Friday, June 03, 2011

coincidence? maybe not

yesterday was my first day of classroom-ish time at cpe (clinical pastoral education - basically functioning as a chaplain).  when we went around to do introductions, my cpe supervisor introduced herself and mentioned that she was from slovakia (which i had learned in email introductions, where she had also mentioned that she had been a pastor in eastern slovakia).  she never mentioned where she was a pastor in emails, but when she introduced herself to our group, i discovered that she was a pastor in rankovce!!

before monika and lubo (my host parents) were pastors, there was another clergy couple who were pastors in rankovce and while i was in rankovce i had heard a bit about them, but not too much, so their names easily slipped out of my mind, until yesterday.  silvia and her husband were pastors of the church in rankovce and now she is my site supervisor.  how cool is that?

i'm excited to see where god takes me on this continuing journey.  although i had an incredible experience during my year in slovakia, there were parts of it (as with everything) that were not ideal.  i think this summer might just provide me with the opportunity to redeem some of those parts, and i'm excited to see what the summer brings :)

adventure of the week

ok, so far my entries have not been particularly exciting, but wait til you hear (or read) what happened yesterday on my way to meet with my cpe group! 

so, normally i give myself an extra 15 or so minutes when trying to use public transit, which meant yesterday that i was heading out the door (for a quick stop downstairs to grab my water and apple out of the fridge) of my 13th floor apartment at 8:25ish for a 48 minute (according to google maps) trip downtown where i would meet my cpe group at 9:30. 

on the landing halfway between the 12th and 11th floors, i saw a cat.  it was a gray cat and looked to me quite a bit like apollo, the cat that lives in the apartment which also has the refrigerator i use (and the amazing family i live with-ish).  i'm allergic to cats, so i generally try to keep my distance a bit, so i couldn't be sure.  i decided to keep going and if, upon arrival at the apartment, i realized there was no cat there, i would proceed from there.

upon arrival, i listened intently for apollo and even called out for him.  i received no reply.  so, i was stuck with a dilemma.  i had left a bit early, so i did have some time, and if i knew where the cat was and didn't get it, i would not feel right, but i'm allergic to cats and what if apollo was just hiding really well somewhere??  perhaps needless to say, i headed back up to the landing and gently nudged apollo down to the 11th floor, quickly realizing that nudging him down every floor would take far too long. 

i pressed the button for the elevator and blocked his escape back up the stairs.  when the elevator opened, i caught him around the stomach and guided him into the elevator, where he very quickly made a desperate bid for freedom.  after a little wrestling (he dug his claws into the part with the elevator door - i was part terrified he'd go bolting back outside the elevator and part terrified the elevator door would close on him/us), we were in the elevator with the door closed and the button pushed for our floor.

my focus remained on apollo who was pacing around and when the elevator door opened onto a woman, a dog (on a leash), and a child, apollo headed out with me right behind him, apologizing for the cat coming out of the elevator.  without looking up (knowing that there are only two doors per floor on all but one in the building), i opened the door to what i thought was the right apartment and apollo and i headed in.  as i looked up, a young man turned in his chair to face me and i immediately realized that this was not the right apartment and therefore i had made it to the wrong floor--gotten out early. 

so commenced the next stage of capture apollo.  i grabbed apollo to bring him back outside and after clamping down on me, he quickly made it out of my hands and instead of heading out the open door, he tried to go back between my legs into the apartment.  i grabbed him as he dug into the welcome mat/carpet in the short hallway thing.  when apollo came up, so did the carpet.  we were not getting anywhere.  i let go of him to get a better grip and the nice young man grabbed his front paws and picked them up, detaching them from the carpet.  i grapped onto apollo, apologized and headed out the door. 

once we were back on the stairs, apollo began to whine and so i let him down and nudged him down the next two flights.  once we were only 4-5 stairs away from the apartment, he bolted to the door, confirming that it was, in fact, apollo.  i let him in, with a bit of a scolding, grabbed my water and apple and headed out.  i still had 4 minutes to spare. 

on the way, i did manage to transfer onto the L line at 14th st. and seeing that the train was already there when i descended the stairs, i got right on.  as the doors closed a voice clearly stated "next stop 8th avenue."  i was going to 1st avenue!  luckily it was only one stop (made a bit longer by traffic on the tracks) and then i was at the end of the line and could hop on the train heading back the other way, though i wasn't sure about my timing after that additional detour.

luckily, i'm a fast walker, and i ended up still arriving 5 minutes early at 9:25.  what a morning that was, though!