I Think...

...that a lot of people are lonely.  Especially old people.

Waiting my turn at WalMarket  the old guy in front of me was telling the barely interested cashier that it was his anniversary, he was buying an anniversary card for his wife.  Married for 65 years.  (Puts him somewhere in his 80's?) He just wanted to be seen.  I get that.

Only a minute or two later, still at the same cashier waiting for her to tell me my total, the old guy behind me moves his cart forward and asks:  either of you two women know how to make an egg roll? The cashier ignores him.  He asks again so I turn and, with a smile,  tell him no, I'm useless.  All I'm thinking is Asian food.

He then says, you start at the top of the hill and laughed pretty hard at his own joke.  (I want to remember this one to tell my friend at the storehouse, we've traded silly jokes like that quite a bit.)

The other day at the grocery, some guy asks me (from among the 5 or 6 people standing there, but most likely because my readers are in my hand and I'm using them a lot) - could I use your eyes to read this label, the print is really small.  I offered him my readers which he refused to put on and still couldn't read the fine print, so I ended up reading off the label for him how many grams of added sugar in the yogurt.

I'm still and always a bit surprised when someone chooses me to talk to.  There's generally other people around but somehow me - the one who feels mostly invisible in life, the one who rarely gets any attention (except when someone wants something from me), the one who is always overlooked - I'm the one they pick to ask an opinion, where something is or any of the other myriad things people talk to me about. Odd, right?

Today I'm so grateful for air conditioning that we can leave on (at a financial cost) at night.  If we had the windows open last night there would have been no sleep at all what with all the bright lights and noise of the partying next door.  Finally at 11:45 I gave myself a stern lecture to ignore the inconsiderate (and scofflaw) behavior, and just "go to sleep already".  It had been pretty impossible for a couple hours.  (And if I'm being truly negative which I despise but I am, who puts a swimming pool and parking lot right next to the neighbors bedroom?) Had to clean up trash dropped at our place again this morning, but at least it wasn't yet again food in the mailbox.  The kids were loud lounging on our yard yesterday afternoon and this morning used our yard as a pathway to retrieve their errant dog.  Like they say:  you can't pick your neighbors. 

And this is supposed to be my positive outlook place.  My safe place from judgement and unkindness - including those things that I am guilty of.  It's only 8:50 a.m. and already I am in sore need of repentance.

Picked up some decongestant at the store, am also using nasal spray trying to get control of this dang sinus infection.  The dizziness is a bit less, as is the headache.  The coughing also has subsided some.  No class for me tomorrow.  Maybe we'll go to the temple instead.