Saturday, March 16, 2019

A day with high points and some low ones




I’m really glad and grateful that several of you said wonderful things about my post last night and my evening back in the literary world of Texas. I needed that affirmation because today someone on Facebook told me that I am surely the most ignorant of the ignorant. It had to do with a thread about Beto O’Rourke. At this point I am not promising to support Beto but neither will I criticize him—I’m waiting to see how this overcrowded field shakes out. But I contributed what I thought was a reasonable statement on the fact that he waves his arms and jumps around a lot when addressing a crowd—d.trump also waves his arms a lot. It doesn’t say a lot about either man’s ability to run our country. But, oh boy, was I jumped on. A blazing example of the ugly divisiveness that has engulfed our country, and it makes me feel sad. Two Facebookers, one I know and one I don’t, came to my defense and I appreciate it. I know I have a lot of flaws—ignorance is not one of them.

The highlight of my day was the arrival of Colin and his family for lunch. I had been uncertain if they’d stop on their way home from skiing, but first I heard they would stop for a quick visit. Then came the question: did I want them to bring Railhead for lunch? Of course I did. We had a good visit, and I was reluctant to see them go. And the barbecue was great—I’d been wanting it.

The rest of my day was not so glorious. I went the zoo road to pick up groceries—it was the middle of the day, and I figured zoo people were all in there visiting the animals. I would not get stuck in either arriving or departing traffic—and I didn’t. It’s those one or two drivers who think they can game the system. Zoo or park officials have parking carefully controlled and well managed, but there’s always that person who thinks he or she can evade the rules….and so drives five miles an hour looking for opportunity. How do you tell these people they’d have more time at the zoo if they’d just park in the designated spots and walk there? My frustration level was not great, though I had a lovely conversation with the Central Market employee who brought my groceries—we had North Carolina memories and farm fresh eggs in common.

I went my way, picked up my eggs, and came home—it’s no easy task to get two bags of groceries in while using a walker, but I did it and thought I’d just check email before a well-deserved nap. Someone in the neighborhood had sent me pictures for the newsletter, but every time I tried to copy them my computer crashed and getting it rebooted was touch and go, a long, slow process—I was actually proud of myself that I worked through it. I finally erased the email pictures and suggested she send them straight to the designer.

Then I napped but couldn’t sleep. Just not my day.

Tonight, Jordan and her boys came home from two days at a neighbor’s lake house, only to find the carbon monoxide detector going off. The firemen came, said the detector was probably old, get a new one and call them if the new one went off. They also told them all kinds of symptoms to watch for. So Christian and Jacob set off to get a new detector, and I’ve heard no more. I presume they’re okay.

Just that kind of day. We all have them.

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