Drop Down and Give Me Ten!

Greetings fellow Network of Love Lovers!

It's Monday afternoon, the sky is pondering gloom and I'm sitting in a kind of dark room. (Talk about a pathetic batch of rythms. Dr. Suess would praise me for the effort, but probably laugh at me for the lack of imagination behind rythming afternoon, gloom, and room. But I digress).

How is everyone doing? Good, I hope! For all of you in Milwaukee, let's pull through this terrible dose of weather together...looking through the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning, I noticed a picture of people in Oak Creek, a suburb of Milwaukee, literally canoing through what is supposed to be a street. These kind of events maybe give us just a glimpse, and by gimpse I mean to say that we are able to peek through the tiniest of cracks in the door, of the type of devastation that natural disasters can and have inflicted upon the people of our world. Seeing the photo of people in boats, I sort of think of what happened in Burma and what happened in the Gulf Coast only a few years ago. Thankfully, the city of Milwaukee is out on full force to de-water the streets. I saw trucks yesterday doing their water sucking thing. Not something you see on a regular basis.

Yesterday (in between the torrential rain falling in the Milwaukee area), I managed to find a little sun and go for a run. I'm one block away from the church I'm staying at for the summer and waiting at a stoplight to cross. Though I've got my headphones on, I hear a guy's voice calling "hey you!" The voice repeats several times. Sweaty, tired, and ready for water, I really didn't want to deal with anyone at this moment.
I take my headphones off and ask him what's up. He looks at me with a real, real straight face and tells me to drop and give him 10 (pushups, that is). As I move down to follow the command, I see a little smile break on his face. I do the 10 pushups per his request, finish, jump back up and tell him thanks and have a great day. He smiles and nods. The light turns green and I finish my run, and I forget that I'm tired and sweaty and probably a bit dehydrated. Instead, there's a smile on my face from my drill sergeant-prankster friend.

Cheers to all of you who keep a sense of humour throughout your day and show it off even to complete strangers. It's a hard thing to do, and for all of you that can do it, you keep the rest of us sane and smiling.

peace and with love,

your friend bob.