Shoot The Works...

Hope everyone is well. Me, it's still crazy but I'm hopeful things will work out as I pray for the best. The girls are still trying to hang in there. They are more durable than the energizer bunny. They (try) to keep going and going and going... you get the idea. Terri's port got plugged up so she had to have another one surgically put in. On the day of the procedure, I go and pick her up at her house for this thing, not saying much cause I didn't know what she'd be thinking about. I figured I'd just play off of whatever she was feeling and roll with it. Well, she gets in my car full of fire and venom. At this point, I'm thinking “uh-oh, what went wrong?” and was preparing for the worst. Anytime I've seen Terri upset, there's usually been a major catastrophe involved. So I'm expecting awful or painful information to hit me between the eyes. When I ask what's up, she barrels into a complete whining session about... about... POLITICS... what the??? I'm over here thinking either she got more bad news about her cancer or something is seriously wrong with Lou... but nooooo... She wants to vent about the election and a bunch of trifle little things that I could care less about. Now for the record, my sister and I are diametrically opposed in our political views. That has never bothered me. We take potshots at each other's issues and it's like a sport with us. She loves to get all worked up and when she does, I start calling her “Norma Rae” from the Sally Field movie and that gets her going even more. She loves to start in on me when I go over to visit her and Lou. She keeps hoping that she'll change my mind and I keep telling her that there will be blizzard warnings in hades before that happens. But we always keep it civil. That's the most important thing. Anyways...
My little sleepy town had it's big city-wide garage sale this past weekend. Part of the Independence Day celebration. We had people that came in from all over to our little plot of real estate and see what deals they could find. I found a computer and monitor (old, but works) for two dollars. We also had the fireworks on Saturday night at the beach where tons of people from different towns came to the lake to see it. The beach was absolutely packed to the gills with humanity. But the folks were all in really good spirits so that really made the whole thing enjoyable. The weirdest thing I saw was people dancing on the beach to the music that the DJ over on the pier was playing. Not that they were dancing. But rather, what they were dancing to... C'mon people... since when do you see 10 and 12-year old kids doing the macarena??? I thought that died a good death back in the 90's where it couldn't disappear fast enough. The funniest thing on the beach was watching people both young and attempting to be young, doing the cha-cha slide and other various forms of line-dancing... in sand!! Let's just say that it's a little tougher to do than it looks. And NO, I wasn't one of the folks out there trying to dance. I was busy watching little kids playing catch with a wiffle ball... I wanted to be out there with them on that... After the fireworks, I walked back over to my house (takes all of 45 seconds or so) and went in and got all ready for bed since I knew I had to get up early for church the next morning. I must've forgotten to pass that little nugget of information onto my neighbors. They were up well into the middle of the night shooting off all different kinds of fireworks and explosives... and the funny part is that we live just down the street from the police station! So I oversleep and wake up less than well rested for church and as I get to my car and get ready to make the 30 minute drive to church, I notice that my car is completely covered in orange and gray powdery soot. It was the residue from all of the fireworks that the folks from the neighborhood shot off in the midnight sky. The street looked like a war zone with all of the leftover and exploded bottle rockets and the other various things. I shook my head in disbelief. I drive quickly to church and just do get there in time for the start and enjoy the service like always. It ministered to my spiritual needs and gave me things to think about as I head into another week of challenges and ups and downs that we all go through, better known as 'daily life'. I left there feeling better about things and when I came and looked at my car, I couldn't help but laugh. I headed for home and stopped at the car wash and my car looked shiny and new afterwards. It was a beautiful day and when I got back home, there were already lots of people at the beach and when I drove down my street, the place had been cleaned up by the city and in the little field across the street from my little house, there were about 6 little kids, under the age of 9, playing baseball. They had one bat, and one ball... no gloves and no bases. I had some old throw down bases that were collecting dust in the trunk of my car, so I immediately got them out and gave them to the kids. You would have thought I gave them gold. They're eyes lit up and they said “you must be a coach or something“... I just smiled and told them to have fun but be careful and I walked back over to my house. I fell asleep but was awakened by my gal pal calling me from Florida where she and her whole family is on vacation. She misses me already... wow, what a novel change from my past relationships. I told her not to worry about me but to just have a great time on the beach and shopping (her two favorite pastimes) and that I'll be busy working (hint: sleeping on the couch) while she's out having a blast. Have a great week y'all, and now if you'll excuse me, I have more, uh, work to do... ;)