change the world, twenty minutes at a time

I voted.

It only took 20 minutes from the time I left home until I left the polling place.

When we arrived, my husband got the last open booth, so I got to sit at a big conference table in a soft, cushy chair to fill out my ballot.

There are three really, REALLY negative people mingling on the outskirts of my life. I have written about all three of them on 43T in the past: my whiny neighbor and the two sisters, who since childhood have tried to outdo each other as to which one of them is worse off.

All three of them are riddled with one diagnosis after another. If it weren’t so appalling, it would be almost amusing.

Well, this time it’s not funny. The younger of the sisters has to be tested for some malfunction or deficiency and even if the test comes back negative, it’s still bad. It will mean taking medication for the rest of her life and not being able to control her weight at all. She’s 44 and has thus far prided herself on wearing revealing clothing and passing for younger than she is. Needless to say, she’s freaking out.

She called me because, as she said on the phone, I’m the most positive influence in her life. I talked to her for about an hour, but how do I give someone a crash course in positivity??? I’ve known her for 36 years—if she can recognize it in me and it hasn’t rubbed off on her in all this time, how do I help her now?

I told her to stop reading about all the bad stuff that COULD happen. It was an effort to get her focus away from the worst-case scenarios, but she argued with me that she wants to be informed. I told her that she needs to find positive things in her life to concentrate on and she fired back how terrible her kids are for not helping her more when she’s so sick (she was out in the back yard grilling pork chops at the time).

Oh brother.

Well, at least I can pray for her.

Anyone got any other ideas?

I don’t know if everyone has DEX, but it’s our phone book and most everyone I know calls me that because they can ask me pretty much any question and they know I will find the answer for them.

My niece calls me whenever she’s lost and I direct her in how to get where she’s trying go—even if I have to mapquest her because she calls me from other states!

Of course all my family and close friends do it too, so I am used to being “DEX” and have become quite comfortable with the nickname.

Tonight, my daughter’s best friend called me. She is starting college in a few weeks and will be moving in with my daughter, who has already been there for a year.

She has to drive up to take her placement exams tomorrow and called to ask me about books, tuition costs, directions to the school (which is a 3 hour drive), the testing procedure, which building to go to, and what to take with her.

Wow. I looked up her books online so she won’t have to pay bookstore prices and got her all the info she needed. I also paid her housing deposit a couple weeks ago so she and my daughter would have a place to live.

She says I rock. =D

I’m teaching a four year old to write her name. Her mom is actually paying me to work with the older brother, but every time I go over there, I give the little one about 20 minutes for free.

I don’t know the source, but I thought this was fitting:

“Always be kinder than necessary. Everyone you meet is fighting some sort of battle.”

Some turnabout finally came my way this morning.

I went outside to leave for work and closed the locked door behind me, then realized that my car keys were sitting in a little basket on the couch. Crap.

First I called my husband, to see if maybe he was working nearby, but he wasn’t. Next, I called my friend down the street who I do stuff for constantly. I could see the van in her driveway, but she didn’t answer her phone. Next, I walked across the street to another friend’s house, but she had already left for the day.

I was thinking about calling my very dear friend, but she lives like four times farther away from my school than I do and it just seemed like a lot. I know she would have come to my aid if I had called her, but then someone else showed up.

The neighbor who shares his grapefruit with us came outside to weed his lawn, just as I was passing his yard on the way back across the street. I asked him if he was busy for the next 10 minutes and could he drive me to work.

He said he’d be happy to. He also said I was giving him the chance to do his good deed for the day!

I think this last part is very important. Those of us who have this goal obviously enjoy easing the burdens of those around us, but we need to remember to allow others to help us, too.

Yesterday I went in to substitute teach for an interventionist who was having an outpatient “procedure” done. He was to rest at home today and return to school tomorrow.

Instead, he ended up having open-heart surgery and will be in the hospital for at least a week. I will be subbing for him until sometime in May.

Meanwhile, five small groups of little kids wanted to know where the heck he was, so before they even got there this morning, I made a big “Get Well” poster and when each group came in, I told them that I would be working with them for the next few weeks, and why.

Then I traced each of their hands onto the poster and had them write their own names and color their handprints. One little girl drew her name backwards. Then I brought the poster home and painted the lettering so whoever goes to the hospital from school can take it along.

There are 25 children affected by this teacher’s absence and I know it made a big difference to each one of them to be able to send their well-wishes to him. It helped them through a scary experience, too. Kids are really sensitive when it comes to the well-being of those who are in charge of them.

If you have never fed a stingray and felt the sucking power of this gentle creature, your world is not complete and stands in need of a change.

Just kidding, but it is a really cool experience which I highly recommend!

Today at the Zoo, I gave a little girl this experience and I know it changed her world.

Two keepers were in the water tossing smelt to the stingrays. In the past, if there’s only a few people around, they have let the zoo patrons feed them, but it’s Spring Break and there was a bit of a crowd.

Anyway, a few of the smelt halves made their way over to my daughter and me and we snagged them out of the water so we could feed the rays, too.

A little girl around 10 came up on the other side of me and for a few moments, the three of us were the only ones on that side of the pool. I broke a fish in half (yeah, gross, whatever) and gave her both halves, then showed her how to hold it so the bat ray could swim over her hand to pick it up.

It took several tries and finally I lured one over with my own piece of fish and led it to her hand. The sound she made when that cute little animal engulfed her hand in suction was very near the sweetness of hearing a baby’s first cry.

Well, not my OWN baby’s, but you get the idea.

We had a fun social activity for the women at church tonight. There’s a girl who needed a ride and called me. Yes, that is the service I performed and yes, it was super easy, but there was a little more to it than that.

She lives more than twice as far from the church building as I do, so driving over to get her and taking her back home was what took the 20 minutes.

The cool part was I had not really decided to go to this function at all when she called and wanted a ride. I just said “sure” and got ready to go.

It was really fun and I was glad I went, but the best part is that she is new here and newly married. She had not met many people yet and without a ride, she wouldn’t have gotten to go at all. It was the perfect opportunity for her to feel included and make some new friends.

That sounds like a fairly world-changing event, doesn’t it?

I went to the library yesterday to get a book (Well, duh. That’s not what the story’s about. Read on). I looked it up online before I left home to make sure I wasn’t wasting my trip, since the library is five miles away through the busiest part of town.

It wasn’t there. The librarian had to put a search on it, but meanwhile, I found a few other books and audiobooks to check out.

Our library has automated checkout. It’s been there for a while, but yesterday, there was no one working the desk, so the little old man (who was dressed like a farmer) had no humans to check out his choices to him.

He watched me for a minute, then strode right up to the next computer and showed it the book.

Of course I went and helped him. What did you think I would do?

I instructed him to get his library card out first, which he did, but it was practically glued to his driver’s license, which he then tried to scan under the little red line. Once he got the right card under there, the machine finally beeped at him.

I showed him each step and had him do it himself, even down to where to pull his receipt out of the little machine next to the computer.

He went home feeling like he learned something valuable, and I went home feeling like my trip to the library was not futile after all. :)