Gentle Humor

It’s that time of year when, overnight, your lawn sprouts a million dirt tee-pees due to mole infestation. You want to get rid of the pesky varmints, and you’ve tried poison pellets, lethal gas, impaling them on a pitchfork, all to no avail.

Quite by accident, I’ve found a way you probably haven’t tried: mole herding.

Let me explain. I was walking my dog in the park the other day, and a crow flew out of the woods with a mole in its clutches. The crow landed about twenty feet from me and dropped the mole, ready to feast on a nice fuzzy warm breakfast.

On impulse, I shooed the crow away because, without thinking, I felt pity for the mole. The crow flew a few feet away and stood there squawking at me, and I’m pretty sure it was saying, “You lousy (insert trashy word of your choice), how DARE you steal my mole.”

I asked myself, “What the HELL are you going to do with this mole out here in the middle of the park? Because you KNOW that crow will waddle right straight over here the minute you leave.”

And I answered, “Why, I’ll get a plastic bag and pick the sweet little thing up and put it safely back in the woods.”

Even as I said the words, I knew it was a lie. I was pretty sure you can feel a mole squirming through plastic. I’d drop it and run shrieking. This I knew.

So I stood there looking at the mole, which was trying to hide in the short grass, and looking at the crow, who was watching me with a scowl on its face. I could drag this part of the story out for a long, long time, I believe it’s that interesting. But suffice it to say that after about five minutes, I got a plastic bag from a passer-by and spent the next ten minutes trying to get my nerve up to grab the mole.

Two men I knew came by and asked what I was doing standing there in the grass. After I explained my dilemma, one of them advised me to use a stick to coax the mole into the bag. A BRILLIANT plan.

I opened the bag a few inches in front of the mole, got a stick, and tapped the little black thing on its bottom. The mole went toward the bag but dodged around it and stopped. “Crap,” I thought, “a shifty little mole.” But it had moved about half a foot. Was it possible, I said to myself, to herd a mole thirty more feet to the safety of the woods?

With the stick I gently nudged it, and it went forward a few inches. With more prompting it went a foot or so, and then kept going with an occasional encouraging tap. We’d gone about fifteen feet when it came to the gravel on the side of the blacktop path and the mole nose-dived into the gravel, digging frantically with those little pink hands. I had to put the stick under its belly several times to raise it out of there. Finally it got the message and continued on across the blacktop path and another mowed area until it reached the tall grass, where it disappeared.

This experience showed me that there is a more humane way to get rid of yard vermin. Wait for them to come out of their holes and then herd them to your least favorite neighbor’s yard. It’s easier than you think, and quite satisfying on so many levels.

I have to tell you about my miracle cure for restless leg syndrome. I'd never heard of this malady until I saw the first commercials for drugs to help it, and I thought, "Honestly, how restless could a leg be to make someone take drugs with all those ridiculous side effects?"

And then here I was, sitting in a La-Z-Boy watching “The Big Bang Theory” and for no reason my leg jerks. It kind of jerked on it's own, like when the doctor thumps your knee with that pointy rubber thing and your leg swings out and bonks him in the crotch.

It’s like an eye twitch – just comes on without any warning and jerks and twitches. Except with the leg, there’s this weird sensation before each twitch – not pain, just an odd, disquieting feeling. It keeps on going – once I timed the jerks and they were every seventeen seconds. It’s the weirdest thing.

So then I start getting the twitches in bed at night. I’d be dog-tired after working all day and doing a couple of hours of yard work or taking a hike, and looking so forward to sleep. Just when I turned the light out and got snuggled down in the covers, my little dog pressed up against my leg, I’d feel that sensation and the leg jerked, practically knocking my dog across the room. She’s wondering why I whacked her, and I’m wondering why a couple of minutes before I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but now I'm lying there looking like an owl. So I'd shift positions to try and get comfortable and ward off the twitches, but nothing helped. I’d toss for a couple of hours, and then finally the poor pooch and I would fall into exhausted sleep.

The other night I could NOT get to sleep, so I decided to get up and consult Google. I’d done this before but found outthat they don’t know what causes it and offered only prescription drugs to help with the symptoms. This time I asked Google about “Natural Cures for Restless Leg Syndrome.” That Google coughed up a ton of websites.

I went to one site that had 27 pages of cures, 5 or 6 cures per page. I read about 10 pages with people describing their misery and things they’d tried – like eating a teaspoon of French’s yellow mustard before bed or drinking tonic water. Some said they’d been on drugs for years.

Then I came across an intriguing one. The person wrote that it worked like a charm and completely got rid of her restless leg. She said to stand or sit and extend your left arm (has to be the left one) straight to the side like you’re trying to look like an airplane. Then you make figure 8’s. They’re supposed to be parallel to the floor, so you’re not making this big swooping thing where the arm goes toward the floor and then ceiling. You’re just making a fairly flat figure 8 taking your arm forward and back. She said to do it 16-20 times, 3 or 4 times a day. Also do figure 8’s with the left (only left) leg.

So I got up out of bed and did the left arm figure 8. I had done about 13 of them when I felt this warm sensation in my right leg (the one that’s restless). When I got to 20, I did the figure 8’s with the left leg. Then I got in bed, snuggled under the covers and waited for the twitching to begin.

And I waited, and waited. It never started back up. Not even a hint of a twitch. I couldn’t believe it. I went to sleep for the first time in a couple of years without a jerk! And I’m not talking about my husband. It was fabulous! I got seven hours of good sleep and felt like a million bucks the next day.

I’ve done the figure 8’s for 6 days and still no twitches – not in the bed and not in the La-Z-Boy, which is the other place I used to get them all the time. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. It’s a medical miracle, and it didn’t cost a thing.

I’m curious as a kitten about why this works, so if you know, please share.

Today when I went walking, there was a yellow mini school bus at the park with moms hovering around the door. The driver was bent over and slowly backing down the steps holding two leashes.

“Whoa,” I said to my friend. “Isn’t that, uh, politically incorrect to put kids on a lease?”

“Cha-yeah,” Laurie snorted. Then the noses of two dogs appeared at the end of the leashes.

“Here you go,” the driver said and turned the dogs over to the woman who stepped forward. “They both did very well,” he said, “but you know Pepper cheats at poker.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, laughing. “Whenever he and the other dogs get together, he usually ends up with all their dog biscuits.” The other moms chuckled.

I sidled up to a woman toward the back. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“These guys are just coming home from a weekend doggie camp.”

“Really?” I said. “And they bring them back on a bus?”

“Oh, yes. They pick them all up here Friday afternoon and bring them back on Monday.”

“Really? Is it a good place?” I asked.

“Oh they just love it. They run free and have a wonderful time. There are all kinds of doggie activities for them. Frisbee. Chase the ball.”

“Did I hear him say poker?”

The woman laughed. “That’s just a joke,” she said, “you know, like those velvet paintings of dogs playing cards?”

“Um, no, what do you mean by velvet painting?”

“Oh you know, like the ones they paint of dogs gathered around the table smoking cigars and playing cards, with aces sticking out of their caps and pockets? Anyway they just have a fabulous time. Oh here’s my little Poopskie now.” She went forward and scooped up a little white bijon poodle.

My friend elbowed me. “Boy the school system has gone to the dogs.”

“I’ll say.”

“Take a picture. The windows are all steamed up but you can see dogs sitting in the seats looking out.” So I snapped a picture of the bus before we proceeded on our walk.

“Can you imagine,” I said. “Here’s the bus driver – ‘All right, everybody ready to have fun today? Okay, well let’s go! No. Wait. No. Pepper, no. I’m telling you, you’d better put that leg down. Put it down. I… will… put… a… cone…. on…. your… head… if you don’t put that leg down NOW. All right that’s it. I’m pulling this bus over, mister. You’re getting a cone head.’”

“Oh my gosh,” Laurie said. “Can’t you see that little white bijon saying, ‘Mr. Bus Driver, Chico keeps climbing on me and thumping like a bunny. Make him stop.’”

“Oh, and when they get to the place, all of them keep walking around smelling each other for the first hour and forming these little trains like circus elephants.”

“That’s too funny,” Laurie said, laughing. “I can see it.”

“And their moms pack them little doggie lunches and they trade back and forth. ‘I got a Milk Bone I’ll trade somebody for a Pupperoni stick.’”

“And there’s this one poor mutt that only has a little baggie of cheap dry dog food and they all make fun of him.”

We keep walking, giggling the way you do when things get silly and it feels good to laugh and you don’t want to be the one stopping it.

“And then they play Frisbee and all the sissy dogs sit over to the side and get in little snarling matches because they can’t catch a Frisbee.”

“And then it’s nap time and there’s a big room with towels and little blankets, and they all pick theirs and start pawing and scratching them around the room until all at once they stop, walk around the towels three times, and then lie down.”

“And one of them says, ‘I’m dog tired.’”

“And another one says, ‘It’s a dog’s life.”

“And another dog sees Chico messing with the bijon, and says, ‘It’s a dog eat dog world.’”

She leaned into me laughing and almost knocked me into a skateboarder whizzing by.

“Then one of them won’t settle down so the guy says, ‘You better settle down right this minute buster or you’re going in the doghouse.’”

“And he whimpers and covers his eyes with his paws.”

“And then one of them lets an SBD and they all get up and start sniffing each other’s butts trying to figure out where it came from.”

“And that bijon says, ‘This is the last time I tell you, Chico. Get your ice cold nose out of my ass.’”

“Yeah and they settle down but start making fun of Chico because his mom dressed him in a tiny red plaid sweater that says, ‘Macho Man,’ across the back.”

“And it’s got pompoms hanging off it that are bigger than his cojones.”

“Except he doesn’t have any.”

“So how come he keeps wanting to thump the bijon?”

“Uh, don’t know, maybe muscle memory.”

We’re rounding the corner into the large hill on the backside of Gabriel Park, and I’m wondering how much longer we can keep going – we’ll need the extra breath to get up the hill, and I’m already winded from the giggles.

“And then it’s time to go home and they all start howling, ‘99 bottles of beer,’ on the little bus and the bus driver gets really mad.”

“And they’re smoking cigars and playing poker and one of them has a couple of aces sticking out of his bandana.”

“They get back here to the park and the bus is all foggy because of the cigar smoke but the moms think it’s just from them panting.”

“And the seats are all chewed up because they ripped chunks out every time the driver wasn’t looking and spit them across the aisles at each other.”

“Then they climb off the bus wagging their tails and the bijon starts yapping, and what’s she’s trying to say is, ‘Please don’t make me go back there ever again. They’re all just a bunch of ANIMALS!’”

“And her mom says, ‘Oh you had such a good time, didn’t you? I’ll just have to send you back again next weekend so you can play with all your new little friends.’”

“And Chico cocks one eyebrow up and says, ‘I’ll be waiting, mi amor.’”

“Oh my gosh, Suzanne, you should write this down. This is too funny.”

So I did.

I didn’t get my lights put up yet as planned, which means I’ve had the all this time to dread going outside in the dark and facing lights burning out as soon as I’ve arranged them, and spiders.

You’d think self-respecting spiders would have gone somewhere like Hawaii for the winter rather than hanging around here in freezing, rainy Oregon, especially since all their prey was smart enough to leave already.

These are hearty, hungry spiders in the shrubs and low hanging branches where the Christmas lights go, They have beefy muscles to keep warm, and thick hair that sheds the rain. They are the WWE wrestlers of the spider world.

These guys like my face. No matter where I put the Christmas lights, at least one spider will end up spread-eagle on my face, staring me in the eye and saying, “Was this you what messed up my web? Yeah, I’m talkin’ to YOU.”

Spiders, awful as they are, aren’t the least of my worries. The wind is blowing out there, and branches from the big trees around our house regularly come crashing down like bowling balls.

But the worst is getting on my hands and knees to plug all those half-burnt out strings into the little electrical boxes my husband located under the baby bushes he planted years ago that grew like kudzu and have completely engulfed the outlets. Oddly, the electrician who wired them (“Electricians R Us”) installed them facing away from the yard, toward the street. It’s that added little touch that sends me over the festive cliff and really gets my Bah, Humbug riled up.

About three years ago I spent a hefty sum to buy 4 strings of cute little ball-shaped LED lights that are supposed to last 9 times longer than the less expensive regular lights. I tested before taking them outside, and none of these strings lit up. Not one. I thought maybe it was because one of the bulbs was loose, but each one is “locked” in, so nothing is loose - probably part of the reason they were so expensive. I unlocked one and pulled it out to find that the whole inside is as rusty as a car on blocks in a redneck’s front yard. There is no way I can fix that.

It’s just gotten dark enough to don my gay apparel and head out into the black night to face the spiders and prickly bushes. If you don’t hear from me in awhile, check under the big bush to the left of the entry. There was a giant spider out there the other day, and I fear he is NOT going to be in the Christmas spirit.

In the spirit of the holiday season, tonight I’m going to risk my life on a rickety ladder. I have to pull giant red bins off the top shelves in the garage so I can get to the Christmas lights. They’re stacked so high I have to rope myself off lest I fall to my death on the concrete floor. Here in Oregon it has been dry for 2 days, and according to the weatherman, we’ve got one day left before the rain comes back and pours until July – I have to get those outside lights done!

If I survive getting all ten monstrous bins down without breaking something (on me, not the bins), I’ll dig through them all until I find the one with the lights that mostly don’t work. I’ve purchased replacement strings every year for the last ten years, but by New Year’s Day less than 40 percent of the lights will still be twinkling. They will either go out randomly or malfunction in thirds – 1/3 of the string will be lit and 2/3’s won’t.

Except for the two stings of cheap lights that are twenty-plus years old which always manage to stay lit. I bet I could cut them with scissors and they’d still work. The new ones burn out in direct proportion to what I pay for them. I thought if I quit buying off brands like, “Great Balls of Fire Outdoor Lights,”** I’d get more life out of them, but that has not been the case. Au contraire, the more I spend, the quicker they die.

Each year when I plug these newer strings in to see if they’ve lasted through the year without spontaneously burning out while in storage, I have to try and figure out which little bulb in the sting of 100 is the low life causing the whole bunch to go belly up. Then I go out in the cold night and throw them all over the yard to make a festive display because I’m practically the only one on our small block that decorates. They count on me. “Your house makes the whole neighborhood look merry and bright,” they say. It would be a lot merrier and brighter if they brought me spiked cocoa.

Their compliments are no longer enough to make me enthusiastic about this whole thing. The last couple of years I’ve strung a bunch of faulty lights together in a long line that looks like a redneck’s teeth – a little white, then a gap of black, then some more white. I fling them at the shrubs like I’m casting a net into the ocean. After a few minor adjustments to camouflage the unlit parts of the strings, I call it good.

It doesn’t make much difference whether it looks decent when I finish anyway, because in the next couple of weeks, one by one, whole sections will go out and it will look like a city with a power outage – a few lights here and there, but mostly dark.

Let more ambitious people meticulously cover every inch of their yards and exhaust their savings with sleighs, Santas, reindeer, toilets filled with plastic poinsettias, snowmen, elves, etc. In the spirit of Christmas, I hope everyone has some twinkle in their yards and in their hearts, and if they’re lucky, a husband or reasonable contractor to put it there for them.

**FOR INDOOR USE ONLY

It’s the time of year when I drag out the huge box of requests from various charities and decide who gets what.

I have some things to say to the organizations asking for my donation:

(1) When I send a few bucks to you, and you send me a nice letter back thanking me, why do you include an additional request for money in that letter? Do you think I didn’t send the full amount the first time? That I suddenly won the lottery and want to send more? I appreciate the thank you, but don’t expect another donation a week after the first one.

(2) Between now and this time next year, you don’t need to send me a request for more money every few weeks. It seems like the $25 I sent is ending up paying for the postage and paper for these additional requests.

(3) I do NOT need any more mailing labels, little note tablets that don’t have sticky, tiny calendars I can’t even see, stuff to stick on envelopes, calendars, nickels you can see through a window in the envelope, etc., especially if you are a non-profit dedicated to helping the environment. I know the theory is that if you give us something, we’re more likely to give you something. We are not that stupid or gullible. Besides, why are you killing so many trees to send us this junk? We don’t want it.

(4) Also, don’t give me a return envelope with an official looking square that says, “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States,” and then have a little handwritten note and arrow pointing at the box that says, “Your first class stamp will save us much needed funds.” I’ve already decided to donate; I’ll spring for the stamp. Don't confuse me.

(5) Why are you giving my name to other charities? I know you’re doing this because after I donate to you, I get a tsunami of letters from an assortment of charities I’ve never even heard of – and this ONLY happens after I send my annual donations.

(6) Finally, because you’ve given my name out, and I’m getting a new avalanche of thick, junk-filled envelopes, I am forced to agonize over whether I should give my limited funds to you or to them. I have to go to someplace like www.charitynavigator.org to help me decide. And when I get there, do you know what I find out? That your worthy cause is headed by a CEO who is making over $500,000 a year! I know you need good people in charge, and good people aren’t cheap, but still, something doesn’t seem right. So when I write my check, I make it out to the organization helping animals whose CEO is making a lot less than you because it feels like my money will actually help an abused animal rather than buying your CEO a new car.

In conclusion, I’m thrilled there are organizations trying to make the world a better place. But if you want my cents, you’d better use a little common sense.

This is not a dog blog, but I have to tell you what my dog does with the treats she wants to save. Normal dogs go outside in the dirt and dig a hole, drop the treat in the dirt, and then push the dirt over the treat to cover.

Note that in this process there is dirt involved from start to finish.

My dog, a nine-pound Yorkie Poo, was raised in the house with her mom and siblings. She really hadn’t been outside – we could hold the tiny little thing in one hand when we got her at twelve weeks. She was more hair than dog. This is her the day we got her with my kids (on the ends) and friends.

We started giving her treats like pieces of cheese when she was a little older, and we’d later find the uneaten ones under clothes in the kids’ rooms. It took awhile, but we finally slyly observed her going up to a sweater on the floor and dropping the cheese beside it. Then she nudged the cheese under it, and scuffed her nose against the carpet several times in all directions around the cheese as if she was pushing dirt over it to bury it.

This is instinctual behavior without the filter of common sense.

I told the kids to let her “bury” her stuff in peace because she needed to feel like a real dog and we should respect that. We’d later find the treat, “Mo-om, I found Shelley’s gross old cheese under my skirt!” and dispose of it.

Once Shelley got full size, we tried to teach her to bury a bone outside, but in the compacted dirt around our house she would have been digging for hours – even if she threw all her weight into it. We found a nice, loose spot in a flowerbed and started digging with our hands, but she wasn’t tracking. So I squatted over her and moved her paws in a digging motion. The light went on in her little head and finally she had a hole deep enough to cover a good portion of the bone, We encouraged her to pick the bone up but had to pull it back out of her mouth to drop it in the hole. We pushed a little dirt over the bone, and she immediately joined us, using her little pointy snout to move dirt over it exactly the way she scuffed the carpet around the cheese in the house.

“SHE’S GOT IT!” we exclaimed.

The next time we gave her a bone in the backyard, she trotted around the house to the front and laid it on top of a Euonymus shrub. We watched through the window as she enthusiastically moved her nose forward and backward without actually coving the bone with anything. When she was done, she trotted to the back of the house to come in the door she’d gone out – no doubt a sneaky maneuver to cover her tracks - content with the safety of that bone for the future.

Over time, the house treats became less buried. We now find blatant cheese in corners nowhere near sweaters. In fact, this morning there was a yellow cube of cheese in my bathroom. She went over to it and started moving her head, scuffing her nose on the rough tile – right in front of me. I said to her, “Honey, you’re not really burying anything there. Just let it go.” But she kept brushing her nose against the tile, circling until she’d pushed enough invisible dirt over it to suit her.

In the case of this poor little dog with her nose rubbed raw, I think you’ll have to agree with me that instinct stinks.

I went to Tennessee to visit relatives a few weeks ago, and while I was at my cousin Nancy’s house in Memphis, we sat in her family room to catch up. I stretched my legs out on the ottoman and threw a throw over them, and within seconds Nancy's two dogs were hovering at my feet asking permission with their big brown eyes to leap into my lap. So I invited Tater up - she's the one looking at the camera. The other dog, who is new to Nancy and still a puppy, couldn't stand that he wasn't part of the party, so he jumped up too. They took a couple of minutes to position themselves just so, and then pretended to go to sleep.

I am a great friend of almost all dogs. I like to think that maybe it's because they sense I am a warm and kind person, but most likely it's because I know exactly how they like to be scratched.

The dogs I've met in my life love to have their ears scratched - but not the ear itself - the part under the ear. No, not in the ear. I guess you’d call it the side of their head under the ear. Massage that area and they will groan to let you know how good it feels.

They also like to be scratched between their front legs, and will lie on uneven, jagged rocks on their bony backs for hours as long as you continue to scratch them. You have to move your hand around, though. You can't absent-mindedly scratch a hole in their chests. I’ve seen people do this – not a real hole, but just rhythmically moving the fingers while they’re preoccupied with something else. The dog will actually start to inch itself forward or back to present a new area that’s not rubbed raw.

The other place a dog likes to be scratched is right above the tail. They’ll contort themselves, hunching up and twisting toward the side of the tail you’re scratching while cocking their heads sideways. They look miserable, but they’ll stay there until you get bored with it so it must feel okay to corkscrew themselves.

I actually think it’s an honor that dogs are attracted to me, and that I know how to make them happy. I wish that were always true with people. A dog is so much easier to please and much more forgiving when your don’t do things perfectly, than many of the people I know.

I just finished voting, and what a relief. Not that I’m done with making all those important candidate and constitutional decisions that will affect policies for years to come, but that I live in Oregon and we have mail-in ballots.

Unlike most of the rest of the world, I don’t have to wait in a long line, get some kind of photo ID, or even go out in the rain. I can sit in my nice comfy home and read the voter pamphlet at my leisure, voting for a couple of candidates or issues a day as I have time over 2-3 weeks. I get to mail it in, or I can drop it off in ballot boxes all over Portland. It’s really a nice way to do things.

You might say, “But can’t people cheat easier if they don’t have to show up at the polls?” And I’d have to answer that I guess there are plenty of ways for people to cheat on voting, no matter how they cast their ballot. Creative connivers will always dream up schemes to circumvent decency to get what they want. Those states requiring photo IDs will end up with people who bought an illegal ID, and there will be cheating there as well.

All in all, though, I believe the ability to vote is a very lucky thing. Imagine being born into a country that doesn’t give people a choice. Even if we vote for the wrong person, even if some of the people cheat, even if people are too lazy or disillusioned to vote, at least we all have the choice.

One thing we don’t have any choice about, though, is having to listen to Christmas music in stores on election day. It’s criminal!!! Does Home Depot really need to blast out Christmas music this early? Are we really going to forget that we need to buy, buy, buy holiday lights and tree stands and decorations? We haven’t even dragged the crap out of the attic yet, so how do we know if we need new strings of lights? Well, we <i>know</i> we do, because those strings of lights will only last a season before at least one section of them goes out. But still, I’m capable of knowing I need to buy this stuff without holiday music blaring while I’m shopping for grass fertilizer. I hate being put out of the Christmas mood two months ahead of time.

I think I’m going to gather signatures for a petition to outlaw Christmas music in all public and private buildings until the day after Thanksgiving. I bet every shopper in Oregon will sign it. I’d love to have that in Oregon’s constitution because, honestly, there really ought to be a law against it.

Do you ever wonder what people think of you? I do. I’m always saying to them, “You must think I’m an idiot,” or “I bet you think I’m always this clutzy.”

I really don’t know at all what a person is thinking, though. When I would first start dating someone, and there was a lull in the conversation, I’d ask, “What are you thinking?” He was probably thinking, “How much of this talking am I going to have to endure before she’ll let me get physical?” But he’d always pause and say something like, “I was just thinking how much I like hearing your voice.”

I’ve had this kind of thing happen. I’ll be at the mall with a friend and we’ll bump into someone we know.

My friend: “Hey Marcie, you look great. I love that new hairdo. And have you lost weight? It’s so good to see you – we have to get together.”

After Marcie walks away my friend will say, “Oh my gosh did you SEE that hair? What was she thinking? It looked like canaries had styled it – how do you GET hair to be that uneven? Do you think she cut it herself? And those pants. She’s put on a good five pounds since I saw her last. Oh my gosh! That woman just drives me crazy, did you hear how she went on and on about how smart and what an angel her daughter is. It’s all she ever talks about. She just drives me nuts.”

I’m listening to all this and thinking, “You just treated her like she was some movie star you were delighted to see, and now you act like she’s a bragging, disheveled fat slob. What a b..”

“What are you thinking,” my friend says.

I pause and answer, “I was just thinking about what you say about me when I walk away.”

My friend, laughing, “Oh, I only say nice things about you.”

“Really?” suspecting she’s not telling the whole truth.

“Of course, you’re a nice person. Why else are we at the mall together?”

“Because you have no other friends.” We both laugh as if this is the silliest thing in the world.

And I still don’t know what she, or anyone else, thinks of me. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe I’ll just make up in my mind what people think, since there’s no way of knowing either way for absolute sure.

“That Suzanne is so funny! She writes these blogs about everyday humor and she hits the nail on the head every time. I mean, I just LOVE her. What a delightful human being she is.” I like it! This is what I’m going to think from now on. At least that’s what I think I’m going to think. I better stop before I over-think the whole thing and talk myself out of it…