Do you remember your child’s first steps or the first time they rode a bike without training wheels?

I don’t remember if it was a Tuesday or a Saturday, but I definitely remember my son gripping my two index fingers in his tiny hands and then letting go and wobbling across the living room to my wife.  He tottered, he fell, he got up and did it over and over, and soon he was laughing that infectious laugh that babies have when they discover something new or funny.

I remember a cold spring Sunday as I ran down the driveway holding onto the seat of my sons bike as he tried to gain his balance the first time without training wheels.  I let go and the anxiety I was feeling turned to pride as I watched him head down the driveway.  That pride quickly dissolved to fear again as he headed for the road and I hoped he remembered how to use his brakes…he did.

I’m thinking of all this because the other morning I saw something special.  Our house is bordered on one side by a cluster of pine trees and on the other side by some woods.  As I was out for my morning walk I saw a rustling in the grass by the pine trees.  I paused, thinking it was a rabbit or some other small critter.  Instead, a small, and I mean small, like hours old small fawn staggered to its feet.  It’s white spots just caught the rising sun and its spindly legs barely held it upright.  I looked around for the doe, but she wasn’t to be seen.  It was as if she gave birth a few hours ago then left to find food or water.  The fawn glanced at me briefly, then on its stick like legs it staggered into the pine trees.

There’s not a lot of good happening right now.  The coronavirus is still infecting people and while a lot of people recover from it, it has killed thousands of people here and millions around the world.  Meanwhile an unarmed black man was killed by the police, something that happens far too often.  Outrage led to protest, which invariably led to violence and rioting across the nation.  It seems like we’ve seen this before and nothing much changes. The cycle just repeats over and over, maybe this time will be different, we’ll see.

It’s easy to become negative, it’s kinda been a crappy year so far.  Life is different, the school year ended in March, business’ and restaurants have been closed for two months, only now reopening.  Sporting events and concerts, anything with large crowds have yet to happen.  And the experts talk of a second wave of infections, maybe soon with the reopenings or maybe in the winter during the traditional cold and flu season.

Sometimes you have to look really hard for something good or special, but sometimes it stumbles right before you, like a fawn taking its first wobbly steps on spindly unstable legs disappearing into the woods, beginning its journey.

Stay safe my friends and take care of each other…

Peace

I was recently awakened on a spring weekend morning by something that sounded like a jackhammer outside my bedroom window.  What could that possibly be, and who could be doing it I wondered?  I don’t really have neighbors on either side of me as we live out in the country.  I do have a crazy neighbor across the street who has many cars that are in a constant state of repair, a boat that I’ve never seen leave the yard, a camper which I believe is a new addition and I wonder if it will ever be used, and multiple 4-wheelers that get ridden all day.  This is also the neighbor that mows his lawn at all times of the day and night.  Although I’ve never seen him do any type of construction project, I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to have a jackhammer and be using it at 7:00 on a Saturday morning.

I lay there a moment, thinking of all this and I realized the pounding jackhammer sound had stopped.  Good, I thought, I’ll just go back to sleep.  No sooner had that dreamy thought crossed my mind than it started again, seemingly louder than before, and this time it also woke up my wife.

I don’t know where I read it, but one of the most profound statements I ever saw was…

“the most important responsibility of a husband is to ensure that his wife sleeps soundly”….

Now that could mean many, many things from happiness and familial stability, to security and financial comfort, or many other things.  It’s beauty is in it’s simplicity…

“the most important responsibility of a husband is to ensure that his wife sleeps soundly”…

Let me explain something here, my wife can sleep through anything.  The 4th of July neighborhood fireworks show, she’s out.  The middle of the night summer thunderstorm… doesn’t hear it, the coyotes howling during their hunt, she sleeps right through it.  She also has this amazing ability to fall asleep within 5 minutes of boarding a moving vehicle, whether that be a train, plane or automobile.  But this rat-ta-tat-tatting…she was up and since it was the weekend, she was not happy.

“What is that?”…she inquired not very pleasantly.

I, still in a morning slumber and clearly not thinking right uttered the 3 words a husband should never say…

“I don’t know”….

“You are going to check it out, aren’t you?…

Although it was phrased as a question, I knew it really wasn’t and there could be only one response.

“Yes”…I sighed and headed out the door.

It was a chilly morning, and I stood there looking around, for what I wasn’t quite sure.  There was no jackhammer laying about, nobody in the near vicinity working on any construction projects, but I knew I had better stay outside till I figured it out.  It didn’t take long before it was back, the rat-a-tat-tatting, the sound that had woken me up and more importantly had woken up my wife on a weekend morning.

It was a woodpecker, pecking away at our gutter, right above our bedroom window.  The window flew open and my wife, like a child hearing the ice cream truck on the first day of summer vacation, pressed her face against the screen.

“Hear that, what is it?”….

“It’s a woodpecker” I answered…

“Why’s he doing that” she asked…

And because I didn’t learn from the first time or perhaps I was wishing I was still in bed, I said again…

“I don’t know”…

The window slammed shut and I stood there contemplating my options.  I didn’t have much time to think because within 2 minutes my wife was back at the window.  She had googled it, and she had found an answer.  Apparently, woodpeckers at this time of year try to find something very loud to peck on in order to attract a suitable female for mating.  Evidently the solution was to cover up that spot so he can’t peck there.  I had my doubts about our ability to stop him.  Have you ever tried to stop a bird from building a nest behind one of your porch light fixtures?  They are persistent once they get an idea in their head, and not only that, but this little guy had something way more important on his mind.

It occurred to me that my little woodpecker friend was doing this all wrong.  Pounding on a gutter at 7:00 in the morning was not going to attract a mate.  He was using all his “good moves” way to early.  It’s the equivalent of a guy asking out a girl on a first date and then taking her to breakfast and telling her all his funny stories and trying to impress her.  No matter if she likes him or not, it’s still morning, what are you going to do next, hit the farmers market and go antiquing…..that’s what couples who have been married 20 years do.

Pounding on a gutter that early is like a guy sending a “u up” text at 7:00 in the morning….chances are she ain’t up, but you just woke her up, and if she is up, she don’t want to be hearing from your ass at 7:00 in the morning.  Either way she’s not happy and your chances of mating just flew out the proverbial window.

I’d tell this little woodpecker to chill out a bit…go hang out by the bird feeder and bird bath at dinner time.  If a cute lady woodpecker shows up, offer her a drink from the bird bath.  Talk to her for a bit, get to know her, let her do most of the talking, then say…

“hey, you wanna see something”

That’s when you take her to the gutter, which actually sounds bad but it’s all part of the plan.

And when you get to the gutter don’t start pounding away immediately!!  If anything that will only horrify her, and she’ll probably fly off.  When you’re watching the 4th of July fireworks you don’t expect to see the “grand finale” at the start, that would leave nothing for the end.

I’d tell this little woodpecker to take your time, start slowly, have a build-up, get into a nice rhythm…show her you have some stamina.  Then if she seems she’s into it, go with your best move, show her that rat-a-tat-tatting, show her you can hang with the best of them and finish with a flourish, maybe even throw in some wing flapping and a squawk or two at the end, they seem to like that.

Then take her back to your crib to seal the deal, and the next morning, get up early and leave abruptly, hopefully before she’s awake and fly off and never see her again…it’s the circle of life….(insert Lion King music here)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if someone’s up, but if not, I won’t be waking her because like sleeping babies, sleeping wives are best left sleeping.

Be safe and take care of each other….

 

 

 

 

You’re probably wondering if this blog post is really about pants and toilet paper.  And I’m going to let you know right away that it is, so if that doesn’t interest you, now would be the time to exit out, but since you’re already here, I promise it’s a short read.

Pants and toilet paper, this seems to the major decisions most people are facing every day.  Now I should clarify that I wear pants every day, c’mon people you don’t really think I walking around with no pants on, are you? It’s just that this situation we are all dealing with, this “stay home, stay safe” edict  has made the decision of the type of pants both so easy and so hard.

When I’m working I wear my uniform pants, but on the weekends, it’s a different story.  With no place to go, I can get away with wearing sweat pants or my flannel lounge pants, ( aka, the pants I sleep in ) But this past weekend I was sent out on a task to go to the store for a few items, and yes, one of them was toilet paper.

I feel like we are regressing as a species.  Millions of years ago, the men of the family were sent out to hunt and gather to provide for their families.  They had to deal with the wild animals of that time and hunt them in all kinds of conditions and weather.  Now, we are sent to find toilet paper and just the right size cucumbers and bell peppers.

It was at this moment that I was staring into my closet and I realized that it had been awhile since I had worn pants on the weekend.  I probably could have gone to the store in my sweatpants and nobody would have noticed.  It seems like the only thing people are noticing these days is if you are wearing a face mask.  I was pleasantly surprised to realize that my button fly, 501 Levis fit just as good as always, the buttons were not “socially distancing” from each other.

An even greater surprise came at the store, it seemed like a bright light was shining over the paper products aisle and I swear I heard angels singing, for lo and behold….they had toilet paper.  It has been about a month since I’ve seen anything in the paper products aisle, but I didn’t want to be one of those hoarding type of people, so I only bought one pack, which contained 9 rolls.

As I’ve discussed in previous writings, I’m one of those people who have no idea how much anything costs, I would be terrible if I ever made it on the TV show, “The Price is Right.”  I would be the guy with the confused look on his face, frantically staring back into the crowd for any type of help and then blurt out some pathetically bad price that would cause the whole audience to groan in disbelief.  I would be that one person who is stuck in the row for the whole hour, never making it up on stage, each answer worse than the previous one.

Any how, my point is that even I noticed that a 9 pack of toilet paper costs $10.50, which seemed a little pricey even during a pandemic.  Now I understand the whole supply and demand issue, I mean that’s economics 101, and even though economics can be boring, supply and demand is covered on like the first day.  My suspicions of high priced toilet paper were confirmed by my wife, and I decided to investigate further by doing a google search by asking the simple question…

“Whats the deal with toilet paper?”

A fun thing to do whenever you sit down at a computer is just type in…

“Whats the deal with….

and then see what comes up.  On this day the first two results were not about corona virus or pandemics, but about…

area 51 and airline food. 

Yes, it seems even during a global pandemic the likes of which we have never seen in our life time, the fascination with area 51 and the frustration with airline food still tops the internet search list.

For your information, toilet paper was number 3 on the list, so it wasn’t just me questioning the supply chain and pricing of toilet paper.  I did read one interesting article that stated that toilet paper production is always a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week process, so it’s very difficult to increase production due to a sudden high demand.  All we can hope for is that people no longer feel the need to hoard toilet paper every time they see it at the store and eventually the supply catches up to the demand.

I hope so…I have to think that 100 years from now people might be confused wondering whatever happened to our generation.  At one time they hunted and killed their food, but now they hoard toilet paper and contemplate wearing pants.

Be safe and as always…peace

We all know about “social distancing”, a term most of us had never heard of until about 3 weeks ago.  Now we hear it every day, and are even reminded of it when we go to the store, there’s “X’s” taped on the floor to re-enforce us to keep an appropriate distance in the checkout line.  We’re encouraged to stay at least 6 feet away from people we are interacting with.  Given these guidelines and the fact that this virus pandemic is probably going to be affecting our lives for awhile, now would be the perfect time to figuratively and literally, distance yourself from the “close talker” in your life.

You know the person I’m talking about, the one who stands just a little bit too close when talking to you.  The person who invades your personal space to make a point, the person who doesn’t understand that most people have a “force field” around them that’s about an arms length in distance.

But now is the perfect time to shed that annoying person in your life.  They call you to have coffee, nope sorry, have to follow social distancing guidelines.  They see you out somewhere, you can literally put your arm out to prevent them from invading you space and simply say,

“oh sorry, coronavirus”

I think a lot of people are going to be able to shed the “close talker” in their life because of this coronavirus.  But consider this, if you don’t know who the “close talker” in your life is, then you just might be the “close talker” in somebody else’s life.  There’s this idea we were taught in business school, when you enter a room, look around and identify who the “rube” is, who the “sucker” is, and if you can’t identify who that person is, then it just might be you.  So don’t be the close talker in someone else’s life.

What we’re also losing is the “handshake.”  This virus is easily transmitted so we’re encouraged not to shake hands, and instead to do a “fist bump” instead.  I myself like a good handshake.  You can gauge a persons interest in you and their general enthusiasm about life by their handshake.  I soft, half-hearted handshake with no motion shows a lack of interest.  A person who barely grips your hand and also won’t look you in the eye while doing it is not to be trusted.

Accordingly, a person who grips your hand, gives it a good shake and enthusiastically pumps your hand once, or twice conveys a certain positive feeling, and a certain positive energy generally comes from such a person.  Also a person who has a sweaty hand or a cold hand certainly gives off a negative vibe.

Think about the holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”…George Bailey was all set to go work for old man Potter.  He was going to be his business manager and receive a substantial raise for doing so.  He could finally buy Mary the things he always promised her.  He could get himself out of debt and perhaps even do some traveling like he always wanted.  But when he shook old man Potters hand he realized, as if suddenly being able to peer into the old mans long dead soul, that he couldn’t possibly ever work for Potter.  He couldn’t possibly turn his back on all he had built and all the town people he had helped through his little savings and loan bank.  If he went to work for Potter, in a short time the whole town would be turned into “Pottersville,” a corrupt little town where only the powerful and connected were successful.

Yes, George was able to determine all that in a handshake….I hope we don’t lose that human connection of handshakes and hugs and yes even close talkers, as annoying as they might be…

Stay safe and as always Peace

 

 

 

 

I left the house today and went out there.  I’ve been leaving the house every day for walks and bike rides, but today I really left.  I got in my car and went to town.  We needed a few grocery items, and when my wife heard I was going to the store, she made a list and my few grocery items ended up being an entire cart full.

Shopping has turned into a surreal experience.  What used to be a mundane, mindless task has become this odd experience.  Grocery stores being one of the few places we can go, you get a general feeling of the way life is now.  Immediately when you walk in you notice the changes.  There is a person sterilizing the carts with a spray bottle and cloth.  There’s “X” on the floor by the checkouts where people should be standing to be an appropriate distance apart.  The store has installed a giant, plastic sneeze guard to protect the cashier from the shopper.  *Side note*… does this corona virus mean the end of salad bars and all you can eat buffets? or will people just go back to them once this is over?

I saw a lot of shoppers wearing face masks and gloves, I wore neither.  I can’t imagine the day when I might wear a face mask.  Perhaps I’m being foolish or not cautious enough but if I have to wear a face mask, I just might as well stay at home.  The store was pretty well stocked except for the paper aisle.  I don’t think that aisle will ever be fully stocked again.  There was definitely a different vibe to the whole shopping experience.  It will be interesting to see  how many of the new procedures remain after we return to normal.

Random Thoughts….

I wish it was warmer so I could be outside doing more stuff.  I was supposed to be in Florida this week on a spring break vacation.

Instead I’m inside more than I would like watching shows like Tiger King.  Yes, I was coerced into watching this show called Tiger King about these people who own exotic animals like tigers and lions.  I didn’t think it was all that interesting,  I almost fell asleep, and quite frankly even though I know these people exist, I don’t really want to know anything about them.  They all seem awful and the people who visit their “zoos” and take selfies with baby tigers are just as bad.

My son is making good progress on our 1000 piece puzzle.  I’d say he has about 1/8th of it completed.  He’s sat down each day for about an hour working on it.  Meanwhile I’ve begun to clean out a closet.  And I heard this quarantine is to remain in effect for all of April and perhaps longer.  I don’t have that many closets….

Be safe and Peace

 

I rode my bike today outside for the first time since New Years Day.  Yup, you read that correctly, New Years Day.  There’s a bike group in the area that has a New Years Day ride every year between these two small towns near where I live.  Its about a 10 mile round trip ride, which is nothing for someone who rides regularly, but obviously depending on the weather can be difficult.  This past January 1st was cold, but it wasn’t snowing or raining, and there wasn’t a lot of snow or ice on the ground so  I decided to join the ride.

I froze, and I say this as someone who knows how to dress for outdoor activities as I work outside.  There was a headwind for the first 5 miles, I should say a January headwind, and even though I was wearing gloves and a hat and other warm clothes, I froze.  I actually thought I might end up with frost bite on my fingers.  But the headwind we experienced for the first 5 miles was a tailwind coming back.  And by the time the ride was finished I had convinced myself it wasn’t so bad, but in reality it was.

I tell you all this because for a brief time today the sun came out and it appeared to be a nice spring day.  That’s when I pumped up my tires, put on my bike shorts and headed out the door.  Within 2 miles, my ass was sore, my legs felt like jelly and a relentless headwind was making my lips chapped.  Later as I was watching the weather on the evening news I found out that there were wind gusts up to 40mph.  Now, I don’t know if I was biking in 40mph wind, but it sure as hell felt like it especially when you have a sore ass.  And it was one of those winds that felt like it was in my face for the entire ride.  There were times I was barely going forward and even times the wind pushed me across the road a bit.  It was so ridiculously absurd I actually yelled out on more than one occasion…

“Is that all you got?”

And you know something, the entire 2 hours I was on my bike was wonderful, because I wasn’t cooped up in the house worrying about everything else going on.

The news right now is awful with no end in sight, a new normal has taken over, one where the wearing of face masks and gloves is recommended.  I worry about being there for my family, but for a few hours on a windy spring day, I yelled…

“Is that all you got?”

Peace and be safe

I was awakened to the rain pounding on the roof and against the window sill.  I rolled over, grabbed my phone and checked the weather and the news, both were equally dreary.

I figured I better check the supplies to see how long before one of us had to leave the house and venture into town.  Just saying that makes me feel like pioneer person living on the prairie,

“Yup, gonna hitch up the horses to the wagon and head into town for the monthly supplies,” at this point I would then spit into a brass spittoon.

The pantry was well stocked, with the basics like bread, cereal, noodles, fruit cups and protein powder.  A quick check of the refrigerator also looked promising, except we were alarmingly low on yogurt.  This was probably due to the fact that my son, for some reason has started eating 2 yogurts at a time.  A trip to the basement showed we have enough paper products for at least 2 weeks.  No need to leave the house today, a rainy Saturday is perfect for self isolation.

I did accomplish something useful today, no not any cleaning or organizing, come on its only day 2….I did a puzzle.  I can’t remember the last time I did a puzzle, and whenever I think of adults doing puzzles, I always think of the elderly doing puzzles to pass the time and keep their minds sharp, but that’s not why I was doing one, I was bored and just wanted to pass the time and anyhow I felt my mind turning to jello from too much time sitting around, so ya totally different from the elderly.

Well I admit after 40 minutes my son helped me with the last 15 or so pieces but in my defense it was a 100 piece puzzle that was very challenging.  And he had done it before so I’m sure it seemed easier for him to look at the remaining pieces and know where they went.  I found a 1000 piece puzzle in the closet and I think I might start that tomorrow, and if you think going from a 100 piece puzzle to a 1000 piece puzzle is a big jump, just keep in mind, I have all week and if I get frustrated I can just box it up and take it to the trash and declare that I have begun to clean the closets.

Be safe….Peace

I usually write something on this blog that I hope is mildly entertaining, humorous and maybe gets you to think about something in a different way.  Some of my stories are purely fictional (check out the girl scout cookie story) while others are real life experiences.  I try to keep them short and light, and some of them focus on the mundane tasks of daily life and how there’s always humor in the mundane, like grocery shopping.  It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything.  I know I said I was going to write at least once a month, but lately it seems that life has gotten more complicated.

The covid-19 virus has expanded from a slightly worrisome disease happening in China that was only a concern if you traveled to the affected areas or came in contact with someone who had, to a full blown world-wide pandemic that has brought our country to a halt.  I was all set a couple of weeks ago to write a humorous little story about visiting my local warehouse store (yes, I know, I know, another shopping story) and observing all the panic buying of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  I was going to comment that all these people hoarding items in anticipation of a pandemic but still eating the free samples was the perfect picture of our modern society.  No belief in the grocery distribution network, so we have to panic buy essential items and consume tiny snacks on toothpicks.  Not to mention the slight possibility that those tiny snacks might have been touched by someone who hadn’t bought a barrel of hand sanitizer and who thought all this pandemic talk was hog wash.

Unfortunately, the situation got worse, much worse, very quickly.  Schools closed and probably won’t re-open this school year.  Large events like concerts and sporting events were cancelled.  Soon the words “social distancing” became known to all.  In most states a “stay at home, stay safe” order was instituted and business’ closed for weeks.  Many people have lost their income with no idea when they’ll be able to work again.

I’m fortunate, my job of driving around delivering packages was deemed essential and for that I’m thankful.  The normalcy of going to work and interacting with my co-workers is a welcome relief from the news on TV and social media.  I do worry about coming in contact with someone who is unaware they have been exposed and thereby exposes me to the virus.  Mostly this worries me because I don’t want to bring it home to my family who is observing the “stay at home” edict and therefore has little chance of being exposed to the virus.

Perhaps its for the best that I am now on a week long vacation, which was supposed to be a spring break trip to Florida, but was cancelled weeks ago when all this became serious.  I get to hunker down and quarantine with the rest of you.  The weather is turning nicer so hopefully I won’t go too stir crazy, as I’m not one to sit around and do nothing all day.  Hopefully I’ll be able to hike and bike this coming week, keeping an appropriate distance from the rest of you.  And I do have a couple of show and movie recommendations to watch.

I also thought it might be fun to keep track what I’m doing daily to see if I’m at all productive.  I always say I need to clean out the closets and the garage but I never have time.  I have a feeling that’s not the real reason those jobs never get done.  I’ll be trying to write a little something every day, so check back here for daily updates, I’ll try to keep it humorous and light-hearted.

For instance, today after my wife went to work, she has to go in once or twice a week, I slept in till 11:00…. I could get use the this quarantine

Stay safe and as always Peace

I recently finished a book by one of my favorite authors, Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell.  It’s a non-fiction book about the difficulty in human communication.  The premise of the book is that not only are we bad at talking to strangers and recognizing what they’re really meaning when we talk to each other, but we’re also bad at the non-verbal communication, the body language cues that people give off.

The book examines why spies can go undetected for so long, and why financial scams cost people their life savings and why normal police traffic stops go so horribly and sometimes tragically wrong.  I was feeling quite satisfied, and I admit just a little bit smarter than I was before I read this book, when I noticed my teenage son, face buried in his phone and thumb scrolling at a rapid pace across the screen, and I realized if Mr. Gladwell really wanted to pen a best seller, than his next book could be called Talking to a Teenager.

I have the same conversation with my son every night.  It happens approximately 3 minutes after I walk through the door from work.

“How was school?”

“Fine”

“Any homework?”

“Some”

“What’s new?”

“Nothin”

“Any problems I need to know about?”

“No”

From this 20 second conversation, I’ve determined everything is going good in my sons life.  I’m fairly confident about this because I know that if something was really wrong, my wife would already know about it and would have told me before I had even shut the door.

Or take this conversation I had with him as I prepared the shopping list last weekend.

“Do you need granola bars?”

“mmm, mmh, mmeh”

Three sounds each one an octave higher than the one before.  I know this means an affirmative response and he definitely needs granola bars.

“How about fruit snacks?”

“mmh, mmmgr, mggr”

Also three sounds, but each one an octave lower than the one before, a big negative on the fruit snacks.

The real difficulty happens when he actually does try to speak.  He has a tendency to say yah and nah a lot and they frequently sound the same.

Lets be honest, the real problem with communicating with teenagers these days is the competition from their phone.  Nothing in their immediate vicinity is as interesting as whats on their phone.  The Facebook, the Snapchat, the YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, and there’s probably a whole bunch of new apps I don’t even know about.  Oh and the TIK TOK…. so much tik tokking going on.

Back when I was a child it was the TV that parents worried about.  What were we watching and how much time we spent in front of it.  Then the video games came along with the dire predictions that too much time playing video games was going to ruin children.  Now the cell phone, a mobile device that acts as a TV and a gaming system and so much more, so very much more.  Where in my childhood, my parents could turn off the TV thereby limiting our exposure to the programming and also to video games and shoo us outside, now a days the phone fits right in their pocket.  Kids go outside today and look at their phones, they get together with friends and look at their phones, often not even speaking to their friends unless they need to share a video.

I often wonder if this generation of kids are going to have bad necks from always looking down at their phone, and one thumb grotesquely larger than the other from scrolling with it.  In fact, in the future that thumb will probably have a name, the scrolling thumb.

But it’s not just the teenagers, it’s everyone.  Kids learn from the people around them, yes their friends but also from adults.  People are texting and driving, walking and watching YouTube, Tweeting when they should be talking to the people in front of them.  Do you take your phone into a restaurant when having dinner with other people?  Do you look at your phone more than one time during dinner?

I often think of my son as a big cat.  Much like a cat, he ignores us for most of the day disappearing into his room to sleep ungodly amounts of hours, only to reappear and ignore us some more until he wants to be fed.  And then finally when he’s well fed and rested, he’ll pay attention to us only if we’re amusing enough to him to drag him away from his phone.  Much like you have to dangle something interesting in front of a cat to get their attention, like a piece of string, we have to dangle something more interesting than his phone in front of him.

Is talking to teenagers difficult?  Yes, but no more so than it was for our parents when we were teenagers, just different.  Is there any secrets in getting your teenager to open up to you about what’s happening in their life…no, but I’ve found that if you talk about things there doing, things they’re interested in that, that’s a good starting point.

And if that doesn’t work, ask to do a Tik Tok with them….oh, so much Tik Tokking.

 

 

 

I find that sometimes  I have so many thoughts bouncing around in my head that I need an outlet to express them.  Usually this outlet is some poor, unsuspecting co-worker and after a minute or two I notice their eyes begin to glaze over and they begin to look for some type of escape from my ramblings.

So in the interest of keeping my co-workers on some what friendly terms, I present to you dear reader the first ever blog post of RANDOM BRAIN DUMP…..

I actually kinda wish I had some type of music that goes along with announcing that, like some trumpets or an entire orchestra, but alas the budget for this blog is very small and even though I’ve mentioned to management the need for upgrades, I have a feeling my requests have gone on deaf ears.  So think of some grand music whenever you hear about….

RANDOM BRAIN DUMP

Yesterday, I had a craving for chocolate milk.  It doesn’t happen often, maybe once or twice a month.  So I stopped in a gas station to satisfy my need for chocolate milk, and as I was standing there in front of the milk display, I noticed they have new flavors for chocolate milk.  Now you would think, as I do, that there is no need to mess around with chocolate milk. It is nearly perfect in every way and I dare you at this moment to not think of a cold glass of chocolate milk….you can’t can you, see once you start thinking about it, you can’t stop.  Well, that’s how I was yesterday, needing chocolate milk.  But as I said, the chocolate milk manufacturers clearly thought they needed a new gimmick for chocolate milk, so they have new flavors, Snickers and Twix flavors.  Mmmm…I thought I like Snickers and I like Twix so being bold like I am, I decided to stray slightly from just getting plain old chocolate milk and I grabbed a Twix chocolate milk and headed to the register.

Now a small bottle of chocolate milk usually sells for about $1.50-$2.00 depending on the store, and when I grabbed the Twix bottle I noticed there was no price on the shelf, so in essence I had no idea how much this small bottle of Twix chocolate milk was, but again I was being bold and living on the edge, like I often do.  I don’t usually pay much attention to prices, I kinda know what things should cost and I just buy them, rarely do I “shop around” and lets face it, this was not a shop around item.  Much to my surprise this small bottle of Twix chocolate milk clocked in at $3.29.  That’s a price that even caught my attention.  So I was already a bit disappointed with my purchase before I even opened it.  I was hoping this would be the best chocolate milk I’ve ever tasted, and if it was, it would justify paying $3.29.  I mean it kinda would, if you found the best of anything and it cost only $3.29 you would be overjoyed at finding it.

I know by now you’re probably on the edge of your seat and quite frankly there’s no way to sugar coat this but to tell you, it was not the best chocolate milk I’ve ever tasted, in fact it was GOD AWFUL.  It had such an overwhelming Twix taste to it, that to say this was chocolate milk in any way is a disservice to chocolate milk.  I will not be trying the Snickers version of this, and well, I’m starting to rethink my “being bold” strategy for the new year.

Speaking of the New Year and the New Decade…I feel like we need some music for whenever we say New Year, but since I can’t even get music for RANDOM BRAIN DUMP, I don’t think were getting music for NEW YEAR.

A lot of people begin the NEW YEAR with resolutions.  I’ve been there and made these same resolutions, to eat better, to sleep more, to be a better employee, friend, person…blah, blah, blah blah and blah.  We all know these resolutions probably won’t make it until Martin Luther King day….so people, no more with the resolutions unless you’re willing to make life style changes.  I digress and sorry for the life advice, but I do have a few things I’m working on for this NEW YEAR….I just heard trumpets, did you?

I’m going to try to write at least once a month….so yes this RANDOM BRAIN DUMP checks that box for January.  And I suspect many of you are actually dreading this announcement, but too bad, I suckered you in and lets face it, you made it this far, might as well see where this goes.

More adventures and more being bold and taking chances…although, as I mentioned with the Twix milk, I might want to be more selective.  More adventures simply means more doing THINGS.  Traveling, riding my bike, going places, eating at new places just more and more new stuff.

Through a friend, I’ve recently discovered free on-line classes through Hillsdale college.  They have classes on government, and history and literature and so forth, and even though I have a college degree I thought “you’re never too old to learn something new” so I signed up for the Constitution classes.  And before you think “wow Danko, that’s  amazing”…..they seem pretty straight forward and easy to grasp.  I’ll watch some videos, take some notes, take a quiz and boom, constitutional scholar I’ve become.  Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but at the very least, I’ll answer a few more questions on Jeopardy.

Alright, one more thing….It’s about time for people to throw away their pumpkins that I still see sitting on peoples porches.  It’s January, a New Year, a New Decade and besides the pumpkins are disgusting.  The ones I see are rotten, wet, moldy messes usually squashed and almost unrecognizable.  I have a feeling these are also the people who leave their Christmas lights up until April, hey now there’s a future blog post, Christmas lights in April, betcha can’t wait for that one.  And now would be a good time to go through that bowl of Halloween candy and throw that away too, because I know one of your resolutions was to eat less candy in the New Year.

Peace…