The other morning, outside assisting a customer, and what a shock the one 80-foot long (fine, 10ft) box doesn’t fit in her Yaris hatchback.

Measuring tape, anyone? Anyone?

If you were picking up a package, wouldn’t you do some measuring?

So, there we are in our little conundrum, me freezing my ears off and about to say that she’ll have to leave it here and come back later, and out walks two contractors, notice the dilemma, her addy right on the box. Well, doesn’t one of them pipe up and say “well, we live in your neighbourhood, we can drop it off for you. No problem.”

Statuesque dizzy blond, I bet you have no problem.

Solved. I can go in and warm my ears up. Dang reluctant spring.

She turns to me and says: see, there is still hope left in the world.

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

Seems this current chaotic world we wake to every morn, sit down to with our coffees, ingest the morning news with a healthy heap of, and go off to our daily tasks to has made many, myself included, kind of all rather disappointed with our fellow humans.

Although, that said, the unexpected benefit would seem to be that it has encouraged many to look harder for the moments, brief though they may be, of hope and faith in one’s fellow human. They are there, every day, regardless of what it may say on the news. `

Events of late have tarnished our faith, certainly, hope has been degraded somewhat. And aside from the political or racial divide, if one topic is most likely to arise within a group of strangers, tis that oft-lamented thing, the disgusting selfishness of some of our kind. Their cruelty. Their greed. And apes in the zoo seem at times more compassionate than my fellow human.

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

There is this looming figure sitting in the oval office, and every single day looking out onto a wave of chaos, swirling, with his big giant stick, swirling and swirling it, adding more bias ingredients, confirming his followers worst fears, and revelling in the high level of anxiety his simple tweets ignite, loving every chaotic minute.

Policy by Tweeter, Senators who speak to their President only via news clips, twits all of them.

Personally, I keep my social media fairly simple. Facebook and WordPress, if a blog is considered social media, which I suppose it is. I hunt out for my news, I don’t rely on what I’m fed.

And no, I have no intention of cancelling my Facebook. I’ve been on the internet for over 25 years, and frankly, I’m not an idiot.

And, I don’t tweet, per se, or not in the way others do. I let WordPress do it for me. I more or less only have the account to forward this blog, plus once a week or so I pop in via my laptop, but I have really no interest otherwise, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually typed out a tweet myself.

Let us just say that pithy little 140 character sentences are not my cup o’tea. And, other than a complete lack of interest, it takes me longer to figure out how to say what I need to say in so few characters that I feel whatever I might be trying to say is worthy of. Basically, I really can’t be bothered with most social media, certainly not anything I would use with my almost 6-year-old cell, which is to say my phone is a slow & old piece of poop.

Oh, speaking of poop, the mouse came back. When I get home from work I will have to wash everything again, and get a trap, and at the moment generally fairly annoyed at the freeloading turd machine.

This mouse and the 45th have a lot in common.

Taking up an exorbitant amount of my time, causing me to feel this sense of anger, which in turn focuses my attention on the wrong things.

Anywho, enough of that.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version

If there is one thing I think that unifies most, it is that single word – hope. Hope for this, hope for that, hope this or that doesn’t happen, even when we know the chances are slim, we hope with all our meagre might. Hoping that lady in front of us in line isn’t a lottery person, and I can do something else that day than wait in line while she does all her annoying lottery stuff, but she does, and I force myself to stand still and zen out, hoping she doesn’t take T O O long picking her 1400 losing tickets.

That’s her hope for the day, I suppose. Though those shekels she wasted could no doubt have been spent on wiser ventures, random crap shoots seem to entice many so what do I know, never bought a lottery ticket in my life so have no clue what someone gets from it, other than less money.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein

One never gets something for nothing, there is always a cost. Well, maybe except smiles, and thank yous, and yes, maybe even hope, it too is free of charge.

So, let’s see, the mouse is going down, the President of the United States is a chaos clown, but, hope still springs eternal – somewhere out there, if you look.