What made you smile today?

Three people came into my shop today, lead by a woman about my own age. She was accompanied by a daughter and a teenaged boy.
"John," she said, "Remember me?"
I didn't, but that happens a lot to me.
The boy was her grandson, in town to look at UVA with his mom and grandmother.
She turned to her kinfolk and with impeccable theatrical timing said, "This is the dude who killed my goldfish!"
I can be pretty good with wit, but that left me dumbfounded.
It turns out she is a tv writer in Hollywood. But 40 years ago we lived in a group house here in Charlottesville. It was a bit of a dump but the rent was really cheap when shared amongst 6 college students or college dropouts.

And the goldfish?
It seems that late one night, as she told the story, a sleepwalking Johnboy mistook the fishtank in her room for a toilet.
The fish were dead by sunrise.

I had to smile, but it was last week. Does that count?

I was getting to load the bike onto the rack after a ride, and this group of people were heading towards their car. One of the guys said, "They sure make it easy these days, don't they?" I said that I just made it look easy. They laughed. One applauded the shear arrogance of the statement. I smiled.

I have no idea what he thought was so easy; so what?

Go roger!

Today's smile for me:



(I love that the baby isn't just randomly bopping but is syncing to what Beyonce's doing...)

Oh god. The hand. Then the foot. I'm crying...

The weather has turned very beautiful here and I got to sleep with my windows open and wake up to a brisk morning breeze.

great video!

I was smiling today, listening to my great uncle, at over 80 years, recount funny stories from the 30s and 40s.

rjb, You're a freak'n killer!

I spent some time in a car with two of the kids I see today.....we went past their favourite place, a local library.

This had also been my favourite place when I was a kid, so this led to discussion about that unimaginably distant time.

Some sample questions:

Did you have houses?

Did you have roads?

Did you have clothes?

Love that video, soz.



The story of a book club for the homeless.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5226127n&tag=related;photovideo

Wife's smile.

welcome back, mr nice.

smalltown-wide garage sale today.

feel like a new guy, i do.

got a $50 computer makes the one I built for myself look downright SLOW.

and a new BIG monitor so's i can see what i type.

(my last one suffered a fatal fish tank filling accident prior to the inaugural british invasion)

and i bought another car...

That is a great video - It made me smile as well...the child has impressive motor skills to be so young. I love it. Cutey petootie.

One of my pub pals bringing me a bag full of tomatoes he had grown in his greenhouse. I'm a sort of dustbin for excess produce.

Tomatoes, Spendi, is a nice gift. Zucchini, on the other hand...
My neighbor up on the ridge had a big garden. His grandkids would leave bags of zucchini in the dead of night on the neighbors' porches.

And a free kitten? I always thought kittens would make great door prizes.

Chatting with a friend on the internet.

On the A2K front: Just wonderful to have Roberta back here and posting again!

On my home front: Peace & harmony at last! Chatted for a while this afternoon with one of my new neighbours (who bought the house next door when the Neighbours From Hell sold up & moved out). He rather resembles Tin Tin and looks not that much older than some of the senior secondary students I've taught recently ... and he's very nice & quite rational! (This is going to take some getting used to! ) He's spending a lot of time in the backyard creating a vegie garden. He & his partner (I haven't met her yet yet) just acquired a very beautiful 3 year old ginger cat from a shelter (who escaped into my yard yesterday ... but was easily retrieved after we spent a little time on our hands & knees coaxing her out from under the bushes.) Anyway, to the god of Arranging Neighbours , Phew & thank you, thank you!

A couple of minutes ago, I had to hand Henny, the ginger tabby princess, back over the fence again! I think she might like my yard more than theirs.

The young check out guy at the grocery store who had this huge bandage on his ear because he had gotten in a fight and someone bit it off (just like Mike Tyson, I asked - and he nodded). Well anyway - he's this really handsome kid and he said he was really worried about how mangled his ear would be when the bandages came off- because he wears his hair short and there'd be no way to hide it - but the bandages are off and they did an excellent job. He just has this little line and the top is not at all misshapen. He was relieved and I was relieved for him.
No more pub fights for him (he said).

The other thing that made me smile was when Jack said, 'He's so funny - he could make a cat laugh.' I'd never heard that before. I think that's a great expression.

(Those both happened yesterday)