Things that made me happy today

After the vista from the mountaintop comes the return to plodding through valleys and up inclines. And there are definitely some steep inclines in the near future. I love climbing them, but boy is it hard and painful.

After being put into a rather sober mood today by some correspondence I received and some advice from Dr. J that I really didn't want to hear, I was at the grocery store, getting food to cook for my family tonight. An employee observed that I was in line with my basket behind two people with carts full of food and offered to open a new checkout counter for me. I thought that was very nice of him.

As he finished scanning and bagging my things, I idly watched the people beyond the checkout counters. There were a few hanging around the Redbox, and several hurrying out of the store with their purchases. Then, two very small boys appeared on the scene, running full tilt straight towards the restrooms. When they were mere feet from the door of their destination, a woman opened it and walked out. The older boy, who couldn't have been more than five, halted as fast as he was able and yelled, "stop! It's the wrong door!" to his little brother, grabbing him by the arm to prevent him from making such a devastating social gaffe. The two boys looked at each other with the expression of those who have narrowly escaped the jaws of a fate worse than death, and as they proceeded to the door of the men's room, they told each other loudly what a narrow escape they'd had just there.

Unfortunately, the guy bagging my groceries didn't see any of this, so he probably had no idea why I suddenly started laughing.

I got to the house and started cooking. Michael greeted me with a hug. That always makes me happy. Hazle, my seventeen-year-old cat, came to greet me when I got out of my car. Hazle's tail was recently severely damaged in a mysterious way; the middle is all scabby and nasty and he couldn't move it for a while. Michael suggested that it got sat on by another cat in a fight. But regardless of the cause of the tail-damage, Hazle seems to be on the mend, which also makes me happy. Sometime I'm going to write a post on that cat and how much he's meant to me over the years, and then everyone will think I'm one of those horribly sappy pet people, which really isn't true. But this cat is special to me, and to many of my siblings (certain other siblings could definitely do without him- such as my brother who made a New Year's Resolution once to like the cat).

At dinner, Michael announced that he wanted to play a game of basketball. We settled for Nine on the Line, a game that Tim taught us that is similar to Pig. It was kind of nippy outside, but once we got into the game, it wasn't so bad.

Also at dinner, Michael burped and Dad laughed for five minutes straight. There's a little more to the story than that; we were all sharing what we had studied in the scriptures recently and Dad asked Michael to share his insights. To which Michael replied "share my insides?" and burped. Whenever Dad laughs that hard, Tim and Michael also start laughing. It reminded me of Sunday dinners at the house. I laughed too, but not as hard. Angi was feeling really sick and I don't even know if she was coherent. Poor girl.

Anyway. All of these things were events that perked me up out of my mullings and musings. I appreciate each one. I'm going to bed now a happier person because of them.

ps- here's something else that makes me happy. This is my dad's handiwork, but Michael is the press agent.