The one with the guy sleeping in my bathroom

Two of my three roommates have left for summer. One has gone home for a couple months, the other one moved out, which is a little sad. The girl who moved was the one who owned the sofa and big red chair in our living room. Now it's empty and white, we really gotta find some stuff to put in there.

My only remaining roommate was having a party when I came in at around 9 last night and they left at around 11. I noticed someone was in the bathroom but didn't think much about it. I didn't go out, decided to stay in. A couple hours later I went to the kitchen to get some water. I noticed the bathroom door was still locked and thought someone must have locked it from the outside. I knocked and when no one answered I got the lock open.

There was a guy lying on the floor. Asleep. Fine, the floor is real nice and warm now that I get to put the heat on without my roommate turning it off (she's gone home already), but that doesn't mean you should lie down there and go to sleep in the middle of a party. Not really sure what to do, and after seeking advice from the one you may know as Sandman, I decided to leave him. If you're drunk enough to fall asleep on the bathroom floor, then you might not want to wake up. Plus I didn't know him, never seen him before, didn't have a clue where he might live or even want to go if I asked him to get off my floor.

So I left him.

An hour or so later I heard my roommate come back. I checked to see if the guy was still there, which he was, he'd just changed positions and stuffed his hand down his pants. I went to see her, and this is pretty much what happened;

Me: Hey, I think you've forgotten a guest in the bathroom...
Ema: What??
Me: Yeah... there's a guy asleep on the bathroom floor.
Ema: Are you kidding?
Me: Nope.

(We go to the bathroom, I open the door, the guy moves)

Ema: Hey, is this where you are?
Guy: Uhh.....
Ema: You're lying here sleeping?
Guy: Uhh.....

(Guy gets up, talks to my roommate for a minute, then leaves)

Ema, my roommate, said she didn't really know him, she'd only met him that evening. He'd just dropped by and I believe he lived on the 2nd floor. How he came to fall asleep, or even lie down in the first place, remains a mystery.

I don't know about you, but I'm not used to having guys sleeping on my bathroom floor...

Things that are in my head.

He's off to war and doesn't fear death
Bucks County Courier Times

Bob Dembowski, 18, soberly assessed his prospects this way. If he's killed fighting in Iraq, death probably will come quickly.

With luck, it'll be painless.

"Death doesn't bother me," he said. "It's better to go over there with that kind of mentality. If you are constantly worried about being killed, you're just going to get others hurt and probably get yourself killed for sure."

At peace with the idea of dying young, he sat in his house in Northampton and chatted amiably about the future.

He graduates tonight from Council Rock High School-North. He has signed up for a four-year stint with the Marines. He has chosen the infantry.

His friends don't want him to go.

"They're afraid I won't come back or I'll be injured," he said.

His parents are supportive but concerned.

"It's not what I would choose for him to do," said his mother, Fran. "I am very proud that one of my [four] children would serve his country. But the danger. It's the infantry."

All warriors know they risk death when they enter the battlefield. Bob Dembowski knows it, too.

"It's why I have such a great respect for everyone who has ever fought for this country," he said.

He feels a bond with them.

Military service is his destiny. He's wanted to be in the military service since he was a kid.

He has studied the history of America's wars and is confident Iraq will be free, not a quagmire.

"Guys like me want to be there. We failed for two reasons in Vietnam. The media and the draft. The draft was the biggest contributor to the failure in Vietnam because you had people there who didn't want to be there. Talk to any recruiter. They don't like drafts for that reason," he said.
Click Here!

Iraq, too, is a noble cause.

"I believe we're doing the right thing in Iraq," he said. "I understand our government may have not been entirely truthful with us about why we went there, and I don't like that. But I still think we did a good thing getting Saddam out."

Free people are obligated to help those living in nations enslaved by tyrants, even if it means risking death to do it, he said.

"On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, most people just see it as a day off. Nothing wrong with a day off. But I'm always thinking that someone else gave their life so I can have my car, live in this house, have all the freedoms I have," he said.

"And don't get me wrong. There are things I don't like about this country, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest country in the world. And I want other people in other parts of the world to at least begin to taste the freedoms that we take for granted.

"Even myself, I take things for granted. Roads, for instance. We have paved roads, not dirt roads. We have streetlights. We have libraries and schools and supermarkets. Some countries don't have any of that. It doesn't seem right.

"Since I have these things, and I am able to help other people get it, that's what I feel I should do."

He enters boot camp on Monday.

He sets out on his first patrol in Iraq by fall.


by J.D Mullane June 14, 2005 4:59 AM

Seter

In one of my posts, Easter skiing in the valley, I explained what a Norwegian 'seter' is, I've never been able to find a good term for it in English... What I said then was this;

Basically they were places where someone in the farmer's family, usually women - a 'budeie' - stayed during summer, or went during the day to milk the cows. Now they're used as places where people build small cabins and go to get away from home for a weekend, or stay longer during summer.

The picture above is a seter and this is pretty much what they looked like a hundred years ago. Many haven't changed. This place is called Holskarsetra and I really can't say what the word means.. There are no roads and it's a thirty minute walk up through the woods to get here. We walk through during summer when we go to a mountain up and to the left of this picture. People still stay here, only during summer of course. It's a peaceful place, nothing but cows, mosquitoes and the occational hiker.

Photos are taken by a neighbour and are the headings for the new pages Honndalsportalen. They're mostly for those who live in town so if you can't read Norwegian you won't understand much. But the pictures are pretty! Below is, I belive, the view from our highest mountain.

June

It's June, beatiful June.

Usually this means last exams, oral exams in particular, last weeks before the summer holiday. Maybe being able to wear a skirt outside, and maybe leaving your jacket at home. It's the month when you're finally free from the slavery of school, when the flowers have come and you can lie on the grass. The month before July, a month which exists in our minds as an empty space of golden sunshine and green green grass, a month when there are no obligations, no early mornings, no homework to do in the afternoons. You go swimming and are called back home for dinner outside on the lawn.

Where July is a green and golden month of freedom, June is when it is getting greener, when the sun shines stronger, when you get just a little more free. It's the month when it's always light, even in the middle of the night. A week ago it would be dark for a half hour or an hour in the middle of the night. Now, when there are no clouds, it will never be pitch black. It's still three weeks till it starts getting darker again, three weeks without complete darkness. June, it's the month of light. That's what it feels like. That's what it is to me.

And now it's here.