A friend called to ask a favor. He went out to dinner with his wife at Chili’s celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. At one point, he told his wife happy anniversary and they touched his glass of sweet tea to her glass of strawberry lemonade as they casually talked over dinner.
They finished and asked the waitress for their ticket.
A few minutes later the waitress returned and said their bill had been paid in full. Continue reading Hope For Tomorrow
Sometimes it’s just enough to trod through the day to day issues and simply make it through. The award for those days is to simply collapse in bed at day’s end. Everyone has them. It’s part of being human, I guess.
But to stay there doesn’t work. To stay in those days is like digging a tunnel through the darkness of an underground cavern with no escape hatch. To remain in those days is to remain in the tunnel gliding through life like a bat in the dark because we’re too worried, too busy or too tired to see light outside the underground cavern. Sure, life moves along, but it’s not the same as soaring in the light of clouds. Continue reading Abiding Sunrise
Mango, my black mouth curr dog, has a staring problem. It’s hard to be stared at. It’s even worse when it’s a longer than average, full fledged, laser stare, the kind where every move you make is calculated and the pupils of the eyes follow you, anticipating every move you make. It gives a shiver down my spine!! A stare like that from a person or stranger can start a fight, and one like that in a dark alley is why there are concealed handgun laws.
On the other hand, even if it’s a stare full of hope, love and adoration, after the initial amusement, it can get almost spooky, to the point you want to close the curtains and hide.
Mango puts his paws up on the backyard window sill and stands there staring inside the Continue reading Dog Day Stares
It’s one of the most popular burger places across from Stanford University in Palo Alto. I stepped in the long line to order and a woman with an 11-year old boy got in line behind me. She warned her son several times to be patient, yet she was a tad bit irritated herself. A mother-son verbal conflict arose, complete with that’s not fair versus a you don’t always get what you want speech.
At first, I just listened. The boy was on verge of a chaotic meltdown, and honestly, I thought she should make good on her promise to take him straight home if his impatience continued.
When he smiles, it is obvious he has only one front tooth on top. He has a pear-shaped body so his hips are wider than his shoulders, and he walks with a limp. He always looks sleepy, and the giant T-shirts he wears every day with his thick glasses give him the appearance of a dull wit.
The thing is, he’s not. He’s actually quite witty, charming too. And he’s smart. It’s not that he’s educated. He’s not. But he’s wise. Wise is better. Continue reading Mr. Willie
It didn’t have a hurt leg tucked under. It has one, and only one, leg.
I noticed the robin last month when working in the yard, mainly because he let me get a lot closer than most birds do before they fly off. It was working double overtime looking for food. It half jumped, half flapped its wings to move. Continue reading One-Legged Robin
She was a pretty kid, a high school cheerleader, who in most ways, stood out head and shoulders above the rest of the cheerleaders from both schools. She was cheering for the other team at a recent basketball game against our small high school. She was just like all the other girls, dressed in the same uniforms, except, she was in a wheelchair.
Kind. Gentle. Peaceful. Those are some of the most wonderful traits. When they are woven in a person and become intertwined in their soul, it’s more than wonderful, it’s beautiful.
So it was with my Great Granny. It wasn’t so much on the outside, at least not when I knew her, but on the inside. Her wrinkled skin, bobbing head, trembling hands, and even occasionally appearing to chew something that wasn’t there just wasn’t her enamoring factor. Even with that, in advanced age her outside was still just as cute as a button. Continue reading The Most Beautiful
He said it was the longest night of his life…
When he went at 9:00 AM for an angioplasty to clear a partially blocked artery, the doctor assured him it would all be routine, easy peasy. It wasn’t.
He was under a local anesthesia that kept him calm and relaxed, but quite aware. His give a hoot factor though was low, really low. When he heard the doctor say, “Oh no!”, Continue reading Longest Night of His Life
There’s a teenager I know who recently turned 92 years old. You have to do a double take when you learn her age because she looks twenty years her junior.
Her hair is grey, with a smidgen of blue from her hair coloring. She walks with a little limp, not much, just enough to know that her hip bothers her sometimes, even though I’ve never heard her say a word about it. She has lines of time’s grace around her eyes and cheeks, and her hands and fingers show the wear of work over the Continue reading 92-Year-Old Teenager
