Free In The City

Thirteen years ago …

Happy Birthday Devon! Shane and Carlynn's little boy turned five today, and “a big five” too! I appreciate him; I usually see him or his sister Lona outside their family's house [which was when I wrote this – D.] about a block from me. Amazing how I never took the opportunity to get to know my neighbors too much before, or I rather affected a know them/don't know them mentality, what I could call a negative self-talk. There's so much to the world we live in if we will only stop, look, and listen!

Starting up your own business is a pain in the neck; keeping at it is going to take everything you have. I think about Seven C's, a food cart in front of the laundromat I use. Richard and Debbie run that place well (I think) in triple-degree heat, and I'll buy something there when I go by from time to time. Even talking to them brightens their day; I remember dropping my clothes off to be washed today, and Richard offered me a free hot dog (good, too, for the price!); I ordered some French fries as well, and I volunteered to pay for that. It's a vote for free enterprise whenever you support someone starting out and willing to work hard.

Sounds like Amanda, too, who has only half a year of school before graduating, taking a break, and then studying to be a psychiatrist. I'm glad I did get to see her today, as well as [Patrick] the 2001 graduate at Hardee's who's almost a one-man band, Jennifer at work to be Taco Bell's manager, Stacie (over SocialNet) who wants to be more boold about her faith, and … myself, okay? I get to know me a little better the more I write. Meeting Joe again, even though I'm still a little adversarial toward him, has to start healing. Remember them, Lord, for the strength they need, and that I need too to be better in You every day. Amen.

7/13/2000

2118 hrs

DA

This bright day …

Keep in mind that the above entry is one month and twelve days before I even “met” Martha (also on SocialNet), so don't go telling her I'm roving around! Last night I got home with the kids and after dinner from McDonald's – the kids wanted Smurfs toys currently available in the Happy Meals, and Jeffrey got Crazy Smurf while Sarah got Harmony Smurf – we sat back for a bit and then read some Dr. Seuss before they went to bed.

We started out with The Lorax and several times during the story Sarah asked me to stop and launched into a tirade at the Once-ler (the guy who cuts down the Truffula Trees, makes the Thneeds, and ends up making everything icky) more blistering than the Lorax's own! I am so mad I did not record, or even really remember, much of what she said, but like the boys she gets into the story! While reading this I make the Lorax's voice worse, so much so that the kids are tapping me to make sure something isn't really wrong with me! (Which they know there isn't.)

Then we read through Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, which the English geek in me knows should be rendered “Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book” but what the hey … We were on the last third of the story when Martha came in after another four hours at McDonald's – the same one we got food from, but we didn't see her because she was working drive-thru – and the kids rushed to greet her! Only Jeffrey came back to finish the story with me, and I was ok with that. Really. We prayed, the kids went to bed …

… And I awakened them after Martha left for Trinity, fifteen days before school starts. And Jeffrey is remembering to turn off his night light – I got him a new one Saturday and he asked me to bring him to bed that night so we could celebrate it being there! – which is a small thing, but in the next few days I want to get the kids used to going to bed at school night times and awakening as though it's time to go to school. I know, that's going to be harder on me than it eventually is on them! I get up first most often.

But you know, I could not bring myself to get out of bed this morning; I reset the alarm after it first went off (right now I'm waking up to the Doctor Who theme on my cell phone) and then couldn't get back to sleep yet didn't want to move to get going either. Sunday I read a short book Dave Williams' The Miracle Results of Fasting (ISBN 0938020501), and I was amazed that it's Biblical. I have some issues that I want to change, and this is so doable. It just can't become something I think I HAVE to do.

Moreover, when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. (Matthew 6:16)

 

I aspire to a greater reward than that, David