Today, Dona and I were ambling to a seminar in our lunch break behind another girl from work who was on a mission to catch up to her friends. She kept powerwalking ahead of us with her little legs pumping, but somehow no matter how fast she went and how slow we chugged, she kept getting caught at the lights, and somehow without even trying we’d come face to face with the back of her head and be like “Omg we caught up!!”, and then we’d laugh our heads off and the green man would flash, and off she’d go again, fast as a filly, and we’d mosey on like snails sweating in the humidity– and again, the lights would turn red and we’d sidle up behind her head, and again we’d laugh with silly jubilation.
On the way there, we watched a big truck reverse into a tight parking spot. One of those super skinny trees that grow out from the pavement got caught on the corner edge of the truck. The truck kept backing, the tree kept resisting, bending, and bending some more, until it finally gave way and rebounded wildly like the rubber band off a slingshot. We giggled because it looked funny, and then completely lost our marbles when a stern, 60-something year old Russian man growled to his friend with his thick, authoritative accent: “They’re so stupid, why would they build the tree there??” His friend nodded in agreement.
We clutched our sides and laughed like goons: it was the truck driver’s fault, not the tree planter’s!!
(PS. This is Dona exercising admirable restraint in front of the beautiful cake Rayanne (her little sister) made for Hamdi (her little brother) last week for his birthday that was ages ago, in October).
