Notes from a Madman

Sometimes when I’m driving, I’ll ask Siri to take a note for me. I’ll go back months or years later and find the notes and have no idea what they mean. They could be grocery lists, I suppose, or possibly a dream I had, or a reminder for a new blog post, or maybe Siri just screwed up what I was trying to say. At this point, I have no idea anymore.

Here are some of my favorites:

• My feet stank and then I ran off and had soup
• Coming to stop and then running red light brother was cool
• Told GPS to avoid tolls GPS immediately took me to the toll road has contract with toll authority
• Waving at blind horses
• Father hanging from the ceiling in a harness

And then some of them read like headlines in a newspaper:

• Banana pudding and milk
• Leek soup makes me toot
• Smokers peeing on my suitcase
• Cucumber scented resumes
• The bus is coming

Just in Case

As we prepared to leave the house today for a birthday party, I found myself standing at the sink, scrubbing dishes and thinking. I realized that I tend to approach leaving the house for a day outing with the family a little differently than most people. Before I can leave, I like to tidy up. I make the beds, sweep the floor, do the dishes, straighten the pillows on the couch, make sure all the laundry is folded and put away, and clear my browser history. My thinking is that if today is the day the bus gets me, and my mother has to deal with my estate, then at least we didn’t leave a mess behind for her. I mean dealing with the remnants of someone's life is hard enough without having to worry about caked on food residue, skid marks, or searches for non-chafing man thongs!

The Cardinal: Revenge

So, I did a little tree pruning on my oak tree in the backyard last weekend, because the grass under the tree wasn't getting enough sunlight.  I decided to cut the bottom two branches off the tree to raise the overall canopy level, which seemed to immediately help.  The problem was that one of the branches was where the stupid cardinal liked to sit and peck at the mirror hanging in the tree.  So, now, he can't conveniently sit and attack his adversary.  It's a little bit of work for him to swoop down from one of the higher branches.  To show his displeasure with me, he's decided to go back to slamming himself into the windows on the back of our house again.  Every morning, without fail, at precisely 7:00 a.m. he launches himself off my fence and into the window...repeatedly...until I finally get up and go wave my arms like a half-crazed, naked lunatic at the window.  Then, he'll go out and start a beef with the mirror in the tree.  I guess I'm going to have to adjust the position of the mirrors in the tree to more align with his particular wants and desires.