Thursday Thirteen #3

1. Lily does not have strep-throat. By Wednesday she was starting to feel a little restless being indoors. Jeff got the afternoon off and we decided to take Lily to get a new puzzle.



2. We went to my very favorite store in all of Japan, a lovely children's store filled with lovely Japanese children's clothes, toys, and everything one could imagine. Luckily Jeff was there to pull me away from all the beautiful things and quickly pick the first puzzle we came upon. I love the Japanese puzzles, we get the 60 piece puzzles and they are very sturdy card board instead of the easy to bend and break American puzzles which only come in 24 pieces or 500 pieces with nothing in between.



3. We then stopped at the Japanese Grocery Store:
   
   



4. Mandy was expecting to have to take the bus home after volleyball practices because Jeff has been working so much and not sharing the car. His having the afternoon off meant we could swing by the school and pick her up. By the time we arrived Lily was having fits. I went inside the gym to make sure that Mandy was actually still there and to see how much longer. They were playing a practice game and the score was 3 to 7. Games usually take at least a half an hour.



5. I suggested to Jeff that we take Lily home and come back to get Mandy. I didn't know how to convey this message to Mandy as she was in the middle of a game, so we just left. I figured that the game she was in wouldn't even be over until after I got back. So we took screaming Lily home and I went back to the gym. This took 20 minutes.



6. When I got back I couldn't find Mandy. I waited for awhile. I asked some girls to check the locker room. I asked all her friends. Finally someone told me that she took the bus.



7. I hadn't seen her at the bus stop in front of the school when I arrived, so I checked the library to see if she was waiting there, I called home to see if she had made it home, I went back to the gym and asked around some more. After about an hour, I went home. She was obviously not at the gym, she must be on her way home. I just don't know how I could have missed her.



8. The bus comes every 30 minutes and as it becomes apparent that she isn't on yet another bus, I become more and more worried. She finally comes home, two hours later.



9. I rush to the door and ask where she has been. She bursts into tears. The bus she got on, which is a later bus than the one she normally gets on because practice was running late. This bus stops running at 7 PM. So this bus took Mandy to the bus depot and kicked her off. There is a second bus that runs the same route which runs until 10 or 11PM, but the one she got on apparently stops running at 7PM. They didn't tell her when she got on or when they passed the last stop she could get off, they just took her to the bus depot and then kicked her off the bus.



10. She was in shorts and a t-shirt, soaked in sweat from practice. She was carrying two bags full of books and clothes. It was below 50 degrees and misty. It was dark. She was two miles from home. There wasn't a phone or an open business along the way. No one stopped to offer to help her along the way. She walked home. She was upset.



11. I used to walk home from school much farther everyday, rain or shine. I can remember being soaked to my underwear. I can remember how lonely it is to walk and walk all alone, realizing that no one cares enough to wonder if you need a ride.



12. I gave her lots and lots of hugs, I cried. She got over it in about three seconds. I wonder if I ever will.



13. Lily's puzzle, the stupid puzzle that caused all this crap, ended up being all light blue and white, every piece looked exactly the same. Jeff couldn't even figure the dumb thing out. Lily spent all day Thursday engrossed in this puzzle, she spent hours working on it again and again. Sometimes she would let me help but mostly she just worked and worked. This morning she put it together four or five times and then put it away on the shelf, I guess she has conquered the puzzle and is finally ready to move on, evil puzzle.

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