This blog looks a little Old Ladyish to me.  But I guess that's okay.  Because I'm getting older.  The kids are getting older.  My husband has grey hair.  I have grey hair.  Time is moving on.  I'm okay with some cliches in my life now.  I don't need art to show me pain.  I want to enjoy being middle aged --I want to enjoy softening, greying, easing up, getting a bit mushier, seeing the Lion start to lose his teeth.  I see now, these things are not to be feared.  They are to be relished.  For today, I GET to do these things.  That's good.  I see how time works, there isn't all that much of it.  Waste none on anything but gratitude and love.  All manner of shit will break and go wrong.  Figure out how to enjoy it anyway.

Life comes out of the dirt and never really gets much farther.   We're worms.  Worms who like the sun.  Not much more.  Worms who invented money.  The first creatures to create uselessness plastic and trash, and if we start with monkeys, actual badness.   We all have this badness in us.  No one escapes it.  As Dumbledore tells us time and again, we have to choose goodness.  That's about the best we can do.  Make good choices.

So I chose to steal this broken dirty tacky little bit of yard plastic, a Grimy Happy Angel.   Yep, theft.  I took it.

I had a neighbor who I liked well enough.  I thought.  Except that she was just the most outrageous bitch about my dogs.  She hated my dogs.  She really hated that my dogs would bark at her and her dogs when she came walking past our house.  Even though my dogs almost always stayed in my yard.  My dogs were so well behaved (most of the time) she actually believed they were behind an electric fence.  Even though they don't even wear collars.   That's some fairly steady and reasonable dog behavior, if you ask me.  But she was not asking me.  And she managed to radiate maximum anger and ugliness as she tromped and yanked her dogs past my house everyday.   I think she even shook her fist at me the last time I saw her.

Ya know, which really just pissed me off.  There she was stalking past My House, in her stupid hair scarf, shaking her stupid fist at Me and My Dogs.  Humph!   .....wait a minute....hair scarf?   Then I didn't see her for a while.  Then I heard she dropped dead.  She was a middle aged mom like me, only she was a single mom who adopted her child.  So she was alone and carrying the burden of responsibility for an adorable little boy by herself.  And then she got sick and died.

Which, since I'm the central theme of this little self absorbed story, shocked me.  And made me feel a bit guilty.  And sick at myself for being short tempered with her.   How did I fail to notice she was sick, tired, alone, scared, and actually dying?!  Well, I didn't know her well.  And we can only see what folks will share of themselves.  Nevertheless, here is a lesson.   Folks are often suffering more than we know.  We can choose kindness whenever possible.

I spent the day with my father in the hospital yesterday.  In for routine pre-op testing.  Not that big a deal.  Except a day in the hospital is always a big deal.  I decided to smile A LOT.  At everyone.  And I did.  It helped me.  I hope it helped anyone else.  Its a trick I learned from my plastic yard angel.

So I walked down to this poor woman's abandoned house.  Its a gorgeous lot, heavily wooded, the best one on our street.  But the house is tacky for my taste, down in the heal,  and neglected.  It will likely sit on the market for.e.v.e.r.   (I sigh, roll my eyes, hope this doesn't reflect poorly on the value of my house -- Wow, the selfish point of view dies hard.)   Then I noticed, nearly buried at the edge of a scraggly hedge, a broken piece of plastic with a message, the angel I decided to steal.  She reminds me: Be kind.  You never know how folks are burdened.  We are all from the dirt and harboring our share of badness.   Choose to be kind.  Remember how lucky you are.  Enjoy your life.