Cheers to a great weekend

My Easter weekend was pretty eventful! It all started off, Good Friday night at the Cornerstone Church service. They made an amazing production called "Ragman", where the Ragman took every one's pain upon himself and then gave them a new life with new hope. That is a very brief overview, but it was very powerful and did a great job of demonstrating a modern day idea of what Jesus actually did for us. It is easy sometimes to see what Jesus did as irrelevant or our lives not in need of what he did, but the truth of it is, we all have pain and hurts from other people that Jesus can give healing to. Not to say that is only why we should put our hope in him. Any who, near the end of the service, Paul Sabino gave a quick message and this is where it started...A lady I knew sitting next to me (an international I might add) had forgotten to shut off or silence her cell phone. So, it rang and rang until she could locate it through the obstacle course of a purse. Then, most would think that it ended there. Au contraire, my friend, au contraire. She then went on to answer the call, in the middle of the message being given in a room of approximately 630 people. Yikes! It gets better, the volume was so loud that I and anyone in the vicinity could hear the entirety of the conversation. She tried to make it quiet, but the voice on the other side was just too loud to make any difference. Case and point #1: Internationals have a much different cell phone/public behavior etiquette than most -- yes, I am going to go with ALL Americans.

Later that weekend...The very next day in fact, my family and I went to a new Mexican restaurant. The cuisine was great, yet not the healthiest option, but I still enjoyed the food. As I observed the server seating another group, I noticed his head, in a potentially cramping position, and had his ear pinned down to his shoulder. Sure enough, he was talking on his phone. No shame. No cares. Just a simple conversation. He continued to work, talking on his phone, refilling our drinks, still chatting away. I hope he isn't going to go over his minutes this month. We left, and a while later I remembered that I left my sunglasses there. So, back we went, eager to find one more story to tell. Sure enough, I stepped in, asked the hostess if they found any glasses, and they did! Just as she removed her curling iron from her hair, she handed me my glasses. I'm not sure what else to expect, but I continually love being surprised by the etiquette of each culture, or maybe just the laxity of a few people I've met.