Parking, and Re-creation.

his name is Mark.

youngish guy, i’d say mid twenties and kinda looked a little bit like Mark Brendanawicz. but i don’t think it was him.

[i mean it could have been him cos Mark has been out of the show for a season or two although i don’t think his name is actually ‘Mark’ in real life so he might have used that name. it’s not, Uncle Google says it’s ‘Paul Schneider’]

but he was the airport police “move along” guy who came over to me while i was park-and-waiting for my friend Beth at the airport in San Jose last nite and made me move along…

which i’m used to from Philly cos i used to do a fair number of airport runs there and the police/security on manning the drop-and-go strip there were generally a bunch of angry, moody, obnoxious unfriendly types [i once gave a guy my “ah, really?” face when he made me move despite there being no traffic and me being there making no difference and he stopped me and asked for the car papers and almost confiscated my car – chop!] and so very accustomed to that kind of treatment.

when i came around again he came over to my window and i asked him what the time was saying that we didn’t have a watch or a phone and asking if there was a place i could park and he said the best thing would be to just keep doing laps until my person arrived. but he was very friendly-like.

one lap later i pulled up and he came to me and asked if there was any luck and i asked if i had to go round again and he said no but if i could just pull forward and then for the next ten or twenty minutes he kept letting me pull forward a bit but basically stick around and wait for my people [Val had gone inside to find Beth and her sister when they arrived] and so he really did me a huge favour. when they finally did arrive, they came outside but by then i had moved forward and so Val thought i was doing another lap and took them inside again and there was nothing i could do so i called Mark over and asked him if he could grab then from just inside the door. he completely obliged.

and while i was waiting there i saw him assist two elderly women that were struggling and just generally be polite and courteous with everyone he came into contact with [even people in cars who he made move on]

so thank you Mark. [i am also learning to place huge emphasis on trying to know people’s names because otherwise he was just friendly airport guy and now he is Mark and he has a family and dreams and goals and pain and stuff and so it becomes that little bit more real] if we lived closer i would love to find you and take you out for coffee. in a few minutes you undid many minutes of frustration from previous Philly encounters and gave me hope.

and in the midst of all the people-getting-it-wrong noticing we do and mud flinging the power and beauty in taking a moment to celebrate a good deed or action.

any of you have a Mark this week?

big brother [part i]

we all know the much told story of the prodigal son, right? in fact, i even wrote a poem about it once, imagining the prodigal son had gone prodigal again [as one does] which you can take a look at here, but if you in fact don’t know the story, you can look it up in Luke 15.11-32.

and we all focus on the bad son and how we relate and the clever preachers tell us how it should be renamed ‘the good father’ or something like that [i wonder if anyone has ever juxtapositioned it with ‘The Godfather’ because the comparison/contrast seems like a natural go to] but in the last couple of weeks it is interesting to note how much i keep finding myself comparing myself to the older brother.

which is not a good thing. he was always the wimp and the whiner. it’s like, “dude, free party, go inside” and i think i used to get annoyed with people who would compare themselves to him when i was growing up, cos i just couldn’t see it. He is just a complete lamehead.

so it does concern me to keep finding myself comparing me to him, cos what would ten year younger brett think of me? [that guy has been popping up in all sorts of conversations and scenarios lately, although to be honest i think he would have got arrested or beaten up yesterday in the situation down the street with the police and the neighbors and the car crash, cos that guy sometimes could not hold his mouth…]

let’s remind ourselves:

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15.22-32

to be continued here…

protesting the protesters…

so i posted about the protest action we were involved in with regards to the outdoors sharing of food with homeless people on my ‘the simple weigh’ blog but i know a lot of people susbscribe to this one so thort i would stick the links here as well.

click here for part I dealing with what i was pertaining to.

click here for part II which deals with the picnic which was my beautiful wife Valerie’s greatly creative idea.

and then here if you want the part where everything went nutball shaped as we got inside for the meeting…

and here is a blog from a new friend of ours perspective – a man who drove over an hour to be part of the protest despite himself and personal fear and trepidation…

shtupidt people 101: part police…

so i read this article in the restaurant this morning while waiting for my buddy to arrive.

firstly it was set in miami

secondly the premise of it is completely hilarious slash disturbing as in this line: ‘burglars snorted remains of a man and two dogs in the mistaken belief that they had stolen illegal drugs’

thirdly, that’s not the best part

fourthly it goes on ‘once they realised their error the suspects discussed returning the remaining ashes, but threw them in a lake instead because they thought their fingerprints were on the containers’

and the clincher for me was this: ‘police divers were tring to recover the ashes’

like really? the way the article (Cape Times newspaper, 21 Jan for reference) is written – they were going to return the ashes then threw them (the ashes) into a lake and now police divers are trying to retrieve them. with what? underwater goggle microscopes and a pair of tweezers? in hindsight i guess what would make more sense is if the divers are swimming in the lake looking for the urn, but without that realisation the whole thing seems a lot more gary larsen or jack handey and qualifies for shtupidt people 101 – heeeeere’s your sign…