Today I worked from home, and it was still beautiful out though not as warm as the last two days, so at lunchtime I went outside for a walk. My goal: to walk as fast as I can for half an hour, because that's all the time I have. My neighbor's goal: waste as much time as possible, because she's retired, bored, and lonely and has nothing but time. She asked if she and her little dog could walk with me, and I said sure, but we had to keep stopping to talk to people. Somehow it counted as a workout, but it wasn't much for either steps or effort. The little dog jumped on my knees so hard that my left one kind of buckled backwards a tiny bit, and I was scared I'd be crippled for life, but can you believe it actually felt better going up the stairs than it has in months? Maybe she snapped something back into place. This evening I had to run around the house to get more steps and active time, but my FitBit said my workout was a "walk," and that it was "moderate," not "vigorous." Man, what would it take to impress this FitBit?
At Adoration I was thinking about these televangelist types who say God talks to them all the time, and it seems like they have a very different experience than I do. I talk at God all the time (I mean ALL the time), although I've gotten better about not giving Him a running commentary in my head nonstop. He has only talked directly to me a few times, but every time it was short and to the point, and also it was somehow TERRIFYING. The closest thing I can relate it to is if you had a beloved teacher when you were a little kid, one who thought you were particularly clever and funny, and then you did something bad. (But not that bad - I mean, you're a little kid in this scenario, right? How bad can it be?) Then she says to you, "I think that you should share the crayons with your friend, Famous," and you are DEVASTATED because you let down this perfect person who thought you were so wonderful. It's more like that than being scared of lightning or a plane crash or whatever. It's nothing like, "And then God told me that Dear Leader was chosen by Him to lead this country!" The God I'm familiar with doesn't seem like He'd be too impressed with Dear Leader, but of course He would love him.
Today Roy came home.
Roy, the half red/ half blue British bear has lived with us for almost a year now. He comes from South London and grew up near Selhurst Park, the home stadium of the Crystal Palace FC soccer team of the English Premier League. He is named after legendary Palace manager Roy Hodgson who is now retired and has become a diehard lifetime Palace fan, and has even been employed with the club as a statistician, manager, and scout.
Roy is very happy to be with us at our home in Wisconsin, yet his heart will always be in England. He came along with us on our trip to Colorado over this past Christmas, wanting to see the vast landscape of the American West, but he suddenly received an urgent call with bad news from home that his mother was dying and we had to put him on a flight to London out of Denver. Roy’s young son Roy Jr. lived with his grandmother, who sadly did pass away in late December. Roy stayed across the big pond to take care of personal affairs and stay with and comfort his son, then unexpectedly in early February he was offered a temporary scouting job with Palace and despite his still grieving and having his hands full taking care of his son, he couldn’t refuse the job because of his undying loyalty to the club. He couldn’t leave Roy Jr. alone so he asked us if we could accommodate him here for awhile. Of course we were happy to oblige. Our other live-in critter friends such as Randy Panda, Pounce the Florida Panther, Percy The Snow Leopard and especially Young Fat the Bear all befriended Roy Jr., making him feel right at home and cuddling with him while watching TV in my recliner. He even gets to enjoy watching Crystal Palace matches with fellow huge fan - and BBC sports talk show host Jerry The Kraken. Although Wolves supporters Wolfie and Wendy are a bit introverted and don’t associate much with the others, they let Roy Jr. watch Wolves matches with them along with Rodrigo The Rhino.
Some unexpected good news for Roy Jr. came last week, his father’s scouting stint came to an end, and his work helped Palace win five out of their last seven matches to move up to 11th in the Premier League standings. He arrived today and there was a sweet father and son reunion. They will most likely stay permanently as they love it here and are surrounded by many caring friends. When a Saturday morning Palace match comes on our TV, the club will have quite a cheering section!! It will be interesting when they have their rematch with Wolverhampton as they have an impressive one with us here as well! I may not have much room to move in my recliner.
Famous Hat again. My Yahoo email has taken to giving me an AI summary of my emails, and this is the summary of Roy's story: "Roy, a British bear named after Roy Hodgson, has joined your family in Wisconsin after a year in England, attending Crystal Palace matches and now enjoying a temporary scouting job, with a hopeful future reunion with his father." I don't know why that killed me. Maybe it's because AI thinks Roy's father is Roy Jr.? AI has a ways to go before it takes over.
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