I couldn't resist

I stopped at the Park office this morning to pay my rent, and chatted with the two ladies there for a while.  On the counter in front of me was a plate of thick buttery cookies, and I think I knew immediately that I would walk out of the office with a cookie in my hand.  A few minutes later I did just that.  It tasted pretty good, but in the two blocks from the Park to the gym I began to feel the effects of the sugar.  Now it's not that I don't ever eat sugar - it is in most foods, natural (such as fruit) and packaged.  But this cookie packed a punch and must have been loaded with sugar.  I didn't like the effects of it at all.

So someone broke into the office and stole a lot of keys.  It takes a key to enter the laundry, one to open the machines, another to open the money box, and a couple of other necessary keys that were explained to me but which I've forgotten.  At any rate, there are a lot of locks and keys to repelace.  But the problem is that one of the keys is critical to accessing the money and not even the company who provided the locks can break them, plus the company is on the other side of the continent!  

At least they aren't blaming it on the homeless, who seem to take the rap for anything that goes wrong.  I feel nothing but sadness that people are sleeping rough in the weather we've been having, and it's better here than in many other places.  It's not just the fact of being outdoors in the bad weather, it's not having the clothing or the equipment to keep warm and dry.  And I can never forget that many homeless have served our country and are suffering with PTSD.  I remember having a great uncle who came back from WWI with shell shock (now called PTSD).  He had family who took care of him until he died of old age, but if he lived in a large city with no one to care about him, he would have been on the streets.  I don't like to generalize and realize there are two sides to most stories.  But it makes me sad.

I have a long "ToDo" list for today but don't know where to start.  Sometimes I just don't do anything!

Joe brought his daughters by yesterday for about an hour.  Alyssa, who is in 2nd grade, had an assignment to ask an older person in her family about their experiences at her age and grade.  I did my best, but feel like I came from a different planet.  Questions such as "What did you wear to school?", gets the answer "Dresses".  "But Grandma, what did you wear when it was cold?"  "Dresses".  "But what if it was really cold?"  "Dresses with knee socks!"

In trying to answer these questions, and there were a lot of them, I had a good trip down memory lane.  I realize how relatively simple my life was compared to today's young generation, but I am so glad for the experience of doing without, because I can have empathy for today's folks who must do without, for whatever reason.  It is not the children's fault anyway.