Hanging those crystal cut glass balls out under the rose vine on the front porch may have been the best thing I've ever done for myself!  I really enjoy seeing where the refracted light lands.

If Maya Angelou had a central theme in her talk given yesterday it would have to be ... be a rainbow in some one's cloud ... one small kindly gesture, a nod or a good word, can make all the difference in one's day.  I laughed out loud when she said. "Girl, I love those shoes!"  Ms. Angelou and I have that in common ... I love those shoes pretty often myself.   She also shared a quote:

"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me." ~Terence  (mid to late 100sBC)

 in support of the fact that we are more similar then dis-similar.  I thought to share it with the Korean ladies today in class.  Each week they tell me something about their week or their life, whatever they choose to share.  If there is anything to smooth out in the sentence structure, we talk about that.  One lady was in a fender bender last week ... she said the officer assured her that she was not at fault in the least ... yeah, rear-ended while stopped behind turning traffic.  It was rather unsettling for her.  Another lady, a young, very beautiful Korean girl, told us that she and a friend went to eat at MacDonald's and when her order came out she opened the hamburger to find that someone had taken a big bite out of it.  I couldn't understand her ... not because her English wasn't perfectly clear, but because the facts of her story simply couldn't sink in to my brain.  The tale was so bizarre that I felt I must be misunderstanding her.  Once it was clear that I understood exactly what she was telling me the ladies all burst in to laughter ... at the incredulous look on my face.  Un-freakin' believable!  That someone would disrespect another person like that ... a customer at a place of business ... well ... it's just outside my frame of reference.  One of the ladies said she ordered and paid for a cup of coffee ... was keep waiting until she finally asked for her coffee and the people behind the counter began viciously teasing her about "no copy here ... copy shoppy next door ... ."  It is shameful.  And ... infuriating!  I am going to speak to the manager at that location tomorrow.  My class told me that he will say, "How do you know she didn't take the bite out of the sandwich herself ... were you there?"  He better not.  He better not say that.  Ronald won't be very pleased to hear that he's loosing customers because of some clown in the back.
I asked her how she handled the situation and she told me she asked him to replace it with one not already bitten  in to.

We had two new words today ... GRACIOUS and DISGRACEFUL.