I'm waiting to get kicked out
It's past five and I'm in the town to the north of us, at a coffee shop that closes at five.
Just checking in to say that you guys rock and I love your input. (Whoa, the South African girl who works here just told me that I can sit outside and still get the internet. Moving now.)
Cool, here I am, sitting outside hijacking the internet with permission (which makes it non-hijacking).
And... I just realized that my computer has the battery capacity of a brick, so I'm still going to be out of luck soon.
I'm wasting all my time posting about how I have no time, aren't I?
Oh, town to the north, why must all your shops close at five?
I went to Reggae Rising this weekend. It's sorta close. (It's also to the north. I'm coming out, and actually, I'm feeling a little crazy today, and I'm moving soon, so here's another hint. Earthdance will be to the south.)
Reggae was cool. Chinua and I, like, totally blend there, you know? And I was going to do a dreadlock version of the Sartorialist, but I forgot my camera. But, just so you know, there were plenty of locks there. Long locks, short locks, phatties and skinnies. Black people locks, white people locks, even some Asian locks.
We served some famous Shekina Cafe chai. We walked around and talked with people, and this is what I have to say about it:
If I meet one more girl who has babies that the daddy is neglecting, I'm going to freak out. I'm going to get really angry. All of you very nicely said that I'm nice, (and Lavonne, I cried when I read your comment) but I'm not feeling very nice towards these deadbeat dads. In the last week alone, two women have cried to me about the daddies that don't want to have anything to do with their kids. The girl I sat with on Saturday labored ALONE. She called her baby's dad, and he didn't show up, so she labored, her entire labor, alone, until she finally called an ambulance and ended up giving birth to her little baby in the ambulance. "I'm so sorry," I said, when I heard this. And her eyes filled with tears. "There are still places in my heart that are really hurt from that," she said.
I am not okay with this kind of behaviour, but do you know what I realized, as I was seething to myself while I was gardening today?
Jesus is not okay with that behavior either, but he loves deadbeat dads.
He loves them even as they are refusing to talk to their three-year-old daughters on the phone because "they're not ready yet," he loves them when they spend money on alcohol rather than food for their kids, and he loves them when they are running away from pain that they can't even understand. He is way better than me.
And then he brings people to be what these women need in their lives, people like me, maybe you, to love them and help them and take care of them in the way that the daddies should. He's good like that.
And now, I am really getting kicked out. Hasta la vista.