Posted in Throwback Thursday, Neal’s Post from the Past

Neal’s Post from the Past: “Oh Possum! (Warning: A Bit Gross)”

Here’s a silly post from back in 2013 about an encounter with an unfortunately deceased possum.

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So Tuesday I picked up grandson Daniel …

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…at soccer camp and headed back to his house.  Traversing up the driveway, discussing Skylander Giants, we both saw this at about the same time:

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A small, dead, open-eyed possum in the neatly manicured front lawn.  “Look, Abu!  A big rat!” Daniel yelled, as he excitedly unbuckled his seat belt, careening toward the thing.

“I think it’s a possum, Daniel, and I also think he’s dead.”  (WHY do I use verbs like “think” in times like this?  The possum was dead as a doornail with bugs swarming around its head.)

“That means he’s not breathing,” Daniel explained to me.

“Why don’t you go in the house and cool off, while I get rid of our friend?”

“NO!” Daniel screamed.  “We have to show it to Mommy!”

“Well, he can stay here for a few minutes.”  (Like the possum was going somewhere.)

At about that time, Olivia and Larkin, the cute twins from next door, came running into the driveway, straight from a pool party.  And of course, Daniel had to show them …

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… explaining that the “rat, I mean possum, was dead and couldn’t move, so don’t touch it till Mommy comes home because we are going to show it to her.”

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Her expression says it all.

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(Touch it?!)

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 6/3/22

1. Attending friends Pat and Mary Prokop’s annual Memorial Day Garden Party, featuring Pat’s incredible backyard garden. Pat was the long-term but now retired chief meteorologist for WTOC here in Savannah.

Here’s HR giving me a lengthy lecture, something about heat resistant blossoms (it was too hot to pay much attention), before I finally had all I could take of him and joined Mary on the porch for mimosas.

2. Robert’s amazing and tenderly delicious Steak Pizzaiola.

3. The joy, and yes sometimes sorrow, of being able to FEEL. Emotionally, physically, politically, etc.

4. Driving around Savannah and seeing grandson Daniel plastered on electronic billboards advertising the musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” D is Joseph in the play, which closes this weekend after a three-week run.

5. I’ve been going through some pretty intensive allergy testing this week to try to get to the root of some health issues I’ve been having. WARNING: Not pretty pics like the garden party ones above. Scroll through quickly!

Have you ever had to go through this?!

WHY on earth am I including such a thing as a Happy Bringer? Simple: my back is now TAPE FREE!

Here’s another garden party photo, to get your mind off allergy testing.

May you be taped to joy this weekend.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “Accepting Acceptance”

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

Homework from a recent therapy session found me composing “realistic” affirmations or mantra statements. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, which is ironic since I never do anything perfectly.

As with most of us, I suppose, I really want life to bend in the direction I desire. But it often (very often) does not.

Here are a few affirmations I will (sometimes begrudgingly) practice:

“My life IS as it IS right now, and I accept that truth.”

“Everything may not be perfect in my life right now, and I am accepting of that truth as well.”

“I’m okay where I am right now.”

“I am who I am right now.”