Four Wins From the Past Month

A Friday Hodgepodge

Whenever possible, I list three wins at the end of each day. Here are a few from a recent review of my planner.

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1. As our family waited in the terminal ahead of an hours-long couple of flights from the West Coast to home, my son cast an uncomfortable and concerned glance at his parents.

"I feel nauseous," he said a little weakly.

Grabbing a bag from the lunch Mrs. Van Horn had just brought over, I thrust it into his hands. "Keep this with you in case you can't make it to a bathroom in time," I said.

His older sister complained that she didn't want to sit next to him on the plane.

"April Fool's," my son replied.

He got all of us good by catching us completely off-guard and with an impeccable delivery.

Well-played, my son!

2. Although I sometimes do wish my son were more interested in sports or outdoor activities, I don't share the moral panic many other parents do about his screen time -- which strikes me as a mashup of the reading, television, and gaming I did as a lad.

Yes, reading, in the sense that he learns things and often follows up.

Having learned about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he mentioned it to us as probably a good family movie, so that's what we did one Sunday evening.

I hadn't read the book or seen the movie, so it was new to me, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected to.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted these turtles while crossing a pedestrian bridge last week. (Image by the author. Feel free to copy/reuse.)

3. After the move from Florida, I still miss the wide variety of birds along with the occasional alligator I'd see when when I took walks there.

That said, the more compact town we live in means that my walks can have other advantages, like including stops at coffee shops, in addition to being more scenic overall.

As it turns out, my walks are not devoid of wildlife. The ponds and waterways here teem with turtles, as you can see from this picture I took from a pedestrian bridge.

Oh, and I run into the odd crow now and then. If I start encountering those with any regularity, I might try my hand at befriending them.

4. Ahead of a trip last month, I looked ahead in my tickler file for the days I would be away and discovered something I had slipped into a Friday folder to file away during my weekly review: My car registration receipt.

I'd tried getting my car inspected earlier in the week, but was told I'd need my registration receipt and was turned away.

Since Florida doesn't require inspections, I was five or six years out of practice: Thinking I'd probably not need that scrap of paper, I had stashed it in the tickler file and forgotten about it.

Indeed, at the inspection station, I thought I might need to go back to the DMV and ask for the document, which would mean another hour or two of wasted time.

Finding this was a big relief, because I knew I could very quickly get the inspection done now, and not have to waste time or risk getting a ticket.

Chalk one up for having a (usually boring) clerical routine in place.

-- CAV