YES, I AM STILL HERE looking out my window on Main Street, and I hesitate to tell you this because you might begin to wonder if I still get fixated on little things.
It’s true that I lay awake some nights worrying about trivial things I have no control over (and maybe I should have written “trivial things over which I have no control” just because I sometimes get fixated on good grammar).
Little things like the postage stamp-sized stickers you put on your license plate when you renew car tags. The sticker that says month and year and keeps you from getting a ticket from a sharp-eyed police officer.
The first license on my present buggy had a month sticker of October because that was the month I bought the buggy and licensed it. Logical.
Each year the State of Arkansas has sent me a notification to remind me that the sticker is about to expire. They helpfully send this during the month BEFORE the tag is set to expire.
Well, I get fixated on arcane things like expiration dates and it keeps me up at night because I worry about somehow missing the date.
I can’t stand knowing that I must renew the tag. To avoid more sleepless nights, I go to the courthouse the very next day and get my new sticker. The problem is that if I get the sticker that day, the sticker is for the current month and it’s one whole month early. This means that I only get 11 months on each license sticker.
So the second year, I got the new sticker in September.
The next year, August. Then July, June, May.
One of the things that is worrying me is what happens to that whole month of eligibility is not used up by getting a new tag early.
See? Should I write my State Senator about this even though he no longer takes my collect calls or accepts ‘postage due’ letters? Should I believe him when he says he has no time for trivial fixations?
There is so much to worry about. Shouldn’t the State of Arkansas give me some sort of cash refund for that unused month? Would I be eligible for interest on the amount? Or a state income tax deduction? We’re talking about 1/12th of that renewal fee, after all.
What if I got a traffic ticket for a J-Turn (Hahahaha!) in April after I had affixed my ‘new’ May sticker prematurely? Would that ticket be valid? After all, it’s almost as if it hasn’t occurred, yet, or if it occurred it was on a vehicle that hasn’t been licensed, yet.
Even worse. What if the State of Arkansas began issuing TWO YEAR stickers, and I continued to put them the buggy the very next day after I got the notice in the mail?
These little annoyances just won’t go away.
I am beginning to worry about what will happen to me if this sleep deprivation continues. I worry about sleepy bags under my eyes.
But, please just forget what I just wrote. I don’t want you to think I get fixated on little things.
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ANIMAL CRACKERS. Coming sometime in late April and May — the 17-year periodical ‘Brood X’ cicada will emerge and make a big racket.
There are more of this particular cicada variety than any other. They are recognizable by their black bodies, instead of the green of other varieties.
They look so scary but cannot hurt. Doesn’t matter, I shoot my pistol blindly in the direction of their noise every time it starts up.
When soil temp reaches 65 degrees they begin to emerge and breed. The female lays her eggs in the bark of trees, then the cidadas die. Eggs hatch and the resulting ‘nymphs’ drop to the ground and burrow, emerging as the cicada (after shrugging out of that ugly body shell) years later.
Only the males make the noise. This is the only time in nature when the females are silent, I’m pretty sure. Across the world there are more than 3,000 species of cicadas.
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THE GOOD EARTH. It’s pretty well confirmed by now. The February Deep Freeze killed all of my yard plants except for sweetgun trees, privit hedge, thistle and poison ivy.
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THINGS I LEARNED from opening an email: How can it be that ‘quite a few’ is the same as ‘quite a lot’?
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WORD GAMES. The twins: Fussing and Fighting. “You kids stop that or else.”
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REPEATING: For ‘our’ cancer patients — We have moved into the ‘old’ Nashville News office on North Main, and we have taken our modest cancer project with us. For cancer patients who are traveling for doc appointments, lab work, chemo, x-ray, etc., we have vouchers for $25 worth of gasoline at Road Mart. All you have to do is ask and we’ll give you one.
Since we began the project in late 2007 we have provided almost $75,000 worth of gasoline vouchers, thanks to some generous supporters. Pray for cancer researchers.
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HE SAID: “It is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters.” Aesop, Greek storyteller
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SHE SAID: “You cannot define a person on just one thing. You can’t just forget all these wonderful and good things that a person has done because one thing didn’t come off the way you thought it should come off.” Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
