I admit it. I have been defeated. There is this stubborn fly that will NOT leave the television alone. I have named him Percival. Percival says hi…*sigh*.

I have decided to make Percival my muse. We have a wary truce. He can have the corner of the television. Just stay out of my…blast it, Percival, wouldja cut me some slack already and get out of the way! Tiger is fixing to putt…*pout*.

Apparently, Percival, my muse, has also decided to be a cautionary tale for me. He is a stubborn reminder that sometimes our dumbness provides us with leftovers, called consequences that we must endure/live with. Sometimes, those consequences are short lived. Others, hang around until we understand that life ain’t playing with us. Still, others can last a lifetime. They turn us into something/someone else.

Three decades ago, I had the opportunity to get married. I turned it down. Now, I lie here, in the dark, watching the golf tournament with my fly friend Percival…*sigh*. I wonder what me I would be now, if I had gotten married back then.

Would I be fulfilled? Or, would I be wishing I was alone, in the dark, watching golf with my fly friend, Percival? Who knows? God does and He’s not telling. Life has to be lived, dontcha know.

None of knows the future. We have no idea what our choices, or lack of making choices, will bring. All that we can bring to the table is our attitude and effort. The rest is up to Percival. Believe me I have tried to get rid of him. He won’t go.

Sooner or later, you are just going to have to surrender to the fact that the outcome of life does not reside with us. All we can do is either eat the bananas or take out the garbage. Life will take care of the rest.

In case no one has told you, today. I love you and am praying that you find friendship, blessings and love in this big old thing called life.❤

I am determined to enjoy my day off, flies or no! I made my bed now I have to put on my big girl pants and lay in it. Rather, had I just taken five minutes to take out the garbage I wouldn’t be in this fix…*grumble*.

Nevertheless, I am choosing to make lemonade out of these lemons. I am bound and determined to enjoy the golf tournament. Go Tiger!

Hhmm, I see the flies are enjoying the television as well. Get out of the way!!!! Seeing they are distracted by the golf, I stealthily creep to the television, with my homemade fly swatter, and vow to vanquish these blasted flies if it’s the last thing I do. Egads!!! OMG!!!!! GET OUTTA THE WAY!!…*Cassandra remembers her vow to make lemonade out of this plague, this swarm, this….move!!!*

I surrender. Am enjoying the golf tournament, in the dark, contemplating a chicken sandwich. Sounds good. Good yikes may entice the rest of the Lord of the Flies. I settle for the less of two evils and munch a chicken salad, in the dark, whilst stealthily sneaking up on my now avowed enemies. How blessed many flies can there possibly be in here already!

Have to end this blog early. Tiger fixing to putt and I have another fly in my sights. TWACK. One down, am scared to know how many left to go…*whispers Go Tiger*

To be continued…unfortunately.

O, yea, almost forgot the moral of this story. When you have been a dumbsky and have failed to take out the garbage due to laziness, no need in compounding said dumbness by wasting your day off on whining and complaining. You can either beat yourself up because of your dumb choice. Or, you can get to whacking flies and ENJOY your day. The flies will be there no matter what your choice is. Yes, you shoulda taken five minutes and taken out the garbage. Yes, you gave yourself three days of irritation and unexpected workout chasing down flies. Yes, you look like a complete moron hollering at flies and jumping around like a loon, in the dark, bathed by the light of the television. But, alas, there is ALWAYS a silver lining. You have had a good laugh. You have had flies for company. You have gotten some needed exercise and a fantastic blog post.

Life is short. Forgive yourself for present and past dumbness. ADMIT to said dumbness. Correct the mistake and move on. Since when did owning up to OUR mistakes become a bad thing? It’s okay to be a dumbsky. Perfectly okay to admit to being a dumbsky. The trick is understanding that being a dumbsky does not have to be a permanent condition. All it takes is the willingness to own mistakes, fix them the best we can and keep it moving.

That, and a good fly swatter. 😉

I love you, my bros and sis. We all we got but we all we need.❤

Corona virus has a whole world turned upside down. Nothing seems normal. Nothing feels normal. Work doesn’t feel normal. Being stuck inside doesn’t feel normal. Not being able go out to dinner with friends or see a movie doesn’t feel normal.

When the world turns on it’s head normally we all gather together to comfort one another and we can’t do that and that just isn’t normal. I have been listening to different factions and groups talking about how we all can get back to normal and no one can agree. Sadly that seems normal…*sigh*.

I was laying in bed and day dreaming how wonderful it would be to go back to a normal day of waking up and drinking coffee and enjoying the silence and wonder of the day and wishing things could go back to normal. I longed for that quiet cup of coffee. Thought back, fondly, of all the previous early mornings of coffee, quietness and hopelessness.

Thought of those things, this morning, as I arose, made coffee and enjoyed the quietness and wonders of this wonderful world/day. Ah! There is NOTHING like a quiet morning of hot coffee and warm thoughts. Drinking my coffee, I find myself hopeful, again. Joyful, again.

The world is still out there doing it’s things. Folks are still hollering at one another about…who knows what. Everyone mad about something and has been for years. All the world is raging, yet, here I sit, joyful, hopeful enjoying coffee and enjoying the freedom of living in a country that affords me the opportunity to rage, if I want to, to be at peace, if I want to, to get back to normal, if I want to.

Normal can be had at ANY moment. It just requires us to make the effort. Get up, make that coffee. Go in that jog. Call and make up with that friend. Make up your own mind of how to live your life. Get back to normal.

What is normal? Ah! Now THAT is a good question for another day. Normal is different for everyone. Do your normal, today. Lets talk about should we even want to return to OUR particular normal on another day.

Life is good, even when it’s hard. Love someone today. Love YOU today. Life is short. We all we got but we all we need. I love you, my bros and sis. Folks don’t hear that they are loved enough. Am making sure to tell as many folks as I can. I love you. Someone love me back, would you please and thanks? ❤

Life has been exhausting lately. Everything is exhausting. The news is exhausting. Corona virus is exhausting. Everything seems to be life-or-death. Going outside is dangerous. Shopping is dangerous. Being around people is dangerous. Getting up the energy to go to work as exhausting. Actually doing the job has been exhausting.

On top of all that, We have to remember to do the mundane things like taking out the garbage…*sigh*…exhausting.

Now,taking out the garbage is exhausting. Dammit! Now, I have to do the exhausting work of figuring out how much can be collected before I have to take it out. I have to be careful about what I put in the garbage can so as not to attract bugs and flies(more on flies, in just a second. Dear God, those flies!!!).

I have to limit myself to how many times I go outside so I have to do NASA like calculations on how many days I can go before taking out said garbage. Said calculations now must also take into account being fiscally prudent in limiting the amount of garbage bags being used. Just writing this paragraph is exhausting. Why? Because it suddenly occurred to me maybe I should start using the word trash, interchangeably, with the word garbage so as not to be saying the word garbage too many times in this blog post. On top of that I started obsessing about putting commas in the blog and making sure not to have too many run on sentences. Dammit, this is becoming sooooo exhausting!! Why can’t I just blog about this damn garbage already?!!! Why do I have to care about YOUR feelings in MY blog talking about my stupid garbage?! And if my paragraph is too blasted long and don’t have enough commas or don’t have enough other words like trash instead of garbage to suit your liking so as to be entertaining and insightful for you to follow me as apparently having millions of followers following you to God only knows where because apparently its now vogue to follow whomever wherever mad about the whole damn world. Exhausting!

Ehem…appears I got off on a little tangent. My apologies. These flies have about driven me mad. You would completely understand if I had stuck to the point about the garbage.

Garbage? What was I saying about the garbage? O, yea, we now return to our previously scheduled program. My bad. In my defense, though, life has been exhausting….

I had the garbage ratio figured out: appropriate amount of garbage for thr garbage bag, bag neatly tied, to be taken out, in the morning. That took two days, of arguing, with myself, over taking out the trash/garbage before or after work..*Cassandra wonders if anyone has noticed her intentional passive aggressive usage of commas and the word trash..hehe..*. I would have been home free if not for those two bananas. I stupidly convinced myself that put into bananas and the trash and leave it overnight would not be such a big deal. Huge huge mistake!

I awoke the next morning, got up to make a leisurely breakfast of boiled eggs and coffee, and began, what I thought, was a stress-free, work from home day.

Little did I know, the small band of ornery flies had taken up residence in my apartment and were just waiting for the opportune moment to make my morning/afternoon of living hell!!

One fly joined me for coffee and then invited all of it’s friends. I spent ALL days yelling/pleading/screaming/swatting flies whilst trying to act, like a professional, taking care of work issues. Do you have any idea how exhausting and maddening it is trying to remain calm and professional whilst battling The Swarm in your apartment. Speaking of The Swarm, those over 50 may remember that movie. About a bunch of bees that terrorized the world. Look it up, an entertaining show back in the day…

I could not wait for my work day to in period. I scooped up that garbage and rushed it out to the dumpster. I also fogged up the house with spray that had been sitting next to me for TWO DAYS that I had been too exhausted to use as it required fogging then leaving the apartment for 15 minutes and of course I was simply too exhausted for that…*sigh*.

I ended up sitting in the car for an hour waiting for the flogger to do its job and hoping the Lord of the Flies would be gone by the time I got back in apartment.

I thought I was home free. Went to bed in swat free bliss and dreamed of an exhausting free work from home day of competently handling work issues in a professional way whilst sipping happily on French Vanilla coffee. O, what wondrous dreams I had that night….

I woke singing happily to myself and puttered around, boiling eggs and making coffee. All was quiet. The coffee was hot in delicious. So much so that I decided to have a mini brownie with my coffee. Apparently one fly thought that was a fantastic idea and invited itself to coffee and breakfast. The fly called all of it’s friends! Day two, of the Lord of the flies commenced…exhausting…*Cassandra laments for the 20,000th time why o why didn’t you just take out the stupid garbage?! It would have taken all of five minutes!!*

After another exhausting day of coming up with new break dance moves as I fought 10 million flies, I fogged the place, AGAIN, sat in the car for two hours this time and stealthily to see if my tiny foes had been defeated. They HAD to be. The next day was my day off. I was exhausted and looking forward to a weekend of coffee, quiet and an entire day of doing absolutely nothing. The flies appeared to have either a) gotten bored b) found me intensely entertaining and were laying in wait for the perfect time to strike or c) were waiting for the eggs to be boiled and coffee to be made…*sigh*

As you have already surmised, the Lord of the Flies had selected b AND c!

Day 3, of Lord if the Flies, and on my off day, no less, has already begun…*Cassandra arms herself with coffee, a good book, her courage and heads for the car, to wait out yet another fogger bomb and pray something will be left of her leisurely do absolutely nothing day.

Sometimes, you just have to do the expedient thing and take out the garbage. I exchanged 15 minutes of lazy for 3 days of fly warfare.

The moral of this story? Who the world knows. Am too exhausted to come up with one. Let me know, what it is, if you ever reach the end of this exhausting tale…

😉

Keep your head up, peeps. We SHALL make it through this time. Yes, it is exhausting. Yes, it is scary and unknowing. By us. God knows all and sees all. God shall see us through. Hold onto your joy. Laugh through the flies. Let someone know you love them and see their exhaustion. Share yours with them. This may give them the courage to share theirs with you. Help bear someone’s burden. Life here lately is exhausting….