LOVE DON’T PAY THE BILLS

Look for a person with a big ❤ not a big house, or fancy car -as it was told to me a very long time ago… @ best, men and women are cut from the same piece of cloth (as much as certain would like to think otherwise) – @ best, from different ends! Men want things, women want things -and however meritorious one sides wants may appear to be (over the others), the flaw in both instances is “self-serving” by nature! Oh sure, many women want a monogamous relationship (unlike many of their counterparts). Sounds like a beautiful thing right? But what else do they want? Many women want to live well. Some flat-out want to look good (in their partners car, on their arm… -hey, don’t look at me, the fact that women are highly competitive, and egotistic -I got that from talking to other women).

Many women think men are stupid when it comes to understanding a woman -that is, figuring out what they’re up to. The weaker of the species always has to rely on intellect and/or cunning. Well they’re not gonna win in brute force.

People in the town I live in… call it racist, call it biased, call it prejudiced, call it gender-bias, age-bias… I see a lot of males in this town within a certain age group that act with hate towards one another, or contempt! They don’t act that way with children and they don’t act that way with the elderly. And I see the exact same thing with a large group of women in this town as well. They put up a front door a wall that’s not there with children and with the elderly. I see a lot of women drop that wall, but not (necessarily) the front with other women -peers. These are simple observations I’ve made over the past 35 years living here. Whenever I walk out my front door -and see my first human-being, I always wonder what I’m going to get; a smile, ignored… about 98% of the time I get ignored. I don’t experience these kind of lawpsided numbers when we go to California or to West Virginia -how did I ever end up in a place like this?

I notice a lot of times when a couple or a family are standing at the crosswalk and I stopped to let them pass – The man will say thank you and the woman will just walk past as if she’s entitled. Maybe we ought to work on that in this community.

I remember we (Ana and I) went to a ball game with my brother – Chargers versus Raiders, make that raiders versus Chargers as the Chargers were the home team for that game. After the big riot we proceeded to the vehicle and pull out of the parking lot – This woman steps out in front of the vehicle with her nose in the air, doesn’t bother to look either way or make eye-contact and communicate… my brother made the comment “She thinks she’s entitled”. Hey, he said it I didn’t! But I remember many times seeing the same scenario played out in my own town. The question is why? Why do people act this way? And why are an inordinate number of them women? Is it a cultural thing? As in the United States! Why do so many women refuse to acknowledge, or even use simple basic mannerisms when dealing with men? Years ago I told a woman she seemed bitter. Her reply “You men make us that way”. In another incident, I was at the Sam’s Club one day with Ana. This woman was coming down the aisle with a couple of teenage daughters… There was something about the look on her face that was reminiscent of women where I live as women as we were visiting the neighboring city that afternoon. So I was a little bit slow and moving out of the way from where I was standing as she approached me with her cart – She made no effort to slow down and I jumped out of the way and turned to her and said “you almost hit me”. Her reply, “I’m not waiting on no man”. This is the kind of attitude I encounter quite often in my area though it seldom reaches this to this level… What I’ve learned over the years is that there’s far too many of them to address!

Ana and I went to the Walmart here in town recently – We approached one of the aisles and there were a couple of different people coming from different directions. One young lady, Hispanic, about 38 years old looked at the 2 of us as we waited to allow her to pass -snubbed her nose at the two of us and walked past without so much as a thank you. The interesting thing is I had the same thing happen about 2 weeks earlier and I had already mentioned that story to her previously. For those of you who are what thinking I’m a woman hater… I’ll just say this, with regard to the bitterness and attitude of many of the women in this local area I must confess that from what I observed and heard through the years, many men in this area do not treat women with due respect. I have to confess, is an angry young man with very few scruples, I too am guilty of contributing to some of that bitterness and anger. 😔

I’ve never met a woman who deserved to get hit but I’ve met plenty who have who have asked for it! Some women provoke men into anger relying on the fact…. Daring them to…!! That’s not very smart! If I have an issue with a man much larger than me, depending on the circumstances I’m going to think twice about getting into a tussle – My old man once told me “choose your battles carefully -you don’t want to lose an eye for no good reason”.

All of these issues I’ve brought up come down to one thing – What do we do about them!

I MISSED AGAIN

Awareness can be a good thing! Self-awareness can be a good thing… when used for such things as self-accountability, humility… But when they are used to inflame our egos or to stand in judgment over others… I notice that quite often in the little town I live in, people are very aware -and very self-aware… however, in many instances, these people are neither humble nor unselfish… They’re leery, and very quick to stereotype!*

*Having lived in this town for some 35 years I noticed a lot of hispanics are racist against their own race. I notice a lot of Hispanic women dating dating white men. I noticed a lot of Hispanic women dating white men. I even knew a Hispanic woman who flat out admitted she refused to date Hispanic men. I believe it had something to do with her father and her mother’s marriage -and his conduct? A lot of Hispanic men in this area are known for their infidelity and their tempers. A lot of women in this area who have been married and have and have children have given up on men altogether and gone to women 🤷‍♂️ Between the men in this town who are servicing multiple women (a by-product of “machismo”)* and the women in this town who have gone lesbian….. Let us just say I’ve been single for 4 1/2 years and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.

*Women have a certain standard when it comes to men that only about 10% of the male population realistically live up to. And another 30% are pretenders….. And these are the men women have a tendency to gravitate towards. The 10% of course are legit, and honest – which is part of the reason they’re legit. That other 30%, the faker’s… they have a complex, and are out for whatever they can get, as often as they can get it -any way they can get it. So what you have are a bunch of women running around satisfied by men like this -running around, acting like they don’t need anything, or anyone… Then slowly coma as they come to find out in certain cases… they become bitter. But it’s our own fault for insisting on the type of guy… They don’t want a regular guy who in many cases happens to be honest and humble.They try to go for the cream of the crop -and get burned -whenever we place ourselves ahead of others… 🤔

Well anyways, what happens in a community such as this is you get an over abundance of women who perceive themselves as being satisfied and which develop an attitude of “I don’t need anything or anyone”. Or, you end up with an abundance of women who have been burned and with an attitude of “screw men”. I see both running around here all the time. Why do you think I’m single 🤷‍♂️ I make no effort whatsoever to compete with these men with their fancy perfume their fancy cars and their fancy clothes. And you know what, women hardly notice me! Oh well, just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you’re getting!

•Title credited to song of same name: “I Missed Again” is a song from Phil Collins‘s debut solo album, Face Value (1981). Writer(s): Phil Collins.

THINK WHAT YOU WILL

I get a lot of mixed responses of late with regard to my sharing in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know I have my own mixed opinions about myself. But I’ll never forget what my sponsor of 14 years, Granville, once told me, “Richard, of all the people I’ve sponsored through the years, you’ve come the furthest.” 🤔 Of course Gran was also known for his “two-sides-of-the-coin” sense of humor lol In that particular instance though, I’d like to think that with all the afternoon’s we spent struggling together with my disappointments and ingratitude regarding what I had really been given… that he saw something in me that made it all worthwhile in the end ☺

This past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about about the issues I’ve been having with people in the meeting. Some rather negative feedback…. A few minutes ago I thought about Granville -Hoping somewhere up there, he’s smiling down on me (and that somehow, through all of this, I’m on the right track). So I asked God, and then flipped the penny -Heads it twer! 🙂

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN’

For some time I was having trouble with my blue ray player. The Wi-Fi wouldn’t stay connected. Ana was even nice enough to bring me another blue ray player but it did not have Wi-Fi 😏

I fussed with the one I had for a couple of months at least. Then one day I decided to call Sony and have them assist with troubleshooting it. They put me through several troubleshooting procedures… None of which seemed to work. The recommendation, go find the store to have it fixed since the warranty was out on it. So I figured I’ll just keep reconnecting it with the password… Anyways, the following day I went to my buddy’s pawn shop and looked around like I usually do and in the front case there was this little gadget that caught my attention. I asked Daniel what it wasn’t he said it was a roku. He said they were about $45 at the store and he’d give it to me for 30 🙃. So I fussed around back-and-forth for a bit with a couple of other items, a Leatherman wave, something else which I can’t recall, Oh, it was a Chicago Blackhawks hoodie. Well Betty decided to give me the roku for 10 bucks -yippee!!! So I brought it home, set it off to the side and decided to watch TV from the blue ray (YouTube, Tubi… the usual) – But I couldn’t get the Wi-Fi to stay connected on the blue ray. A. Apparently when we did the troubleshooting through Sony, the problem only worsened. So I thought 🤔 guess I better hook up the roku to the TV -2hich I did.. I found out very quickly that I could do nothing without a remote…. So I called Betty back to see if they had a remote there that I could buy…………………. She said she had one sitting in front of her with the the pawnshop tag sticker on it for $29.95 and that it went with the roku she sold me for $10 lol she tried to sell me the remote I said well what are you talking about it goes with it. She chirped, I just told you that roku for $10 it’s $29.95. I said oh come on it’s too late for that lol. I told her I’ll be right down to pick it up and I’ll bring it candy bar has a bribe!! So I took her to candy bar and I brought back the remote and the roku has been working perfect ever since. Inspirit you see things like this God does for me all the time. How many things does he do that I never notice? How many times did my actions interfere with him doing these very things many times in the past? Now tell me something, is that perfect timing or what? I didn’t have to skip A-day of watching TV via WI-FI!

OK another miracle – Tonight it’s Friday night. Last Saturday, or Sunday I went down to the big bookstore and picked up my 2 James bond box-sets with 6 of each in them. Vol7me 1 and 2. I put them on hold at the local bookstore the day before. When I went to go pick them up the following day, somebody had switched one out. It’s switched out “Diamonds are Forever” for Tomorrow Never Dies”. So I decided to go back over to the bookshelf where there were thousands of DVD’s and see if I could find that other missing DVD. I started looking at the 1st at the 1st bookcase and then the 2nd and then a woman started talking to me while I was humming the song living let die. We talked for 45 minutes to an hour and towards the end of that conversation I turned and tried to find that DVD not even remembering which one it was. All I had to go by was the binding on the DVD cover had a one and a 1/2 inch picture of sean or of Sean Connery or Roger Moore on it. So I went through hundreds and hundreds of DVD’s only going by that little picture on the spine with no idea what section of the alphabetized… I was looking for. So I started at a and work myself through the alphabet. Anyways it’s anyways this woman and I continued talking it was getting late and I was getting hungry and her husband was asking her to get going… so I started to peer between her and the 3rd bookshelf trying to find the movie I was looking for -which I had no idea what I was looking for lol Suddenly, for some strange reason I turned over my shoulder and looked at the 2nd or 3rd shelf of the 4th bookcase the bookcase and 010 on 2 DVD cases in the midst of 30 or 40 on that particular shell, among several hundred on that particular bookcase. Before my eyes could even focus I found myself going back-and-forth between these 2 particular DVD’s for some unknown reason. As my eyes began to focus I went from the right DVD case to the left and and saw a picture of James bond, Sean Connery on the spine of the DVD case – It was diamonds are forever. It was at that moment that I recalled seeing that movie in the set yesterday. God! So we got that wrapped up but there were a couple of duplicates dvds in the set – One was “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and the other was thunderball. I kind of wondered what the other DVD’s were that should have been in the set. Anyways when I got home and started going through them and cleaning…. I started going down the row of them while they were in the Box set and thought one of them was “For Your Eyes Only” -a definite favorite of mine. But it wasn’t, it turned out to be “Dr. No”. Well guess what? Well over at my buddy’s pawn shop earlier today I was paying on a layoway and for a brief moment got side tracked and decided to flip through some movies. Guess what I found in the 1st place I looked, the movie behind the movie first in the row? “For Your Eyes Only”. And I don’t know if there are multiple versions of this movie on DVD but this one had the picture of Roger Moore in the back and when I slithered it into the Box-set where I pulled out 1 of the “Thunderball” duplicates, the picture of Roger Moore on the spine fit perfectly along side “View to a Kill”, “Octopussy”, and “Live and Let Die”. God once again! Yahoo!!!! What a way to start off the weekend -THANK YOU LORD!!!! 🙆‍♂️

Bonus: Couple years ago, I decided to buy some corn dogs for my neighbor who happens to work for the Wal-mart I shop at. The 30 ct. box runs $8.97. There was no price on the shelf they were on -the nearest tag was $3.97. Anyways, I asked an associate for help who turned out not to be much help (normally they price-match). So, when I got to the register there was an issue with the barcode – 🤔 long-story-short… without even asking, the associate in self-checkout punched it in at $4.00. WHEN WE THINK OF OTHERS GOD ALWAYS… My Grammie had a saying “YOU CAN’T OUTGIVE GOD!”

One day, @ Wally-world (Wal-mart), I was looking @ basketballs. I spotted one on the shelf @ $14.97. When I took it to the register it scanned $49.97. But the manager on duty refused to honor the price -so I went and got another which was a çno-inflate instead. It was also in the wrong place -regular price $38.97 and got it for $19.97. Anyways, when I got home and took it out of the Box and noticed it had no place to put a needle in it to air it up. To make matters worse, the the writing on the Box said guaranteed for one year not to go flat. So I thought to myself what happens after a year if you can’t fill it up with air? So I took it back! They asked if I wanted to get another one and I said yes. So back once again to the basketball section…. I saw that same ball I had wanted a couple of days before, in the wrong place again…. (But the ball in the box didn’t look right* -I checked another ball in the same box next to it, it looked the same so I figured oh well, it’s OK) “Wilson Evolution”. When I took it up to the register it scanned at $14.97 instead of $49.97 (🤷‍♂️ so I never even got to tell them it was on the shelf with a sticker price of $14.97 or $19.97 ->@ this point…. 🤔 lol) This particular item had a bar code on the ball itself and that’s what they scanned. After I paid for the item I went back to the basketball section thinking thinking that ball did not belong in that Box. The Box had “Evolution” on it but the ball itself was not. So, I went back over and looked at the other boxes again to be sure. What happens next is really interesting, because it never happens-not in the town I live in any ways… A young man who happened to be working the Sporting Goods section happened by, stopped and asked me if I needed anything – to top it all off, he was a baller too! I told him “I had just bought this ball but that the ball inside the Box didn’t look right”. He took one look at the ball, looked up at the shelf above the section where I had gotten my ball, grabbed another Box with the right ball in it and switched them out right there on the spot! GOD!!!!! 🙏

* As it turns out, there were several balls in the wrong boxes. Which I had pointed out to a supervisor a couple of days earlier. For whatever reason, they were $14.97 balls Inboxes that were supposed to add supposed to have balls with greater prices pricing. $49.97 and $38.97 and so forth. I don’t know if someone was buying balls and then switching them out with cheaper ones and returning them…. But I felt I should point it out to the store and on the last. God always appreciates honesty! Although I’m not necessarily real pleased about my motives.. I hate doing a good deed with “what’s in it for me” in mind. I think that particular day, I was a little resentful of the manager the day before, not wanting to honor the price on the basketball that was shelved, or boxed incorrectly.**

**I learned a long time ago that there are many different kinds of people in the world. If one manager tells you “no” go to another one, and quite possibly they will tell you “yes”. I’m going to different people in stores, I’ve talked to different people on eBay…. Explain the exact same situation to two different peeps… Had one show no empathy or sense of fairness whatsoever… while another flat out said “Oh no, we need to do something about that!” Some people are great, others not so much! Some people seem to care, others not so much! 🤷‍♂️

OUR FATHER

While Jesus was down here He spent many hours in A-day alone in prayer and meditation (to continually rely on His Heavenly Father for strength, direction, connection. That being the case -how much do you suppose we require? 🤷‍♂️ I mean if this God-man had requirements in order to… then what of us?

If they (we) did to Jesus what they (we) did, what can we expect?