Goodnight wants to change her name . . .

Last evening, at dinner, Goodnight asked me if she could change her name . . . . to Jelly Bean.  She laughed until she nearly fell off her chair and I scrunched up my face and marveled at the complexity of the human mind – or the simplicity – whichever is appropriate under these circumstances.

What’s to say?  That’s how it goes around our house sometimes.

She’ll be popular around Easter time, I suppose.

Tomorrow:  Goodnight auditions for the Drama Club production.  If she gets a major role, it’s not going to be pretty:  “Come one, come all!  Jelly Bean right here on our stage . . . . “

At least sometimes when I go to bed tired . . . . it’s from laughing.

The 6th Light

I taught myself a lesson in patience this week.  It isn’t one of my strong suits, so I work on it, but those darn traffic lights . . .

While driving to work on Monday, I pulled up to a traffic light just as it got to the end of the yellow.  I had to stop and that’s all well and good.  But it’s a LONG wait for the green.  The intersection actually controls six directions because it is situated at an underpass of a freeway and there are off- and on-ramps included in the turn-taking.

I don’t always openly show my impatience, but not showing it doesn’t mean I’m not impatient.  On Monday, however, instead of the impatience, I looked at the time to see how long it took to get around to green again.  I could do that because I was right there when the yellow changed to red.

Not having a stop watch, the best I could do was look at the clock on the dashboard.

It was nearly, but not quite, two minutes.  Hmmmm . . . . it always feels longer than that.

I decided in the scheme of things, that I didn’t need to feel impatient anymore.  Even though I seldom get a green light at that intersection, Monday was only the first time I had to wait from the end of the yellow until my turn came around.  Two minutes isn’t so long after all.

I have eleven traffic lights to deal with on my commute.  None of them take as long as the 6th light.  I have never been late for work in twenty-two years because I allow more than plenty of time for the drive.  So even if I hit the full ‘nearly two-minute’ light again, I won’t let it get to me.

What took me so long, eh?

On my behalf, though, I haven’t always taken that route.  I only added that route within the last two years and as I said, I never had to wait the FULL light before.  But I’m not going to balk at lessons in patience when I get them handed to me!