Simple Pleasures

After work today I decided to take advantage of the fact that outside of work I have zero commitments. No one to see, no where to be. I decided to go the gym for a good workout to end the week, and a trip to the sauna which is my way of rewarding myself, not to mention it helps me from getting too sore. I showered got ready and decided to take a bus that I never take to see where I might end up. I found a great bookstore, a really cool salon... (where I happen to be going tomorrow to get my "hair did") and then decided to catch a movie at what would be comparable to the Tower in Sacramento. I secretly love going to movies alone, and it happened to be showing "Away We Go" at the right time. Now let me digress for a moment... as you all know Chicago is fickle about weather. Last night at 3:30 am: Thunderstorm and HARD rain. 7:15 am: Sunshine about 78 degrees, beautiful. 9:00 am: The DARKEST clouds I have ever seen followed by Thunder and lightning, followed by a white out of rain, followed by 20 minutes of hail, followed by more rain. 4:30pm: Bright sunny skies, humid 80 degrees. Are you getting my drift?! There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this cities weather. So when I emerged from my movie tonight, old man weather had yet again changed his mind... and it was POURING. Luckily I'm catching on to his tricks and had an umbrella handy. So I plugged in my iPod, turned on the new Pete Yorn CD (which is AMAZING) opened my umbrella and headed down the road. Since it was raining a good part of the day, everything was flooded... puddles galore. I'm walking along as graceful as can be, and next thing I know I've lost a flip flop, it slipped right off my foot!... so, backtrack three steps, flip flop back on, keep on walking. Walk a bit more, and all of a sudden, lose my flip flop again... stop, giggle this time, backtrack three steps, flip flop back on. This charade continued about four times... the fifth time I lingered and was really laughing at myself... out loud. Wondering how hard could it be to keep on a flip flop... I turned to look up and this guy was coming towards me laughing. He stopped when he got to me, we were kind of laughing together by that point, and he said... "I saw the whole thing... you keep losing your shoe and you've helped me laugh for the first time today..." We walked the rest of the way together to the bus, still chuckling at my tragic shoe issue, and I did my best to keep my shoe on this time. After we got on our collective buses I sat grinning from ear to ear. I felt so happy, so content. Unlike the weather, things are starting to look brighter for me... I have met some new friends in the past few weeks, gotten into a great workout routine, and started feeling really settled. A month ago I probably would have been annoyed by tonight's wet fiasco but now, it's a different story. It made me realize... sometimes you just have to stop and laugh, even if it's at yourself. Even if it's been raining and you keep losing your shoe, even if someone sees the whole thing and you're a little embarrassed. Life is too precious to take too seriously. So, tonight better than the workout or the movie... I got caught in the rain,... and laughed with a stranger.