What is a Hero?

I was thinking. Uh oh.

People are highlighted in the press quite often for doing what I believe to be what a person should do under ordinary circumstances. If someone is falling, wouldn’t you want to help them? If someone is trapped, wouldn’t you want to help “untrap” them? If someone is drowning, wouldn’t you want to try to save them? I mean, assuming you could SWIM, of course. This seems like Life 101 to me. Either that, or I am a hero and all I need is a cape and a snappy leotard.

I’ve realized that when there is a problem, I go TOWARD it, not away. I’m one of those people who is not afraid; in fact, when things get tough, I get calmer and more focused than I usually am. I don’t know why but I suspect it’s just the way my brain is wired: there’s a problem; it needs to be fixed. Period. I don’t think I’m a hero. But I don’t expect to be a victim, don’t expect to get hurt; in fact just the opposite. I expect to help. Now, I’ve been dead wrong about that; I have been hurt, and badly, but I never EXPECTED to be. And I still don’t, by the way. I’m just going in to help, scars and all.

Are the media going to train us that standing by and watching while people die or are injured is the norm, and reaching out is heroic? Well if you listen to the news, that’s what you’ll think. I think the stories of today’s heroes should go like this: “Today, fifty people stood by and watched an ordinary man pull a woman out of a wrecked car, just before it burst into flames. The bystanders were glad they didn’t have to venture forth.”

Now that sounds pretty interesting, don’t you think? Imagine the interviewer putting the microphone up to one spector’s face, saying, “Sir, today many of our viewers think you are a scaredy cat! What do you say to that?” The answer should be: I’m not wired to be a hero. Because I think that’s what it boils down to.

It doesn’t take much to lend a helping hand. Well maybe it does. I went below decks once after we lost power and were taking on water by the hundreds of gallons, to retrieve the flashlight…our only remaining light source…in the midst of the ‘storm of the century’. We were sinking. It never occurred to me I might get hurt, or might drown. I just knew we needed that light. So I went to get it. It was pitch dark and I waded in water, searching with my feet for the elusive flashlight. I found it, about half an hour before the Coast Guard rescued us. All I could think was what a great story this would make, how beautiful the storm was in the midst of its fury…and how seasick I was. I was never afraid. Go figure. That’s how I’m wired.

So…what’sa hero? Well, if you run, you ain’t one. hahaha.

Of Course…the Arias Trial…

I came within a few steps…literally…of being selected to serve on a death penalty case jury. I thought the idea was fascinating and something I’d be good at…until I saw the defendant. He had stabbed his wife to death with their three month old child in close proximity…and I couldn’t take my eyes off of his hands. They were pale and feminine, not the sort of hands you’d expect to be murderous at all. But they were. It wasn’t contested whether or not he killed his wife, only what his punishment should be. And there I was, fifteen feet away from this man, potentially about to be selected to determine his fate. I felt physically ill. Before that time, I was absolutely in favor of the death penalty…but when it came time to put up or shut up, I realized I could never be the one to call for another’s death. Not at the time. I was younger then.

I looked at the Travis Alexander autopsy photos online. If you haven’t seen them, don’t. They are too disturbing and the act of violence they portray slithers into your gut and your phyche and you’ll feel nauseated and you won’t sleep. And you’ll feel very, very sad…not only about poor Travis, but also about our society in general. What comes forth is that this poor man suffered tremendous violence and pain…and he fought to live. His wounds show that. His last moments alive were filled with the sort of terror no human being should have to experience, particularly not if you’re someone like Travis apparently was. I have such a palatable sense of loss without him in the world. We NEED more people like him.

Travis filled his life with service, apparently, and according to his journal entry…one of the last…he intended to make this year the most giving of all. I think he might have pulled it off. If he hadn’t encountered the bloodsucker. The one named Jodi.

Here’s the thing. He got himself tied up with a person who was charming, manipulative, and used to not only getting her way but also never having taken responsibility for any wrongs in her life. People like that, especially ones diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, can be very charming, and they get through life by being manipulative, ingratiating, and…here’s the important part…attaching themselves to people who are NOT that way. They seek out honest, hardworking, giving people and particularly ones who tend to be very calm and focused about their life. They are parasites, ultimately, and when they think they are either losing their host OR not getting their way about something important to them (it’s always ALL AND ONLY about them)…they can explode, and they do. I’ve seen it happen up close and personally.

Jodi described Travis as being a very calm person. Now…if someone asked you to describe your lover, would ‘calm’ be one of the first things you said? NO! You’d say cute, or funny or smart. Not ‘calm’. So here’s my theory. I know, through testimony, that Travis was ending the relationship. I think Jodi tried to manipulate him, even sexually the day of his murder, and it wasn’t working. My guess is that he was very calm and deliberate in letting her know that her manipulations weren’t working and weren’t GOING to. And she lost it. I think, like all of her type, she is EXTREMELY vindictive, and she threw everything she had in to making him pay for not giving her her way.

People say she must have been abused as a child. I call bull on that. It think she was spoiled ROTTEN, always got her way, always thought she was adorable and that EVERYTHING she did was wonderful. People like that never learn to take responsibilty for things going sideways, because the adults in their life never let them SEE that. Mommy or Daddy usually make their lives perfect and when it’s time to grow up, they don’t…they just find another ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ to make their lives perfect AND to take the blame for all bad things. The person closest to one of these animals gets to bear the weight of the world. It’s true. And it’s terrible. I’m guessing Jodi’s mommy was the ‘good’ parent and Jodi’s daddy was ‘the bad parent’…and I bet mommy worked against daddy a lot. You haven’t seen daddy around much, have you?

Jodi never expected to be found guilty, and her smug demeanor throughout the trial showed that. She was used to using people, manipulating people, getting her way. Now that she knows this ain’t California baby, she has a whole new demeanor. But she’s still acting. I couldn’t help but wonder whether her face muscles hurt at the end of the day from holding the ‘sad’ face during the victim impact statements. Another manipulation. Listen, I can PROMISE you she views HERSELF as the victim. I lived with one of these types. For a long time. I recognize the animal. She feels victimized. Even though she brutalized Travis, butchered the man.

So now…not only would I vote in FAVOR of the death penalty for Jodi, I’d push the button. People like her suck the life out of anybody stupid enough to fall for their manipulations…and we fall for them because we view the world as good, as WE are good, because we are trusting and we want to serve. We end up being nothing more than a host for the parasite, a platform from which they can spring their insanity, and the person to whom they point the blame when things don’t work out…and they NEVER work out for these people because they eventually, always show their true colors…and they get caught. It’s important to not only realize there are a LOT of Jodi’s out there, bad people who WILL kill if they feel the need to, people whose reality isn’t ‘normal’. It’s their own reality with them at the center…because they never grow up.

As long as the Jodi’s of the world don’t commit brutal murder, we can deal with them. Some of us have done it and some are doing it now. In this case, however, I say death is the only answer. She will do this again, given the right circumstances. Of that I have NO doubt.

Oh, and here’s something else VERY important: Jodi tried her level best to make this all Travis’s fault. She tried her BEST to make him out to be a monster. Yeah, I’ve had that happen to me too. It rarely works…because the parasite’s true colors always come through…It’s the only gratification the normal people have: the truth comes out.

JC Penney Silo Master

Well, they fired the JCP CEO. While I never want to see anybody lose his job, this one was certain to happen if the company has a snowball’s chance in Hades of surviving. And it might not. It took too long for everybody to figure out what they needed to do. I saw this one coming when the new CEO threw away his customer base and tried to replace it with youngsters with no money and no desire to shop where grandma shopped. He failed to realize that there are FEWER of them than there were of the original customer base, and more choices for them to utilize. Duh. And, JCP stopped offering quality merchandise and instead packed the stores with junk NOBODY wanted. And…these stores are usually an anchor store in a mall where the lease is HUGE. Is this ROCKET SCIENCE? No. I’ve done rocket science. This ain’t it. JCP used to be my only place to go for great quality sweaters. Even the higher end stores couldn’t match their value and quality with regard to, in particular, their Spring sweaters. I went there for sweaters; and I bought everything else I needed. I loved their housewares department before they stocked it with junk. But that’s not THE main reason JCP failed. It failed because the new guy wanted to build a silo.

I see this kind of thing happen all the time, and it’s not new. One author I read recently (I can’t remember his name) coined ‘silo building’ (Google him and find his book; it’s really good). Here’s how it goes…

First, a paradigm is created where one or more entities within a company have a need to break out from the pack at the expense of the team (maybe not even realizing they are nuking the team). Maybe it’s not a paradigm; maybe it’s just one giant ego being brought on board who wants to MAKE HIS MARK (dogs just pee on it and maybe if people did that we’d all be better off). So that person creates his own little empire (his goal all along and in fact his NEED) and starts stacking these slightly curved blocks… building a silo…around himself and a selected few. Silos don’t have windows, mind you; they don’t need them. But the PROBLEM with that is that there’s no communication possible and the problem is, also, that once the underground competition sets in, you CAN’T communicate because all you could say is, “I’m trying to beat you.”

Once the silo builder starts building his tower, others have to do the same or risk being overshadowed. Besides, in the beginning, the silo builder looks like a star; he’s having all kinds of success! He makes others look like they’re napping…but there’s a reason for that.

Okay, let’s have an example; let’s say you’re in retail. Retail establishments are RIFE with silo builders. So the first silo builder essentially forces other entities within the company to follow suit, and before you know it, you have building blocks half way up and resources become GOLDEN. You need resources to build silos after all, and the higher the walls the more resources (people, money) you need. Chances are you’ll get them because…well you look like a star right now, remember? But what’s really happening is that the first nail in the coffin of the organization as a whole, has just been hammered in.

So there becomes a built-in, destined competition for resources, usually the low wage earners who are running like horses to make the managers’ wishes come true. Silo builder number one gets most of the resources because at first, he’s the only one who knows what he’s up to AND he probably doesn’t realize or care that he may be killing the host. He’s just focused on making his vision a reality and that’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but it’s very dangerous for an organization that needs balance and nimbleness to respond to customer needs and desires.

Okay, so let’s say he’s in charge of the stock room, only that. Once he has the lion’s share of the resources, the stockroom is going to start to look VERRRY good. The shelves will be stocked neatly; everything will be labeled, the floor will be swept. It’ll be GREAT…At the expense of the appearance of the store, the place where CUSTOMERS are, and in fact at the expense of customer service…which is the supreme savior of retail. Also in the crosshairs now, is the morale of the others who are trying to make their retail establishment competitive and customer friendly, who are trying to do their job and that of at least one other…who is now in the main silo. Everybody outside the primary silo becomes frustrated, exhausted, and a failure…because nobody can sustain that kind of workload and because the workload BECOMES unmanageable. Individuals can do the work of one, maybe two, on a sustained level, but not three or four. Plus, these people, remember, are the low wage earners. There’s not a lot of incentive to run a marathon every day, month after month, particularly if you’ve already failed at the start because the workload outside the primary silo, has become…unmanageable. If, in retail, the employees outside of the primary silo become worn out and unhappy, frustrated and edgy….guess what happens to CUSTOMER SERVICE, the supreme savior of retail? Right.

The primary silo builder grabs the best of the best resources…because that’s what he needs to make his vision a reality (it’s what anybody would need or want, right), leaving the other lagging silo builders to compete for the other, less desirable or maybe less qualified ones. Nobody’s happy at this point except the primary silo builder and his resources. The primary silo builder is getting recognized, and his resources are getting good pay, nice hours. And by the way, the workforce budget is spent behind the walls, where the customers never go.

Now that’s not all bad. There are good reasons to have a neat and organized operation, where you know what you have and where it is and where everything’s clean and neat. But…not at the expense of the appearance of the shopping areas, where the customers are, customers, who can kill your operation just by NOT going there. If you consider that customers are more entitled than they have ever been, more demanding of stellar service…it wouldn’t make sense to deliberately erode that service, would it? No. And silo builders usually don’t realize they’re doing that. They are just trying to make their mark, make their vision a reality, get a raise, get a promotion, be recognized, prove their worth…all that jazz.

So, the lagging silo builders have not only been crippled with respect to the best and the brightest, but now they have to try to make it work with FEWER of the middle of the pack employees. If they DON’T make it work, their upper management will tear them up, comparing them to the primary silo builder (not realizing he’s sinking with the REST of the ship), and hence eroding the morale of the other silo builders. The morale of the workers is already tanking and now the managers, the secondary and tertiary silo builders, are falling too. Uh oh. Too bad the higher level managers can’t see this. Don’t feel bad; they didn’t see it at JCP either.

There are places where silos are okay. Farms.

Retail is the WORST place for them because in retail, things change on a dime and the entire operation has to be able to not only change direction in a second, but also do it while making the customers ecstatic. So they’ll come back. So they won’t go to the PLETHORA of other places they COULD go…and WILL go if their needs are not met. And…this is important…the workforce here MUST be happy, because they sure aren’t there for the money. And they won’t stay if they aren’t happy. So if you’re already running lean and you lose your best ‘leftovers’, oops. Real trouble.

What seems important to me, a real nobody, is that teamwork is important in retail and so is foresight! JCP turned their focus inward, onto themselves, and worked like all get out to build a great little silo with little lounges and vignettes…but they forgot to ask the customers what THEY wanted. It does no good to make a mark if nobody SEES it, or, more importantly, if it’s a colossal failure.

Why JC Penney is Tanking

As is the case of all blogs, this is my opinion. But it’s also common sense. My CAT could have predicted this if he could speak English. Or cared.. JC Penney just posted the worst quarter in the HISTORY of retail…if you believe the news. Well duh. Anybody I talk to isn’t surprised at all because JCP had it ALL wrong.

First, they decided to put all of their effort into courting a demographic that wouldn’t love them UNLESS they were rather last retail store on the planet. This IS their mother’s store no matter how much they change the logo.

Second and most important, they completely disregarded the demographic who handed them their success. Ask any Baby Boomer EX JC Penney shopper. They’ll tell you.

JCP got sloppy and dirty and unfriendly to their customers…the ones who handed them profits year after year. They got fat and lazy and thought they didn’t have to work to keep us. Then instead of looking inward and doing some hard evaluation, they blamed us…their bread and butter…and they kicked us to the curb.

So we’ve voted with our feet and our wallets. We went where we were wanted and importantly, valued. If JCP wants to survive, they need to BEG us to come back. They should restock their shelves with the things WE like and want, they need to price them competitively and make sure they are of the quality we once expected from JCP…and they should beg for our forgiveness. Maybe then we’ll stop thinking how they are getting EXACTLY what they deserve and give them another chance to appreciate us. Or maybe not.

And by the way…if they wanted to appeal to the Old Navy crowd, they should have changed the NAME as well as the logo. DUH. Even with that, we don’t need another Target or Old Navy and…we are still the ones with the discretionary money to keep you in business.

I think that’s worth a day of CEO salary.

What Love Isn’t

Somebody very important to me asked me if I knew what love is? What a question. Of course I don’t know. I THOUGHT I did, but boy did I get schooled.

I answered, “Does anybody?” I’m not sure about that one, actually. My guess would be that most people haven’t given it much thought and that most people have love and lust confused. Maybe there’s no such thing at all; maybe it’s a perfect match of one person being a host and the other a parasite…and I’m sure there are nicer WORDS for it, but you get the idea.

I’ve learned that each person’s definition of love, if they could even adequately articulate it, is as unique as that person is among the whole population of Earth. So I ask YOU: what is love?

Think about it; before you answer ask yourself what would love look like if you took lust out of the picture. I know, hard to imagine. Still give it a shot. Also take out the OBLIGATION factor; I mean love from child to parent, for example. If not for those things, how would you describe love?

I don’t have the ‘right’ answer. Maybe there isn’t one. But I can talk about some things love isn’t. First of all, it isn’t lust; it isn’t about sex. And if you plan to build a so-called loving relationship, like marriage…on sex, forget it; it’s not gonna work.

Love isn’t going after somebody because they have assets you’d like to take from them…things like bank accounts or properties or a nice home. That’s not love. That’s targeting an innocent party for your own financial gain.

Love isn’t keeping track of what someone does for you, or events for which they show up; it isn’t about the gifts they’ve given. In other words, if love had arrows pointing, there should be one going toward oneself and one going away from oneself, or it isn’t love. Love is not one-sided; love is not ‘taking’. And it’s not all giving either. It HAS to be both give and take.

Love isn’t devoid of sacrifice. It’s full of sacrifice, or it should be…I think. Love isn’t convenient. Sometimes love means we have to break a sweat doing things we’d rather not do, for someone who simply needs us. Sacrificial love doesn’t always show up during slack times; sometimes it shows up in the middle of a busy time. If you can’t sacrifice even then…it isn’t love.

Love isn’t doing hurtful things when you don’t get you way or you want to do something you shouldn’t. You can’t hurt someone you love. If you DO or desire to, that’s not love. You can’t do harm to someone you love. If that kind of behavior is in YOUR kind of love, please stay far from me. I already know you.

There is no such thing as unconditional love. If someone says they love you unconditionally, better pat them down for your best silver or that nice ring you just bought. There is no such thing as unconditional love. If you aren’t getting something out of it, you’re probably comatose. Remember there’s an arrow pointing in, too, and if there’s not you are not human. Nobody’s that generous.

I do know this about love. Never mind. I don’t know.

Church People and Other Mysteries

Remember the Church Lady? Funny skit on Saturday Nite Live, was’t it? Unfortunately, that is often the image society has of church people: stodgy, uptight, unrealistic, even spastic. Maybe they’re right sometimes, but not about MY church people. Keep reading. I know you don’t believe me, but bear with me, because I’m inviting you to come and see for yourselves.

I attend Richland Creek Community Church, not because it’s a great big building with lots of people and activity, but first and foremost because I want to worship God. There’s a lot of God worshipping at Richland Creek! There’s straightforward, down to earth, loving, Biblical worship there. Further, I want to worship God in the context of His creation, which means if I look around me and see all white faces, that’s not representative. At Richland Creek, I look around and see so many nations represented, so many skin colors, that I can’t keep track of them all. THAT’S representative and THAT’S fulfilling to me. I like hearing people pray with an accent, sometimes so thick it’s hard to understand to my Southern ears. If God spoke to me, I’m pretty sure He wouldn’t have a Southern accent, and that’s just fine with me.

Our pastor and his team are the best I’ve ever encountered, a HUGE blessing to me. And I’ve heard a lot of preachers in my time. David Sims is truly a Godly man who genuinely loves people and has a burden for their salvation. He doesn’t just preach it, he DOES it. He is surrounded by staff with hearts bigger than the building in which we congregate and the congregation are like family. I know; you’ve heard THAT before. But here, you feel that when you step inside the church: God is there. That, as you know, is not always the case.

I lived in what I consider to be the worst town in the country, and was never invited to church while I lived there, even when I ASKED people about their church. I know. Strange. But from day one at Richland Creek Community Church, people reached out to me, not knowing that I was in desperate need of that kind of touch at the time. I never felt like an outsider. Not once. There are miriad small groups there, just itching for you to come and join in. It’s very casual in some ways, but the strongest I’ve encountered in others. It’s about Godly love.

Richland Creek Community Church is the smallest big church I’ve ever attended. It’s sort of strange. We have so many people there that we have to have police to get us OUT at the end of services; yet, you feel as though it’s a small church. Doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. Don’t believe me? Come and see for yourself.

Want to know the context of Biblical teaching? Pastor David Sims gives you that. He’s never wrong in his Greek translations and definitions, he’s funny and eloquent and his heart is right there for anyone to examine. He walks us through the Bible, line-by-line, as he says, and we always leave better than when we went in.

There’s a super strong community service initiative at my church. We are always doing something to lift up the community…and we have a BIG community. Sometimes, I’m amazed at the outreach we do, in addition to Missions…which is the heart of our church: Discipleship.

Music has always been a strong ministry to me, makes me cry when it’s really good. I cry a lot at this church. hahaha. I attend the blended service, where we have both a choir and a small orchestra. The orchestra is made up of people of all ages and backgrounds and I love watching them serve the Lord with music. It gives me a lot of joy. In the choir we have four ‘boomers’ as I call them: Men whose voices can fill the sanctuary. When all four are there at the same time, I know I’m gonna cry! Hahaha. The choir is amazing when they’re all there together.

We have traditional, blended, and what I call the ‘rock and roll’ service. I’ve attended two of three service types, even though I never thought ‘rock and roll’ would do it for me. But the service is wonderful and there are some of the most BEAUTIFUL voices in the congregation I have ever heard. Okay, it’s not REALLY rock and roll, but you get the idea. It’s a packed service. The music is different, more contemporary, but the MESSAGE is the same.

Want to wear jeans and flip flops? You can, here. I don’t, but I do wear slacks most of the time. It’s comfortable and I don’t think God is a fashion policeman. I believe He looks at hearts.

Someone asked what was going on at our church that we are growing so fast and always so BUSY there…as though we were doing something strange. Simple: It’s God’s house and we who attend there really respect that. And we really do care about one another. We call ourselves ‘Creekers’ and that means something really big to us. It means we are connected and we have each others’ backs. And we would like for you to join us.

So consider this an invitation. Richland Creek Community Church on Burlington Mills Road in Raleigh. Four services; choose your favorite. As for other activities? Too many to mention. Go online and check us out, find the service you would like and check out our small groups. Come for a Free Pizza Friday sometime, download our app, check us out. We’d really love to have you join us.

Like, I wonder, like, why I can’t like…get hired!

I overheard some college students talking about the economy. Stop laughing. I did. I heard college students talking about the economy. The focus was on jobs, since the one they were doing at the time was barely above minumum wage. The conversation went something like this.

Like, I KNOW I’m smarter than like MOST of the…like…OTHER people who applied. Like, the dude came out and like TOLD me I was like PERKY enough for the job. And I was like, wow, thanks for calling me PERKY. There were some, like, OLD people trying to like, get this job too. And I’m like, what were THEY doing there? And you know what was like WEIRD? I told the dude that I was like YOUNG and so I like looked at things DIFFERENT than like old people. He said something about a store display, like whether I liked it or not, and I said, I guess I like it because I’m like YOUNG. And then like, the only thing he said was I was like PERKY enough for the job. Which was like cool, but like, I thought he should like HIRE me. I’m like really curious why he didn’t hire me. Like, I can definitely do the job. Seriously. And, like, I will graduate in just a year. DUDE, I just don’t get it. And you know what’s WEIRD? One of those like OLD people got hired. DUDE!

To which the other student replied something like this:

Like, I’ll be finished with my BS degree and like, I’m going right into my masters degree. So, like, when I start job hunting, like, I should have nooo problems. Like, I want to get my education done like first.

So. If I ever interview you… and I might someday… and you use the word “like”, you’re not hired, dude.

By the way, I know college students who have very intelligently thought out perspectives on the economy and you know…they have GREAT jobs. They don’t say “dude”, except in fun, and they don’t pepper their entire sentence structure with “like”, either. Come to think of it, I really LIKE these kids, too, and that’s how you use that word.

Now for the OTHER issue:

Advertising your youth the way this kid did is like showing off your lobotomy scar. If you are a recent graduate, your brain isn’t even finished yet. The intelligent among you already know that. You others, don’t bash old people. Seek their wisdom instead, because, contrary to popular belief, we have it…lots of it… You could benefit from it if you saved all of the time you use up saying “like”, and listen instead. DUDE! I’m a genius.

Home is…?

I read an editorial in Smithsonian the other day, and it made me really stop and think about Home. I am in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, so it’s easy to get into the mindset of homes as products. This really defines home as the place people go to nest, doesn’t it? Move the nest; the building isn’t home anymore; the NEXT building is home…the place where the nest rests.

If that is true, then home is a building where a group of people gather and it can be anywhere. The Smithsonian article said that original homes might have been a campfire around which the usual group of people gathered, day after day. But I say, it wasn’t the campfire…it was the people around it who constituted home. I wouldn’t feel at home looking across a crackling fire at a stranger…would you?

So home is not a building or even a place; rather, it’s the people who gather there, over and over, day after day. It’s the ones you know will show up, the ones who always come to the campfire. Gather: It implies a voluntary movement towards some central point…in our analogy, a campfire. You don’t call it a gathering if the ones there were forced to go there, or went on their own, reluctantly. It’s a gathering if people just come, over and over, day after day. You can depend on it, in other words. Home eliminates a lot of unknowns, then, if you have the same ones gathering, every day, day after day: you know they will be there. It feels safe.

If you think about all of that, it sounds wonderful, except that there are people who show up every day, day after day, to suck the life out of you and one day toss your carcass aside. Hahahaha. That’s not pretty, now is it? So home must also imply some level of mutual goodness, mutual protectiveness, some level of nobody being a bloodsucker. There are a lot of bloodsuckers out there, people! You know its true.

So…it ain’t all good, just because people gather. Home must be a gathering of people (and cats) who have everyone’s best interest at heart…really care about one another and are interested in others’ wellbeing as much as one’s own (might be a bit of a stretch for the cats). Now that beats a building all day long, don’t you think?

And you thought I was going to be serious. I tried; I really did. But…not a chance.

A cancer battle…

My dear friend has just had cancer related surgery, and I visited her yesterday. In the aftermath of such an event, she remained loving and gracious, reaching out to others and showing great kindness to her caretakers. She amazes me sometimes. I’m proud to know her and glad she’s feeling better.

I-Cat

This is Boo. He’s twelve years old and the photo to the right is of him playing a cat game on the IPad. If he touches the swimming fish just right, it sinks from view and comes back a different color and moving a bit faster. It took him about two minutes to figure out that looking UNDER the IPad is a far more efficient way of catching these elusive fish. And of course, he’s hooked on gaming. Now, he taps my laptop screen hoping to excite the pond to action, even though, alas, there is no fish pond on the Dell. It’s really fun to have a gaming cat; the problem is that he’s trying to muscle in on my work time at home, so we ‘argue’ over who gets to use the computer. I win but it’s only because I’m the biggest.

Some cats are very bright, as is Boo. I understand that they typically have a vocabulary in the triple digits, and that’s the ones they let us KNOW they know. I can even get Boo to ‘stay’. He lays down, and he stays, but I can see it in his face: He’s not happy about it.

Try the Friskies game if you have an IPad and a smart cat. It’s pretty fun to watch. And…it’s the only way you’re going to believe that cats can love video games.

brendabriggsrealtor

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