random observations from yesterday.

Yesterday I met an EKG technician named Confidence. He was from somewhere in Africa. He came into the room very carefully, and so I didn't have a lot of confidence in him at first but when he began doing his job, he did it rapidly and with great oodles of confidence. I really like it when people fit their names.

One year, I worked with a boy named YourMajesty. He'd been given that name because his parents wanted him to get beaten up in middle school (I'm being facetious; they named him that because they clearly felt the current Queen of England was the wrong choice). Magic (his alternate identity since exactly 99.9% of teachers refused to call him "YourMajesty") was very sweet, deeply dependable, and did not have one single royal entitlement about him. And that's nice. Because that name choice could have gone a couple of different ways. Which is why I'm glad he was like Edgar the Peaceful, King of England, and not King Henry the VIII, that crazy "off with her head!" King of England.

(YourMajesty was Jamaican, which is not even close to England and so I really have no idea why I'm using England as a reference at all.) (I hope YourMajesty-Magic doesn't get beaten up in middle school for having the nickname Magic. I hope he learns to do some really cool magic tricks that will wow all the budding gangstas in the school so much they leave him the hell alone, or that he'll change his name again. Maybe leaving out the vowels and making it Mgc, something mysterious. He was a sweet, smart boy. Sweet, smart boys should become president of the United States, not get jumped all the time by hormonal punks.)

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After meeting Confidence, I got on an elevator with an elegant couple in their late 60's-mid 70's. They'd been holding hands and talking quietly while waiting for the elevator, and they were extremely debonair: the man was wearing black khakis and a well-pressed light blue polo shirt, he had slicked back white hair, and I almost asked him what cologne he was wearing so I could get some for me, it was THAT good. The lady sounded just like Paula Deen, and she had one of Paula Deen's cute, silvery hairdos. She was wearing a black pencil skirt and a crisp white button down. She didn't have any gaudy jewelry on (for some reason, older ladies in my area dig big ass necklaces and earrings, the bigger the better). She just had on her wedding ring and a simple silver watch.

And then I noticed she was wearing sparkly black flip flops, which I think I've seen at Target. That was a happy surprise. And I immediately decided that's how I'll dress when in my late 60's: understated, but with a plucky punch at the end.

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Later, I was driving home with M and I saw Santa Claus walking down the street. M was in the back singing to Bob Marley's "Don't Worry" (she sings babble until she gets to the part where he goes "Don't worry...'bout a ting...'cause every little ting....gonna be all right" and then pipes up at the end with her backup: ".....be all right!"). And I saw him: Santa's hair was all crazy, and his beard was in bad need of a trim. He was wearing red pyjama pants, and a white t-shirt with stained armpits. He was bent over and really laboring to make it up the hill. 

I really wanted to pull over and offer Santa a ride; he's clearly being overworked, even while on vacation. But I think Santa may have been holding a bottle of liquor in the small brown bag he was carrying, and I didn't want to ruin everything for M (or me). 

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