Category: Life

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Litter Collection

Ever since I moved into this neighborhood, there has been a lovely, older man and his dog taking care of litter along my street. He has come out for a long walk with his dog every day, rain or shine. But I have not seen him since New Year’s Day.

Here it is, 20 days into the New Year, and he has not been walking our street. I have a very bad feeling that he is sick or hurt. But I do not know which house is his. I know it is not one of the houses actually on my street, because I do know every one of my neighbors, all the way down to the stop sign. So he must either live on the street that runs parallel to mine, or on the street that T-bones mine at the stop sign.

I hope he is OK and that his absence is just temporary. I looked forward to his friendly waves and once in a while petting his dog if I happened to be outside when he came along.

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What Do You Look Like?

3faces

Have you noticed that a whole lot of people on Facebook are not using a photo in their profile that is current? A lot of them are not even photos – they are cartoons or posters that make a statement. I wish people would just post a current photo of themselves – it is not that hard to get a nice photo. But do not take the photo yourself while standing in front of a bathroom mirror. I cannot stand to look at photos of other people’s bathrooms. Seriously!

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No Tolerance for Slurs

Last night I watched a public service announcement on TV that was very timely and informative. It addresses the use of slurs words in our conversations, which are just not acceptable. The organization is targeting people who use the word “retard” as an insult, but it also raises awareness of the other slur words that we hear and might use. I think there is a link to the video that shows that commercial if you go to the r-word.org web site. I’d appreciate it if you would take a moment to read their message and watch the short video. I would like to be part of spreading the word.

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Just a Suggestion

Why do people come to you for advice and tell you this whole long story and you talk about it for, like, hours. And you make a suggestions and then say, yes, you are right. And then they go and don’t do anything that you talked about? They do something crazy different! And then they come back in a couple of days boo hoo-ing about how they are miserable and everything is worse. And blah, blah, blah.

You know what? If I give you advice, then I expect to take it to heart. If you don’t follow my advice, then don’t come crying later! Damn!

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Quick Walk

Even though the weather is getting cold, I need to get some exercise and outdoors is my preferred location. So I decided to take a brisk walk around my own neighborhood today. Big mistake. I never realized until today how many of my neighbors have dogs – and most of them just run loose. The dogs don’t seem to like people walking by their house or yard, either. Now I know why a lot of people carry a big walking stick with them when they go for a brisk walk. Its not to help them walk – it is for protection from dogs.

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House of Cards

Did you ever take a deck of playing cards and try to build houses or towers with the cards? We did that a few times when we were kids and stuck in the house on a rainy day. I liked to keep the houses low, just one or two stories, with a maze of different rooms and hallways. But my sister like to go for high towers. She would get them almost as tall as she was, and then one of our brothers would swoop into the room and knock it down. The little brats!

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Justice in Italy

My friend, Micah, called me yesterday afternoon so excited to share the news that the court in Italy had freed those two poor young Americans from jail. It has been a horrible tragic story for over four years about how a beautiful English college girl had been raped and murdered in her rented home in a little college town in Italy. The other girl who shared the house came home after an evening with her boyfriend and discovered the body. Then the police went nuts accusing her and her boyfriend of having an orgy gone wrong and threw three kids in jail with almost no evidence and no clear motive. It was horrible and my heart aches for everyone involved.

At least now the girl can come home to America and try to start her lie over again. I hope she gets a huge book and movie deal to make some money and help make up for the four years she had to spend in that awful Italian jail. The whole story makes me not want to ever visit Italy – some place Micah and I’ve always wanted to visit – until now I see how the police treat people.

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Definite Chill

There was a definite chill in the air this morning. Usually I can dash out to get the newspaper in the morning and I don’t need a jacket or anything – it is a short dash. But this morning I was down right cold by the time I reached the end of the driveway.

I ran back to the house pretty quick, just to get inside to the toasty warm of my own room. It was really nice to smell the aroma of brewing coffee, feel the soft carpet under my feet and jump back onto my king sized bed to snuggle with the dogs for a little while.

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Rabbits

This morning I woke up early and went outside to get the morning newspaper from the end of the driveway. When I opened the door to step outside, I startled several rabbits who had been eating clover from my front yard. There were several little babies in the group of rabbits that quickly hopped away. That was pretty cool to see first thing this morning.

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Leave it on?

There must be a lot of people who fall asleep each night with the TV left on. I think that is so wasteful of electricity and the noise must be disturbing to a good night’s sleep. I know that I want to have peace and quiet when I am ready for bed. I don’t want the distraction of all that noise in the background, plus that awful blue-ish light from the TV fills the room and spills out of the windows.

My girlfriend, Katelyn, was just talking about that same thing a couple of days ago. Ever since she mentioned it, I have noticed how many of my neighbors have that blue light shining from at least one room in their house as late as midnight. I know they cannot all be still up and awake at midnight. They must be falling asleep with the TV left one.