Walking

I saw a woman taking her dog for a walk yesterday. She was carrying the dog in her arms, which seems to negate most of the positve effects one's dog is suppose to derive from "walking the dog".

But my brother had a short legged little dog that had the same problem: he could usually get there, he just couldn't make it back.

I can sympathize. Some of us old ladies have the same problem.

What does it take?

I yelled at a guy at worked today, but it didn't faze him. He's still stupid.

I don't cry much anymore.

Saturday night I watched The Royal, a British show about a small rural hospital. I enjoy the show, but they have a tendency to kill people off at the end of a season and Saturday they started off with a train wreck that derailed every car on the track.

You knew somebody was going to die when you saw the cars perched precariously on their sides and teetering on top of each other. You had to hope it wasn't the sweet young Irish nurse who was coming back from a visit with her family, or the newly married couple just beginning their lives together, or the nice vicar who was visiting his mother after 3 years in the Indian mission fields.

The cut on the vicar's head wasn't serious, and he had a bruised rib that didn't appear fractured, just sore. It was touch and go for several moments while the young couple and the nurse and the new doctor were rescued from a burning car. It looked like nobody was going to die.

Then the vicar took a turn for the worse while his mother searched the hospital for him, politely, calmly asking, "Have you seen my son?"

When they took him to surgery, I found myself momentarily praying for him. I quickly remembered it was just a TV show and he wasn't really dying, but I cried anyway. I was surprised at the torrent of tears for a character I didn't even know.

I don't like my TV shows to be sad. I want them all to have happy endings. But that didn't explain the tears.

I wasn't crying for the vicar. I was crying for me.

It's not always about book learnin'

School started this week around here. Poor things. Kids today have a month less of summer than I had when I was their age.

You'll have to forgive me if I want to point and bray, Ha-Ha!

School was shorter back in the 'good old days'. Probably because we were naturally smarter.

I started school when I was five and graduated when I was 17. I went to two elementary schools and three different high schools, but didn't go to kindergarten or junior high. They didn't have them back then, didn't need them.

My elementary school in southern Indiana covered the first 8 grades, but only had 6 classrooms. Our library was a book case in the back of the 7th/8th grade classroom. We had the same teacher for 5 years. She taught us to do the twist and that it was polite for men to light your cigarettes for you. I know, the cigarette thing was a strange thing to teach grade school students, but she wanted to prepare us for life. I guess.

There were only 13 kids that graduated from my eighth grade class. Me, Connie, Rita, Mary, Linda B, Yvonne, Patsy, Larry, Robert, Irvin, Rosemary, Linda P, and Gail. Joyce didn't graduate with us, but she was one of our classmates. Her family were farm workers and she drifted in and out of our school as her family migrated from crop to crop.

Sometimes I think about Joyce and hope I was kinder to her than I remember. I was never mean to her on purpose and I think I was always polite, but that's not always enough, is it?

Happy birthday, Aunt Joan!

My Aunt Joan's birthday was yesterday. This is a picture of her and her daughter taken about 30 years ago at a family Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at my grandparents' home. The little girl in the picture is now a minister and the mother of two boys. of her own.


Even though I've known her over half a century, this is the only picture I have of my Aunt Joan. Except for the ones in my head, and in my heart.

In your eye

If you'd like to see some fantastic pictures of the sky, visit Astronomy Picture of the Day . "Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."

Look at this spectacular snapshot labeled "X-Rays from the Cat's Eye Nebula".


Amazing, isn't it? Go to the web site and back track to August 4th to see a brief explanation of what it is, and a bigger and even more amazing view.

Some days are golden.

Today was a perfect summer day.

Too hot for comfort, but an occassional breeze to make you think it wasn't.
Bright blue sky that overfilled the heavens, tumbling all the way down to that summer green grass that makes a perfect seat to enjoy the shady nooks provided by trees in full leaf.

A barefoot day.