Best Story I Lived Today

I'm at the stoplight & look over to the left. There is a minivan with an older couple, the wife on the passenger side closest to me. She is holding a CD, the sticker still on it. She's waving it in the air, following the invisible waves of the song. The husband skips to the next song. Then the next. She is so blissful in the possibility of what could come next.

I get her attention and motion for her to roll down the window. She does and I tell her how much I enjoyed seeing her enjoy the music. I ask what it was. She starts to beam "Oh, we just bought it at the DI. It is Old English singers singing old Christmas carols." I say thank you for sharing your happiness with me and the light turns green.

Nailed It

On Thursday I had an appointment at Discount Tire. Again. To check the low tire light. Again. I was the only female in the entire place for about an hour and an half. So being the representative of the fairer sex I filed my nails and played with a first Dad's toddler.

The Dad was there alone with his toddler and he had the diaper bag, car seat, the works. Mind you, this Dad was one of those older first Dads, the kind that is probably on his third (possibly last) marriage and this wife is making sure he's active in the child rearing so she gives him assigned days to "babysit." He hinted as much when he said how happy his wife will be when he gets home with their having had such a fun time since "Thursday is our day to hang out."

At Discount Tire they have a somewhat derelict train set and a coloring table where kids can play while parents wait for their vehicles. This little guy kept bringing the trains over to me and then ultimately he brought the box of crayons for me to open. The Dad seeing this went up to the counter to ask for some paper but this was taking too long. So, me being the person that has whatever you need in her purse, pulled out my notebook and showed Mister Tiger Pajamabottoms how my little cousin had already drawn in there. He grabs the crayon and starts jabbing my notebook all excited and shuffles over to the table like "get a move on mystery lady we haven't got all day."

I give him the paper and saved the whole day. I saved it again when I gave him more.

This wasn't even the best part. The best was when Thursday Dad was giving Pajamabottoms his bottle and Def Leppard's "Poor Some Sugar On Me" was playing overhead. Dad sang every word to him and smiled like he was passing on a family rite.

When it was time to leave Dad thanked me for making the visit so much fun. Personally I think it was the other way round. When I got my car back they told me yes, there was another nail in it. I told the kid I smelled a plot, that Discount Tire had hired people to drive around and scatter nails to insure repeat customers. He said that is exactly what the higher ups do. We giggled pretty hard.

So, in the space of an hour and an half I filed my nails, had a nail removed from a tire, met a Mister Tiger Pajamabottoms and his Dad, listened to a not so private serenade, and uncovered The Discount Nail Plot.

Typical Thursday.

Sprouted

Living in my apartment building we don't have a piece of land to claim as our own. No backyard nor front-yard. No area for a blow-up swimming pool or lawn chairs. Barbecues are strictly forbidden and of course having a spot to dig up and plant a garden is a concept out of this world.

Until you meet my neighbor.

My neighbor Sprout (I'm calling her Sprout which is a fun play on her name) came by one day and asked for my bunny poop. Knowing Sprout this wasn't an unreasonable request. I said sure thing and before she knew it she had more than she expected. She told me she was using it as fertilizer for some plants but what I didn't know was that she was planning a creative outdoor experiment.

A Truck-Bed Garden.

She had cleverly turned the bed of her truck into a garden full of flowers and tomato plants, lovingly fertilized by Peanut and Pickle.

I took this pic during the part of the day when it has full sun but it is shaded for other portions too. She takes them out to water and rotates their positions.

I gave her another box of bunny poop for some friends that have seen how great her Truck-Bed Garden is growing. I think it is ingenious and it makes me smile every time I walk by.

Making your situation work for you. Growing despite the challenges.

I'm so proud and inspired to have her as a neighbor.

I'm With Not Stupid

For my birthday Jen got us tickets to "The Last Summer On Earth" tour with K.T Tunstall, Better Than Ezra, and Barenaked Ladies. Total 90's throwback to college and our days as roommates. We even had ZIMA.

Jen was most excited to see BTE where as I had already seen BNL a number of times and when people ask me "What is the best concert you have seen" I always say Barenaked Ladies. I was curious to see how they would be without Steven Page, also now that I'm not in my twenties.

I won't lie, it wasn't the same. But neither are we.

Jen would catch me watching the crowd as much or more than the stage. Watching people relive those mileposts that songs mark in our lives. I was imagining what the songs meant to them. Did they once play them on their portable CD players that plugged into their tape players in their cars with windows that had handles on them on their way to work/college? Did they lose their virginity to them? A few rows in front of us a former hippie and his son were dancing together. Did this Dad play these songs for his son in the car when he took him for drives to get him to sleep? Who knows, but I love all the possibilities.

Couples were dancing together. Badly. I can safely posit that 85% of the population has no rhythm, thankfully this doesn't stop them from daring to dance in public. A single father had his six year old daughter with him and they both danced and danced the whole time. This still makes me smile.

I smiled so much my face hurt. We giggled. We sang. I took video of Kevin Griffin of BTE singing "Tiny Dancer" but what you can hear is a lot of me singing in the background. We made friends with all the people sitting around us. It never fails, someone thinks they know me from somewhere. They stare at me, get this look on their face "Don't I know you?" I said "Most people think they do." She bolted up straighter "ARE YOU FAMOUS?" Then it's talk, giggles, nostalgia, mileposts.


A person's soundtrack is forever evolving. It is as alive as you make it. Jen and I aren't twenty anymore, even if we giggle like it. We still have the same inside jokes and are making new ones everyday.

We sing, we laugh, we smile. We make mileposts.

Just Me Being Anti-Social

Things To Do When You Aren't On Social Media

1.   Clean bunny cages.

2.   Read an article on Dian Fossey from a two year old magazine.

3.   Delete 1,800 emails.

4.   Unsubscribe to a bunch of emails in the attempt to stop the need to delete again.

5.   Know you will do it again. Again.

6.   Binge watch Killing Eve.

7.   Discover Dietland.

8.   Take the garbage out four times.

9.   Buy skirts at the D.I. 

10. Organize paperwork.

11. Make popcorn for dinner.

12. Update your computer for HOURS!

13. Make a list of all the cleaning you are avoiding.

14. Read another two year old magazine from the stack.

15. Play a CD you haven't played in over 15 years.

16. Eat Chinese food with your parents.

17. Remember why you don't watch movies with your parents.

18. Have a mama bird dive bomb you for coming too close to her nest.

19. Text your friend about tea, books, and bowel movements.

20. Snuggle Bunnies.

Would You Like GIFs With That?

I do well with assignments. Specially if they are given to me from someone else. I feel the need to perform and not let down the other person. I rise to it. Expectations and all that. Strange and exciting thing is, I have given myself one. It is a much easier thing to let yourself down than someone else. The negative self talk, the excuses you load up inside your head. It's old hat. Pro level at this stage of life. Which is why I think I haven't been writing on either of my blogs for such an extended period of time. So, in an attempt to remedy my absence on my blogs and cure what I have come to see as my "Junk Food Expression" on the big four social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, I am taking AT LEAST a two week break.

There will have to be a bit of a cheat in that when I post a blog it rolls over to both Facebook and Twitter. But during my first two weeks I won't be responding to any comments made on those sites, which is how most of you view it. I have been told that logging in to the blog, commenting, following, outside of Facebook and Twitter is a hassle, so I'm content to focus on creating. Which is what I haven't been doing. Mind you, I adore memes. GIFs bring me more joy than they probably rightly should. But I need to start sharing fewer memes and get back to sharing me.

I am writing inside my head, all day long. Then I talk myself out of it. "Eh, that's already been said, but better." "People are tired of hearing about that, stop whining." "That's not big enough." No. No. No. No.

I'm saying yes to myself. Assignment me. It could be a bunch of photos one day. But they will be here, not on Instagram. Maybe a poem. Maybe all the ideas I have squashed down so far they are buried underneath the piles of No.

I will still be using Messenger and Text. I enjoy Feedly for the other blogs I follow. I'm hoping that if I stop the mindless time suck scrolling (which I use as a distraction when I'm in pain, which is often) I'll focus on content that inspires me to not only be a better me, but better to others.

I'm excited and now the challenge is out there.

Good for me.