Taking Advantage

Let's face it folks, I'm getting old. Used to be, I said I'm getting "older" but now, it's shortened to just getting old.

Fact is ya know, we all are doing that as long as we wake up tomorrow and say "Hey, hello! It's another grand day!" And, that's a good thing too, don't 'cha just know it. Why if you or I didn't wake up tomorrow, just where the heck do you think you'd be? Alright, let's not go there. Too scary or maybe just too philosophical a topic for discussion perhaps?

And, waking up vs. not waking up tomorrow and the hereafter isn't exactly what I'm hereafter in this piece either. So rest easy if your mind was going in that general direction.

Today, Mandy decided she had to go over to Clearfield, run some errands, pick up a few things, etc., and she took Maya with her. The little guy was up at the sitter's today for the afternoon and that left me to my own devices. I could do as I pleased and not have to worry about a three-year-old getting into anything and everything or making the living room floor look like a disaster zone. Oh shucks, she'd already done that within 15 minutes of being awake and running around here.

So what lovely thing did I do to "take advantage" of my so-called freedom for the afternoon?

I slept!

I couldn't relax last night to fall asleep and then when I did, the darned shingles decided that wasn't what THEY had in mind for me - and when those old shingles decide to resurface every now and again, let me tell you, there is no arguing with them. They win every doggone time!

So, since I hadn't slept very well, I really did feel the need for a nice little nap and that's what I tried to do but once again, the shingles decided to spring into action and kept waking me up. I'm starting to see a pattern here and it's one I don't like either. Add to that, it seemed about the time I would manage to fall asleep though, something else would interrupt my nap - like the darned telephone! Never fails ya know! And people wonder why I am a true believer in Murphy's old law.

Other "good" news - if you want to call it that - (ok, it's news) is that Kate, the 15-year-old, got caught skipping her science class the other day and as a result, she is getting an detention starting next week. Wonderful! That just means that someone here will have to make arrangements then to pick her up at school around 4:30 in the afternoon. Hopefully, this will be her dad, provided he remembers to fulfill that assignment. Sometimes, his memory is even worse than mine is!

The other news, also pertaining to Kate, is that she has been tardy for school and missed so much time -in the school's eye - that now, if she is absent again, or tardy, she will be assigned to a truant officer. The tardy issue, I have no disagreement with, but the absences - well, those were valid and she even had doctor's excuses for the last two of them. So what happened this morning? Kate didn't get up, missed her bus and Mandy had to take her up to school then two hours late! While there, she spoke to someone about the other issue with Kate - the science class grade and skipping that class in which she found out the school thinks Kate has skipped several of the science classes but because they had changed home room teachers on her somewhere along the line and that teacher apparently didn't fully understand the attendance taking methods, reports were incorrectly filed and they couldn't prove then she had skipped several science classes, but they just suspected it. Now it's a darned good thing Kate didn't realize that or she really would have been taking advantage of that error in the system!

Mandy and I made a trip today - after 5 p.m. - to the local grocery store where she works too because they were having a "midnight madness" sale today from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. - ok, apparently the store has a slightly different take on what constitutes "midnight madness" but I'm not complaining since they had some good prices on some things we could use. Make hay while the sun shines is the line that comes to mind for me.

And, also - with respect to the store and shopping there today, it's my day to take advantage of the thing I started out with to begin with in this post - getting old. Now that I'm a bonafide senior citizen, every Wednesday, I get a big 5% discount on all purchases at the store so, for waiting till their midnight madness sale today and with that discount applied then, I saved an additional $3.48 - according to my receipt for my purchases today! I know - don't spend it all in one place huh? But heck, it's better than nothing isn't it?

And now - the Bushism for today is:
"Those of us who spent time in the agricultural sector and in the heartland, we understand how unfair the death penalty is." - Omaha, Nebraska; February 28, 2001