more normal than not

There’s a rooster outside our bathroom window this morning.

He’s there every morning, but this morning, he’s hoarse.

He gave a couple of feeble crows and then must have gotten tired or something, because he stopped trying.

That’s OK….I don’t need him to wake up at 5.

I can handle that on my own.

We mowed yesterday….here and over at “the property”.

Of course, every mower and big truck that I was involved with broke in some fashion…..pull cords, water filled float bowls….bad and neglected batteries.

But….in spite of all the breakdowns, we got a lot of work done.

I like it when I get something done.

It seems like a lot of days, I feel like I’m just wondering, “WHAT DO I DO NOW?!!” ….in some subdued and covertly frantic way.

Jenny says that I’m like Barney Fife….nervous.

I was a lot cooler when I didn’t really have any responsibilities.

I was cooler when I didn’t know anything about the world.

What a hoarse rooster I am ….now.

The neighbors are shooting the heck out of the air this afternoon.

Actually, they’re shooting the heck out of the bank at the back of their field.

Shooting the HELL out of it.

How appropriate for a Sunday.

That’s sarcastic.

There’s nothing “appropriate” about all this shooting noise on a Sunday.

There’s nothing nice about it at all.

But…..that’s what we get for living in the country.

I guess.

There are “rules” out here.

You aren’t supposed to mow your lawn on a Sunday down here in the Bible Belt.

But….in the Bible Belt….apparently you can shoot the HELL out of the bank beside the house.

That’s what the Second Amendment guarantees……

Awwwww…..they’ll run out of bullets soon and we’ll have some peace and quiet.

That’ll be cool.

I need some peace now and then.

In 6 years of writing this blog, I believe that I’ve missed about 7 or so posts in all that time.

I try to write a post a day as some twisted expression of a sense of discipline.

I think that the real reason I do it is because if I don’t stay consistent, I’m too lazy to keep anything going for long.

Running is like that for me, too.

If I don’t do it everyday, I skip days for lame reasons.

I skipped two days (of writing the blog) in a row the past couple of days.

And….the world didn’t end.

Nobody even missed me.

What a revelation.

I did some truck repair the other day….replaced a caliper.

That’s why I skipped writing a blog post.

I tired myself out.

Whew. I was beat.

I can’t stop….or I’ll stop.

I have to keep going….even if I don’t have a destination in mind.

Blind obedience to a discipline is better than sacrificing momentum to laziness.

I have to keep stumbling through the storm.

Stumble on.

Clicking…popping….weird and bad noises.

That’s not a good thing when the rest of the Jeep is getting closer to being “dialed in”.

When you can crawl under the beast and diagnose the problem without a….problem….it makes things easier to know how and what to fix.

I have a bad u-joint.

So….I’ll pull the hub….pull the axle….and replace the joint.

Simple.

I’ve done it before, too, so it shouldn’t be a bad job.

Or….at least, it should be a familiarly bad job.

Sometimes when you know what’s coming, the worst job is bearable.

This one should be a piece of cake.

A big ‘ol greasy piece of cake.

There was a bee in my mail Jeep the other day.

That happens a lot.

I’m a bee magnet.

I’m a sitting duck.

But….on the other hand, it’s a beautiful sign of the warmth that Spring brings when the bees are back.

It is….a good thing.

The bee flew around the back of the Jeep….desperate to get out….and, finally, after lowering all the windows and pushing it towards freedom with some of the mail I was preparing to deliver, I got it out of the Jeep and back in the breeze.

Before it flew out, I thought, “this bee is going to sting me because it can’t figure out how to get free….”

How to get free.

Of course, because I have too much time on my hands while I’M DOING MY JOB….I thought that we all tend to want to bite or sting when we panic over how we’re going to escape.

The most agitated and disappointed people are sometimes the angriest over what they perceive as an inability to get “free”.

We’re all living lives of “quiet desperation”, though….right?

We need to get free of the things that agitate us.

We need to get free so that we don’t bite or sting the innocent people around us.

We need to know that we aren’t “trapped”.

It was just a bee.

A bee who wanted desperately to be free.

I need to figure out how to encourage the people around me to realize that they aren’t trapped.

I need to live a life that exhibits the best example of “being free”.

I need to keep my mind limber and expansive and…..free.

I need to set the bees free.

Free?

Sounds good to me.