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Bonnie’s birthday. My niece Bonnie turned 5 today. That’s really old. Just ask her.
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High-fives. “How old are you? [holds up one hand] 5? Gimme five!” [slaps your hand as hard as she can… because that’s how five-year-olds roll]
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The Hilltop. A quaint little restaurant in Edina, MN that’s great for small family birthday parties.
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Harmonized Eggs. Scrambled eggs with ham, green onions, cream cheese and hollandaise. If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t even breathe next to it.
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Wrapping paper. Aside from its ability to conceal gifts from the birthday girl, that stuff is seriously fun to tear to shreds when opening said gifts.
Gratitudes 2018, Day 52
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Extra sleep. After a few days of struggling not to fall asleep at work, it’s good stuff.
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Carpooling. Someone else can drive, you can have a conversation with someone besides yourself and it saves gas money.
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Checks. Because we haven’t achieved a paperless society yet and not everything can get paid online or with a credit card.
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Blu-ray players. I thought my laptop could play movies on blu-ray. I was wrong. Thankfully, we have a player hooked up to the TV, so we can watch movies on a big screen instead.
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Our king-sized bed. We used to have a queen-sized bed for two humans and two small dogs. There was almost enough room for all four of us… almost enough room…
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Gratitudes 2018, Day 51
Thank God it’s the weekend! Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing to be grateful for at work…
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Employee of the Month awards. It’s a way to recognize employees for all of their hard work and dedication to the organization.
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Employee of the Month wall displays. In the case of my work, they leave all 12 months on the wall. You can go back and look at October through December 2017, then January 2018, February 2018, March 2018, April… 2017. So either that’s the month that management stopped caring about the award or all of the employees started sucking really bad in April and haven’t improved since then.
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National Peanut Day. It was actually yesterday, which is the day we all got an email to let us know people would be delivering bags of peanuts to celebrate the event. (I chose honey roasted. Because they’re yummy. And is this the proper place to make a joke about someone putting nuts in my hand? I think so, too.)
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Tailgating. We were getting ready for the Vikings-Packers game on Sunday, so there were burgers and hot dogs, s’mores, lots of chips and desserts… also yummy.
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Wind. The cardboard box holding the napkins kept getting lighter as more people kept taking them. Then there was a sudden gust of wind, the box tumbled off the table and napkins went everywhere. Some caught another gust of wind and I’m pretty sure they’re sitting on top of the building right now. Maybe not great for the environment, but still good lunchtime entertainment.
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Gratitudes 2018, Day 50
50 days. I have no idea how many gratitudes that is. (If I’d been restricting myself to only five a day, the math would be easy. However, I’ve never made a point of making things easy for myself—why write five when I can write seven or eight?) But since 50 is a big, round number that holds some significance, I think I’ll write about something else that holds just a teensy-weensy bit of significance: Teresa Smith, the lady I’m gonna marry in January. Because I’m super-duper grateful to have her in my life.
This list won’t be the usual “I’m grateful for [blank]”, but bear with me. See, a few months ago, we were driving to Teresa’s parents’ house and listening to a message from Pastor Louie Giglio. He’s a good speaker with a lot of good insight, so when we’re spending a few hours on the road, listening to him is a good way to pass the time. In this case, he was talking to the guys in the audience. So guys, I’m passing along his message to you, so you might want to write down the list when I’m done. (If any ladies write down the list and give it to their significant others… sorry if I’ve just raised her expectations for you.)
See, anyone can say “I love you.” It absolutely has significance and everyone should appreciate it when someone tells you. However, a romantic relationship requires a lot more than that. You can tell her “I love you”, but when’s the last time you said “I like you”? That seems like a pretty important part of a relationship, right? I hope it’s not something you’re overlooking (“We barely tolerate each other’s presence, but at least the sex is good!”), but just like “I love you”, there are things that are really important in a relationship that women should hear from time to time. Consequently, I try to remind Teresa about these five things once in a while. They’re a good basis for our relationship and I’m grateful that I can say them truthfully to her every time. Okay, guys, ready to start writing? Here’s the list:
- I love you.
- I like you.
- I enjoy spending time with you.
- I think about you.
- I want to help you achieve your dreams.
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Gratitudes 2018, Day 49
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Modern medicine. I saw a Facebook memory from three years ago along these lines this morning, which I had labeled “Time”. The problem then was I had a bulging disc in my back that was pressing against the nerve going down the back of my left leg and it hurt. So I was glad that I wasn’t in the past and they were able to fix the problem instead of cutting off my leg to release the evil spirits.
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My left leg. I use it. A lot. And there are no evil spirits in it (that I know of…).
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Cities Sports Connection. I know I mentioned it when talking about soccer, but it’s relevant here because I found out that the male side of the roster is full on my old Mad Dogs team. However, I was able to register with the league as a “free agent”, so we’ll see what kind of players I get teamed up with. Hopefully pleasant and relatively hygienic—that’s always a good starting point.
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Pacemakers. (I got sidetracked after #1… I’m sure it’ll never happen again.) I know several people who have them and I’m grateful that their hearts are still beating instead of doctors opening up their chests to release the evil spirits.
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Hospital food. Because you can usually get it and bring it back to a patient’s hospital room. And there are no evil spirits in it (that I know of…).
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Gratitudes 2018, Day 48
I starting writing this earlier today and it didn’t feel like anything resembling a list of gratitudes. Apparently, thinking about 9/11 can have that effect on me… It ended up being kind of a “wish list” at the end, but it took some work to get there. (Note: there are some naughty words in here, so if you have delicate sensibilities, you may want to put on some protective eyewear before reading any further.)
I’ve forgotten a lot about the year 2001, but I remember where I was on 9/11. I was reading in the lunchroom at school when I looked up and saw a group of people staring at a TV up on the wall. I walked over there just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center and left to go to class just as the first tower started to collapse.
People saw it as a national tragedy and I think it unified the country in a way. It gave us something we could look at and say, “That was bad.” Everyone had that and we all fit inside one “That was bad” circle of a Venn diagram. And so that’s my one gratitude for today:
- Unity.
Unfortunately, it’s a better gratitude for 2001 than 2018. There’s still a great deal of unity—maybe even more now—but I recommend you avoid applying Venn diagrams unless you’re a big fan of circles that don’t touch.
I’d like to mention here that I want to see ZERO comments pointing fingers or placing blame on the current state of the country. It doesn’t matter how we got here. The point is that we’re here.
We may never see that overall sentiment of “That was bad” again. Our society has become so fragmented and compartmentalized and separated that if one group of people thinks, “That was bad”, you’ll find another group that thinks, “Yaaaaay!”
“They believe something or they have something or they are something that I don’t like, so fuck ’em.”
And that kind of sentiment has become so widespread, it’s sickening. There was a time when a car driving into a crowd of people was “That was bad” by default. Now if it’s a crowd of protesters, “Good! They deserved it! The car should have hit and killed more of them!”
HOW IS THAT OKAY?!?!
But it is. All kinds of people from all sorts of different circles are embracing it. If you don’t like someone, we’ve gone waaaaay beyond “I’m not going to invite them to my birthday party.” Now it’s “They’re not like me, so fuck ’em.”
When this stuff started bouncing around in my head, I thought about writing “You’re not like me”, but we don’t even have that anymore. It’s not “you and me”, it’s “us and them.” So many people just love staying in their circles and have no problems sitting back and blaming people on the outside for pretty much anything they don’t like.
I wish I had an answer. I wish I had an idea of how to fix things. I wish I had a gigantic Band-Aid that I could put over the entire country and all our problems would eventually scab over, then fall off and we’d be healed. Unfortunately, they don’t make Band-Aids that big. And even if they did, a lot of us (myself included) have trouble not picking scabs before the wound is fully healed.
This is as far as I got until reading something at work and the author used the word “empathy.” We could definitely use a lot more of that. So I looked back at what I wrote and thought, “What are some ways to combat this mindset that so many people have? What can people do for themselves that’ll help ease their frustrations? How can we heal the world, make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race?” (No, I honestly have no idea why that song popped into my head.) So here’s my wish list for everyone:
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Empathy
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Compassion
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Listening
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Understanding
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Acceptance
