After a quarrel a wife angrily said, "I was a fool when I married you." The husband quickly replied, "Yes, I know, but I was too much in love to notice." (It's a joke!)

Good Tuesday morning. It is now officially March 27, 2012. We are having some very nice mornings with the temps just under 60 degrees. The afternoons are already very warm for this time of year, mid 80's. I heard the A/C unit at home moaning and groaning. He had not expected to be working this hard so early in the season. My wife has been home now for five days and she has been cooking up a storm. She knows how. Hello? I am diabetic and I have the numbers to prove it. But, the stuff she puts on the table is not only finger licking good, it's just over-the-top good. I think she has surprised herself that she can still do as much of it like she used to. We are in a transition here. There are adjustments at work and there will be more coming down the pike. But, it has been good for her to be able to stay at home. Her phone has been busy with people trying to schedule up some face time with her. I knew that was going to be how it works. Been there, done that, for much of our nearly 48 years together. I'm trying to remember the last time someone, outside of family, called me to schedule a lunchtime meeting. I vaguely remember one but I think it was a wrong number. That doesn't mean I am neglected. Hey, I get invitations to very nice dinners all the time. They are at some of the finest restaurants around. They have to do with some kind of retirement investment program or some other promotional deal. Who said I didn't have friends? However, the fact that I've never gone to any of them might say something. I'm just not sure what.

Okay. I admit it. I have always been, forever and ever, Amen, a gum swallower. I've done it since the invention of chewing gum. Well, maybe not that long, but for a long, long time. I did so against the most loud warnings coming from those near and dear to me. "Son, if you swallow that gum, it will stick to your insides because it cannot be digested." I know that is now officially considered to be an old wive's tale because actually there's no evidence that swallowing gum has any harmful impact on a person's health. I didn't know that at the time and I will admit that I did actually think about all that gum grabbing hold of each other and gumming up my innards. That didn't keep me from doing it, but it did give me one more thing to be concerned about. These types of predictions weigh on a child's mind even if they don't obey them. I used to be a little bit concerned about the broken mirror forecast of bad luck for seven years or whatever. Think about it. You are a little kid and you drop a small mirror. It breaks. The first thing you hear from a trusted source, "Oh my, son, you are going to have seven years of bad luck." No wonder we all end up being warped in one way or another. Sure. We live and learn. Or do we? These sayings are still around today. They end up being the punch line in the "Well, I always heard that if........" That gum deal worked on my wife. She wouldn't swallow a piece of gum if her life depended upon it. I always heard that if you killed a spider in a new house it would never be clean. I always heard that if someone sneezed and you didn't say God bless you, well, some evil spirit may come calling. And, finally, I always heard that if your ear itches, someone is thinking about you, right side for boy, left side for girl. See what I mean? No wonder we end up acting strange! (I found those 'I always heard' because I didn't take the time to come up with some of my own.)

Don't tell me these things are no longer on your radar screen. I'm always surprised when I hear about someone you think would know better changing their direction to avoid a black cat crossing in front of them. Those planted seeds hang on for a long time folks. The good news? God loves us anyway with all of our mistaken ideas, crazy thoughts, and even our strange notions. Dotty Rambo had it right. He really did look beyond our fault and saw our need. He didn't just see it, praise the Lord, He did something about it. I've never redirected my driving because of a black cat but the legend did cross my mind as he or she crossed in front of me. I may have walked around a ladder or two, hopefully not because of the curse, but because it made sense, however, I couldn't say I didn't at least think about what has always been said about ladders. That's why we really do need to know the truth because as Jesus said, the truth will set you free. One of those freedoms has to do with knowing you can swallow all the gum you want to. Just joking. It does make you feel better to find out it isn't harmful, even it was about twenty five years after the fact. I wouldn't want to lay awake at night worried about some of that 1956 Bazooka still gumming up all the works. Now it is time to say farewell for now and may God bless you and yours, as we all continue our journey here. Amen.    ...More later.