The benefits of being nice and Mason jars

Tonight M and I went to Rodeo right after work. We carpooled in his car, leaving my car in our building's parking garage. Figuring that it would be safer to leave our stuff in my car, which would be sitting in a secure garage that you can't get into unless you have a badge or tailgate someone, we dropped off my bag and his backpack, grabbing my umbrella at the same time. We made our way to Rodeo and had a great time. We now have the urge to ride horses... at least at first. Step 1: learn to ride horses. Step 2: learn how to rope a calf. Step 3: learn how to ride a bucking bronco. Step 4: learn to jump off of a horse and wrestle a steer to the ground. Step 5: Bull riding!!! Back to the story... ZZ Top wraps up their performance and we head back to the car. As we get into M's car, I realize that I left my work ID badge (and RFID card necessary to access the garage in my car, currently locked in the garage). M then realizes that he put his badge in his backpack... in my car ... to which we don't have access... Oops!

On the drive back, we start plotting ways to get into the garage. When we admit that breaking into our building's parking deck isn't going to happen, we start trying to figure out how to get my car and our stuff back. One idea was to have M go back home, grab his roommate's ID badge, and return to the deck. This option might have involved convincing J that M was sleep-walking. A second idea was to deal with it in the morning, so M would again have to use J's badge to get into work and I would have to rely upon either my roommate (LR) or M to drive me to work in the morning, so that I could get my car and allow M to grab his bag/ID. I was also considering possibly having to bike to work in the rain. The third idea we considered was to hope that the security guard I normally talk to about working out and running was on duty tonight and was in the lobby so that we could kindly ask him to let us in.

Option three was the fortunate winner in our circumstance. We had scoped out the parking deck entrances and quickly realized there was no chance of us getting in without either the help of someone else or learning how to teleport (which would be totally awesome!!). Pulling into a visitor parking space outside, we scanned the lobby and noticed someone standing inside. "It looks like him!" M and I walked to the front door and I timidly knocked on the glass. The security guard immediately walked over and let us in. He didn't ask any questions, just said "I didn't recognize you at first." Easy peasy. M and I were both prepared to go into a long-winded explanation about why we needed someone to let us in to get to my car in the deck at 11 o'clock at night. Instead, we thanked him, said "have a good night," walked through the lobby, headed toward the exit to the parking deck, and made for my car. What a relief!

This brings me to the benefits of being nice and friendly. Simply spending some time talking to the security guard those late nights at work and saying hello and "have a great evening" allowed M and I to get into the garage. What would have happened if I didn't know the guard? He may not have opened the door to let us in. Or he may have let us in, but not trusted our story that we both left our badges in my car which was locked in the deck. Who knows? But being friendly definitely paid off.

Also, Mason jars are pretty awesome. I've been using some 16 oz ones to bring in soup and zucchini "pasta." The picture to the right was tonight's dinner of curried cream of broccoli soup that I made on Tuesday. I just took off the metal lid and heated the whole thing in the microwave. I ended up drinking the soup straight from the jar. They aren't very expensive and you can buy them on Amazon or at Walmart. I've also used them for making hot chocolate mixes and bread mixes for friends at Christmas. One thing to note when heating in the microwave is that the glass can get hot, so if you need to cook something for a while, I recommended heating in increments. Heat for a minute. Stir. Heat for another minute, etc.