The Realization

Steam rose from the cup of coffee sitting on the desk.  The swirls of hot mist wafting gently on invisible air currents until they themselves disappeared into untraceable nothingness.  She stared into the cup.  The tiny bubbles around the edge, where coffee meets cup, would occasionally pop, sending an ever so small ripple across the surface.  Her fixation on the steamy liquid had passed the surface and was somewhere beneath, looking, looking for something.  It was as if she were scrying, waiting for the answer to mystically appear to her in some form of vision.

A thump on the window brought her attention back to the present.  Another bird had misjudged the distance between the feeder and the glass.  Luckily, the bird did not break its neck and would live to see another day in paradise.  She watched them, the birds, as they fluttered around the feeder and once again her mind began to drift.  It was drifting back to her original torment.

She sat back in her chair and sighed.  What was she doing?  Why did she find herself like this, yet again?  What was is that seemed she must relive the scenario over and over again?  

She knew the truth, the reason.  But, was she willing to face it?  She was not sure, but there was no one to blame but herself.  It seemed she had spent the greater part of her life waiting.  Waiting for some thing, or some one to bail her out.  To save her.  To make things all better.  Yes, she was a hopeless romantic, but this was not about love.  Love was the one thing she had plenty of.  So, what was her problem?  

She found herself, again, in a place, a situation, she did not care for.  She wanted out of it and she wanted out fast.  But, as she looked around the room, taking in all the accumulated stuff of dreams and nightmares, the truth raised its head, like a viper, and struck deep within her heart.  There was no knight in shining armor waiting to ride in and save the day.  There was no genie to hand her three wishes on a silver platter.  No. There was no one.  Only herself.

Pouring the coffee into the sink, watching the dark brown drink flow into the drain, she realized that was what she needed to do.  She needed to let the past go, let it go down the drain, never to be seen again.  She could not stand and peer into that abyss, wanting it to come back so she could make changes to it.  What was done, was done, the option of returning to it was moot.

It was time to make a new plan.  She had one tucked into the folds of her memory.  Now was the time to take a step towards it.  She donned her jacket, walked out the door and felt the cool crisp air, that held the hint of yet another approaching autumn, caress her face.  It welcomed her, like an old friend and softly whispered into her ear, "You can do this."  

From The Desk of the Dog

Hello!  It's Runtly, the ever so entertaining Jack Russell Terrier, JRT for short.  I told Mom it was my turn because I had a lot of stuff to get off my chest.

First, I want to tell you something about my Mama that I forgot to mention the last time.  She is so brave!  When I was at her house, the neighbors stopped by to visit with the other humans and they had a dog with them!  She was a pretty dog named Abbie and she was big!  Way bigger than me and Mama.......Mom says Mama and me....whatever, I'm tellin' the story!  Anyway, my Mama does not like any other girl dogs on her turf.  The next thing I knew, Mama took off and poor Abbie had hardly put her feet on the ground and Mama was on her!  I'd never seen anything like that before and I didn't know what to do!  There was all kinds of barking, snarlin', yelpin' even the humans were whooping.  Well, that Abbie had enough of that and she decided to defend herself and she bit my Mama!  I can't say that I blame her, I've seen Mama in a bad mood before.  When that happened, Mama's Dad scooped her up and she wailed all the way to the house!  Boy was that exciting!  Fun times with the fam.  I was disappointed though by not getting to meet Abbie up close.

But, I've had a rough few weeks this summer.  First Dad left.  He went somewhere to work and Mom and I stayed home.  I don't like that.  I didn't eat for three days and I slept on Dad's pillow just about every night he was gone.  Then, the very worst happened....Mom left too!  I knew something was up because there was this box thing in the front room that Mom always puts stuff in when she is going to be gone.  I had to stay with some people that I barely knew, even though I do like them a whole bunch, but I didn't know what was going on.  I only had to stay with them for one sleep and then Dad came home!  I was so happy to see him when he came to pick me up, but when we got back home, Mom was still gone.  She was gone for a really long time and I looked and looked for her.

Then one day, Dad left for just a little while and when he came back, he had Mom with him!  I was so happy to see her!  She even let me get in that box thing and I found a present she brought me!  Mom and Dad just don't seem to understand how upsetting it is for my routine to be upended.  But, I've been showing Mom what I thought about it.  I slept on Dad's side of the bed for several sleeps after she came home.....I showed her.  

But, I'm over it now and I'm back on Mom's side of the bed.  I always try to make sure she's got enough room to not fall off the side, but rarely does she have enough blankey to cover up with. Mom says it's about six inches of bed, but I don't know what that means and if there are six of them, I better try to catch em'! 
Until my next adventure, Woof!

A Glimmer

I was sitting at a stop light for a very busy intersection.  The young man, in the truck next to me, was busy texting on his phone.  He looked up briefly, every few seconds to see if the light had changed.  I wanted to tell him that unless the person behind him was on his phone too, he would not have to wonder if the light changed.  People here honk if the car ahead of them has not moved within a millisecond of the light changing.  Then, I wanted to tell him to get off the phone and pay attention.  I thought better of it and turned my attention back to the traffic whizzing by at break neck speeds.  Many of them were either talking on their phone or looking down into their lap.  

My mind began to go into the old broken record mode, the one with a skip, about what is happening to our youth with the onslaught of cell phone use, but then something else popped in.  

I was taken back, just a few days, to time spent on the west coast of the country.  The two oldest grandsons were there too.  The youngest of this duo was rather distraught because his phone was on the blink and he did not have a basketball to replace it with.  Luck was on his side when he discovered a volleyball in the garage.  Shortly there after, it was named Wilson and it never left his side.  Although this place did not offer a basketball hoop, the house next door did.  A day later, the tenants there, vacation over, had moved on.  Grandson #2 was behind this house in an instant, happily shooting hoops.  This lasted for a couple of days, then, the next group of vacationers arrived.  Within this new arrival where two young girls.  Their ages were close to the boys'.

Once this was discovered, on our side of the fence, things began to get interesting.  If only for a brief moment in time.  There seemed to be some obstacle on how to meet these two new comers.  I suggested just walking over and saying "hi".  That was met with a look the was akin to what they might have looked like if I had told them their house was on fire.  

The grand solution came and Wilson went flying over the fence with a post-it note stuck on his roundness.  The message, although not an original quote, was a phone number and the words "I'm awesome".  A short time later, a small paper airplane, made from a sheet of a note sized legal paper, came sailing back across the fence.  It contained two social media addresses and a smear of what may have been hot pink lipstick.  Not long after this grand fishing expedition, both parties lost interest, mainly because the girls were from Sweden and the language barrier wasn't worth the effort.

The light turned green and I made my way across the intersection in the left turn lane.  The young man in the truck went straight and I hoped he made it to where ever he was going.  When I arrived home, I walked to my desk and looked at that small paper airplane. It reminded me of the glimmer of hope that I had been a witness to.  A glimmer of hope that the human race will continue on.

R.O.I.

R.O.I.  Return On Investment.  What does it mean?  In the stock market world, it is meant to show whoever wants to buy certain stocks what kind of money they might expect to earn from their investment.  There is a lot more to it, but in layman's terms, that is the desired outcome, especially when compared to the initial cost.

Can R.O.I. be applied to other aspects?  How about a project?  Let's say a person has been working on a particular project for a long time.  Maybe they are building a boat in their basement.  After a while, when they realize that there is no way the boat will ever see water, they come to the conclusion that all their time and effort was for naught.  This is not to say there was absolutely nothing gained during the process.  Surely their woodworking skills were honed to a fine edge over the time spent.  But, their dream of sailing the seven seas, or the local lake, along with the cost of materials spent showed a R.O.I. of zero.

Should relationships have an R.O.I.?  It seems they should. What kind of situation could have a Return On Investment?  If a person who works for a company, always shows up on time, does a stellar job at whatever is given them but never gets a raise or praise, that could be called a very low R.O.I.  The person was at least getting paid an agreed upon wage, so the return cannot be zero, but it's close if the original plan was to climb the ladder to a higher paying position.  What about other human relationships, family, friends, spouses?  Should those too, have an R.O.I.?  If these situations are a never ending give and take, then yes, the R.O.I. is high, because that is a sign of a healthy relationship.  But, if it is one sided, with only one half of the partnership doing all the work, making sure the other is always taken care of, no matter what, then again, the R.O.I. is very low.

Best selling author and public speaker, Ron Ball, made a statement that was seared into my brain matter.  "God uses troubles to fashion us for better things."  So, it is not to say that a low to zero R.O.I is the bottom of the barrel, a failure.  No, it was, or is, a learning experience.  What one does with that wisdom is entirely up to them.  If they want or need a higher R.O.I., it may be time to walk away from that particular project.