Sometimes
Topic: This and That
(The title of this photo is, "Still Life In The Kitchen.")
The sun was out this morning, so I decided to take Ryan in the jogging stroller and go for a run. There's this one traffic light at a pedestrian crossing to get to the Stray. For some reason, it hasn't been working the last few days. I thought it was just off on the weekends. However, it was off today as well. Hope it's temporary. Most of the time it's very difficult to get across that street without a signal.
It didn't look like I was going to get across any time soon, so I decided to alter my route. That got me thinking...
Sometimes circumstances in life cause us to change plans. Sometimes those changes bring things into our lives we never expected. Sometimes our lives change in a huge way, just because we took a different route. Then again, sometimes all that happens is we get a change of scenery. Sometimes that's enough; to change our lives, or maybe just our perspective.
Nothing major happened to me today because I took a different route than I had planned. However, it did get me thinking.
I am a big believer in a mix of fate and free will. I think fate (or God, the universe, karma, our higher selves, whatever Powers That Be you want to call it) lobs us things. Our free will is how we choose to react. I don't remember where I first heard that idea, but I really feel it's true. I think there are certain things each of us is supposed to do or learn or experience in life. Sometimes we get it right the first time, others it takes several tries. Maybe with some things we only get once chance. (Thankfully I don't think that's the case very often. I think God believes in mulligans!) I do think that everything happens for a reason (even if we don't know what that reason is), and that we are never given anything more than we can handle (even though it seems like it sometimes).
So yeah, all that from a non-functioning traffic light. :)
Saturday I went to ASDA to look for basil and asiago cheese for a recipe I want to try. I ought to have known better than to go there on a Saturday afternoon. It was crowded and chaotic just trying to get inside. This older lady stopped short in front of me. I accidentally bumped her with the stroller. I apologized immediately. She was really nasty! She said, "That's a pushcar not a weapon!" (Thanks for clearing that up for me!) She acted like I did it on purpose. I was actually a little rattled by the experience, because everyone here has been so nice. I was surprised to encounter someone so foul tempered. Of course, I have no idea what the rest of her day (or life, for that matter) had been like, so maybe getting hit by a stroller was just her last straw. Anyhow, later on I thought what I would have liked to have done was pointed out that she stopped short in front of me and is lucky I didn't hit her harder. Unfortunately, my mama raised me right and I simply was polite and apologetic.
(I was not able, by the way, to find any basil or asiago cheese there.)
This morning Larry asked me if I knew there was a dead pigeon in our rain gutter. I did not. I came out to look and it was spectacularly dead. Larry said it looked like it had been shot. With something of way too high a caliber, from my view. Larry was leaving for work and said he'd clean it up when he got home. This afternoon I was in the living room and happened to look up to see a cat carrying off the bulk of the remains. Thanks, kitty!
The weather has been really crazy today. It's been sunny most of the time, but really windy. It's been a strong, cold wind, too. There have been bouts of precipitation now and then. Nothing like the downpour we had yesterday, though. It's weird because when I'm inside looking out at the sunny day, it seems like it ought to be a lot warmer out there than it is.
As for the Larry report, he went to bed early last night and seemed to get a good night's sleep. He got up and went to work today. He felt fine in the morning, but we'll see how he is when he gets home!
The daylight hours here are starting to near the point of being ridiculously long (which is a good thing, in my opinion!). It doesn't start to get dark until around 8pm. I love all the light. The only downside is that Ryan is tending to wake up earlier with the earlier light in the mornings. So far it's dark when he goes to bed, so that's not an issue - yet. I'm hoping it won't be, actually. He naps in the daylight just fine and didn't have trouble getting to sleep at bedtime last summer.