragement could ignite an interest in him that hasn't been there for other subjects in a long time. On the other hand, a student who's used to constantly acing every class might find herself struggling with the foreign grammar rules and vocab.

ANYWAY, it was pretty cool watching things develop in each of my classes. After my initial "this'll be hard" pep talk I jumped right in speaking Spanish.

Now, my Spanish isn't very fluent, and my pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired. But at this beginner level, it actually probably made it easier for them - I was naturally slower and American-er. Yet many of them, as predicted, threw up their hands in frustration.

But this was where it got good. The ones with a higher tolerance for frustration kept working at it, making out the words and figuring out what I was getting at. As if almost by magic (from a teaching perspective) it was often the class clown guys who started figuring things out first, or at least had the confidence to shout out their best guesses first.

"Que dia es hoy?"

"Day?"...."What day?" "Wednesday!" "Miercoles!"

Their classmates, often "smarter" than them, would look at them in shock for figuring it out, wondering what was wrong with them for not getting it first. On the first few days when things like this happened, classmates would yell in frustration, "How do you know this?" But now there's none of that. They've seen this before, and without them necessarily realizing it, I'm little by little introducing more. And that made everyone realize it was possible. That was how it started.

Then as the class progressed I watched as each of them got into this style of learning. I didn't just say, "Rubio, Blonde." But I pointed at the blondes in class (all two of them), and said "rubio." Then everyone else with black hair. "Moreno." They didn't understand what I was saying at first. But little by little they'd get it. With longer sentences I'd start fast and then break it down slower, repeating it until they got a few words, and from those few words they could work out the rest. When they saw that eventually they would get there, their tolerance for getting-less-than-100% got a lot higher. I could see that spark of excitement as they'd figure something out, and it became like a game to get there first. I was able to bring some of the less serious ones over to the language-learning-can-actually-be-fun side. So as not to lose too many of them, they answered these kinds of listening comp. questions silently in a notebook, and then checked the questions I was reading in their book, putting together the auditory and the visual.

Overall, it was a success, although their interest in Spanish waned after forty-five minutes or so, and I had a hard time keeping them on task when I turned them loose (describing a person that their partner had to draw).

But it was mostly a good day. A couple kids asked to eat their lunch in my classroom while I was there, which I take to be a not-bad sign at least. Two more stayed after class to tell me things about themselves - one has been to the Philippines, one thinks we should have a "fiesta" sometime in class like maybe before Christmas. Awww, my heart bursts. For all the attitude they have and the jokes they crack I am really reminded of how close they still are to their childhoods when they come up to talk one-on-one. They're shy and insecure still. They have nervous habits like playing with their hair and even stuttering and struggling to find their words. It can be pretty cute, actually. Really, when it comes down to it, I think I really LIKE these people, though they can really get to me when they've got the support of the whole class behind them and they're challenging me.

The first class of the day, again, was hard. I feel like I generally fail my first class and because of my failures with them figure out subtle differences to try with the next two classes which end up making all the difference. I haven't won them over yet as much as I've won over the other two.

Another thing I'm realizing about this:

I minored in French, and over the years I've taken many, many language courses in the various countries I've lived in. Until now - because of my job teaching ESL and because of all the beginner-level language learning experiences I've had - I always thought that my French teachers in high school kind of let us down. They didn't really force us to speak the target language as much as they could have. They didn't instruct in French until my FOURTH YEAR, which I think is pretty pathetic. I felt like all we ever did was get handed a list of words and have a time limit to memorize them. And then learn some simple grammar. We did in two or three years what my ESL learners do in a few months.

But now that I'm on the other end of things, I can kind of understand how that happens. I still think they can do better (and to be fair, one of my high school French teachers didn't fit the mold and always went above and beyond). But they do it, because it's what the students want. They don't want to be taught in Spanish. They don't want to have to speak Spanish. I think, honestly, what most of them think they want (if anything) is to just sit around and maybe watch some subtitled movies. But getting them over the initial "this is weird, the teacher's making weird sounds, and she's making us make weird sounds too" is SOOO KEEEYYYY. And for whatever reason, I think a lot of weathered language teachers just sit back and get complacent about it. (Maybe your high school experiences were different, but I find many people claim to have taken three or four years of a language in high school, yet don't speak or understand much at all.)

For this reason, I don't feel too terribly guilty for not being a native or even fluent Spanish speaker. I suspect there are many language teachers in American high schools who may have th ability to speak the target language perfectly, yet don't. Though, to be honest, I'm far from the ideal role model for these kids, and am just doing the best I can.

And one more struggle is this:

Just like every language class I've ever taught, they're all getting this at vastly different speeds. Yet sometimes beginner levels can actually be the biggest challenge in this regard, because some are inevitably naturally good language learners (they just don't know yet because they've never tried) while some are just slllloooooooowwwwwwwww. So it's really hard knowing when to push forward and when to hang out on a particular thing. Naturally if I hang out too long somewhere, the quick ones start to get reeaally booorred. But if I move it along too fast, the slow ones get really frustrated.

There are still a couple kids in each class who just absolutely can't be arsed AT ALL and don't even open a book or write anything in their notebooks. The first couple days I tried some things: hounding, pulling them aside, asking questions. But now I just think, well, I've wasted enough of everybody else's time trying to get them on board. Yes, it's not college, and I probably do have a bit more of a personal responsibility to them, but still, I'm not a babysitter. So I just leave them behind. I'll continue having private conversations after class, but I'm no longer going to waste class time on that.

So for the most part as long as people are genuinely trying and are still not getting it, I'll slow down and wait for them to catch up. Even though we end up losing some of the bright ones that way. :(

I almost always scroll down when people start getting into their dreams in LJ entries. This is about my dream from last night. It was a funny one in which I woke up thinking it was the most brilliant thing that had ever happened inside any person's head in all of human history. I scrambled for a pen and wrote it down messily in the dark. This morning I woke to the notes:

I'm a superhero in an airplane. They shoot me and I die, but I have lots of lives.

Every morning on my way to work, I pass a Hawaiian guy going on a morning job down Hana Highway. He carries with him a white cross a bit over a foot tall. Proselytizing usually makes me cringe. I think religious discussions of any kind should always be between two consenting adults. But I make an exception in this case. There's something really simple and genuine, and not annoyingly in-your-face about the solemn way he goes about his business, taking Jesus with him on his run.

I don't know why I get so fascinated with psychotic minds, but I do. I have a twisted fascination with the Scott Petersons and Casey Anthonys of the world, and now the disturbed individual who opened fire at women at his local gym. Turns out he had some serious issues which he laid out in an online journal.

*

D.'s working at the park this week. He's camping at the crater. He's volunteering. It's not the ideal situation, but he's run out of emergency hire time (as there's a limit on how long he can be hired in that capacity) but he doesn't want to lose his connections there (in hopes of getting hired permanently). So he just has to volunteer. Kind of like airlines asking their staff to work without pay for a couple of weeks. Kind of a double-edged sword. Although he does get $50/day untaxed stipend which I pointed out is actually better than minimum wage. Tough times folks.

But he's so sweet. Whenever he's up at the park he goes over to some little cabin that has the only working telephone and waits for me to call promptly at 9pm. He warned me that he had a campsite farther away than the phone this time, so he might not always get to the phone. I told him not to worry - we both have early mornings, we don't need to talk every night. But he's been there faithfully every night, the sweetie, always saying he wants to hear my voice.

*

I flew through my book this week, The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. I liked it so much that I decided to write a review like I do with the movies I watch. I've read seven books in the past seven weeks and I'm going to rank them when I get to ten. So far The Pilot's Wife is at the top. It's not a perfect book, but it had me turning pages faster than I have in awhile. I'd like to read more of this author. I saw a little clip of her talking about her latest book on Youtube, and she seemed like a very cool and down-to-earth writer. I love hearing writers talk honestly about how they do their work. Anita Shreve didn't start writing novels until she was 43, and she was a teacher before that. Frank McCourt didn't start until he was 66 and he too was a teacher before that. Now I am reading Teacher Man which is about his 30 years teaching in New York City public schools. So far it is also a page turner (but it could just be me).

~m

Apples and oranges time! It’s difficult every time, but this round of ten was particularly challenging to rank. There’s a cult horror classic, a couple Academy Award winners (not that that always means anything), an originally-intended 30 minute PBS special that turned into a groundbreaking three hour documentary, a cheesy romantic comedy, even an HBO comedy special. How can they possibly be compared? Maybe it can’t be done fairly, but I did my best. So, without further ado, at number one:

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Back in Colombia when a little surge of inspiration jolted me out of stagnancy, I sat down and wrote a list of sentences to complete the phrase I'd like to be a person who...

I printed the list out and vowed to make changes (little by little) toward becoming that person.

The list got read once a month or so, but nothing much happened beyond sentences getting meticulously tweaked and new ideas getting added. (Many of which are thanks to some of YOU LJ-friends, most recently anoisblue and whyelaborate.)

About six weeks ago, feeling a renewed jolt to improve my stagnant situation, I vowed to start each and every day by reading the list. By this time the constant tweaking had made it ELEVEN PAGES long. And you know what? Despite the length, I pretty much stuck to my promise, and took ten minutes before starting each day to read the list. Or a better term might be manifesto which now came with the heading "TECHNIQUES FOR MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE."

Although I STILL haven't taken many of the specific steps toward becoming the person I want to be, I have reminded myself so many times of what that person looks like that I've practically have the eleven pages memorized. I'm not happy with where I am professionally, personally, health-wise, home-wise, creativity-wise, but I do believe I'm slowly laying the groundwork toward making positive changes in which I will look closer to the person I want to be. Starting with remembering who I want to be every day. Work is slowly changing. With that my home-life can change. Then the rest can follow.

Like I said, by now this is a loooong list, but because it inspires me every day, maybe those of you in need of some ideas for inspiration might find some benefit. Some of you will roll your eyes and puke. And some of you have already rolled your eyes, puked, cleaned up, and scrolled on by now. But for the others:

( I'd like to be a person who... )

This weekend my extended family will meet for their 30th ANNUAL family reunion/golf tournament/BBQ/egg toss/softball game in Minnesota.

In my family it is an annual tradition every bit as festive and reliable as Christmas. It happened to start on the first Saturday in August in the year I was born, and has continued uninterrupted and comfortably attended every year since. My dad grew up with ten siblings, and so by this time there are many cousins and children of cousins and spouses of cousins and old neighbors and family friends, so that the gathering is usually pretty impressive.

For the (fifth?) year in a row, I'm missing it.

Little by little I'm taking the right steps toward becoming a self-sufficient adult capable of affording a trip home now and then, but I'm not there yet. At times like these I wonder how my life would've turned out if I had just gotten a job with 3M or Target like other good Minnesotans. I'd be short on the adventures I've had, but I'd have a good golf game, and I'd have more memories with Grandma.

This is the first week where my restaurant shifts have been cut from five to three. I have used the extra time to make connections at local schools, getting my name added to their priority substitutes lists. I have done much of this from Starbucks. (I always seem to get more computer/cell phone moving and shaking done from Sbux than from home.)

I started out the afternoon at a comfortable little corner in the back, just me and my computer. But soon I was joined by a single mom about my age with her five-week old sleeping infant. Ten minutes after they arrived they were joined by a girlfriend about her (our) age, and the two immediately jumped into a hardcore girly gab fest. I caught little bits and pieces of the usual in any girlfriend sesh:

"Whatever's meant to be will be...I could tell she didn't want to talk to me...And after that she stayed with him like one or two years longer...that's what she said at the ocean the other day...Such perfect skin he has! (friend about the baby)...Oh this is what I NEED! (friend while holding the baby)..."

I know I've been missing having a good girlfriend here on Maui. A couple days ago on my drive from work I had this visceral pang of missing A. in Vietnam or my college girls or just any good girl or two with whom to meet over a mojito and prattle on about guys or work or wanting babies or ANYTHING. It's a major difference between dudes and chicks. We really do need that outlet of sharing and supporting and listening. And in the absence of a good girl friend, we'll replace it with our means-well-but-just-doesn't-quite-get-it-the-same-way dudes.

I hate myself for it. I feel myself going there with sweet, sensitive, supportive D., to those places where really only girlfriends should be taken: my take on the season finale of the Bachelorette, how bitchy Julie was at the BBQ not so much because of what she said but because she didn't even bother to make eye contact and say hello when she arrived, how funny it is that my period's been so light recently, how hot those shoes are and I wonder where I can find those earrings...

WHAT THE HELL, MEGAN, GET A GIRLFRIEND!!!!!

So here I am, listening to the girly gab fest next to me with envy. I wish I had more friends like that. We could bitch about our jobs and I'd back her up on her misgivings about her dude (of course within reason in case she ends up marrying him).

Later a couple my age with a five-month old baby sit down across from me. They make a little small talk with the mother and girlfriend next to me. "It's good that he's big, more likely to sleep through the night." The dad closes the blinds as it's getting in the baby's eyes. What the hell? Another thing to quietly watch and want. A guy who's not afraid of families.

Just submitted my application for this.

Was a little surprised that I didn't have to pay an application fee as all the EFL grad programs I was looking into charged around $100, and even 12 years ago my undergrad application cost $30 or so.

I'm very confident I'll be accepted. I'm not confident about financial aid. Still not sure about my weird residency situation (I arrived in Hawaii one week too late to classify as an official resident, a bit of bad luck which could cost over $20,000 unless I postpone my plans a whole more year). I'll worry about that later.

I clipped a car in the parking lot the other day. Hit it with my rearview mirror while trying to readjust an awkward parking job. Didn't hear the scraping because of my iPod, so didn't stop immediately. Didn't look TERRIBLY bad, just a plastic smear about a foot long, but it will have to be buffed. I figured a few hundred bucks that I could pay out of pocket without involving the insurance company, but a co-worker told me he'd been in a similar situation which ended up costing $1200. SOOOO not what I need right now. My shifts have been cut from five a week to three.

Made several appointments with high school and middle school principals on Maui in the hope of getting on their priority substitute teacher list. School starts this week, thank God, so hopefully my finances and spirits will pick up.

So, yeah, this post is just stress-venting mostly, but little by little I'm chiseling away at my plans.

For the past three nights I've had not-quite-nightmares-but-disturbing-dreams about airplane or helicopter crashes. I've heard that phobias get progressively worse with age. I've always been slightly nervous about flying, but it's gradually gotten to the point where I avoid flying if possible. Maybe the dreams are due to the fact that I'm living on an island now, with no choice but to fly if I want to go anywhere else.

Still, I wouldn't say I have a phobia of flying. The only real phobia I have is of rats/mice/small rodents. I know this because if there is a rat/mouse/small rodent with any reasonable possibility of touching me in any way, my reaction is like having a panic attack.

Basically, if I was put in the horrifying situation that this chick was, I would have the exact same reaction:



I wondered if I would develop a similar phobia to centipedes, because those are the worst pests on Maui. One part spider, one part scorpion, one part snake. And they like to hide out in beds and pant legs. What could be more hellish than that?

But I was surprised to find that when I finally found my first one hanging out in the garage, I had a reaction similar to my reaction to spiders/snakes. I don't particularly LIKE them, but I don't fly into a totally irrational panic like with rats. Good to know. Guess I can handle that aspect of life on Maui. Will have to get used to D.'s love of cats and cats' love of catching mice to bring home.

Working as a waitress in a not-cheap restaurant on Maui, I bear witness to lots of different couples. Specifically, we get two major couple demographics - honeymooners and retired/semi-retired couples sometimes on their second or third marriage. (I know this because often someone I work with knows loosely who they are - Maui's a small place.)

Both groups seem to have money. The newlyweds are doctors or young professionals, recently out of school. The older couples, enjoying the fruits of their labor on an idyllic island.

But that seems to be where the similarities end. It's interesting observing the contrast.

The honeymooners are nearly always visiting from the mainland - young, sweet, smiley. I had a young couple the other week from Minnesota, and I could've sworn they were on their first date. He was suuuuper polite and attentive, and all, "You don't want to share the calamari? Okay, let's try something else then, sweetie." It was cute to watch. She was a pretty blonde corn-fed Minnesota-type with a bit of an accent and still wide-eyed and innocent in her mid-twenties. She was completely charming without realizing it, and I could see why her husband was so smitten.

The young couples are usually good tippers, usually eager to talk about the things they're doing on their vacation, and there's an easiness about them, they're relaxed.

The old couples are a different story. They either spend half or all of the year here, or visit at least once a year. About half of them seem to really enjoy each other - they talk back and forth like best friends, smile easily and naturally at me, order the dessert without a second thought. Some of them (not many, but some) are even cuddly and affectionate.

But some of them? Paaaaaaaaiiiiiiinful to watch. Like they HATE each other and they're forced to bare each other's intolerable company day in and day out. Once a woman in her fifties stormed out during a fight with her husband (who'd been drinking heavily all night and I almost didn't blame him). Another time, a woman threw a butter knife across the table at her husband while shrieking, "Stop it! We're in a RESTAURANT!" Sometimes you can cut the tension with a knife, and I must be a sadist or a voyeur or something, because I actually get a mild kick out of hijacking the heaviness around their table with a smiley offer of coffee or tea. I'm like an oblivious golden retriever, wagging my tail, even though I'm not, because really I know.

Some older couples are total odd couples, but they just work. The other night I waited on this HUGE jolly Hawaiian, and his tall, skinny, prim and proper Haole (white) wife. He looked like he's spent as much time at luaus as she has at the library, but somehow they were so free to be their opposite selves with each other that I couldn't help but be completely charmed.

Sometimes there are heartbreaking couples. Like an old, distinguished man who looked like he spends most of his time on golf courses, and his dribbling, slurring wife who'd had a stroke and could only eat sorbet. Or couples with twenty-year age differences who must've known the time would come when one would be winding down before the other was ready to, but probably didn't expect it to come so soon.

It's funny how a relationship takes on a life of its own, and can become more (or less) than the two individuals who are part of it. There's a couple in their early fifties who come in quite often, and they're wonderful and chatty, and excellent tippers, and always a pleasure to welcome in. Yesterday I waited on their newlywed son and his young bride. They were just as charming as his parents. He even left a twenty dollar tip on a seventy dollar bill. I'll be hoping they'll follow his parent's example, and wind up best friends in their fifties. (Except really it's his dad and stepmom. I guess it's pretty normal to take a few tries to get it right. God knows, I'm still working on it.)