I don’t know much about ebola.
It’s not something that touches my life at this point.
I could say, “I don’t have a dime in it” and just move on….ignore it and remain oblivious….if I wasn’t watching the news and didn’t take the threat seriously.
But….from what I understand, it’s moving….slowly and surely…moving, moving, moving….coming across the oceans…coming for me.
This morning we’re watching RescueBots.
So far, they haven’t mentioned the danger of contracting ebola.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVxJTMyUwl0
Ahhhhhh, coffee.
If the dudes in power weren’t slamming down cup after cup, this stuff would be illegal.
“The dudes in power….” Hah! That’s kind of funny.
Who’s that?
There were two reasons to lift the needle back when we listened to vinyl.
The first reason was to get beyond a song that you hated.
You couldn’t just hit a button and jump forward….you had to physically jump over the grooves to escape a lame song.
We listened to a lot of lame songs back in the day.
Who wanted to get up all the time to escape a bad tune? Continue reading
If you come up with some kind of wacky idea….and then say, “That’s my plan”….there may be some people in your life who will say, “welllllll….that sounds a little more like a DREAM….that doesn’t sound like a plan. You need to be a little more realistic than that. Now….what’s the real plan?”
I realized yesterday that one of my really strong talents is the ability to plan to plan.
I can get a good one together….get all my ducks in a row….line everything up….and plan like a manic planning monkey.
I can do that if I ever get over the hump of getting to the actual planning stage.
My intentions are good….I can plan to plan with the best of them. Continue reading
Every morning….every morning….every morning….every morning….the same.
I get up quietly….early, to enjoy some quiet time by myself….and go downstairs to have some juice and vitamins and to make some coffee.
Every morning, I hope that the squeaky tread at the top of the stairs won’t wake up Nate.
I hope this every single morning. Continue reading
There is a sign on the half and half carton that says “Grade A”.
There’s also a sign that the cream comes from cows who weren’t influenced to increase production through the use of pharmaceutical intervention.
These cows that made the stuff that makes my coffee tasty weren’t on the “juice”.
That’s good.
I’d get huge if I drank the milk from the steroid cows. Continue reading
It’s middle school, and we’re getting ready to square dance.
The sunlight is moving through the old windows on the other side of the gym, moving through the dust in the air, landing on the burnished floor, landing on my feet.
I can see Ruthie sitting by herself on the other side of the gym….sitting towards the top of the bleachers.
We are in the seventh grade.
The boys are grouped like a bunch of shy and scared young cattle….trying to avoid this.
We don’t want to dance.
The coach comes over to us and tells us, “You better get over there and pick a partner…or you’re all going to be running laps.”
I start moving.
Ruthie is still sitting by herself…waiting.
Ruthie is not the prettiest girl in the school.
There is nothing flashy about Ruthie.
She doesn’t try to attract any attention.
I don’t know Ruthie….but I think that she’s nice….nice in a peaceful way.
When the coach tells us that we all better motorvate and find someone to dance with….I move towards Ruthie.
I climb the bleachers to where she is sitting, and I ask her if she’d like to dance.
Now, this is the part that I always remember…and that shames me a little and makes me regret another thoughtless and unintentionally cruel thing that I’ve done.
Ruthie looked up at me like she was grateful or something….happy….pleased to be noticed.
She looked at me like I was a nice guy.
She looked pleased to finally be “picked”.
That was when I said, “Coach said that if we didn’t pick someone, we’d be running laps…”
I said that….and Ruthie’s face fell a little and I think that she understood what the “real score” was.
I think I must have been a bit embarassed….a little bit shy….to have to add that.
I still don’t know why I had to say that.
We danced….and I’m sure that Ruthie thought that I’d only picked her because I had to.
Ruthie was a nice girl….sitting there in the dusty ray of light.
Why did I have to ruin another nice moment?
I guess that when I get up late…and don’t have time to write a blog in the morning…the “go to” topic later in the day is going to have to be funny monkeys.
What else is going to rouse me after a hard day of delivering joy to all the mail recipients on my mail route?
“My mail route”?! I just realized I’m like a boring and too consistent Santa Clause! Maybe if I just came around once a year, the people would be more excited to see me?
I don’t want to limit these monkeys and say anything like “this is the funniest monkey video ever”.
I have faith that the monkeys will continue to come up with funnier stunts for us to film.
I have faith in these monkeys….these funny, funny monkeys.
There is nothing funnier than a naughty monkey chasing a bunch of Indian people.
I hear a lot about things going “viral” these days.
Now, I do hear about the epidemics out there….that’s pretty serious.
This isn’t what I’m thinking about this morning, though.
What I’m thinking about is when something becomes popular on the internet….and then it’s popularity quickly grows as more and more people start talking about it and checking it out…and then more people start checking it out….and then….
The thing becomes “viral”.
I don’t know how you do that.
Usually, it’s something like a swimming cat that everybody has to see.
Swimming cat videos usually explode in popularity. Continue reading