First Door on the Left

For the most part I believe now what I believed when I was younger, except now I believe it with a bit more tolerance and acceptance.

As children we exist only in our own little worlds, surrounded by those who are like us, love us, and accept us. We are in our comfort zone.

Then we grow older and go to school. We choose those who are like us to be our friends, and reject and bully those who are not like us. This stays with us through our teen years.

Hopefully, by the time we are finished with our schooling, we have learned to expand our comfort zone. We have come to accept and even appreciate those who are not like we are. We have become tolerant of different beliefs, lifestyles and cultures.

There are those among us, however, who have never reached this stage. I am, of course, speaking of the Billy Grahams, Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons, and George Bushes of the world. These are the people who never left childhood, never learned to reach beyond their little zones of comfort. They expect everybody to be like them and to believe what they believe. They reject and condemn those who do not.

We can only be patient with them and hope that someday they will grow up.

January, and it’s freaking 73 degrees outside! I just opened every window and door in the place. On the front door I found a yellow sticky…

We were just in the area and wanted to say hello. Hope you are doing fine.

Take care,
The Missionaries

Do these people never give up? (That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I know they never give up. I was once one of them.)

Look at the time. I just woke up. I love my days off!

I made the trip to our neighborhood Albertsons this afternoon to do the weekly grocery shopping, and… brace yourself… They Had No Pepsi!

(Are you alright? I know that must have come as quite a shock. Sorry to spring it on you like that.)

What do our neighbors know that I do not know? Is a hurricane coming our way? No, that can’t be it. Don’t people usually stock up on things like water and flashlight batteries when a hurricane is coming? Besides, hurricanes do not make it this far inland. So what is it? What could possibly have warranted this unprecedented run on my favorite beverage?

How am I possibly going to survive a week without my Pepsi? I may have to drink (gasp!) water. Then again, there’s always 7-11.

I may survive.

I have decided that I do not want to move to Houston. Not today, anyway. Perhaps tomorrow.

Giorgio appears to be doing fine. She upped his insulin again.

The s/o’s job is moving to Houston. He says he is pretty sure he can get another job here. He has not once considered moving to Houston. Tonight I asked him “Why don’t we move to Houston?”

His answer: “I didn’t think you would want to.”

Let’s see….
a) His company will pay all moving expenses.
b) His company will pay our expenses to go to Houston and look for a place to live.
c) His company will pay the closing costs on a home in Houston.
d) His company will help us sell our home here.

The down side…
a) I would have to find new employment in Houston, but we all know I don’t really like my job here anyway.
b) It would mean moving away from his mother, who lives in Fort Worth.
c) I lived in Houston for a little while (about 8 months) some time ago, and didn’t really like it much. But I was much younger (and single) then.
d) Moving…. yech!

So, what do you think? Should we move to Houston?

My country has become the aggressor.

Tom has posted poll results from TIMEeurope.com. Two hundred thousand people voted in the poll. A whopping 81.6% answered that the United States is the greatest threat to world peace in 2003.

The world can take consolation in one thing, though. You can bet that as we are dropping bombs on your sorry heads, we’ll be praying for your souls.

Go get ‘em, Dubya!

Giorgio definitely has two personalities. At home he is sweet, loving, always purring and demanding attention. Take him to the vet and he becomes this hissing, growling, biting monster. He is most definitely a home boy.

We picked him up from the emergency hospital about 8:00 last night. He was supposed to go spend the day today with the vet so she could get a glucose curve on him. She called about 10:30 and said to come and get him. “He won’t let me do a thing to him.” Plus, he got mad and pooped all over himself and his carrier, so when we got him home we had to wash both him and the carrier.

The vet increased his insulin, changed his diet from dry to canned food (which he has always preferred), and scheduled another attempt for Friday. She says she is going to sedate him Friday. This whole thing has become a battle between her and Giorgio. She says she’s going to win. My bet’s on Giorgio.

Meanwhile, Giorgio is home and seems to be feeling much better. He’s his usual sweet, purring (and spoiled rotten) self.

There is some kind of white stuff falling out of the sky. I believe that up north they call it snow. Down here we call it “what’s that?” We don’t see it very often.

Just thought I’d mention it.

I’ll go sit by the fire now.

Last night (Friday night) Giorgio was extremely lethargic. We could hardly get him to move. This morning (Saturday morning), he vomited several times. We called the vet. She said to bring him in immediately.

(Giorgio, in case you are new here, is our boy cat. He’s diabetic.)

The vet said it was a good thing we brought him in, because she doubted he would have lasted until Monday. He was running a high fever and was extremely dehydrated. She started an IV on him to replenish his fluids, gave him a shot of antibiotics, and sent us out to the emergency pet hospital in Richardson. They are keeping him there until Monday morning to run blood sugar tests so we can get his insulin dosage adjusted correctly.

The cause of all this? It seems that the strips we were given with which to test his urine for blood sugar levels were calibrated wrong. All this time we thought he was doing good. He wasn’t.

The s/o says it is nobody’s fault and I shouldn’t be angry. I am, though. I mean, somebody screwed up here. The test strips weren’t calibrated correctly? That has to be somebody’s fault. Right? He says the important thing is that we caught it in time and Giorgio will be alright. That’s good, but I still want to be mad at somebody.

Oh, yeah. The bill for all this? Only $800.00.

(That’s Giorgio on the right. The black spot next to him is Sunshine, our sweet girl.)

Frodo failed