While Waiting

As some of you know, I drive Middle Child to a community college for classes.  She has classes everyday, but three of those days, it's just one two-hour class.  We don't live close enough for it to be worth it for me to go back home, so I spend the time finding errands to run in that area.  You'd be surprised how much time I can waste getting gas, or going to the bank or the dollar store.  Fortunately, I found a library and a Target nearby, so it's not a total waste.

By Friday, I've run out of places to go, so I sit inside the main campus building with my newspaper and my iPad, reading your blogs.  And every single week, someone approaches me, asking if I know where some room or building is located.  They must think I'm a 'non-traditional' student.  I feel sort of dumb every time, admitting I have no clue as to what they are looking for. But then I think, 'Who's the dumb one?  There's a huge information desk about 10 yards from where I sit!'  One week, a student asked me for the comic section of the newspaper I was reading.  I told her that I wasn't reading the local paper (it was a Wall Street Journal) and that it didn't have a comic section.  She looked at me like I was a liar and she stormed off.  I'm too highbrow for that crowd - bahahaha.

Last month, I discovered that the college has an art exhibit that changes every few months.  I went to check it out.  It featured recycled materials, extreme nature, and our effect on the environment.  There was a waterfall from the balcony to the floor made up of handprints cut from plastic milk jugs. But my favorite use of 'recycled' material was a trio of Lladros in a farm diorama, in which the artist tied scarves around them like blindfolds.  The farm animals looked angry.  My MIL used to collect Lladros, so I found this quite amusing.

Most days, I'm sitting in my minivan, waiting in the circular drive out front for Middle Child to come out.  You'd be surprised at the strange things one can observe while waiting....cars displaying ads for geese control, tough looking 25 year old guys riding magenta colored girl bikes, people sitting outside in 20 degree weather eating tacos.  Always something to see!  Since I'm in my second year of this, I've begun to recognize some of the students.  One of them is a 30-something blind woman.  A disability van brings her to and from the college.  What I don't understand is why no one informs her when it has arrived.  Most days, I see her come out the door with her white cane and walk right out to the curb, to 'see' if the van is there yet.  It rarely is, so she has to turn around and maneuver herself  and her large briefcase through the set of double doors back into the building.  I'm the last person who would make fun of a person with a disability, but there is a comical aspect to the whole thing.  She waves that cane in about a six foot circumference around her body, oblivious to the mass of students around her. Likewise, the students are oblivious that a blind person is near them, until the cane hits them in the shins.  Suddenly, they are like WTF??, until they realize it's a blind woman.  Then they hop over the stick and attempt to steer clear, until it happens again the next day.