Even if nobody asked:
1. My mom’s favorite all-time book was The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. All 700 pages of it. She pestered me to read it, but I was 17 and just couldn’t pull the trigger. Well, mom got a stomachache on August 11th that year and drew her last breath on her 48th birthday, just 14 days later. I cracked the Thorn Birds the day after the funeral. Of my top-100 books, it checks in at #5. Mostly because it is worthy, but partly in honor of a mother who lit a passion for reading in her son, one that lives on nearly 50 years later. (Book #4 next week)
2. The Celtics are like a great baseball team that lacks a closer. Maybe even a great football team with a crappy FG kicker. “Late and close” are the Celtics Kryptonite. And if not corrected, June will become the cruelest month.
3. A group of us had been praying recently for a 30-year-old girl who needed a heart transplant. God delivered a couple of weeks ago and she’s doing well. A 10-year-old son of one of our prayer warriors then asked: “If Olivia has a new heart does that mean she loves different people now?” Outstanding!
4. Quote I’m thinking about: “If you set children to an activity that they enjoy and reward them for doing it, the reward REDUCES the enjoyment and DEMOTIVATES them. Within a few seconds you transform play into work.” Wow.
5. I’m not watching The Dynasty (Patriots documentary on Apple TV). I like my nostalgia served cold, really cold. I can’t look back on the “good old days” when they happened five minutes ago.
6. So it rained a lot this week. Or did it? To think, in 1979 a tropical storm deluged the town of Alvin, Texas with 45 inches of rain in 24 hours. A Philippine typhoon once dropped 74 inches in 24 hours! But imagine vacationing in Silver Hill, Jamaica the four days it rained 97 inches! That’s eight feet.
7. If you’ve lost something and finally find it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you FIRST looked for it. (HT: Kevin Kelly)
8. I once spent five years as a single dad with custody of my two young children. I was running my own business and I’m a guy, so I needed a housekeeper three days a week (don’t judge!). One day I came home to find ‘Mary’ had rearranged all the furniture in my kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom. Odd but thoughtful? Anyway, a week later, she quit, telling me her boyfriend was concerned she had ‘feelings for me’. Say what? “Well, I did move the furniture to where I’d want it if I moved in.” Her replacement was 70 years old but didn’t look a day over 85, I swear.
9. How did I not know the president of Ukraine also plays the lead in Paramount’s, Mayor of Kingstown series?
10. If you do not empty the lint screen (or even know what that is), you risk starting a fire in your house, maybe even one that sends you and your children hurling into the street on a cold April night during the NCAA basketball championship game. Or so I’ve heard. (Point #7 offers clarification)