Two Things I Never Thought I'd See

On average, my life is fairly predictable. Every day is pretty similar to the one before. Not that I'm complaining. I'd much rather be bored than, say, starving, or traumatized. But, every once in a while something happens to wake me up. Something unexpected that makes me smile in wonder or amazement. Last week, I had two such things.

The first came in the mail. It was tangible evidence that our family has bought way too many Webkinz--a handwritten thank-you card from my local Hallmark store. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I don't know the total number of Webkinz currently residing at our house but I'm sure that, counting the four which turned up in the kids' Easter baskets this weekend, we have close to 40. Add to that all the ones we have bought to give away at friends' birthday parties and I bet we've spent more than $700 in the last couple years at the Hallmark store. Is that enough to warrant a personal thank-you? What can I say? Maybe I should think of it as doing our small part to revive the economy. The Webkinz stimulus plan?


The second thing came courtesy of Mother Nature. We have had a lot of wild weather around here lately. Our tornado sirens go off so frequently that we hardly even pay attention any more. Monday they went off under clear blue skies. (I won't bore you with my feelings about the 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome that all this over use of the sirens creates.) But Friday afternoon the sirens heralded the arrival something I'd never seen before--big hail. We are talking epic big, golf ball big, the kind of hail you see in apocalyptic movies big. Naturally, Mark and I were glued to our windows yelling at each other in excitement instead of hunkering down in our pantry. My favorite part was seeing the hailstones bounce off the trampoline. Some of the bigger stones ricocheted halfway across the yard! About 15 minutes after the hail had stopped, we looked out of the front window and saw our local postman delivering the mail. I don't know where he was when the hail was coming down but I guess the motto must be true . . ."Neither snow nor rain nor heat of day nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."