The Blog Next Door

  I don't feel good today. I can't pin it down - lack of sleep,  creeping crud, buzz of ADD, or simple malaise.

It may just be the heat.  Jean and I are having something of a tug-of-war over the ceiling fans.  I like to keep them going, and she is constantly turning them off as she walks out the door or heads up to bed - whether by habit or because she thinks it's a waste of electricity, I'm not entirely clear.  Since I assume it's hotter upstairs where she sleeps, it's all a mystery to me. 

Or, it could be that today is my daughter's 25th birthday, and her car broke down in Albuquerque on the way to her new life at culinary school in Denver.  They wanted over $6,000 for repairs.  The car isn't worth that much, and she abandoned it.  She is laughing now but I hope Denver has a good bus system.

Whatever it is, I've given up on my To Do list.  Some days it's better to acknowledge that nothing will get done and let it go. 

Thus relieving my anxiety about what I ought to be doing - I thought I'd take a stroll.  It's too hot outside to walk the neighborhood, and the mall doesn't excite me.  Instead, albeit there's no exercise involved, I decided to take in the neighborhood wherein I blog.  There's a little "Next Blog" link at the top of my blog, and it looks like a doggy door to this pup. 

Wow, what a street I live on.  The first surprise was the number of blogs devoted to relationships with God.  There is a Malaysian nunnery and a couple of official church blogs, but there are also many quieter testimonies to the role of Diety in the lives of my neighbors.  I wonder if this is a coincidence, or if there are a predominance of believers among bloggers.  My own research tsk tsks me, so I guiltily push thoughts of what might be involved in researching that question out of my head.

My neighbors are both grappling with and celebrating life.  One neighbor's blog honors her father, who passed away in 2008.  Another blogs about her big happy adopted family - a veritable Sesame Street with its many small, diversely colored faces.  A third neighbor's blog is an ode to her will to survive a bout with cancer.  A fourth woman wrestles with her family's decision to use a surgical means of birth control in stark opposition to her faith's prescription for an endless stream of babies, and its stringent prohibition against prophylactics. 

My favorite gem in all of this was penned by Retty Hakim, who said this about herself:

"A mother of three boys, who is trying to grab the essence of life through blogging. Citizen journalism firing me to write. The internet has broken the limitation of my house walls and my hectic time schedule. It has opened my eyes to all those wonderful persons with all their own opinions. Sharing ideas and comments are the wonderful aspect of the internet that attract me. I hope that we are going to build a better world with better communication..."

I grok you, Retty. 

I took some photos on my stroll.  Come check out my neighborhood.