Call me old school, but I miss arcade games and glow in the dark ice hockey.  Thankfully my all-time favorite is still around; skeeball.  Our little one just went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and I was shocked to find it is now more like a kiddie casino.  I have always loved the idea of earning tickets to win a prize.  There used to be SOME level of skill or modicum of thought involved in order to get tickets.  Now the games seem to have no redemption.  You just slap, slap, slap and pay money until you get enough tickets.  Recently on vacation we had to cross the casino several times going to dinner.  I saw rows upon rows of people sitting slack-jawed and staring glassy-eyed, slapping and slapping the button on the video slot machines.  They sort of resembled zombies, colored by the ever-glaring, blueish glow of the machines and seemingly unfazed by the chaos swirling around them.  I went to my first casino at 40 and knew immediately it was not for me.  Between the giant windowless, aimless wandering of it all, the flashing lights, and the constant barrage of noise it was literally too much.  My husband and I still laugh because I literally pulled him out and declared we weren’t going back in.  We blinked like dazed moles coming out of the ground walking blearily as we realized with some shock it was still sunny out.  WOW that is not a healthy environment; particularly for someone with ADD.  We had a budget and my husband slapped through his within minutes.  I’ll never forget I snatched my money back and bought two really nice looking wolf knickknacks with it instead of gambling.  I felt guilty before I realized it would have just been slapped away anyway with nothing to show for it except lost time.  I am sure casinos are great for someone good with numbers.  I am not.  So it is just not for me.  I could not possibly hope to add even the simplest amount or pay attention to cards with any sort of acuity and especially not while drinking!  I watched our little one slap, slap, slap with a frightening genetic similarity to her father and decided I’d better win her some tickets or she’d leave with nothing.  My daddy taught me skeeball when I was kid.  I do pretty well.  So I snuck away and got us enough tickets for her to get the little pink heart necklace she wanted.  I slipped them in her bag and after she was all slapped out of money her tickets were counted and she was so thrilled she could get her necklace.  She had 25 tickets left over and the pimply faced kid was about to trash the paltry amount with dismissive disdain.  Horrified, I asked Maris if I could try to get something with what she had left and she proudly said sure!  Pictured above is the little blue plastic sea star I now have as a keepsake.  Some people enjoy the experience and don’t need a take away.  I guess I really like going home with a memento at the end.  So other than an image of James Bond strolling like a panther through a casino in Monte Carlo, gambling is just not for me.  I’m going to do my best to instill the concept of earning in my daughter and thankfully “Slappy” (the hubs) has agreed he MIGHT have gotten a little too souped up in the casino that time.  I came across an unattributed quote on Pinterest once that said, “Chuck E. Cheese:  because it’s never too early to introduce your child to poor nutrition and gambling.”  Lucky for us, our little one can no longer have gluten, dairy, or eggs.  I am thankful the good Lord is watching over us.  In fact, I’d bet money on it.

When I was a little girl everyone said I should be a vet.  In those days, that really was just about the only option for someone who loved animals.  But I always knew I could not handle the sadness that accompanies being an animal doctor.  I wished I had been tougher but knew my heart could not handle it.  So to stumble my way into owning and operating a petsitting business as an adult was serendipitous.  For 16 years I have had the joy of caring for animals and I have often joked I would pill them but not shoot them (with needles).  Administering shots was not something I thought I could do and I did not want to use anyone’s fur baby as a pin cushion for the sake of making a new client.  And then along came Alamo.  For over a decade at least I have cared for his four-legged brethren (both canine and feline) and his mom recently told me he has diabetes.  Faced with losing him since I had never given anyone shots, I decided I must overcome my reticence.  I guess that year of in-vitro really got me comfortable with needles even if it was only on myself.  I know how to draw back the medicine, sterilize the area, and check the viscosity of the drugs like the back of my hand.  The real test was in not hurting Alamo.  Turns out he didn’t even flinch and I was so happy knowing I could do something to help him and his mother when she was away.  Famous French-German theologian Albert Schweitzer said, “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.”  I guess you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.  😉

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart.  It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” ~ American singer Judy Garland

My little one recently had to have a chest x-ray.  It has been something of a shock that for four years my baby has barely had a sniffle and within the past few weeks we have discovered she is gluten, dairy and egg intolerant as well as asthmatic.  My response to the latter was:  “she’s got five belts in karate; she CAN’T have asthma!”  Well she does … for now anyway.  And she is handling it like a boss.  They wanted to make sure she did not have pneumonia so we went in for a chest x-ray.  The sweet woman explained everything she was doing and I promised my baby girl it wouldn’t hurt.  I told her it just takes a photo of your insides.  She held her breath as they took pictures of her little body and I held her small hands while they did it.  Thankfully her lungs are officially clear and they have improved by 25% since she started her breathing treatments a couple of weeks ago.  Looking at the x-rays I almost started crying.  “Mama, what’s wrong?” my little one asked.  Holding back tears I explained the last time I saw her heart it was beating inside my body.

I do tend to get up early (no later than 5:30 a.m.) and go to bed a little late (around 11 p.m.) but I have always known the importance of sleep.  Today is Daylight Savings Time so we “spring forward” to lose an hour of precious slumber.  In the autumn we “fall back” and “gain” an hour.  I have never found an attribution but I have heard it said many times than an Indian (Native American) once said, “Only a white man would believe you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”  I think Daylight Savings is ridiculous and actually detrimental.  And WHY must they always make it before church?  Daylight Savings Time is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands.  I think they’ve got the right idea being on “Island Time” which, by the way, is no different than being on “Indian time”.  It means things get done in their own time.  Arizona also does not observe DST and neither does the Navajo Nation.  In Europe they simply call it “summer time” and it begins at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) the last Sunday in March and ends at 1:00 a.m. the last Sunday in October, which makes infinitely more sense to me.  The very term “savings” is a misnomer given that no daylight is being saved.  Regardless, the cycles remain the same.  Mother Moon follows Father Sun and they rise and set each day.  Our bodies know this.  So while I am feeling pretty accomplished right now I know the need for sleep will catch up with me.  And I will listen without shame.  Sleep is not laziness; it is God’s way of helping calm us, rest our bodies, and rejuvenate our minds.  In the meantime I think I shall pour myself a second cup of coffee.  God bless caffeine.