i say hello and you say hello (and then i say hello again)

oh, the social conundrums we face. take telephone greetings for instance:

'hello?'
'hello. may i please speak to penny?'
'this is...i am...that is, her...i am she.'
'great, penny, this is so-and-so from somewhere.'

and while i am still trying to figure out the grammatical puzzle of my first response, i am hit with yet another issue. how do i respond to the caller's self introduction? possible responses:
'oh…' - natural but insufficient
'ok…' - see above and a little rude
'hello…' - redundant, that’s how i started the conversation
'what do you want?' - sincere, but rude, i've been told
‘mmm-hmmm?’ - non-committal, one of my favorites, but doesn't exactly ooze intelligence
'oh, hello, how are you?' - the combo approach, completely insincere 99.9% of the time

social etiquette dictates the redundancy option but i just feel like there has to be a better way.

you have to read this just because i spent so much time trying to upload the stupid attachment

flav called me on her way to milwaukee this afternoon and asked how i was doing. she had the nerve to tell me i was being dramatic when i replied, 'dying a little more inside as you and the kids get further away.' last night the clan picked me up for dinner and sam tried to make me feel better by saying it was only three saturdays. blake promised not to forget me. blake also managed to explode a little cup of creamer all over the table within thirty seconds of us sitting down. we told him it was no big deal but he still hid under the table while the server cleaned up the mess. you can't possibly be wondering why i'm going to miss him.

so a couple of weekends ago i posted on facebook that i had 'so much to blog about' and then, i'm sure, all three of my readers were super disappointed when i didn't follow through. not surprised, just disappointed. well, here's what happened that weekend: i started saturday morning at flav and sam's because i was working on a paper for a class at their house until the wee hours of the morn. breakfast with the kiddos and then i was off to the campus library. flav packed me a lunch so i wouldn't have to leave the library and eight hours later, i finished the paper, thus officially ending my third semester at uw. it was a day and a half late (what else is new? i don't think i turned one thing in on time this last semester) but it was a kick-a** paper, if i do say so myself. sunday morning i went to church (victory clasp to the left, victory clasp to the right), walked in to the auditorium, and there, up front, is this huge choir singing christmas songs. i immediately burst into tears, the effect i'm sure they were going for, found a seat, and just sat there crying while they sang. i don't know if it was because it reminded me of my childhood or my grandpa or my involvement with music or what, but man, was i emotional. flavia finally showed up so i was able to start making my usual jokes and comments about everything and anything (she really likes when i come to church) so i got over the crazy crying thing. my favorite pastor spoke, making it a great service all around. he has been encouraging people to spend less and give more, that is, buy one less gift and give that money toward other needs around the world. he had people volunteer to cary forty liters of water around the auditorium throughout the entire service as a demonstration of what people without clean water supplies have to do just to get enough water to drink, cook, and wash with. i thought it was great and wanted to include a link to his talk but the church website isn't quite that fancy. here's the video (you'll need quicktime):
and here's the link to the church's website and their 'message archive' if you want to watch or listen to other stuff: http://www.blackhawkchurch.org/resources/message_archive.php#.

after church, a friend of mine from school got baptized. it was a really simple service but so, so beautiful. all seven of the people who got baptized were from china so the service was in english and mandarin chinese. a man read each person's testimony in english, then a woman read it in chinese, and then the person was baptised by the pastor. some of these people were leaving to go back to china that week. at the end of the ceremony we sang amazing grace and the words of the song were on the overhead screens in both english and chinese. as i stood there, i realized people were singing in both languages so i pulled out my phone to record the song. if i ever get around to finding the media card thingy i need to transfer the file from my phone to my computer, i will post this beautiful musical event.

so that was that weekend, totally worth a blog.