Saw the above prompt for this week and thought immediately of this…

I do know that I wouldn’t be as happy as the Saturday baby if I had to go to work, particularly after a week of work like the one depicted above…

Monday was not my favorite day, but it was really no different from any other day of the week work-wise. I know Monday always has the reputation of being a real rough day, but I could just as easily have a good day on Monday and a lousy one on Tuesday, and I have. Days when it was snowing were the worst, or winter days when the wind would blow in whatever direction I seemed to be going.

Being retired has changed this somewhat, mostly because now every day seems to blend into all the others. Mary and I take turns asking each other "what’s today? Wednesday?"

Christine at Stine Writing runs Simply 6 Minutes.

Oh, come on. If you feel like you have to justify enjoying something as enjoyable as chocolate, it takes all the enjoyment out of it.

Chocolate is great stuff. It makes you happy (that is, if you like it). I remember going on a really lousy job interview that was way out where God left his sandals. This was post-stroke, so Mary had to drive me. On the way back, she said "Let’s stop at Walgreens and get chocolate bars!" And we did, and they tasted great, and elevated our mood. I’ve forgotten nearly everything about the interview, but not about the chocolate.

This past Christmas, we bought ourselves Frango mints, a chocolate mint. I used to sell them at Marshall Field’s in Chicago, long before they became Macy’s. (And yes, I’m aware that they got the recipe when they bought out a department store in Seattle.) We hadn’t had them in years. They’re now made by an independent company, and they’re still great. This Easter, we’re going to get some chocolate from Fannie May, another Chicago institution that’s been bought by another company. Nothing like a little taste of home…

Christine Bialczak runs Simply 6 Minutes. Why not join us?

The squirrels in my neighborhood are crazy. It’s like they have a death wish or something. We’ll be driving around and all of a sudden one will come dashing out from the side of the road. Mary will slam on the brakes to try not to hit it, and the furry little bastard will turn around and run back where he was. We think he’s back on the side of the road and start moving again, and he’ll come dashing back out again!

You do your best to avoid them, because they don’t know any better, but occasionally you crush one, and you end up feeling awful for killing him. What can you do, though?

One day we were driving through the subdivision and saw a hawk carrying one off. That’s kind of disconcerting, because you try your best not to kill them only to have a hungry hawk say "ooh! dinner!" and swoop in fo the kill. On the one hand, you know that’s what hawks do: they have to eat and you can’t go out to the store and buy Purina Hawk Chow (which would probably be squirrel flavored). On the other hand, you feel bad for the squirrel.

Because, let’s face it: they’re kind of cute. They’d make cute pets, if they weren’t wild animals.

Christine is the host of Simply Six Minutes.

When I see a statement such as the one above, I wonder who decides what I "deserve." I mean, I can have an opinion about it, and others can have their opinions, but those are just that, opinions.

It’s kind of like on the old TV show Maude, when Maude would turn to her husband and say "God’ll get you for that, Walter." Will God make something terrible happen to Walter because his wife said it will? As St. Paul says on two separate occasions (1 Cor. 2:16, Rom. 11:34), "who has known the Mind of God?" Maybe God is getting Maude for something she said, through what Walter has said or done.

A priest friend of mine had an expression, "God didn’t go on vacation and leave you in charge." Or, as we said in the old neighborhood, "who died and made you the boss?" (Another thing we used to say in the old neighborhood was "Geez, is this an old neighborhood…")

We’re all guilty of saying this sometimes: "Keep doing that and you’ll get what’s coming to you." Maybe we shouldn’t.

Christine is the proprietor of Simply 6 Minutes. She has the rules and everything over at her place. I made the badge, ’cause that’s just the kind of guy I am. You can use it if you like…

We hear all kinds of stories about people who enjoy dressing up like and pretending to be something they aren’t: anime characters, characters from cartoons (Velma from Scooby-Do, Where Are You? seems to be very popular) and movies (Star Wars seems to be a popular one), animals, persons of the opposite sex, persons from a different period of time (thinking Renaissance Faires) or from a different country (Highland games, with pipe-and-drum competitions, Highland dancing, and Scottish heavy events such as the caber toss, all of which are done in Highland attire), infants, and probably pieces of furniture, for all I know.

I really don’t see the harm in it, which isn’t to say that I necessarily want to participate in those activities (I did have fun playing the bagpipes with the Invermich Gaelic Society Pipes And Drums for several years, which involved wearing a kilt and sporran, and no, I have no pictures of myself from those days), and as long as no one gets hurt, hey, if that’s your thing, mazel tov. But please, if you’re considering making any permanent changes, make sure it’s what you really want to do.

Christine runs Simply 6 Minutes every Tuesday. Visit her blog if you’d like to play along.