I was on my way to bed last night when I noticed my batteries needed a bit of a charge.  I opened my bedroom drapes to open the door to turn on the charger and what should I see but snow.  I came home expecting warmer weather and sun, but I get snow, which means using more propane at a time when I need to do wash and heat the house.  Normally, I love snow.  It means I can go skiing which I plan on doing, but I like the snow on Mt. Shasta and not on my property.

Stephen wrote today about a spouse being a place for the other have a place to fall.  Too often we become a rock by nagging or complaining instead of providing them a place to fall., a place to feel comforted and secure;  a chance to be held and loved by their best friend.  I agree.

I have a more sensitive thing to discuss which has to do with bowels, both cat and human.  Marilyn asked me to bring a tricycle, toy lawnmower, and wheelbarrow out of her car for Layla and put them in the backyard.  I complained, but shouldn’t have.  But that wasn’t so much the problem as I stepped in some cat dung in the process and walked into the house with it not knowing it. Everyone got all over me so I took my shoes off and washed the dung off.  I then complained that it was all because Marilyn insisted on me getting the toys.   I insisted that I would have never stepped in the cat dung if I hadn’t had to do it.  She apologized to me and I gave what I consider a surprising response.  I said, “It wasn’t your fault.  I think the cat dung was in the driveway and not in the backyard.”  I guess we all need a place to fall. 

I went to my aunts to fix some of her computer problems and when I saw the bathtub stopped up after my shower, decided I’d use the plunger to unstop it.  As Murphy’s Law would have it, both the toilets in her house stopped up and while plunging them all to death, I got a huge blister on the palm of my right hand.  At one point I thought I had the problem solved because both toilets flushed and the bathtub trained.  But guess what, when I went back to make sure the problem was really solved, the toilets didn’t flush and the shower didn’t drain.  My aunt was heading to Stockton to go to the doctor and I was going home.  I started to wonder if was was doing more harm than good but helping others.

But this wasn’t all that happened.  On my way to my aunts, near Ione, I stopped to take a nap because I have a cold and was tired.  Of course, it was then, after I pulled off the road that I had this need to eliminate waste from my own bowels.  I never wear slippers, but of course I did this time.  Fortunately I’ve carried toilet paper with me for years even though I’ve never had the need to use it.  I climbed up over this small hill and down quite a ways to get clear of traffic seeing me and did what had to be done.  I’d have never made it to my aunts without a major catastrophe.  Of course, as I’m cleaning up and getting ready to go back to my car, my phone rings,  my slippers are falling off as I climb uphill because they have no back on them, and I get a 3 inch scratch my arm from a bush.

This of course brought up two other incidents in my life.  One had to do with stopping to do the same thing on the Wisconsin Toll Road only to find out when I got to the next toll booth that I’d dropped my wallet during the process.  Fortunately, I remember seeing a certain tree silhouetted in the morning sunrise and was able to drive back the four or five miles to find it.

Lastly, there was the time when I was in Outward Bound and we were in these big whaling boats that we had to row.  I had the same urges as explained above while rowing one night.  I hooked onto a safety rope and hung my rear overboard.  That was embarrassing enough, but it was much worse when everyone turned on their flash lights and shined them on me as I tried to perform this precarious task while hanging overboard secured to a safety rope.  They all had a good laugh at my expense.

I hope you all had a good laugh at my expense.