Saturday’s Bumper Sticker
This Made Me Smile
Candice is always sharing intriguing photos that make you smile. In her spirit I saw two places today while I was out and offer them.
The first is a sign of children story locations, located above a Little Library on an Ashland street.
These are by someone’s house on Walker in Ashland. I suppose I could politely inquire about their story and history. Maybe someday I will. For now, though, it’s fun to see them and imagine why they’re there. Hard to do justice to them, but they’re a tiny door and tiny window set into the side of an embankment. On the top is a small bridge.
The Goal
I’m swearing about modern technology again. It’s all so easy, so taken for granted, they have groomed me to complain.
Today’s target is my Fitbit. It needs recharged, again. Every few days, this takes place. I wear the thing almost 24/7, removing it only to save it from the showers. The rest of time finds it hugging my right wrist, monitoring my activity. Sure, it sends me an email when it needs recharged. That email arrives at 1:30 to 2:00 AM. I supposed, if I’m more rigorously disciplined and attentive, I can train myself to check it each night when I’ve reached my goal and see how much remains on the charge. Yeah, I could, but I’m lazy.
“It wouldn’t need to be recharged so much if you didn’t keep using it,” my wife observes.
A growl is given back. This is not time for humor. Charging the fitbit means removing it from my wrist and waiting while it charges. While it charges, I’m not collecting steps. My goal each day is twelve miles. It’s a new goal every morning, achieved every night. No, I haven’t walked it, didn’t run it, swim it, bike it; it’s an accumulation of twelve miles of activities, twelve miles achieved each day, something tangible.
Writing is different. I use word counts as mileposts but they don’t matter. I may have added words but the novel isn’t finished. I’m not certain how close to being done it is. I have guesses which makes sense, but I know, even when it’s ‘done’, it isn’t done. It needs revised and edited. Even then, it’s not done. It’s not published, not finalized in some concrete form. Until it reaches that final moment, it remains a work in progress. It’s like going from Earth to Mars; it’s gonna take a while.
So, I pursue my twelve miles every day, a goal established each morning, something achieved each night, something to make me feel good, damn it.
The Skunk Report
It was Valentine’s Day, ten PM. The blinds were down. Thumping came from beside the house. Squeaking ensued. Definitely an animal noise. I turned. Outside lights detected motion and lit the area.
I pulled the blinds up. The squeaking came from a skunk, our skunk, as we call her. Haven’t formally named her yet but we know her by her tail, which looks like a well-used white toilet brush.
Furious squeaking kept going. She was jumping and darting briskly around. I zipped into the other room to bring my wife to the spectacle. Not much was on television and I’d just finished reading my book.
“What’s she doing?” my wife asked.
“I think she’s fighting with something.”
“I think she has a mouse.”
The skunk jumped back, leaped to one side, and twirled. “I don’t see a mouse. I think she’s fighting with something else.”
Our skunk turned and rushed away. There was no mouse. As we stood to consider what we’ve seen, another skunk darted out from under the house. Bigger than our skunk, I’d seen ‘him’ before. “Look.” I pointed him out. “I think she was fighting him. They sometimes fight.”
My wife was nodding. “Yes. I read that females will reject males and sometimes spray them in a defensive action.”
“So he came a-callin’…”
“And she said, no thank you.” The skunk disappeared. The lights went off. My wife turned away. “I think she doesn’t want him because she’s in love with Boo.” Boo is our big black cat with a single white star on his chest.
I remained doubtful. I began lowering the blind. The light appeared. ‘He’ appeared. He looked up at me.
I nodded down at him. “Tough luck, brother. Can you go somewhere else?”
He scurried off into the night. The light went off. I finished lowering the blind on the theater and began wondering what I was going to watch on the telly.
Live theater is so much better.
Christmas Cactus
The Christmas cactus is bloomin’ again. Bloomed in November, 2020, and now again in Feb. Love how it adds color to the room.
Must admit, sunshine in the living room also makes me happy. Good place for reading with a drink or snack.
Sorry about the photo quality. Done with iPad, and I’m not much of a photog. Cheers
Stick To It
Are you familiar with the Gorilla Glue Girl’s hair-mix-up fiasco? Out of a needed product, she made a decision that didn’t work as planned. The mistake earned her time as the web’s focus. Her fortunes spilled over into an SNL skit last Saturday.
I feel for her. Making bad decisions and mistakes is a human trait. The worst I’ve usually done is grabbed the wrong keys or the wrong sunglasses. Although there was one time when I was carrying one thing for the refrigerator and another for the trash and was about to put the one in the other but then caught myself.
I’ve had moments of panic when I thought I did the wrong thing. Once, when I was sixteen, I boarded a Greyhound bus to head south. I’d been up visiting Mom in Pittsburgh, PA. Now I was traveling south to southern West Virginia, where I lived with Dad. I don’t know what the deal is. It was late, like after ten PM. I may have fallen asleep. Next thing that I know, the bus was moving and the driver was talking about stops in Florida.
Florida! Man, I didn’t want to go to Florida. I was going home. But a little later, he announced, like an afterthought, “We’ll be in Charleston, West Virginia, in about three hours.”
Some time was required before my breathing returned to normal and the sweat dried on my body. I did not go to sleep again; I stayed awake, fearful of ending up far away from where I wanted to be.
No, wait; the worst was when I was checking out of an Atlanta hotel. I’d been there for a week on business. Now it was time to roll for the airport. Part of my travel routine is to slip my retired military ID into my shirt pocket for easy access when I’m going through security. I also think it saves time identifying me should the plane ever crash. My photo ID would be right there in my shirt. It’ll work if I still have my shirt on after the accident, if the ID isn’t thrown from the pocket, and if my face isn’t mangled or burned past the point that a photo ID would help.
Anyway, on this day as I headed out of the hotel, I dropped my plastic hotel key card into the box for that purpose and headed for the airport. Then I arrived there and found, oh, shit, you guessed it: I’d dropped off my military ID instead of my card key.
Well, I immediately called the hotel, explained it all, and asked them to overnight it via FedEx on my company’s account, so problem solved.
What about you? Do you have a story to share that shows how you commiserate with G3’s predicament that you’re willing to share?
Love Is
Love is
a line in the dirt
wind blown
drying up
buried as time scratches over its mark
forgotten underfoot
uncovered and made again
Michael Seidel, writer 