I am a very lucky person... in These titles mean nothing.

..in a million ways.

Let me count a dozen or so ways:

• I just came home from work. I worked 56 hours this week. I had a good time a lot of that time. I am making more money than I’ve ever made before in my life. Not because I’m making more per hour - I’m actually making more than two dollars less an hour than I was eight years ago and fifty cents than I was two years ago - but I’m working more hours and I enjoy the work. I enjoy the drive. I enjoy the people. I enjoy being able to work. Oh and I enjoy not working too. After next Wednesday, I have a week and half off work with various exciting things to do. Keep reading to find out more.

• After work I went to Kwik Star. Kwik Star is a really nice deluxe convenience store. They are out of LaCrosse - in Wisconsin they are Kwik Trips but they couldn’t be Kwik Trips in Iowa because Iowa already has a chain of convenience stores called Quick Trips - so in Iowa Kwik Trips are Kwik Stars. Now you know. I filled the Buick’s tank with 10 percent ethanol/90 percent gasoline to help support the corn growers. I bought a gallon of milk, five lbs. of Gala apples, some green bananas (the Kwik people have the world’s cheapest bananas - I forget the price but I will get back to you) and two bags of Ranch flavored corn chips. Oh and I got a nice crisp twenty dollar bill too.

• On the way home the Buick and I got in the middle of a tractor parade. It was a bunch of old -not real old -middle aged maybe - non-jazzed up farm tractors. They came in from a gravel road on the left right before the Yellow River bridge and then crossed the bridge and turned off on another gavel road to the left. I slowed down and enjoyed the view. It was a little like being in a funeral procession.

• Talking funeral processions, also on the way home, I looked over at the cemetery my husband is buried in, and noted that he is now surrounded (on two sides) by tall thick corn. He would enjoy that. I plan to join him someday and I will enjoy being surrounded (on two sides) by tall corn too.

• Also on the way home, I listened to Wisconsin Public Radio’s Whad’Ya Know for the first time in a long time. I am a long time fan of Wisconsin Public Radio. I have a mug and several t-shirts and I have twenty dollars a month taken out of my checking account and sent to them. I am a sustaining member. The last year or so I’ve not listened to them much and some of what I hear I don’t like as well as I used to like. Times are changing and public radio is changing with them. My twenty dollars a month may be the cherry on their sundae but it’s not the big bucks they need. But today’s Whad’Ya Know was wonderful. Michael Feldman - the show’s host was prime, his new female announcer has the most beautiful voice, and he managed to talk to a county administrator in White Plains, New York who had been in radio himself and who was plenty eager to take over Feldman’s show. I laughed out loud.

• I am looking forward to my time with lbh. We are going to do a whole bunch of interesting stuff. Kinda low key, easy stuff, but interesting just the same. We will be in discovery mode. I predict some wading, some picture taking, some coffee and possibly other drinking, some porch sitting, and some scenic and otherwise walks. Venues include but are not limited to: Pikes Peak, Vesterheim, Fayze’s, Reno Bottoms, bookstores in more than one state, some farmers markets, the clearing, and various water fronts. Gracie will be in fine fettle, Butt and Isacat are looking for a friendly person, and the cows will be photogenic.

• Also time with my Minnesota family. And their State Fair. And Prairie Home Companion from the Grandstand.

• And two train rides!!!

• I am still 69 yrs old. It is the perfect age. Nothing matters anymore. I feel good. I don’t have to live up to anything anymore. I could make myself feel bad worrying about the future. But I don’t have to do that. The future will come and then I can worry about it.

I guess maybe that’s all I have to say for now.

Last updated August 29, 2015