As I eased the trusty Camry into the parking space at the family owned grocery store that is my daily pit stop, I spotted something that caught my eye. The store is next door to a hotel that rents by the week to crack heads and on the main business route out of town. Most of the customers use their food stamp card but many come because it's easier than going to the mega-giant chain places on the other side of the burg. This store has been a fixture in my life since I was a little kid stopping with my Mama on the way home in the afternoons. The owners are an elderly man and his son who is about my age. They run weekly specials on viennas and bacon and treat everybody with respect in spite of the fact that the crack heads insist on breaking out the door once a month. When I walked in after taking the pic, a man in line at the register beamed as he asked me " Did you get his picture?" I asked him if that was his dog and he proudly replied yes.

Ya'll say hello to Bear :) Don't know about his bite, but his bark is fierce!

I've got the weekend shifts at the day job so I'm being a good smartass and staying in to do laundry and rest my old bones. If I had to use one word to describe Pecan Lane these days it would be golden. Can't remember the last autumn that all the trees changed color in unison so I'm like a kid in a candy store gettin' off on the kaleidoscope. Babygirl now has the dreaded dove flu that kicked my ass for two solid weeks IN ADDITION TO her nice little head bonk. When it rains, it pours, huh? I'm sure you get the drift, but I am so proud of that girl I could bust....and the cool thing she's proud of herself! She works full-time on the graveyard shift and commutes to college an hour away studying for a social work degree. The amazing thing is that she counts her blessings while recounting the hardships of her classmates, like the woman who lives TWO hours away from campus and has two teenagers plus a job.

One last thing. Get thee to WallyWorld and buy this. My favorite track? How Long That'll be my next karaoke number.

Ya'll keep the faith. ^j^