Growing Pains

Friday morning at work, Billie Holiday in the background, window open, birds chirping and not a person in sight...moments to appreciate. I love Fridays!

Haley has decided to work tonight instead of participating in the local festivities. This not only is her 14Th birthday but also marks the year that she has made the transition from child to teenager, like all change, comes sacrifices.

Last weekend Haley made business cards and flyer's advertising that she is a red cross certified babysitter, a week later and she has 3 jobs lined up, including tonight (the night of Halloween and her Birthday). Work equals an income and with the income is freedom from begging mom and dad for money, this is a good thing.

As of recently we decided to have Haley pay for her own violin lessons. Historically, Haley had the tendency to forget about her violin commitments, as long as she was practicing , we would pay for the lessons. With the breach in her agreement, she is now responsible for the payment of her lessons.

Yesterday after school Haley worked for 3 hrs babysitting 2 children. What she earned in 3 hrs. still did not cover the cost of an hour of violin lesson (I love reality moments). Haley has quickly realized that her free time was also the time that parents needed babysitters, this brought to light how inconvenient it was for her to work (sacrifices).

Thursday evenings are when the violin teacher comes and the hour was approaching. Haley sat on her bed with phone in one hand and money in other, obviously she was struggling to make a choice, was she going to cancel her lesson or was she going to pay? Hunched over with tears in her eyes she looked at me, "mom, what should I do?"(this is code for, mom...are you sure you wont pay for my lesson?) "Haley, this is your money and you have to be the one who decides how to spend it, you need to ask yourself, "is the violin something that you want to continue?" With pain in her body language, she decided to pay for the next 2 weeks of lessons.

Later that evening...

"Mom, I think I made the right choice, once my teacher found out that I am paying for my own lessons, she gave me a discount and I am totally going to practice!" (I'm thinking to myself, "all this time I have been paying full price and now a discount?" )

I forgot to mention...

For those of you that have been to Korea, its not surprising that I was in a car accident. For me, its more shocking that I have been here for over a year and this is my first accident. Id go into details but I'm not quite sure what happened, let me try...

We were the first car in the left hand turn lane and the man behind us thought that he might leap frog in front of us by going around, to our left, in the oncoming traffic lane. Usually this stunt works and it puts the tricky driver in front- in the sidewalk (this of course is ok in Korea). The problem was, we were turning left at the time he decided to leap frog- we were t-boned- on the drivers side. By this time I'm not shaken, just annoyed and anxious about my soon to be cultural experience with car accidents.
The driver of the car was an older man and nearly deaf, or so I assumed since his wife was giving him an animated earful.
All respective parties were notified (except the human trafficking officials) Military Police (who are KATUSA), Korean Police, Hannah Obi "One" Kinobi, (Ill go into that later), both drivers, Chris, and a slightly unstable Korean girl in hot-pants and a very revealing tank top (I'm not sure if she had secret desires to use her conversational skills or it was Chris in uniform). Now that we had a small crowd around us, Operation Security was in full swing! Once the Korean police found out that I wasn't the driver and only the passenger, I was no longer needed... free to go, no statement, nothing!
Feeling obliged to stay with my driver and make sure that everything was going to be OK, I was totally over-reacting....I was just the passenger there was no need for me to hang around or make a statement. I was shuffled off by Hannah "The One".
The minute Hannah appeared on the scene, she was knuckle deep in translation...what happened, how it happened and what was going to happen. I was free to go, "The One", was going to take care of everything and she didn't even need to ask me what had happened (this is why I call her "The One").
LATER THAT DAY...
My driver called me later to give me the status; the other couple felt that the "One" wasn't translating the conversation accurately and thus assumed the fault was on my driver. I say my driver because I wasn't really a participant at the accident. I'm sure there will be a photo with my body and "The Ones" face airbrushed in.
I'm not sure how it all ended, maybe a drive to the ATM and a cash settlement, or an ongoing he-did it, she-did it argument, at least until the exchange rate improves. Who knows? I have been told that no matter what, the Americans are held 10% at fault reason being, if we were never in their country, it never would have happened.
THE NEXT DAY...
I get a call from my driver...
After the incident she decided to go into the after hours emergency care clinic, apparently she had been suffering from a pain in her back and neck. She had taken the day off to rest, she just couldn't think straight with all the pain medication, it made her loopy and tired. This is where I say..."Where the heck am I when all this is happening? I was in the same car as this woman but I wasn't having half the experience as she was, I had nearly forgotten about the entire event and here she was in bed resting while I was at work!" All I could think was, "I know Obi One Kenobi had also taken the day off to rest from the traumatic experience."

This all reminds me of when Chris's Aunt and Dad came to visit and our experience on a dirt road, a very narrow dirt road with water on both sides, I get an anxiety attack just thinking about it (again, a blog entry worthy of its own).

"Maybe we should send out the FRG"-Army Wives...

Just one of those days...

I have one of those jobs that had one of those days. The stone wall has fallen, my head jerks, eyes squint, the air is musky and stale, and my head is throbbing. I cant ride fast enough ....


...he says, "you look mean and angry", I didn't know how "exhausted looked". With a halfway smiled and a look of surprise, I tried to care. I checked out hours ago, buried myself in papers hoping the friendly greeting was all I would have to submit to this tango....

...he tells me that he sent his friend a link of a conversation we had the day before...I still don't care.... but then he mentions an author ...

Just as if someone had stepped on a dried piece wood, "CRACK", startled, I'm back! Edward Abbey! Desert Solitaire! Brutal Honesty! Quickly I wiki Edward, read aloud and a peaceful wave rushes over me, subconsciously I smile.

...he says, "look, your smiling!"

Note to self...get an Edward Abbey book on the shelf...it really is the simple things in life...