May 3 – “WalMart Express”

We walked two and a half miles to start our day yesterday.  We’re shooting to increase it to three.  Gradually.  We have a problem this morning, though.  It has been raining off and on.  That sometimes means the air is getting cooled off.  Not so much in Galveston.  It is still hot.  Now it’s extremely humid as well.  77 degrees and 94 percent humidity.  At 6:30 a.m.  Ah … Galveston.

We also did our errands run into Texas.  We needed to pick up some supplies for the church Retreat Center at Sam’s.  No problems there, other than an overly zealous greeter who stopped us to “get all that trash out of your basket for you.”  There was a small piece of paper in the basket.  Nothing we had even noticed.  We thanked him for his kindness.  Strange. 

On the way home we stopped in at Palais Royal.  Chris is looking ahead for some clothes for our Alaska trip.  And what better day to search than Club 50 Tuesday.  That’s the day when old people get an extra discount just because they are old.  Bring it on.  Well, we didn’t find anything.  Although I almost bought a battery operated bug zapper shaped like a badminton racket.  I decided Chris probably wouldn’t want me playing fly or mosquito badminton in the kitchen, though. 

Of course we had to stop at WalMart, since we were so close and all.  Besides we were out of fruit once again.  We noticed right away that the checkout lines were unusually long.  Obscenely long.  I had to check my calendar to make sure it was really a Tuesday.  In May.  But we soon realized the problem.  There were only three or four lanes even open.  Now that’s more like our good ol’ Galveston WalMart.  I selected one of the 25 items or less lanes and settled in for the wait.  Great opportunity for people watching, anyway.  About that time an older lady (that would be older than us.  No idea how old she was, actually) rolled up and kind of gasped at the long line ahead of her.  Chris encouraged her to take a spot in front of us when she saw a package of those small little cartons of ice cream.  Hey, we can’t have Blue Bell melting before she could even get it home.  Not that it helped all that much, time wise.  We were still in the “express” line for fifteen minutes.  Chris timed it. 

Thoroughly enjoyed the Astros game last night.  So much so that I didn’t tape Chicago Fire so we could watch the whole game.  We can only tape two things at once.  And one of those has to be what you are watching at the time (A conflict I have yet to figure out).  Since we also tape Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. we were stuck with a decision.  Superheros and the Astros won out over fire department soap opera drama.  And talk about a thrilling game.  The Astros came back from a 5-0 deficit with a grand slam home run plus a run-scoring single in the bottom of the eighth put the Astros ahead by three.  Rangers hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth before the final out was made, stranding a runner on third base.  Phew.  Great stuff, this baseball.

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Father, we thank you for the rain.  So does our lawn.  Amen.