Just a little more than usual
I paid for a stranger’s meal at Louis Armstrong International Airport. I’ve held the door for many people over the years, returned money or some item someone has dropped or forgotten at checkout, and I assist folks with retrieving items off the top shelf at Walmart.
Nothing of great significance, but random, I guess.
The one that sits front and center is church involvement, at least recently. After 65-plus years of attending somewhere, our involvement of late is watching a streamed service, on occasion, from the congregation where our daughter serves as music director. Mom and Dad were always deeply involved in the local Lutheran congregation in town, and so were we when we lived under their roof, and for years after. But not anymore.
My parents were not strict constructionists when it came to observing traditions, besides attending church. Most every other “tradition” involved food and fellowship. Time with extended family was intrinsically important, and it never hurt to have coffee and a goodie or two on hand.
Hard to know. It’s only 6am EDT. So far, it’s been fairly typical– the alarm went off at 5, I hit the snooze prompt once, got up, hit the bathroom, poured myself some cold brew, took a sip of water, headed downstairs, turned on the dehumidifier, sat down on the couch, and fired up the sluggish laptop (must be updating).
Weather-wise, it looks like another day in the steamroom, with some relief coming later in the week.
One of the sauropods, the big herbivores– Diplodicus, Brachiosaurus, Dreadnoughtus, Argentinosaurus. T-rex and Velociraptor are so cliche, and for some reason it bothers me that they get all the attention. I like the more docile giants.
Like a Newfie, on steroids.
If my wife could be talked into getting on a plane, probably out to see our daughter and son-in-law in Colorado. If not CO, maybe Hawaii?
Otherwise, maybe give them to someone, or look into a cash equivalent– if these options were available.
I guess it depends on who you talk to. I’ve had several, along the way. One was “Jed,” a mistake made by my Scoutmaster who got me confused with another guy in the troop. Another was “Og 1,” because I was the oldest of three brothers. And another, less used one was “Pencil,” because I was tall and thin.
But not that thin.
Eat healthy most of the time, and take the meds that our doctor has prescribed. I am very conscious of avoiding sitting for very long, though I still sit too much. I avoid the noise of political commentary whenever possible, other than Colbert and Kimmel and a couple others. I read, I count as exercise the days I work with our son at his landscaping business. Other days I try to get to the Y. I play the piano on occasion, and recently dusted off the guitar a friend gave me years ago. These are pleasant diversions. And a good visit with the grandkids usually tires me out but lifts my spirits.
Near term, a family get-together in upstate NY, a trip to southern New England in September, and not much after that. We haven’t been up to Maine for a while. Maybe we’ll look into that.
Nothing exotic or out of the ordinary, though a long weekend in Iceland sounds interesting.
To borrow a phrase from Bush 41, I’d like to see kinder, gentler nations. We are slaves to ideologies and the bottom line, slaves to some ideal, preferred lifestyle; we pay lip service to nurturing strong communities but live as though it’s all about ‘me.’
Let’s take a holiday from social media, reconstruct some semblance of an attention span, and acknowledge that accelerated climate change is happening in real time.
And we elect surprisingly horrible leaders. Though, in the case of the U.S., not surprising at all. How could people not know what they were gonna get? Many need a heart transplant, and a better handle on discernment. Or maybe they need to take a longer, deeper look at the Bible, which they say means so much to them.
Work mostly happens outdoors anymore, when I’m working with my son or in our yard. I have never had a desire to listen to music or anything else while engaged in these things, especially in the summer heat– I don’t need a set of headphones on, or anything in my ears while I work. The same goes for exercising at the Y– I just exercise, and have never found a need for any additional stimulation or distraction. I just tune into the rhythms of the day– birds, traffic, and so on.
3 Cents' 