March to the Beat of a Different Drummer

ELLA - look what her Daddy found when he came in the room!

That I do.   I see so many instances where I rebel, I am a non-conformist.  There are people in my life that play follow the leader, they go along with the flow.  I've always gone in the opposite direction, not because I am trying to rebel, but because I see a different view on certain things.  I can't give specifics because I don't want to ruffle feathers if anyone is reading this, but ...  all I can say is I do things differently than the rest of the crowd.  Why am I ranting now?  I don't know.  As Martin Luther King said:  "Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying."

Speaking of dying, a co-worker/friend's husband passed away on Friday.  He had just been diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer just a week prior.  I went to the wake last night.  I called my mother when I went home and told her, if I go before you, promise me no wake.  Not only am I too vain, but I don't want people coming to see me in sadness.   I want a joyful remembrance.  Bring a cat or two.  Right?  :)  Death is so final.  Whatever we are doing in our lives ends at that very moment.  When I was younger, I never ever thought about death.  Even being as young as 11 when my father passed, and then my step dad, and then grandfather, and then grandmother, the really significant people in my life, I still didn't focus on death.  Until now, when I see people in my life getting older, the wrinkles, the frown at the mouth, the slower pace - its happening to me too!  You wonder if you've made a difference in this life you've led.  A difference to anything.  I think I have.  But then I get in these funky moods where I think I am always doing something wrong, always pissing someone off.  Marching to a different beat.  Oh well.  One foot in front of the other, just keep moving, right?

(sorry for that wierdness!).  :)

This morning it was -5 degrees, and the wind chill made it -20 degrees.  It was bitter.I rug up each morning - two pairs of leggings, two pairs of socks, a hoodie and a light wind jacket, two pairs of cheap gloves on one hand, bare hand the other.  I need to feel the towels to see if they are snow covered, if its not visible, and I need to pour food and water from plastic containers and it gets slippery.  After my third stop is when I start putting on the right glove.

Thank God I am seeing the cats using the shelters I've built.  I see them racing from them when they hear me coming, the feral ones.  This morning at my first stop, fluffy boy came right up to me with the baby following him.  They were starving.  There is rarely food left when I arrive the next morning from the previous morning's feeding.

I see all sorts of things in the morning, that most people wouldn't.  Yesterday, I saw the house fire near Goodman and Clifford - or I could see it up ahead as I drove to my spot on Seventh Street.  Just a year prior, I saw a house burning to the ground on Grand Avenue.  Its sad to witness because you know people, and maybe animals, will be displaced.

In the meantime, the forecast for next week is much brighter.  Temps in the 30s - woo hoo!  Thats it in a nutshell.

Have a great day!

"Family means too much,

Friends are too valuable, 

And life is too short, To put off

Sharing with people, How much

They really mean to you,

And how much their happiness

Is all what you aim in life."