Exercise and Writing Assignment 1

Exercise One:
Notebook entry:
Day 1: It never ceases to amaze me how silly and careless people get when the snow falls and the temperatures drop close to the zero mark.

This morning I had to scrape sticky frost off the windshield and all windows. It took a good 3 minutes for the car to be warm enough to take the chill vapor off my breath in the car. That’s how I know that the person I saw on the way to work was just silly or careless. I was driving behind her long enough to tell she was not going to pull into any of the three gas stations in that vicinity. Her left rear tire was so low, I feared it would pop on the city street. But she made it to the freeway. I think the penny dropped because she stayed in the number 1 lane and kept the speed down. She must have heard the rubber flapping against the fender, but she kept going.

Then later I was at the Mall to pick up tax prep supplies. When I came out of the store, I heard this scraping sound and espied a car running up on the curb. They must have seen the cringe on my face because they surely could not hear anything like a scrape over the sound of the thrumming on the radio. They backed up, and tried again. This time they made the turn, but the bottom half of the bumper was pulled loose.

Silly people.

Day 2: My accountability partner is my sister Vicki. Vicki likes to talk. An hour and a half goes by so quickly. Vicki is a year older than, divorced and the most stalwart person I know. Her first child died at the age of 16 months. Beautiful baby. Most people would fold. She was a single mom, so she did not have anyone to run to and hold her up. She just put everything she had left into her job. Then she met a man much older than she and married him and had one child by him. As often happens when you marry a man who has been unfaithful in the past, he did not let her down. He left her after 15 years with the daughter and a car. He took the house and kept his money. He blew through everything she worked for. She did what she always did. She buckled down and worked her way out of the mess he created for her. We talked for an hour and a half tonight about goals we wanted to accomplish in 2016. We have independent goals, but we are working together and coaching each other on how to get there.

Day 3: I just about threw up. I walked into the kitchen where I worked and asked if anyone else smelled gas. I must have a super sensitive sniffer. Then I asked my boss if he had been cooking. He said no, but he smelled gas too. So half an hour later the gas company shows up to check for a gas leak. He had to pull the stove away from the wall, which was a fete itself. And then he took a picture of where the leak was. It was not dangerous, but it did need to be fixed. As we were going to push the stove back, LB said he wanted to sweep first. I stepped away long enough to hear a crash. When I walked in there was food all over the floor. The fool had pushed the stove back in place but had not taken the candy off the top. The lid was not screwed on so, and most of the packages were open.

I grabbed the broom to sweep up, but he said no, to wait. Then he put the candy back in the jars and packages. That’s the room where he let’s the dog sprawl out and where he puts the water and food dish for the dog. That’s where all the people walk. That’s where the mice run. And he is putting it back in the container. I just about threw up.

Never eat anything he offers ever again. I know too much.

Day 4 and 5. Bob and Pam are divorced yet living together. The divorce is legal, but their acceptance that they did that is not. They will not remarry. That is Pam's choice -- for whatever reason. They are for all intents and purposes married, if not legally.

Pam is the one who is obsessed with looking young and being told she is smart. You can compliment her on her talent as an accordian player and her gift of making friends with any one at any time, but those do not count. Only the youth and intelligence counts.

Bob is an astute business man. He can make anyone's business, but his own thrive. He has a rather biting and curious affect around board games. If he is winning, yahoo. If he is losing, he throws a temper tantrum. One can say, we can be adults or we can revert to our toddler tendencies. And the pay-attention-to-me behavior will always win.

Assignment entry:
Day 1: Instead of a tree, this year our Christmas display was a window display with ornaments, garland and pretty backing. The backing we chose was a deep shiny purple on one side and silver mylar on the other. Every once in a while I heard a thump and a bunch of chatter outside the window but gave it no mind. Until Christmas Day. When I went to investigate, there was an errant squirrel running down the deck. I yelled out “Knock it off, nut job.” I didn’t intend to be punny, it just turned out that way.

As Matt was taking down the window display on January 3rd, he kept saying, “what’s that sound?” Tom said, the other side is shiny and they see themselves and jump at the window and knock themselves out. Matt looked and sure enough, there was a squirrel hanging on the window not being able to hook up with the squirrel in the mirror. Matt decided to leave the backing on, just to tease the squirrels.

We have a warped sense of humor.

Day 2: I like Dog the Bounty Hunter in the morning. It keeps me on track and gets my heart pumping for the rest of the day.

Day 3: The most I ever won at the powerball was $100. And that was 15 years ago. Life wasn’t fair. The other numbers were off by just just one. And the kids had to pick those numbers.

Days 4 and 5 I only go to the doctor when it's that bad. Oh, sweet Jesus, heal me.

Cars break down only at the most inconvenient time. It is zero degrees, -15 windchill, and that's when the car tire comes unsealed. And these things only happen where your heart resides. Mine happened in rush hour traffic where I had to pull over and watch hundreds of cars whiz by. Bob's happened in front of Redeemer Lutheran Church where he could limp into the parking lot on a popped tire.