Sophie's Story

   Scamp and Colby were the only ones at home when I came home last night. This isn't unusual. Once a week C and I work opposite shifts. Most of the time it is late when I get home, but Monday I got off about an hour early.   The first thing I did was change clothes. It was warm out and I wanted to put on something more comfortable. I sat down at my computer to check my email. I read through the emails. I needed to schedule a needlepoint lesson and another appointment. I made a mental note to check my calendar. Then I went to Facebook. There were a few new posts and a friend request. Since the person requesting friendship was someone I actually knew, I accepted it. I looked at a few more things and then logged off.    I looked at the clock, It was dinner time for Scamp and Colby. They tend not to be real tolerant of late meals so I went into the kitchen and served them their dinner. It was dinner time for me too, but I wasn't hungry.   I sat down in the living room to read

  I went into the Hallmark store last week. The new Christmas ornaments come out in July and it was time to buy my usual Barbie ornament. There is a series of them and I've been collecting them longer than I can remember. I scanned the racks of bears, planes, trains, new house and new baby ornaments looking for the right one. I finally found it. Barbie is wearing a lovely red pencil skirt with a bolero jacket and a pillbox hat. Very nice.   There was a sign by the rack that said this was the last in the series. I looked at the sign with mixed feelings. I was sad,relieved and annoyed all at once. I was sad to see the series come to an end. I looked forward to seeing what the new ornament would look like each year. I was annoyed that they had stopped at 19. Couldn't they have at least stopped at 20? I don't like uneven numbers. I felt more relief than anything else though. I have a strict rule about doing any Christmas type shopping or decorating before Thanksgiving. If I

   I was looking at the news headlines online. One of them was about Trayvon Martin's family not accepting an apology from George Zimmerman. I didn't read the story. I had reached my limit quite awhile ago.   It didn't surprise me. I have been told that losing a child is the worst thing a person can go through. I would imagine that losing a child in a violent act would make it that much worse. I was a bit surprised that Mr. Zimmerman would say anything. He is a defendant in a criminal case and everything he says will be recorded and will be used against him in some form.   I started thinking about apologies. Maybe it is something that happens once you get past 40 or maybe I'm picking up C's love of pondering.   Some days it feel like I'm constantly apologising. I once told someone that I should carry a card that says, "I'm sorry" on it. A few months ago I began to wonder if maybe I was apologising too much. I think that "I'm sorry&quo

   A few weeks a go my boss handed me an email. There was going to be a mandatory meeting of staff pharmacists early the next week. They would hold this meeting at four different times and each staff pharmacist needed to choose one. I was steamed. I saw no reason for the staff pharmacists to meet. We never had in the past and no company that I had worked for had ever had staff pharmacist meetings.   One of the days clearly would not work for me. If I picked that day I would be working two 12 hour days in a row. The other day was my day off. I had planned to meet with my intern off site in the morning and to get other household tasks done in the afternoon. I sent an email to my district manager hoping that I could be excused from what I  thought would be a time wasting exercise. She told me to set another time with my intern. I gave in and told her which time I would attend. I also told her that I would be leaving promptly at the stated end time.   I wasn't happy with the meetin

  Today started out as a usual Tuesday morning. The alarm clock went off right at 5:30 am.  I laid in bed for a couple of minutes and then groped for my glasses. I slid out of bed and put my running gear on. Scamp and Colby were waiting for me in the living room. I picked up Scamp and cuddled him.   I went into the kitchen and turned on the light. My running shoes were in their usual spot. I put them on, put my ball cap on my head and unlocked the door. I pushed the button to open the garage door, it creaked and protested. Sort of like me. Most of the time I bounce out of bed and am wide awake, not this morning.   Before I start out on my run I like to stretch. I felt tired and stiff. After I got stretched out enough, I started on my usual warm up walk.    It was a beautiful morning. The sun was out and it was not too hot or too humid. I finished my warm up walk and began a slow run.   I've been running long enough that I no longer have to think about what I am doing. this le

   Unless you were in a coma or under a rock the past few days,you probably know that Katie Holmes has filed for divorce from Tom Cruise. I'm embarrassed to admit that even though I'm not a big fan of either of them, I keep reading the articles on the Internet about them.   I've read about the the speculation that Mr. Cruise's religion might have caused the split, that fact that Ms Holmes is going about town without her wedding ring and that Mr. Cruise turned 50 years old recently. I've read a bit about certain Scientology practices and read comments on whether Scientology is a religion or a cult. I've read that all Tom Cruise's wives divorced him when they turned 33.   There was one article that got the wheels in my head spinning. The article talked about how Tom Cruise started referring to his then girlfriend as "Kate" rather than "Katie" which is the name that she commonly uses. Cruise was quoted as saying, "Katie is a young g

   Bishop Campbell was back at Meeting last Sunday. He and his family had gone out west for a vacation. He mentioned that they had gone to Las Vegas and had walked a little on the Strip. It made me think of the time I was in Las Vegas.   It was a long time ago. A friend of mine had won a trip for two. The choices were Florida or Las Vegas. Since neither of us was really crazy about going to Florida, we chose Nevada. We would be there for three nights with a hotel and rental car.    We decided to take a long weekend in October. It was a nice flight and I remember thinking that the airport was pretty nice too. We got to our room and got settled in. Our plan was to spend one day on the Las Vegas Strip and one day in Death Valley. We would spend part of the last day at Hoover Dam.   I enjoyed walking around on the Strip. One of my hobbies is people watching and there was a lot of people on the Strip. We walked around all the casinos on the Strip at that time. There was the MGM Grand,