Grocery shopping

In the grocery store the other day, there was a woman with a buzz cut. She was struck by the comment of a passing child. The child, sitting in a cart, with a grandmotherly lady pushing, looked at the woman and said, "What's that?" The grandmother said, "That's a lady doing her shopping."

Children have few filters. And this one was trying to fit the buzz cut woman into his scheme of things: is that a guy or a girl? Men have short hair, women have long hair. I don't know 'what' that is I'm seeing.

I know the 'lady doing her shopping' doesn't know what she is either. She has a great big story behind that buzz cut. She has cancer. She's had a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and her hair is just now beginning to grow back, slowly. In its growing, she finally lost her eyebrows and began to lose eyelashes. Feeling feminine has become a greater challenge now, even moreso than when the breast was taken. At least a tissue expander was left in its place, and from the outside, we don't notice much. A friend even said that she 'wears cancer well.'

But that 'wearing cancer well' lady's mother had a single car accident on the day of the mastectomy, Inauguration Day, and broke her back and went through a lengthy hospitalization and recovery. It's really still ongoing, complicated by bacterial infections and short term memory loss. That lady's father died suddenly in March, while putting his heart and soul into caring for the broken-backed mother. Then one family dog got hit by a car in April, and the second family dog had to be put down on the last day of radiation.

So, what is that? Bad luck? Bad karma? A cross to bear? The Year of the Ox? Or simply one person's ride through life? No more or less worse than anyone else's ride. Just different. What is that?

... and you know the rest

The village called and ..... their idiot is missing.

I've been wondering if in the concept of "it takes a village," we don't need to remember that it takes all sorts of people to make up that village. Even the idiot.

So I'm here to provide that reminder. I am the idiot, the court jester, the nut who talks to himself (without benefit of a bluetooth device), and, just perhaps, the fool whose quirky take on things provides a new perspective.

I hope to provide encouragement, entertainment, and food for thought. Not to mention yet another way to distract yourself. The idiot has been found. I'm here.