Hi, Linda

I’m retired.  That means I don’t go to work.  It doesn't mean I sit around eating bon bons and reading movie magazines (do they even have them anymore?)  It just means I don’t get up at 5 a.m., get decently dressed and go somewhere they pay me for something.  I am often awake at 5 a.m., but rarely decently dressed until absolutely necessary.  And, as other retired people will testify, there is always plenty to do and people who need things done.

In a previous diatribe I suggested that people who feel the need to mind each others’ business do something else, like go to the grocery store.  I go to Kroger every Wednesday.  Count on it. We have family dinner on Wednesday night, and I surely couldn’t go any sooner.  I’d eat the food.   (I usually go as well on Thursday, Friday, Saturday…you get the picture).  Linda is my checker of choice.  She is a delightful lady who rarely gets disgruntled.  They have a variety of nice people at Kroger who I greet every Wednesday, but Linda and I have formed a friendship.  She asks about my family and particularly my grandson, Daniel.  She convinced me to buy the reusable bags.  She waits patiently while I fumble for my Kroger card.  She gets a guy to lift the dog food.  We’re buds, of a sort.

Linda wasn’t there this week.  Another nice lady checked me out and I buggied my bags on out.  I’m sure Linda will be back.  She disappeared on me last year for a while and had me worried.  Turns out she was on vacation.  I’m sure she needed it.  I’ve been a checker before, not in a grocery store.  It can be an extremely stressful job.  But Linda always has a smile, even when it is hard. 

Wherever you were, Linda, I hope it was for good and not some trauma.  I missed you, my friend.

People who live in glass houses. . .

That is ALL of us.  Who among us really wants our lives put on a billboard on the interstate?  Not me, for sure.  I only hope not to be taken unaware because the world will talk forever about my dirty house, my unfolded laundry and my multitudinous animals.  And that's just the innocent stuff.

Who wants to admit to the times I've hurt people, let them down, not come through?  The times I've done stuff that I don't even want God to know, but He does?

So then, why are we constantly thriving on the missteps of others, like it is going to make us look better?  It's not.  The worst criminal or the most depraved acts of meanness and cruelty do not shine my crown.  It's tarnished all on its own.  And until I work to shine it up, it'll stay that way.

There have been many accusations thrown around through this political campaign and not limited to the national offices.  It seems that that mud-slinging has been a springboard for personal nosiness and judgments of our "friends" and neighbors.  Friends is in quotation marks because a friend would not do these kinds of things to others.

It was a sad day last week when Big Tex burned.  It was like the symbol of Texas was gone.  And what is the United States without Texas!  

It is an even sadder day when people can't find any more worthwhile activities than to mess in the business of other people and then spread their judgments like rose petals at a wedding.  There is so much more to life, be it crochet, grandchildren, baseball or craftsy activities.  Go to church.  Go to the grocery store.  Volunteer at something.  Get a life, for Pete's sake, and live it, not someone else's.