A Rude Awakening

This morning, I was the next to the last person picked from the audience to be a contestant on 'Jeopardy!'.

I was so excited. I made my way down the aisles and up the stage. I took my place behind the podium. I was ready to go.

And then P woke me up.

Dang it! I could have won MEGA BUCKS!!!

"grass smell pool"

If you add the word 'rotting' to the other three words in this post's title, you'll have the combination that I was googling late this afternoon.

"Why?," you might ask.

Let's just say that we (i.e. M) emptied out the pool in our backyard. As he slowly removed the vinyl from the spot it had occupied for most of the summer, a smell attacked our senses. Ah, it brought back memories of visits to the country. Yes, our backyard smells just like a cow pasture. Lovely.

We are hoping for a dry, hot week and that the neighbors don't sic the HOA on us.

The Wish That Wasn't

There I was, watching the night sky, trying to catch a glimpse of a shooting star or two. Having heard the hype about the meteor shower, we looked northeast at just past 10. Opened up my eyes wide, harnessed the peripheral vision, and tried to be part of the sky.

Was that one? There! That brief flash of light that cut across the sky like a paintbrush on fire?

Should I wish? If so, what should I wish for? World peace, while an admirable wish, is just a little too, I don't know, out there. A chocolate bar? Too trivial. What else? Something good but not too impossible, something just a little bit crazy.

Who am I kidding? I'm not going to come up with a decent wish when my eyelids are about to slam shut. I'm really just trying to stay awake, stare at the sky, and convince myself that I'm seeing chunks of stone and ice whizzing across my field of vision.

Then I saw another flash. I think that one was for real.

I didn't wish.

Red

True story.

I looked out the window at a blood-red moon as the airplane landed in Chicago O'Hare. I looked away and back again. Still red. I thought to myself: "Red??? I've never seen a red moon. Yellow, yes. White, yes. But red? What's up with that?" I got out of the airport and into a cab and looked up again. It was the same lightly yellow American cheese color that it usually is. Had my eyes been deceived? Was there some special filter in the airplane's windows?

Or was it an omen and, if so, of what?