How important is it?

A regular routine of mine takes me along a road at about the same time each morning. Over the last week or so I’ve come to notice a cute little group of a mother and 3 children waiting on a corner for the school bus.

Of course, I don’t know for sure that they are a family – it could be an adult and some unrelated children, but it sure looks like Mom, her 2 little girls and their older brother. In any case, since they wait at a corner with a 4 way stop sign, I’ve seen them there since school started back, and they are part of my routine now.

This morning, either I was a bit earlier or they were a bit later, but they were not there as I approached the junction. The boy was just getting to the corner, his two young sisters were running to catch up, and Mom was not far behind. All this I took in as I came to a stop at the line. Nothing outstanding, just a normal part of life in the city.

What I also took in as I slowed down was that the car behind me didn’t seem to be reducing its speed. As I stopped, the car drove beside me, next to the curb, and went across the stop sign without stopping, inches from the boy.

No doubt there was a good reason that the driver was in a hurry. No doubt he would rationalize it by saying that there was no traffic around (apart from me there wasn’t) and he didn’t hurt anyone (true, no one was physically hurt), so what was the problem? Maybe he didn’t notice the girls running towards the corner, or the young boy already standing there, or maybe he believed that they would stay on the sidewalk, and no one would get hurt. Or maybe he was in such a rush that he didn’t care.

The world if full of what-if’s. What if the boy had chosen that moment to look to see if the school bus was coming, and had stepped onto the road? What if one of the girls had tripped and fallen into the path of the car? What if the driver had misjudged it, and mounted the curb?

But even apart from any  physical harm that the driver could have caused (and ignoring the traffic violation) it disturbed me at a different level. Here is a happy family group, who will now have to be even more careful, even more afraid of the road. I hope I will continue to see them on that corner, but each time I do I’ll be watching for dangerous maneuvers by others. And if I don’t see them one morning, I’ll wonder, did someone in a hurry take one too many chances? Is the little family safe?

To the driver, I’d like to ask; was what you were driving to worth endangering a young family’s life? Would the 30 seconds or so it would have taken to stop been that critical to your day? How important is it?

Home

I’ve been back almost a week now from our 3 week vacation in the UK (with a side trip to Spain). Here are some impressions:

I was taken aback at how busy London is nowadays – I used to work in the City, so I thought I understood crowding, but it seemed there were 10 times more people than I remember. In fact, I felt at times i was close to having panic attacks from the number of times I was pushed, shoved or totally unable to get through the mass of people all around me.

England (outside of London) really IS rolling and green, just like my US friends used to tell me! I guess I never “saw” that because it was just normal, but wow is it different from the much of the Mid West!

I missed the US road system, and how easy it is to get around by car. I seemed to either be in traffic jams on the motorways, or crawling along tiny country roads little bigger than my car! (Admittedly, that was when I was driving around rural Norfolk). And I was on the M25 parking lot for more hours than I care to remember!!!

Nowhere else is quite like a British pub – I mean a real “local”, not one of the fancy bars. You can be at home there in 30 seconds, and the people are funny/wonderful/annoying, but always real.

Bits of my heart are left all over England; The South Coast, a number of London suburbs, King’s Lynn, the Norfolk countryside and coastline, the South Downs. And on this trip I found new places to love too; Eastbourne, Nantwich, Alicante (yes, that one is in Spain).

I love my life and my home in the here and now, and I am blessed beyond measure to have so many other places to love too.

Arrival of #2

Trolley #2 was due to arrive at Loop Trolley Headquarters (or “The Trolley Shed” as I prefer to call it) today, and I wanted to go along for some pictures. Just as I turned the corner from DeBaliviere into Delmar I saw the “Large Load” vehicle just going past the junction with Goodfellow, so I quickly parked and got out with my camera.

There were crews from Fox 2 there, and the local business people also came out to take photos of the big event. Joe Edwards was there and he was his normal ebullient self about the trolley. He tells me they are still doing testing without power at the moment, but he is hoping that powered testing will start in a couple of weeks.

It was interesting to see that they charged up the trolley and it got off the low-loader under its own power, before being pulled by a truck into the Trolley Shed. It was also fun to watch for the first time the trolley, buses, trucks and cars all sharing the same street space.

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More photos can be found on my Facebook Page.

Quick Pickles – How to Make Tasty Refrigerator Pickles

OK, going to try my hand at this – wish me luck!!!

Recipe for salty, crunchy kosher dill pickles in a simple salt and vinegar brine. Easy fast method for great pickles with homemade pickling spice

Source: Quick Pickles – How to Make Tasty Refrigerator Pickles

The Lines Are Drawn

Work continues on the DeBaliviere stretch of the Loop Trolley, and it’s fascinating to see the lines being lade and concrete poured. As each part is completed, it looks more and more like a Trolley Track!

Fun at the zoo

St Louis boasts one of the nicest zoos in the country, and it’s free to get in! This Wednesday we went there, specifically because they had just opened a new Polar Bear area, with a glass sided pool so you could see the bears on land and in the water.

Even though it was mid-week, it was still busy, with a lot of different summer camp groups around, as well as plenty of families. We got there just in time to miss the first sea-lion show of the day, so went off first to look at the apes, and this guy, who seemed happy enough to just be watching us:

On our way to the Polar bear area, we stopped to watch the pelicans and flamingos. The pelicans were particularly fascinating, as the scooped up water in their bills then threw back their heads to swallow:

Then it was off to see the Polar Bear. To get there, you walk through the penguin area, which is great fun to see these comical looking creatures. Emerging from their cold realm, we found ourselves at the glass wall of the Polar Bear enclosure, but no bear was to be seen. We carried on around to the part of the exhibit where you can see under the water, and then round to the front of the enclosure – but no bear. We were just about to go away disappointed, when seemingly from nowhere, the polar bear appeared and seemed to rush across the compound. The crowd went wild, and ran forward to see him as he jumped into the water.

 

Then it was time for the sea-lion show and home. A great day out, and only a mile away:)

More of my pictures from the zoo can be found here.

 

 

 

 

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The New Is But The Old Come True

The new is but the old come true; each sunrise sees a new year born.

–Helen Hunt Jackson

In my part of the world, we have just come out of a celebration for the New Year. It’s a time when people look back over the past and make resolutions for the future. Most of the reflections are viewed either with rose tinted spectacles or with a jaundiced view that it had been the worst year ever. Most of the resolutions are made in the expectation – the hope, even – that they will be quickly broken.

Is it really true that something remarkable happens at the turn of the year, is it only then that we have to opportunity to reflect and change?

In this quote from Helen Hunt Jackson, we see a deeper truth.

Every day is a new start and every moment an opportunity to reflect on the past that has just gone.

The resolutions made on New Year’s Eve are so easy to break because they are too frightening to consider doing forever. Once broken, the whole year is considered spoiled, and so there is no point in trying again until the next New Year.

But if we look at each new sunrise as a new start, then the task is no so daunting. This new day I can try a new thing, a new action, a new way of acting. Even if I fail, I can try tomorrow again because tomorrow starts a new year.

We can learn, not only from our distant past, but the day just gone. We can look at yesterday’s successes and failures to make today a better one.

This is what the nineteenth-century American poet and writer is suggesting, but I would go further; we do not have to wait for a new dawn to start again, we can start afresh from where we are.

Let us say that I have made a resolution to always be positive, but find myself sharing a negative thought, do I have to wait until the next day to get back on the positivity train? Should I carry on with that negativity until evening, and then realize what I have done wrong, resolving to do better tomorrow?

I think not. There is much we can do in every moment to reflect and change. We can look at that negative comment as something past from which we can learn. It is past, gone, and we do not need to wait for some arbitrary “new beginning” to start again.

I made a negative comment, or had a negative thought? I can learn from that action just completed, and activly seek to be more positive, maybe even say or think something specifically to negate the negative!

Every moment is a new year born.

Attitude

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” Winston Churchill

I have discovered a secret – well, not a secret, perhaps, but certainly something that many people do not realize. The secret is that Attitude Matters.

Wow, is that it? Don’t we all know that?

Speaking for myself for a moment, I really didn’t always understand that, and can still find myself forgetting.

In the moment of our disaster or despair, it can seem that this is all there is, that there is no bright spot on the horizon and that there is no solution to our problems. But the amazing fact of life is that everything changes, not just the material, but our feelings about them.

Our attitude towards life often does not change the externals to us, we will still be out of a job, alone, sad or lonely. Attitude is such a little thing compared to all of that.

Yet this little thing called attitude makes, not just a big difference, but the defining difference; just look at these two stories.

I own my own very successful business, which takes a lot of work, but is really fulfilling: it’s great not to have anyone telling me what to do. I have a wonderful family and we live in a fantastic house with a pool, and we even have a paddock for my children’s horses. It’s right next to the golf course, and I love nothing more than to go out on an early Sunday morning for a few holes. I have a great life!

I have a really stressful job running my own business and I have to put in a lot of hours; I wish there was someone I could refer to, but as the boss all the responsibility rests with me. I can’t relax because I have a huge mortgage on a big house. There is also a lot of costs involved, not only with the house, but the pool and a paddock for my children’s horses. I love to play golf, but can only manage to get out early on a Sunday morning, when I’m already exhausted from working all week. I have a terrible life!

These two stories could be told by the same person, the facts are the same. The difference is in the attitude of the teller.

Is it a shame that I only get to play golf on Sunday mornings, or is it a blessing that I can play golf every Sunday morning?

Is it wonderful that I have a big house, or terrible that I have a huge mortgage?

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

The answer is simple – both are true, but how you feel is dependent on your attitude.

And whilst there may be little one can do to change the dynamics of the world, there is a lot one can do about one’s attitude.