Simply a funny thing that is happening in my life today is that I am preparing -- I have to go to the grocery store to prepare for a picnic that I've prepared for three times. This picnic is with people who I just met at an event recently and so I don't know them. And for some reason, I just simply thought this picnic was two weeks ago. We originally scheduled it for last Friday and then I thought it was the Friday before that to the point where I like bought everything and was ready and like had planned kind of my day around like that I would need to be here at this time. And then no one had said anything in our group chat and that felt a little weird. And then I looked back at our text and realized I had been the one who even proposed the date, and that the date was not that Friday. So then I actually just called a different friend and we had our own little picnic and that was great.  And then the correct Fri- -- oh, sorry, the correct Friday rolls around and I again prepare, but we've been talking about it. We've even, like, talk about who's bringing what snacks, so I'm feeling good. It makes sense. I'm ready. I have all my snacks. I actually get to like the picnic spot really early because I just wanted to enjoy the park that it's in. Uh, and then I get a text that people had to cancel. So then I also called a different person, was like, "Would you like to come join my solo picnic? 'Cause now I am extra sad and sitting here." And that person did after a while. But I had like a three-hour long solo picnic, which was both great and kind of sad. And now I have to go grocery shopping again to buy snacks again for this picnic because I keep eating the snacks I buy between each event. All these people, they have not had this experience. So this is not a three week long, three grocery store trip saga. That's just a me problem.

One of my former students came up to me after church and he put his arm around me and he said, "I have to tell you that every time I see you, regardless of what the situation is, all I can think of is ‘hot dog.’" And I started to laugh and I said, "That's okay, because when I see you, I think of hot dogs." And we both sat there and laughed and other people were walking around us thinking, "What in the heck are they laughing about?" But this is what we were laughing about. His commercial was -- he was the hot dog and the product was Metchup, a combination of ketchup and mustard for all your picnic needs. He dressed up as a hot dog and he laid on the floor and another kid poured ketchup and mustard and -- coming out of one bottle, so it was this kind of orangey pukey looking stuff. Okay, so the kid's dressed in a red stocking cap for the end of the hot dog that sticks out of the bun. He's made a brown paper bun, he has on red clothes and he's wrapped in Saran wrapping and he has goggles on because he knows he's gonna get covered with this Metchup stuff. The -- he has one of those giant bottles of Heinz ketchup and he has taken out some of it and has put in mustard, so what comes out looks yech. Anyway, so they do the whole speaking part, and at the end, of course, he's supposed to be -- the other kid is supposed to pour the Metchup on him. Well, the lid was not screwed well on -- on well. And when that kid turned the bottle upside down and kinda pushed it, all of the Metchup went all over my classroom, went all over the kid, went all over everything. We had laid garbage bags down on the floor because we knew there was gonna be some on the floor. That wasn't the problem. We could have mopped that up. It went all over, it splurted, and it went over the walls, it went -- some of it was running down the chalkboard, it was just, like, everywhere. So we all cleaned up, everybody helped, we all cleaned up, but we knew we didn't get it all, we went to lunch thinking,…

So the house that I grew up in, um, was probably built in the late 1800s. It was called the balloon frame house. And the local town doctor said that -- he had a newspaper 'cause he was really into history -- said that our house is like, the first -- either the first one in the town or we're -- the first one in like the area, and that everything around it was farmland. And then when I was growing up, it's like, obviously there were other -- it was like a little town, so like other houses around it and stuff. And they didn't have plumbing back then, so -- and this is -- okay, so I was born in ’85, and so this is like -- my, my childhood was like before every house had internet and computers and cell phones and everything. So, little town, a whole lot of retirees. Not a, not a whole lot of kids. And then my mom was very strict and kind of a little bit of a hermit, kind of. Um, so not a lot of going out. Um, and then we had one TV in the house and, you know, she was -- had mental issues, so it's like it was always whatever she wanted to watch, for the most part. So like when I would go outside, there wasn't a whole lot to do. We had -- I had a swing set, and for a while, we had like an above ground pool, and I had toys and stuff. Um, but -- I don't know why but oh, I think probably because I watched Indiana Jones and then Jurassic Park, but -- so I took a shovel and next to our back porch, I was digging a hole. And eventually I found a glass bottle. And I was like, "Holy crap!" Like, "I found treasure!" And, um, so my parents didn't like the fact that I was digging a hole, but at the same time, I was finding stuff. And so what we think it was is like back in the day, you didn't have dump trucks, you know, so you would get stuff from the store and you would use it, and you would reuse what you could, and then you just buried or burned what, you know, what was left over. And so it was probably…

So technically not this week but last week, I got to see the aurora borealis outside -- like right outside my house. Um, like in my driveway, sitting on the concrete freezing. Cuz that's just kinda how this works, you know? Um, I, um, I got to see the aurora borealis and that was, like, that was pretty awesome. I, I didn't get to see it next -- um, last time. I didn't get to the main one, the main one that like a bunch of people saw. Which I suppose if I was able to see, um -- well, I don't know because I didn't -- we didn't have enough light where I was and then the next day I went to see it but I couldn't see it from, you know, where I was and then people who the other night had driven up to the middle of nowhere saw it. It was kind of a -- it was a letdown the next day. It was also cloudy too, which pretty much happened this time too. Oh! So I was grateful I got to see it and had some really, really nice photos of it.

So I took my very first paycheck and I walked -- I took my little sister to walk with me to our credit union. So, we went in -- I took my little sister in, I went in and deposited the $13.75. We stepped out of the bank, and adjacent to the bank on the other side of the dri- driveway into the shopping center, was Kenny's Drive In. That's the whole corner of that shopping center. And the french fry -- the smell of the french fries was wafting through the air. It was so strong we smelt it all the way at the bank. I looked at my little sister. She's five years younger than me. I was thirteen, so she was eight years old. And she, she just looked up at me and I know she loves french fries. So we were -- I was holding her hand 'cause you know, she's little and she walked with me to the bank. So I took her back in -- I immediately -- I just right away took her back into the bank. I withdrew 75 cents. And I walked her over to Kenny's Drive In and bought her her french fries. So that's how I spent my first paycheck buying my little sister french fries.

So, my mom and I were at an estate sale and -- I was older, but for some reason, I remember feeling a little sullen. I guess when I think about being sullen, I think about myself as a teenager, but I was much older. I think I was just really tired and it was super picked over, so I didn't really wanna be there. But I was half-heartedly looking around and also on my phone and not paying a ton of attention, but I found this box that had a couple of Beanie Babies in it and I was bored. So I googled the Beanie Babies and it showed that if the tag had this specific misprint that they could be really expensive or worth a lotta money. So I looked and it had the misprint and I'm continuing to go down the rabbit hole to see how much they might sell for. And some of them are listed on eBay for like 7,000 dollars. There was one that was listed for 30,000 dollars. So I was like sweating all of a sudden.  So I grabbed the Beanie Babies and they had written the price on the back of the tag -- which, barbarians. I don't know what they were thinking. But right away, I was like even if this was the very specific valuable thing that probably would ruin it but I'll just get these. And I got really squirrely so I was like, "Mom, we gotta, we gotta get out of here." And she was like, "Okay. Like what -- I don't -- what do you --?" And I was acting like I'd stolen something and so I grab the Beanie Babies and I go pay and I think they were maybe two dollars to begin with and then they were half off. So I spent two dollars total and I'm thinking, this might be my retirement or, you know, a really nice vacation. And as you can imagine there's really not a market anymore for Beanie Babies. So, I'm trying to remember now. I think I did post one of them. There's two that I had googled, one that was like consistently selling at really a high price. The other one was quite expensive, but it was selling more along lines of like 800 dollars, which is still a lotta money. But I think I posted…

A former player of mine -- I coached for 10 years, largely throughout college. But a former player of mine died recently. Dropped dead about five months before his wedding. He was engaged to be married. He was healthy, or appeared to be, and he just dropped dead. Age 31, he was gone. And of course, it's brutal. It's all of the things. But one of the silver linings, I guess, was having the chance to reconnect with so many people that I hadn't seen for many many years for his funeral. Which, it just -- it feels weird to say, like, "Yeah, the good news about his funeral is..." Um, but you know, it really was something that like -- it made me think, like, I'm sure that wasn't a unique experience. I haven't lost a lot of people in my age range at this point. And of course 31 is even, uh, before my age range. But I know it's not a unique story, but, uh -- and maybe that's what funerals are supposed to do, to bring us all together and remember that we have each other while paying respects to those we have lost. And so being able to see so many familiar faces from all my years in, in basketball in my, in my home town -- people I hadn't seen in over 10 years, in some cases 15, and some I hadn't even spoken to on the internet even, through social media or otherwise, in almost just as long -- it was, um, good. It was healing. It was a lot of things. And you know, it certainly helped, uh, helped me cope with the loss of someone special.