I haven't written much on my blogs all week. Haven't read much either. And I don't normally read fiction--other than children's books. However, three days of this week I took my granddaughters to the water park. And after two days of sitting beneath the cabana for hours upon hours doing nothing but watch moms and dads race after their toddlers, and listen to tweens giggle and gaggle about the opposite gender, I decided to read a mystery by Mary Higgins Clark while my granddaughters slipped and slithered on slides, then dove and floated on the lazy river. In Clark's book, there was this tiny little epigram I've heard through the years that popped out at me which I thought so true and worth sharing with ya'll:
"If you lay down with dogs, you can expect to get up with fleas."
I didn't lay down with any dogs lately, but on Monday I laid down in my hammock beneath my pecan trees and mused about life in general. I got up with a tick that latched onto my stomach and took a nibble. The thought of lyme's disease danced through my mind and at first it looked pretty nasty. But after a couple of days with occasional dips in that heavily doctored chlorine water I spoke of earlier, the spot lightened and stopped itching.
If you find yourself feeling a bit irritated, annoyed, or have been bitten by something nasty, I'd say a trip to the water park would help clear your mind and lighten your load if you take along a mystery book and get away from the computer awhile. It's best not to read stuff that bugs you; at least, it's that way for me. I find that way I won't get bit by buggy-brained folks bent on fictionalizing every word a person writes in the blogosphere. Seriously. Sometimes folks are so consumed and paranoid about anyone who doesn't agree with them that suspicion reigns in their hearts and minds and they can't understand a word anyone writes without painting it every shade of a storm-ladened sky--very like the twists and turns and various plots Mary Higgins Clark creates with ease. Life is indeed stranger than fiction sometimes, isn't it? selahV
