ABOUT TEN SECONDS AGO a perfect example of Ambition and Confidence played out right in front of me. I was sitting here quietly sipping on my coffee when before my droopy eyes a teeny tiny spider no bigger than…than…than what you see in the picture of it next to my pen appeared. It was dangling from a silken thread.
This spider had seen me sitting here and thought, “I can take him,” and he lowered himself down from the ceiling.
SOMETIMES I AM MY OWN SANTA CLAUS! I hadn’t planned on it. It just happened as a byproduct of finally doing something I should have done ages ago.
My desk usually looks like Dresden after World War Two. Calling it a pile of rubble is generous. It had reached the point where I didn’t know what was stacked up there. Anyway – the other day I was looking for a small pocket knife that I know had been on my desk at some time in the past. I was rooting around when I saw something that was held together with a rubber band. It looked like a bundle of plastic cards. I gave up on the knife. It will work its way to the surface at some point, but the plastic cards had my attention for the moment.
Don’t get all excited, but…I have a birthday coming up soon. If I make it to that date I will then be the oldest I have ever been in my entire life. I’m quite proud of that.
Getting old is not for sissies. It takes a lot of work – very time consuming work. Sometime I have to spend most of the day sleeping just to keep at it.
One tidbit of personal information – data, if you will, is that I have outlived every male in the family going back three generations – except for one uncle.
My Uncle Tony didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink. He didn’t run around with wild women. He lived until he was 90. We’re just not sure why.
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR THIS EARLY IN THE YEAR. The sun is shining and the temperature is in the low 60s. If I didn’t know better I’d call it a Spring Day. I like it.
The only dark cloud on the horizon seems to be that it is getting to be time to take the Toyota in for its 30K mile checkup and an oil change.
“Open your hood, stick out your air filter and say ‘Ahhh’.” The mechanic grabs the fan belt and says to hit the turn signals and cough. Rotate those tires.
I don’t expect there to be any major problems. It seems to be running just fine. It goes forward when I step on the gas and it stops when I hit the brakes. Beyond that I don’t ask for much. It’s a car – not a financial advisor or a podiatrist.
Fiction Saturday – Continued
Chapter Sixteen
Davis wasn’t late the next morning. He showed up on time and he was carrying one white rose. Laura blushed.
After another leisurely breakfast they walked down by the shore of the Bay. The fog had stayed out at sea and the Golden Gate Bridge dominated the view, it’s towers vaulting into the sky. As they strolled beside the magnificent sailing yachts and watched skeins of pelicans skim the surface of the Bay, these two transplants from other lives held hands and knew that something was happening that they hadn’t planned on. And they let it happen.
WE ARE GOING TO BE TAKING A TRIP DOWN TO TEXAS the day after tomorrow. A surprise visit. A complete surprise. Nobody in Texas knows that we are coming.
Surprise visits may be a cute idea, but I’m not so sure that it is so cute to pull a surprise like this on Dawn’s 95 year old Mother.
Down the Hall on Your Left 