October 1 – “When there was a 19 …”

We got in our three-miler yesterday, but somewhere in the midst of the third mile we were interrupted.  The newly retired guy who is in charge of the Neighbors Night Out event this year flagged us down.  He just wanted to see if we would be there tonight for the festivities.  He had a great idea for a mixer.  Everyone gets a card.  They then get the find out the names of two other people they don’t know who don’t live on their street.  Then they turn in the card for a drawing.  Kroger has donated a gift card or something for the winner.  That wasn’t all.  He also invited us in to see his backyard.  Amazing.  He has a pool and a pergola and then some.  It could have been highlighted on HGTV. 

We finally got back on the road to finish up our last mile.  And we were promptly greeted by a wiener dog.  A very old wiener dog.  We found out he was 14 years old.  Reminded us of Heidi.  She was 17 before she started eating her tail.  The little guy was walking around with his owner.  The guy was leading him around by touching him gently with a long white stick.  He wasn’t worried about the old fella running away.  Said he couldn’t run very far anyway …

We had the “pick up Cailyn and Lexie at school duty” yesterday, too.  It is still weird that they are in middle school.  It is still weird that they call fifth grade middle school.  Hey, it’s still weird that they call junior high school middle school.  Sigh.  Showing my age here.  I’m from way back in the era when there was a junior high and grades seven through nine went to it.  That would be way back when there was a 19 in front of the year …

Cailyn also had softball practice to get to, as well as some homework to finish up.  Not enough time in the day.  So we pulled our good ol’ go-to out of the hat and went to Whataburger.  Chicken strips and a Dr Pepper milkshake.  Tides her over until she gets home to whatever fancy cookin’s her Mom and Dad have put together.  She got the homework done with ease.  Math first.  She’s on that basic lesson where you don the operations inside the parentheses first, then the rest.  She has that all down pat.  I did get tickled to see that they have to show all the steps on their paper.  Hope her Daddy sees that.  I told Cailyn the story of how he tried to handle lessons just like that one.  He would stare at the problem for long minutes, then suddenly write down the answer.  No figuring on paper.  No indication of how he reached his answer.  But he was invariably correct.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to show his work.  She tried it a time or two just to see if she could do it, but she decided it was easier to do it her teacher’s way.   Good call, Cailyn.  Real good call.

Colossians 3:12 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

Father, be with our neighbor night out gathering tonight.  Amen.