This is one of those “Day in the life” that’s so typically random….

I needed to go capture 65 gallons of fresh spring water.  The water weights 40lbs per container, and I had 13 of them in the car, plus the weight of the glass 5-gallon jugs, so that’s about 600-700lbs.  I switched Craig cars, as his Subaru claims to handle 900 lbs, while mine claims to hndle 700lbs.– I’m taking Craig’s word for this, I’ve never actually looked.  That’s probably semi-dumb, as I often carry my whole life in that car.

Since my window had been broken last year as some asshole stole my GPS, bag of change, and whatever else he took that I don’t know about, it often doesn’t close perfectly, so phone conversations can be a little hard to hear.  I do try to use much of my drives with catching up with people on the phone.  It was 4 hours to Canton, where the Spring was.  I found it on FindASpring.com, and then used my GPS to get me there.

I had recently taken photos for my friend Craig of various things in his garage that he wanted to sell on Craigslist.  He’s already gotten buyers for a dresser, 4 end-stands, a deep freezer, and now this really expensive juicer machine… it’s called a Norwalk, and I believe it’s $2,000 or so. The guy contacted him, and it turns out lives kind of close to the spring.  Craig told them that I was headnig that way, so the guy was going to send his wife to meet me, and swap the juicer for the money.Craig had him text me.  It went like this:

“Hi Ori, my name is Dean, and I was told to text you by Craig and work out a good time and place to meet you to buy the juicer”

me: Craig? The one in Austin?  God damn it! I told him to leave me the hell alone! I’m calling the cops! This is no longer funny!”

Count to 45, then send back “Just kidding ”

He asked about some of my couch surfing, the juicer, some scheduling, and then said “Sweet.  I am going to be sending my wife to meet you, because I work till 8 and after looking at your blog, I was thinking it would be cool to meet you.”

So I changed my schedule a little bit… this was not difficult, as I had pulled a 5am shift editing some video for this one website, as well as doin the website, and PPC campaigns for it. Went to sleep at 5am, woke up at 8-something (Which is the answer to “What’s the square root of sixty-nine?”). In order to trade cars with Craig, but he had meetings with his company.  I also needed to check up on Ceci’s house, which I’m house sitting… so… I headed there, did my interview with Thomas Magnum on Virtual Coffee Radio (Catch the interview here)  from there,  and then went and confused some Valet people at the Hilton who had to take my car, and bring out Craig’s, and wait while I swap out supplies, etc…

The drive was easy.  It was the 1st time I’ve taken this route to get to Canton (This is my 3rd time filling up water at that artesian well).  I had audio books with me, but felt like listening to music, so it was radio.  The route took me through small towns, rural areas, and finally to Canton.  When I pulled up to the spring, 2 cars immediately showed up behind me.  I had just missed having to wait.  They were all locals it seems.  That spring has been running since 1937, one of them told me.

I did not even know where these people lived.  I was texted an address, and was originally told “near mesquite” — great… but I don’t know where Mesquite is.  When I got the water, I took the time to punch in the address, and it turns out that Mesquite is right near Dallas.

Huge phenomenon– since hanging out with Katie Brown, who raps, I’ve been listening to more hip-hop, and since I try to understand the words that are coming out of her outh when she raps, I’ve actually been able to pick out lyrics from rap songs, and even regular songs now.  I’m more of a melody person.  I can recognize songs based on a chord, or a beat, or a melody… ask me to recite the lyrics, and I’m screwed.  A perfect example of this is for the 1st time ever, I heard the lyrics to that Pina Coloads and Getting Caught In The Rain song… it’s really cute, who knew!?

Dean manages a Walmart, Grace is a house-wife with a passion for Yoga.  They have 3 small children, 2 of those miniature greyhound looking dogs, an iPad, a nicely decorated house, and they keep a very healthy lifestyle. They too own Vibram 5-fingers (I still haven’t written my official blog post on those).

This post isn’t really to talk about them though.  It’s about (and just so you know, it’s been written a piece at a time, this is the 3rd time I’m working on it… so… way different moods for each) the sheer randomness that I was already going to get the spring water (mostly for Craig actually, he’s been the most gracious host while I was there, and has become one of the closest people ever in my life… and he likes his fresh spring water, and his company had all sorts of people coming in this week… so I could make the time to go, he couldn’t), and then these people wanted to get the juicer from Craig, and then I ended up not just meeting up with them, but going to stay there…. knowing nothing about them.  That falls under adventure.  That also falls under stupidity in some peoples’ books. Kind of like this:

What’s even funnier is that I forgot to bring my ac inverter (The thing that makes your cigarette lighter into an outlet), so couldn’t charge my phone.  I actually had really low battery, and when I got to Dean and Grace’s street, my battery ran out.  My GPS (whether due to user error, or map glitch) was looking for a different house than theirs, and I ran out of battery… I couldn’t call or text.  I was about to try and break out the laptop, and try to steal wi-fi… which I hear is tough to find in that neighborhood… that, and I didn’t feel like having someone call the cops ’cause someone’s lurking outside… and then I miraculously found another battery for my phone in my laptop bag.  A battery that had enough of a charge to call them.  I had not actually spoken to them on the phone.  It had been a few short texts.

I had not known where their city was, but found out that it was near Dallas anyways.

Dean had to go to bed early, in order to wake up early.  Grace stayed up late exchanging stories with me.  It was really incredible to get someone else’s view on the world, on goals, on families, on marriage (They’ve been married for 9 years, are very happy together, and about being married.  This gives me hope.  I recently had some thoughts about marriage, which got pulverized into fairy-dust… but that’s another story), on music, on food regiments, on dreams.  You sort of have these conversations with people you meet… but it generally starts with “ummm… so what do you do?”   and it’s kind of generic.  When you’re staying at someone’s house, you’re genuinely interested, as are they.

I have new friends, and an invitation to stay whenever I want, at a home with warm people who eat healthy.  I brought back the 65gallons of spring water to Austin.  I even got an incredibly awesome text at 2 in the morning…. one that changes everything… again…. but that’s my next blog post!

In conclusion… ummmmm…. (Grace was busting me on saying Ummmm… a lot,  so that one’s for her) Your parents, Schools, and definitely the fear-mongering media all trained you to not take candy from strangers… don’t even talk to strangers, or you’ll get kidnapped, poisoned, or any number of bad things.  Yes, it can happen…. but we’re all afraid of strangers now.  That’s why people look at me weird “Aren’t you afraid they’ll kill you while you sleep?”  and why people give the people who let me stay there weird looks “Aren’t you afraid that _________”.  My best friends in the world were once strangers.  A skill that I envy of a person I’ve recently spent a lot of time with is their ability to approach ANYONE.  Seriously!  She just goes up to homeless people, business men in tuxedoes, people or bartenders at clubs…. They make friends where ever they go…. friends can turn into other things later.  So, go talk to a stranger…. I’d bet good money that you won’t get killed, or have your kidneys sold on the black market.