smile!

So I just got stood up for a coffee date. It's not the end of the world, but it's not exactly fun, either.

Since I had walked the mile-plus to the coffeeshop, I wanted to do something constructive with my walk home: I decided to smile at everyone I passed. So I smiled at the guys milling around outside of McDonald's, the dads pushing baby strollers, the sweet old couple celebrating perhaps their 40th or 50th Mother's Day, the mother pushing her child in a wheelchair. I smiled at the drunk guys pounding bongos and the teenagers weaving through traffic on bicycles. I smiled at pugs and poodles and the lone Canada goose wandering down the middle of my street (?). I was answered in four different languages, one of which I couldn't place. One guy wished me a happy Mother's Day.

It was fun! I feel like I interacted with my neighborhood more in that half-hour than I have since I moved in.

I thumb my nose at thee, Ron from Chicago, IL.