"There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?" - Woody Allen

Anybody else see a problem here?

Decades ago people went to the freak show alley of the circus to see physically and mentally deformed people, but as a society we decided that was cruel and demeaning. So the freak shows were shut down. 

Now we put them on TV with shows like Hoarders and Freaky Eaters. 

Hey, it's so much more convenient to stare at them when they can't see us, and we get to do it without leaving the house. 

The next week is going to be hot even by Phoenix standards. In Michigan temps in the "teens" come in January and February. Here when they say "teens" it involves three digits and means working in the garage on a car may or may not happen. And bike rides better be done by 8 a.m.

A week or so ago in a conversation with my dad I mentioned how many families we'd have gone on vacation over the next few weeks. He asked if we get vacationers visiting Pathway to help balance that out. Uhm...no. Nobody vacations in Phoenix in the summer. 

Which is why we were about half our normal size this morning. The preacher's expended energy is inversely proportional to the number of people in attendance. He works a lot harder in an effort to overcome the natural, i.e. understandable reduced energy in the room when attendance is down. 

I have a 2.5 day solo drive from here to the Seattle airport. I'll leave on the 6th so I can be there to meet her 9 a.m. flight on the 8th. I like cross-country driving but there are stretches of the trip, like across the desert of western AZ and some stretches of central CA where there's either no radio reception or nothing but country western "music." So I'm going to the library and see if I can find books on CD that I can listen to as I drive. I've never listened to books before so I don't know if I'll like it, but it should help keep me awake for two long days on the freeway. I need to be at least on the north side of Portland by that Friday morning, which would leave me almost three hours to the airport. 

I'm assuming fiction will work better at keeping my mind engaged. Non-fiction would be like listening to NPR. 

There isn't any NPR through the CA central valley. BRC, but no NPR. 

I've just eaten what I think the government would consider four servings of chocolate chip cookies. But it's Sunday night and I don't care!