St. Paul, Day 3 and Crazy Happenings, Part 2

Travel: Yay, it is SO nice to be home! Yesterday was a little interesting. I think the policy forum ended on a positive note. I was able to meet up with my committee chair for lunch because she works very close to the hotel that I was staying at. I'll be talking to her on the phone on Monday for a committee call, funny enough.

At the airport, I saw one of my coworkers, and it turns out that she was going to be on the same flight as me to Atlanta. She mentioned that a funny thing happened to another coworker and a participant of the forum (these two are from the same state). At the forum, we learned about how to talk to our legislative representatives and how to give an elevator speech if the opportunity ever presented itself. This other coworker spotted their state representative at the airport and strongly encouraged the forum participant to go to talk to the representative and she did! Who would have thought that she'd have to put her new skills to the test right away?!

We got out of MN late, unfortunately, and I was really nervous that I would have to RUN to my connecting flight to DC. It was a miracle that the next flight was at a nearby gate, so I had a chance to run to the restroom and then jump on the plane. There were people already on it! Whew, that was close!

RJ was very clingy when I got home. :)

Book #2 of 2012: While I was traveling, I started and finished I Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella. Kinsella has always been a consistent author for me, and I've enjoyed all her books, and this one is no different. The footnotes were an interesting quirk in the book, but I didn't think they were necessary. I finished this book just in time because Catching Fire (Hunger Games, Book 2) came in from the library and I picked it up today, yay!

Crazy happening: Which brings me to today. I dunno what it is about this week. It must be "Tina is a Weirdo Magnet" week, but no one thought to inform me. First, it was the down-on-his-luck guy earlier this week. And then today, someone came by the house this afternoon to set up an appointment to give an estimate on replacing windows to make them more energy efficient. There was no opportunity in there to say no, so I set the appointment up. The guy kept talking to me and started to creep me out by asking personal questions about me and RJ and standing in the doorway. I was equally freaked out that RJ would run outside. Once the guy left, I promptly went to the hardware store to get a door guard for the front door for extra security. The hardware store guy helping me asked who I was trying to keep out. "Uh, scary people." (Obviously, duh.)

"Well, yeah, you never know these days. Don't worry. If that person comes around again, I'll come help you."

(By now, I'm thinking, "Oh, great. Are you a crazy person too?")

"Do you want some mace?"

(o_0 Uhhh, say what? Ok, I'll give him a chance. Maybe he's actually trying to help me out.) "Uh, sure."

He goes and gets the mace from another part of the store and I picked one from the selection he offered. "Hopefully you'll never have to use this." He said something else about if I needed some extra protection, and he pointed to the taser that was clipped to his belt. WTH?! "What do you need THAT for?"

"To keep the scary people away."

(Oh, you don't want to mess with this guy. I guess his scary people are scarier than my scary people.)

These two incidences this week have really elevated my paranoia and hermit tendencies. This is kinda messed up, huh? I want to come across as an approachable person, but this seems to be more trouble than it's worth!