Flying Solo

 It's been an awfully long time since I've done any traveling inside the country, let alone outside of it. I am looking very forward to this trip to the UK. 

It's an extravagance for me, to be sure. It is also a time when my son-in-law and daughter are setting up housekeeping in their newly purchased home. Not the best of times to visit, I suppose, but I am anxious to see her. The timing allows plenty of time to put in a garden when I get back, although I will take my trays of baby plants to my sister to tend to until I return. We've also got a very big summer coming up. (More on that down the road). Tim will also be retired, and we will work like gangbusters finishing up that last renovation and getting that house on the market. At the same time, we will begin work on the basement of the new house at the retirement property. All these things will be keeping us close to home. 

When I tried to tie Tim down to a departure date, he kept coming up with reasons we couldn't go in March. In April. I saw that departure date being moved further and further back, and I know that he has plans for the summer. I made up my mind that I wasn't waiting for him to get on board with the plan.

 So. 

This is a different world now and I am learning about euros and pounds and exchange rates. I have a meeting tomorrow with my bank to figure out what they can do with my debit card. I am fussing about covid tests. The airline website says they are required, but the latest news says that they are not. I will have a test done anyway, just in case things change as we are driving to the airport. Tickets are purchased. I had a two hour lay over in Detroit on the way back. 48 hours later, I got an e-mail telling me that it has been changed to an eight hour layover. IN DETROIT! Wonderful (note sarcasm). 

My daughter did some fretting about the trip, that financially this is not be best time for them. I don't care about that. I'll have money too. It is not expected that the trip will be their 'treat'.  I've never been to the UK before so it will be all new to me. I said that walking the streets of London and seeing (and hearing) Big Ben would be a thrill. Touring some of the old churches and castles would be exciting, and one of those castles is quite nearly in their backyard. I want to go dig for bottles. The Sutton Hoo Treasure would be a highlight. I'd be happy to sit on a train and watch the scenery go by. It would all be a brand new experience. On someone's blog, they noted that carboot sales begin to start up in March. Perhaps I will get to attend one of those. 

I'm still wrangling with feeling guilty about leaving my husband behind for a whole month. It is the first time that I've ever done such a thing. I've explained it as best it can be explained to him. Tim has a tendency to prioritize things as they affect him. He is not at all adverse to taking a trip, however, every 't' must be crossed and every 'i' must be dotted, and when all the boxes are ticked off in his mind, the trip can be planned. The problem is that his 'to-do' list is constantly being added to. I could not get him to commit to a date. 

That is how it will come to be that I am traveling alone on the first big trip of my retirement. I wonder how long it will take me to stop feeling guilty about it. 

Random Nonsense.

 In less than 48 hours, my layover in Detroit went from being two hours long to over eight. This takes my return trip from 16 hours to 24. Argh. 

Seems to have been a short lived cold and that I am already on the down hill side of it. (Yay!)

Here's something I'm curious about. I've had my phone for two years now. Even after all that time, I am still getting text messages about CBD gummies and oil, diabetes treatment and (worst of all), offers that note my girlfriend is unhappy and that I need to try some product they're hawking. I hate the latter because they are vulgar, shockingly so. (No. I am not a prude.) They are all addressed to 'James' who evidently had my number before it became my number. In a strange set of small town coincidences, I know young James. I used to work with his father. 

Now these texts arrive with a flag that suggests they might be spam, and I am given the option to mark them as such and block the number. Seems easy enough. But they continue to flood in from different numbers. To my way of thinking, this means that the phone company is aware that these are spam, but is giving the customer the opportunity to decide whether or not they are interested in the products. So...why is there not some way to block these numbers. Why can I not say, for instance that I want to block anything that contains 'CBD' or 'James' or 'diabetes' or 'squirt' or 'f---'? 

Just a question that I've got. It sounds stupid perhaps, but I'm not a big phone talker. Most of my texts are junk. A couple weekends ago, I was marking and blocking phone numbers and was surprised to see a flurry of calls come in, one right after another, for the same products from different numbers. I seriously could not keep up with them. 

It is still single digit cold here. The fire is still going here. This week, the temperatures are supposed to get above freezing, and I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to the break in weather. 

Blah.

An interesting note: Yesterday, I had a visitor on my blog from Eden Prairie, MN. That is the headquarters of the company I left two weeks ago for the joys of retirement. I watched, just out of curiosity and they stayed on the blog for quite a time. 

I wondered if they were reading about my reasons for leaving. I wondered if maybe they were giving a thought to the perspective of a weary employee.  I heard that they are hiring on people, which would ease things. While they still have overtime, it is now voluntary, at least so far. 

It would be nice to think that my thoughts could effect a change.

I woke up this morning with a cold, one of those miserable things that make you sneeze and sneeze. I've got cold chills. It is another cold day and the fire keeps the livingroom cozy warm. Every time I go out the door to bring in firewood, the cold makes my face throb. 

There is a pot of pumpkin soup in the crock pot. Sipping a nice hot soup in front of a snapping fire finishing up Red's suggestion "An Arctic Man" sounds perfect to me. Certainly nothing to sneeze at. 

Leaving on A Jet Plane.

 After a frustrating afternoon, I've bought my ticket. I am headed to the UK next month to see my daughter and her husband. I have not seen her in three years. 

We intended to fly to Georgia to see them for Cara's milestone birthday two years ago. She talked us into waiting a couple months until the weather improved. Biggest mistake ever. In less than a month, Covid had shut everything down all across Europe. It stayed that way so long that I missed her wedding. 

So. I've been a bit sappy about how much I want this. I'm going by myself, because Tim is not quite retired and I'm afraid to wait. These are uncertain days. I don't want to miss another opportunity. 

Rubbing it in.

 One degree out this morning (-17 for you celcius people). Cold enough for me, 

My sister and her husband own across the road from our retirement property. She posted a photo of her thermometer on facebook. -16 there (-26C). She asked, "Do we have to go outside?"

I took a long sip of my morning coffee and typed back carefully, "I don't." 

Gads, but retirement is great. 

Hypocrite

 I live in a relatively rural part of the country, although I do live in a small town. I am surrounded by miles of woods and farm land. Poverty is a problem here, with so many children living in poverty that every child has access to free lunches at school. 

Things have certainly changed since I was a child. 

As landlords, Tim and I are quite familiar with the following scenario: Someone comes to you to rent a place. The idea that tenants are 'vetted' seems to be uncommon, but we are careful to protect our current tenants, and we feel a big responsibility not to bring in shady people. Something else that we make very clear at the very first meeting is that the apartment is being rented to them and them alone, If they decide to bring in another person to live with them, that person also must pass a background check. 

This makes people angry sometimes, that we are so mindful. One young man listened and then announced that he intended to bring his girlfriend in as well as another couple. 

"If those people are not approved by us, prior to the move-in, it would be considered a violation of the lease as carefully outlined in the paper you are required to sign before you move in. Your lease would be void, and you would have to move out." we explain firmly.

His jaw jutted and he aggressively told us that once he paid his rent, the property was his.  He also told us that we didn't understand. He had the money and was prepared to give it to us on the spot and move in immediately. "No," we said, "that's not how we work." 

It amazes me the number of landlords that are so anxious to fill an apartment that they would have taken that deal. They are the ones who complain about being taken advantage of by their tenants. It doesn't make sense to us. If they were more selective about the tenants, they could avoid most of their problems. Better to have the place set empty for a month or two than to move someone in quickly and find you've got a problem. 

One of the most common problems is to have a group of people who are working together. The one with a job will apply for an apartment and then all of them move in. It is never a good situation. It's noisy, and chaotic, and the property usually takes a beating. Normally what happens is that rents get behind, and you wind up with an eviction situation which takes forever to sort out legally. Meanwhile, the property is destroyed before your very eyes and you have no recourse but to sue for damages after the fact. You will win, but you will never receive a penny. 

These thoughts are brought to mind because, on the drive home from the eastern side of the state, I drove through a lot of towns. I caught a glimpse of a ragged person with a big back pack standing at the front door of a church. At a red light in another town, a man crossed in front of my car, bundled against the cold holding a hot cup of coffee, his head down, a back pack on his back. A group of people stood out of the wind against a building in yet another place. 

We don't see that much where I live and it is a bit eye opening to me. We had a homeless woman for a while, but she moved on. We have a homeless man who lives in a place I will not name, and the local business owners seem to make sure of his wellbeing. 

It has been so very cold and I worry about the people who have no place to go.

I think of the people that we have turned down, and I feel like a hypocrite. 

Unforgettable.

 What a wonderful week I've had! My grand daughter is 3 now, and it is such a fun age. She has a great imagination, and it is entertaining to have back and forth conversations with her. 

Every time that I go to visit, one of the things that I try hard to do is drop kick my son and daughter-in-law out the door for a date night. They rarely have the opportunity because sitters are a bit of a struggle. However, when I went to visit in June, date night was cancelled. The three of them were succumbing to colds, one right after another, like dominos falling. 

I returned again in August, but it was a rushed trip, in for her third birthday, and back to work on Monday morning, so there was no time to squeeze in a date night. 

I went in once more in October. There was an ER visit, and pain killers, and unfortunately, date night was once again cancelled. My son could barely walk.

I was feeling like the harbinger of horrible happenings. 

I was very clear that since this visit was a long visit, I wanted them to take advantage of the time and get out, whenever they wanted. They got two date nights and a Sunday afternoon with friends. 

Iris and I played. Dollhouse, blocks, ball, games. She is very interested in her letters. I took a bananagram game to her and divided out two complete alphabets. I pick out the A, and she looks for hers, then the B, and so on. We recite the alphabet as we go to figure out what letter comes next. She can identify probably 1/3 of the alphabet independently. We played Hungry Hippos. Don't Break the Ice. Kerplunk. And books. Oh my gosh, does that girl love being read to. 

If there is anything more wonderful in this world than being awakened by a little girl who can't wait to start the day with her Ama, I can't think of what it would be. We watched the sun come up as we ate our apple slices. She picked out my earrings every morning. We sang songs about monkeys. I went to her gymnastics class. I went with her to her library story time program. We painted. She made valentines. I made her one too. I took a hyacinth bulb and a budding vase. It was starting to do what bulbs do, and she was interested in the root growth and the green breaking through at the top. 

We went to a Japanese restaurant and had our dinner cooked at the table. Eggs were spinning, spatulas were twirled like batons, and fire flared up very dramatically. Iris loved it from the safety of her father's lap. 

And I loved every single minute of it. All of it. 

This is not a particularly profound post. I'm home now. Today's trip took me six hours instead of the regular five hours and 15 minutes or thereabouts. I was detoured, and somehow missed my turn. I wasn't concerned because I basically knew where I was, and the direction I needed to travel. The towns were familiar. It just took me longer to get back. So I'm road weary, but I can't sleep. 

I walked out to the kitchen and looked at the little Valentine on my refrigerator and smiled, and suddenly, I wanted to get it all down while it was fresh in my mind. 

I really, really love being a grandma.   

Whoot.

 I had intended on heading east Tuesday morning. My bags are packed, and I'm anxious to see my children and granddaughter. It's only been three months, but honestly, it feels like forever. I'm very much looking forward to my week with them. 

We've got some pretty questionable weather moving in between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon, and I've been keeping a very close eye on that storm front. It doesn't look like they will be hard hit on the eastern side of the state, but they are calling for 10-14 inches of snow here, with the possibility of more. 

Now, we have had winter storm warnings for a week now. Dire snow warnings, maybe 2 or 3 inches. Sleet warnings, nothing. More snow advisories, one right after another all week long, with very minimal issues here. The storms seem to be going around us. So...I wasn't really too concerned about the weather forecast, to be honest. 

Except Tim said, "If we get the snow that they forecasted, it's going to take a while to clean up, and you take some back roads through the mountains to get to the interstate." His concern was not what was being predicted for here. He wasn't too interested in what they were calling for there. He was more worried about what lay between the beginning and the end of the trip. He said, "I think you should get up Sunday morning and leave in the morning. That way you are there before the weather." 

I texted Dylan. "Come when you want," he said.

Two extra days tacked on to my visit? And I don't even have to think twice? 

This retirement thing is working out just fine so far.

Retired.

Since the holidays, suddenly things went very quiet at work. Not sure why, but we worked a lot of half days. I'm okay with that. Things began to pick up this week though. 

Today was my last day. 

I'm not sure that it has sunk in yet, but I can tell you that I'm ready for this. They announced a return to 10 hour days on Monday. 

Not sorry to be done with it.

Safety Tip

Heavy metal saves the day. 

Not Wrong

 Seen elsewhere: "Today, I heard a five year old calling it a 'pandammit'. Now I am convinced we're the ones saying it wrong." 

Over Dramatic

 Last night, I was folding the week's laundry on the couch. The television was on. Tim was watching America's Funniest Home Videos. 

Well. 

He would have been, except that he wasn't watching television. 

He had been watching the Steelers play. Then he switched over to watch the Bills game long enough to be assured that they were going to win. Then he switched to the evening news. 

After a bit of that, he just wandered off to the office to look around the internet for a while. 

Me? I was folding the laundry. I could have changed the channel, but it didn't really matter because I wasn't really paying all that much attention. 

(...and the remote control was over on his couch...) 

And as I was just about finished folding, the television announced that it was "interrupting regularly scheduled programming for a special news bulletin".

"Uh oh," I thought. 

Tim came shooting out of the office.

A very somber broadcaster broke the news to us. Bob Saget died, the very first host of the programming we were currently watching. They repeated it yet again. "Bob Saget found dead in an Orlando hotel room at age 65," We were then told that we were being returned to regularly scheduled programming.

"For God's sake," I said. Tim shook his head and laughed. 

I get that he was a television personality and will be remembered fondly, but...

A special news bulletin? For that?

Found!

 Found that shower curtain. 

I had looked behind the dryer multiple times, but this time I pulled the dryer out. The shower curtains are a light fabric, a slippery material. It had not only slipped behind the washer, but it had slithered off the back of the white vent hose, and fallen beneath that. When I looked behind the dryer, I saw the vent hose, and not what lie beneath. 

Strange how ridiculously happy something like that can make a body!

A late start has been announced for work tomorrow. We begin at 11:30. I've picked the rotisserie chicken carcass and put together a wild rice and mushroom chicken soup. All I have to do is pop the crock from the fridge to the crock pot when I leave, and we will have a nice hot pot of soup when we get home. Supposed to be in the single digits tomorrow evening so a nice cup of soup will hit the spot. 

Also tomorrow night, my countdown app will say that I have 4 more days until I retire. 

(And yes, Bob, you do detect a spring in my step.) 

William's Haircut

 We have had a bit of the snow here, but by and large the storms went north of us. With the storms south and east of us as well, it makes things a bit unpredictable. 

William came to spend the night. He and I went out to do some errands. His hair is getting quite long, and he's always giving his head a shake to keep it out of his eyes. We just happened to pass a salon, and I said, "Do you want to get your hair cut?" He thought about it in that way he has, and decided that a hair cut would be nice. We had to wait, but they got him in, and, lo, his hair was cut by another William.

I told the William wielding the scissors that I needed him to just kind of follow the lines of the previous haircut, so as not to get me in trouble with the parental units. 

He said, "A reverse mohawk it is, then!"  and gave William's chair a little spin. 

I said, "Well, I don't want to stress you out, but if you give him a crap haircut, you will be destroying his middle school 'creds', probably forever, and that responsibility falls entirely on you."

He raised the scissors and comb up in trembling hands and said, "Oh, I'm not stressed. It's just the 16 cups of coffee."

He went at it and did a good job. William (in the chair) was actually clear about what he wanted done with that hair, so I sat back and listened to the two of them banter back and forth. I was a little sick to see that his bangs were being cut shorter than usual, but William (in the chair) was directing William (with the scissors), so I let it go. 

When it was done, I said, "Do you like it?" and he said, "I don't like my hair in my eyes. This is good. I feel like a new person!" 

I told him that's what a good haircut does for a person. 

William (with the scissors) got a good tip. 

William (no longer in the chair) asked for chicken wings for lunch. 

Breaking Bad

Today, I woke up from a dream. I was getting ready for work, and my son was there. He was grinning a lot. Acting mysterious. I wondered about him. Strangely, my grandparents were there too. They had given me something. I cannot remember what it was, but I was delighted with it, and they were delighted to give it to me. 

In the dream, I happily walked around, getting ready for work, visiting with everyone. 

I turned around to find that my youngest daughter had come home as a surprise. 

It was a vivid dream with many confusing aspects and when I woke up, I pondered it in the dark. I finally came up with the idea that my grandparents represented me. I'm a grandma now. My pineapple bag is filled with delights in preparation for my trip east, a gift that always delights that little girl. In turn, her delight delights me. My kids represent my longings. I want to see them, badly. 

Getting ready for work? Odd...because although the dream was about getting to work, I never seemed to get there...constantly being distracted by the family visits. 

When I got up this morning, I had some mild intestinal issues. I packed Tim's lunch. He drove off in my car. New Year Day, his car overheated. He figured the problem out right away, but has been driving  to work in my car. I can walk. We have two trucks, but I don't want to drive his pride and joy and the dump truck sometimes winds up with a dead battery, randomly draining for some reason he hasn't had time to figure out. I just walk, and I don't mind the early morning walk in the dark, I try to take a different route each day. Things look very different in the dark. 

Anyways, I sat there this morning, the dream still rolling around in my head, drinking my coffee, trying to muster the oomph! to get up and get going. We have only worked half days all this week, and a truck didn't come in yesterday. Given the weather down south, we are very likely not to get a truck today, either. I thought about the almost guaranteed fact that I'd get there and be asked to leave early. 

They had offered today off for anyone who wanted it. 

I made another decision, this one not so hard as yesterday's. I called off. 

It's snowing outside and I've been puttering about in the kitchen making a nice pot of soup for supper. 

I'll feel guilty about it later, I imagine. Today, though, I am glad for my quiet day alone. 

Just Curious

 I was getting hammered by that annoying Ratana, and I was removing comments from him multiple times a day, so I enabled the comment moderation. 

The interesting thing is that the spam comments simply stopped. 

Now if spam comments can be stopped by that, it seems like there should be some feature which weeds them out without the moderation, don't you think? Why can't you just block specific commenters? Anybody understand how this works? 

Updates: I am happy with my decision. The hard part was actually making the decision. When the logical thing is at odds with what I want, I struggle a bit. But next Friday, I'll be retired. The following week, 'Ama and her magic pineapple bag are headed east for a week. 

I have not yet found my missing shower curtain. This is NOT a logical thing and it is darned annoying. It has to rank right up there with one of the craziest things that has ever happened to me. 

Out Loud

 Steve  used a word: 'balance'. 

That was the word that I needed to consider. My biggest issue was with work is the fact that if they need you, they mandate the overtime. There are people who will 'die in their traces', so to speak. Looking back, I think that I probably was one of them for years. I had to be. 

But now, I am past that, and I am looking forward to making my own plans, doing my own thing. If I could simply say, "I'll work 40 hours a week, and no more for the period of the extension", I'd be inclined to sign on. Unfortunately, that is not the way of it. If they need  you, you will work the overtime, whether it be 10 hour days, or working Saturday. It's their call.

If you feel that it is unreasonable, the response is anger. The goal is to shut you down and shut you up. You will be called divisive and ridiculed for the idea that you might speak for anyone but your own radical self. 

But Steve said that word, 'balance' and in the end, if I stay on, they determine the balance, and the only thing that will matter is company needs. 

It was a sleepless night. I tossed and turned until 11. I was wide awake at 3 AM.

What to do, what to do?

I thought about balance, I thought about what I want. I thought about what everyone else expects of me. I thought about our actual needs. What do we need? Will quitting affect our long term plans? The more I thought about it, the clearer it became. 

When Tim got up this morning, I was packing his lunch. I said it carefully, out loud for the first time. "I don't want to take the extension." 

The words felt good in my mouth. 

Deserving

 An interesting thing happened. For Christmas, I received a gift card to a woman's clothing store. 

Anyone that reads this blog knows that I generally buy my clothing from a thrift store. I find nice clothes there, really nice stuff. I'm careful. I choose carefully. Good labels. No flaws. I look for colors that will match with things that I already have.  I dress nicely, but I also dress cheaply. 

There is a reason for that. Part of it is that I read about a small boy in India who worked in a clothing factory. He was killed by the men he worked with because "he was annoying". He was the same age as my beloved little grandson. Why should a five year old be working in a factory? That glimpse of another world struck me as unutterably heartbreaking, that a child should be slaving away in a dirty factory around unkind people for no other reason than to fulfill this world's demand for some new piece of clothing or some plastic geegaw. 

Another part of it is that I have listened to voices telling me from my earliest time what I deserved, what I didn't deserve. 'All good things must be earned'. If you didn't earn them, you didn't deserve them. A marriage to a man who became convinced that he deserved better. His wife who believed that self same thing from a very secret place in her own heart. Raising kids who I was convinced deserved better. I wanted them to have everything but knew at the heart of it, I had nothing at all to give them. Now they are grown and they have done better for themselves than I have ever done. It's a shocking realization. I am awed by their successes. They have struck out on their own paths and they are good paths, amazing paths.

It is just Tim and I, and we have no need to be as careful as I am, but still, I think about a little boy in India, gone all these years, and really, the things that I find in thrift stores are good enough for me. About how important it is to live within my means. 

Anyways, I took my $40 gift card to the store after Christmas. They were having quite a sale. I found a long midnight blue cardigan with tiny flecks of gray and gold in it. The yarn was smooth and soft. I folded it over my arm and continued on. I found a sleeveless shirt with sweet detailing on the front that would be perfect under the cardigan. I placed them side by side and studied the effect. I was surprised at the pleasure I felt. I looked some more and  found a bulky knit cardigan, charcoal gray. I studied it, and mentally matched it up with two shirts that I had at home already, a casual and a dressy shirt. After my purchases, I still had money left over. I finished my trip with a stop at my favorite thrift store. I found a pullover sweater, natural yarns. I also found a pretty flannel tunic. I also bought three books. 

It was quite a luxurious day. 

In the days since, I've been thinking about that a lot, about the quiet little part of me that celebrated those clothes. About the more dominant part of me that feels undeserving or that I owe a debt to the rest of the world. I don't know what it is exactly, but there is this reluctance to do anything nice for myself. A swirled whirl of old thoughts mixing with the satisfying new experience of buying a new sweater and finding a shirt that matches perfectly. 

I went through my drawers and weeded out old clothes to be given to the thrift store. I kept the things that I loved, my favorite cardigans and their matching shirts. My tee shirts. My little collection of comfy flannel shirts . My favorite jeans. It is an unaccustomed feeling, to keep things because I love them. To discard the things that I don't. 

This is a strange post. I know it is, but thoughts have been whirling around my mind. After this period of self indulgence, and a week of half days (so far, anyway), we had a meeting yesterday, just before I left. They want to extend us until March. 

There are eight more days on my countdown app. This would add at least 42 more days. 

I thought about the trip I have planned to go see my son and daughter-in-law and my three year old grand daughter. I have a bag in the corner of a bedroom. When I am out and about, I see things that remind me of that little girl. I get them and I drop them into that bag for my next visit. I've accumulated quite a lot of very exciting things in that bag and I was really looking forward to my trip out to them. 

But, I know that I can make that week off a precondition of my employment. They did that before. Their call had been unexpected, and I had some plans I wasn't willing to change and they wrote it into our agreement. They'd probably do it again. Unless, of course, they are fed up with 'the voice of the people.'

Tim doesn't retire until March. We'd both be retiring about the same time if I took the extension. That seems sensible. 

I give a ride in to my son-in-law. This would give him six more weeks, a bit more time to get his own transportation problem sorted out. 

I thought about my trip overseas. It would delay that a few weeks, but I'd be socking extra money away. It would make me feel less guilty about the expense of walking out of my life for a month, something I have never done before. 

I think about all these things weighing them, turning it over and over in my mind. about the fact that accepting the extension simply makes sense, but....

...I just don't want to. 

And it makes me feel selfish to say that out loud. 

Damndest Thing

 So today, first day back at work, we were asked if we wanted to leave early. 

Seeing it as an opportunity to continue the progress of the weekend, I left after half a day. I had laundry. I gathered up the tablecloths used over the holidays to be washed. All the kitchen and bathroom rugs. Towels. The shower curtains (the first floor bathroom has a clawfoot tub so it has three shower curtains around the oval brass rail suspended from the ceiling). 

Since Tim was working on the exhaust fan in the bathroom and had blown in insulation everywhere, I pulled the hamper, rugs, shower curtains and towels into the hall to separate into piles and carried the three loads of sorted laundry to the basement one at a time as the washer finished its work and everything went into the dryer. The hamper was set outside the dryer. The clothes went into the hamper when dried, brought upstairs, folded and put where they belonged.

Very orderly.

So how did I end up losing a shower curtain? 

A shower curtain!

I have looked. Tim thought I was being ridiculous and he looked too. In the end, he said, "Well...it's lost alright."

He still laughs every time he looks at my perplexed face. 

It'll show up. I mean it can't be lost forever. It's not like it is a sock. 

Awful

 On New Year's eve,  man hit a 15 year old girl and killed her. He was driving a commercial car hauler. He did not stop, but it was witnessed and he was caught before he got out of town. To make matters worse, he was inebriated.

Awful, no doubt about it. 

I think it is awful that a guy with a drug and drinking history is even able to legally drive a semi truck. 

I think it's awful that a child died before she ever saw 2022. 

It's awful for the parents. 

I also think it is awful that people think that this excuses the most perverted, awful comments about the guy on line. I wonder at the minds who think up things like that, type them, and hit 'publish'. I wonder about all the people who feel compelled to 'like' comments like that and to add their own hateful remarks. 

It's not that I don't have my own thoughts on the guy. I do, and trust me, they are awful thoughts. 

I just don't get spewing forth. I feel as if it would make me awful too. 

Starting the New Year with a bang.

We watched "Don't Look Up" on Netflix last night. Very well done, excellent satire. 

When it was over, Tim went to the kitchen, and then headed down the hall. It was 10:30 and he was going to bed. I was wide awake. I decided to see the New Year in, but one hour later, I was nodding off myself, and so I headed for bed too. 

I missed the excitement. Local facebook exploded over night. The clock struck 12, there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder, and people were well and truly 'creeped out'.  Me? Slept right through it, although Tim thought it would have been cool to witness. 

Company coming, and if they haven't got plans, we're headed to my sister's afterwards. It's been a long time between scrabble games.