Jenny called me at work the other day.

When Jenny calls me at work, I need to turn off the radio and pause for a second before I open the next mailbox.

I need to listen.

“Do you know what Sparrow just did?” she asked.

“No…..took her first step?”

I miss a lot. Everybody who works (away from home) misses a lot. I guess that people miss things if they aren’t at home.

“No….” Jenny told me “she was sitting in her high chair outside, eating something sweet, and a yellow jacket landed on her table, and she picked it up and put it in her mouth.”

I didn’t know what to say.

My experiences with yellow jackets usually end badly.

I don’t touch them.

I don’t eat them.

“Oh, no….what happened?! Did she get stung?”

“No….she started laughing and the bee flew out of her mouth. I think the bee was kind of surprised….”

What the heck? That yellow jacket didn’t even see that one coming in a million years.

People putting a yellow jacket in their mouths is not standard operating procedure.

It must have tickled some to make her laugh like that.

I was glad that she didn’t get stung….funny little Sparrow.

That’s a funny way to live….not expecting a bad thing to happen.

You see the bee….and you put it in your mouth….and it’s funny.

It’s not scary or troublesome.

Until you get stung, you don’t have a care in the world.

I’m going to pick up my grass carp this morning.

The outfit that sells the fish is coming with a big tank trunk….so I need to drive out to the hardware store to get them.

I’m thinking, “What if these fish die? What if that pond kills them? That’ll be 60 bucks down the drain….”

“What if they don’t eat all the grass?”

“What if some big bird eats them?”

I’m worried about stuff that I don’t know about.

How did that happen?

Sparrow puts the bee in her mouth…and laughs…and I’m worried about everything.

What kind of example am I? Is that the role of the “Good Daddy”? To worry all the time….see all the boogie men and KILL ‘EM ALL before they can get us? Or spend a lifetime looking for them….ready to “kill ’em all” if the bad times ever really do come around?

Good things happen. Bad things happen. All kinds of things happen.

It’s the things that actually do happen that should fill my head and my life.

What’s that Mark Twain quote? Let me look it up quick…..

Ah….

I have been through some terrible things in my life–some of which actually happened.

I guess that you just push through….no matter what life brings you.

Nothing happens all at once, anyway.

I think that would make the Universe implode or something.

Nothing happens all at once.

You just eat the bee….and wait to see what’s going to happen next.

I do think that it helps if you laugh while you’re doing it.

Maybe that’s the secret.

“Wonderland” Angie Aparo