Things that make me smile

There are the antics of Sam. He continues to act like a crazy cat sometimes. He will meow from the top of the stairs when I’m downstairs. He’ll do this if I’ve been on the computer for a long time. He doesn’t like it when I’m on it for hours at a time. Anyway he meows at the top of the stairs several times until I get to the bottom of that stairs and I ask what’s wrong. He them makes a murumph and runs down the hall. I am then expected to chase after him.

So we run into the front bedroom. I chase him around for a while and then he darts down the hall to my bedroom. He’ll slow down just enough so I almost catch him and then he darts away. We’ll do this for 10 or 15 minutes until Sam grows bored of it and lies down and starts grooming himself. Essentially he’s dismissed me to go back to my computer.

Lately Metro has made me smile too. But not in the same way that Sam does. Monday morning I was walking to the Rhode Island Ave stop. At least three trains went through the station going in the opposite direction I needed to go. This is never a good sign. It means somewhere there is a back up.

I got on to the platform and it was packed with people. Again not a good sign. There was of course no sort of announcement from Metro about what was going on. The first going downtown finally pulled into the station. It was of course completely packed with people. And of course people tried to get on the packed cars. That was my first smile. What were people thinking.

The train pulled out. A couple of minutes later another one pulled in. Not completely stuffed with people like the last one but not much room either. The train operator said not to overcrowd the train (as if that would work) and then added another train was directly behind this one. I decided to wait for the next train. Now my idea of a train directly behind one is that train on platform pulls out; next train pulls into station. Around 4 minutes later the next train came in. A guy I was standing next to made some comment about “gee this isn’t my idea of directly behind.” I concurred. It made us laugh.

We both got on the train. We’d walked up to the front of the train and so there weren’t that many people on the train or on the platform either. So we both ended up with seats. At Union Station there was a big crowd of people. The train operator came on the intercom and said not to over crowd the train that there was another one right behind this one. We both looked at each other and smiled.

The last thing that me smile recently was a quote from Mitch McConnell . He says that if Obama is willing to find credible central ground (there’s a laugh) McConnell would be able to get the Tea Party freshmen to fall in line. He continues “I don’t think anyone should believe they were sent to Washington to do nothing.” Like the nothing you and the Republican Party have been doing for the last two years. Yes, that makes me smile.