Day 212: Tragic Farewells

 

July 31st, 2011Today was the last day of July, but it was also the last day to see a few people, making it a day of many tragic farewells. It started in the morning when I hung out with Geetha watching her pack for a few hours. We had our last lunch at Chipotle, she graciously bought me bananas at Ralph’s, and we hung out in the balcony, her room, while chilling and talking like an old couple. With all her stuff packed away, the Super Shuttle car came and stole her away to take her back to the airport (She’s going back home for three weeks), leaving me only with a few remains of her memory: in the form of a luggage bag she wanted me to hold onto for her. I would use the bus to lug it back to my place, where I subsequently ran into Tyler and Lauren.

We talked for the longest time about various topics before Rosario came over to bug and bother us. We sat around and talked before settling in the ancient land of Catan. We played, Tyler won, and somehow Tyler pressured us to all get some physical activity done outside at Doyle Park. We threw Frisbees and Footballs, played on Swings, and ran around being obnoxious. Me and Tyler beat Lauren and Rosario at Ultimate Frisbee. BOO YAH! Because the true sign of a winner is the true ability to choose the winning team to be on (aka, my team). Julia then called and picked us all up at Von’s – we failed at getting Thai food so we went straight to Convoy, where we went to “Tajima” Japanese food. It was the first time I ever got any “Ramen” at the restaurant, and it was definitely delicious. We chilled and talked, and then left, with the waitress chasing after us shouting “Hey, was there anything wrong with the service? Because the tip you gave was low.” It was so pathetic and unprofessional that someone would come out asking for a bigger tip. Oh well. I shrugged. We all left and went back home where we played a massive array of games: from Loaded Questions (Adult Version), to Catan, to several card games including: Shitface, Egyptian War, & Auction. Tyler ended up winning a majority of the games, and in playing card games, they were mostly all drinking games, which we of course used water to play. With the night over, me and Tyler walked Julia back to Von’s, said our farewells (She’s going to Peru), and went grocery shopping, me picking up eggs from Von’s.

On July 31, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, one of the most influential American labor leaders of the 20th century, disappears in Detroit, Michigan, never to be heard from again. Though he is popularly believed to have been the victim of a Mafia hit, conclusive evidence was never found, and Hoffa’s death remains shrouded in mystery to this day. Born in 1913 to a poor coal miner in Brazil, Indiana, Jimmy Hoffa proved a natural leader in his youth. At the age of 20, he helped organize a labor strike in Detroit, and remained an advocate for downtrodden workers for the rest of his life. Hoffa’s charisma and talents as a local organizer quickly got him noticed by the Teamsters and carried him upward through its ranks. Then a small but rapidly growing union, the Teamsters organized truckers across the country, and through the use of strikes, boycotts and some more powerful though less legal methods of protest, won contract demands on behalf of workers. SHOCKING!

Two days before the deadline for a possible U.S. government default, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached agreement Sunday on a legislative package that would extend the federal debt ceiling while cutting spending and guaranteeing further deficit-reduction steps. The proposed deal, which still requires congressional approval, brought some immediate relief to global markets closely watching the situation play out and to a nation filled with anger and frustration over partisan political wrangling that threatened further economic harm to an already struggling recovery. …. STUPID. COMPROMISE = FAIL. RON PAUL 2012.

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