It’s that time again. The dustbin of my brain needs emptying. Needs to be emptied? Whichever, it’s time to write out all those random thoughts and make room for new dreck, err, information. This time, though, we have some nice thoughts.

Let’s start with the spicier stuff! Spices.

Last week I made one of my favorite dinners. Oh, let’s be honest with each other. If it has a protein, a vegetable, and a starch, it’s one of my favorite dinners. Let’s call this one instead, one of those dinners I don’t often make and thoroughly enjoy whenever I get around to it, which might be once or twice a year – blackened catfish. When I need a blackening seasoning, I start with a commercial Cajun seasoning and add paprika, black pepper and thyme. As I was mixing my new blend I inadvertently grabbed a jar of “fish crust” instead of thyme. Fish crust is a proprietary blend used and sold by one of the local restaurants. I realized my mistake when greenish granules fell into my mix rather than the expected tannish dried flakes. Uh oh! I looked at what I was holding, glaring at the bottle that so looks like the one holding my dried thyme and asked what it thought it was doing, jumping out of the rack into my hand when I clearly called for thyme. “Dude, chill,” the traitorous container said, or so I imagined, “I got your thyme in me along with some parsley, cilantro, lemon, garlic, and salt. So it might be a little salty when it’s all done with what you’ve already out in there. Add an extra squeeze or two of lemon before you pull the fish out of the pan. Sheesh, do I have to think of everything?” And the bottle was right. It all worked out in the end and was extra yummy good.

Something else happened last week that wasn’t so fishy. Thursday I was working on the ROAMcare Motivation Moments that will hit the Internet over the next couple of months. I was stuck. I had a whole day with nothing to do but write as much as I wanted, and I couldn’t put two words together. I ran out of motivation to continue. You may remember not long ago I wrote here in the RRSB post Motivating the Motivators that I had worried that might happen some day. “There was a time when I thought that eventually we would run out of motivation. ‘Who is going to motivate the motivators?’ I would ask.” But then I confidently followed that up with, “but that thought was fleeting.” Fleeting my eye. Where were all the thoughts now. So I did what I usually do when I need a little extra oomph. I went off to read some old Motivating Moments. Sure enough, I found one to work for me in that moment. Two actually, one right after the other. The first reminded me that, “A good day isn’t just about hitting the high points. It’s about making it through the low ones too!” By gosh by golly, I had done a lot that day. I was just in a low point. I could climb out of it, or just hang around there and do something else until my brain re-opened for business. And if I didn’t, well, I had done a lot of work and there will be motivating moments still for weeks with what I’d already put in the can. And just as I was about to close that window in the computer, another Moment tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Psst, hey buddy. Look at me.” It nearly screamed at me across my screen, “Make the time to remind yourself how good you are.” By golly by gosh, we were right again. A slow point doesn’t make for a failed day. For every day’s disappointing minute, there are 1439 other minutes available to be better. And a few of those minutes, and a bowl of ice cream later, we were back in the writing business.

Shifting gears to something not motivating at all, to one of my favorite gripes – pickup trucks with an extra serving of testosterone. I was in my little roadster stopped at a traffic lights as red as the Miata itself. With all that red, you’d think even a dim witted macho man would know to slow down. A question I ask myself every now and then when I take the little convertible out is should I be wearing a helmet?  The state used to require it of motorcyclists but they ones now who don’t have pretty hard heads anyway. Usually I only get that thought when I’m in a parking lot next to a “look how big my pick(up) is” truck and then it goes away as soon as I encounter intelligent life again. Well at that light, I heard the rumble behind me and saw a monster of a truck coming in down the hill and there I sat, frozen in my seat, looking in the rear view mirror and not seeing the truck’s grill, not seeing its front bumper, but seeing its undercarriage and front end suspension bits! It was lifted so high off the road, it literally could ride right over me!! There was no shoulder to my right and oncoming traffic to my left. And that left me three choices, sit, pray, or get out of the way.  That’s when I shifted gears and red light or not, pulled forward into the intersection, made a quick check to the left, then one to the right, that a glance at the medal clipped to my sun visor that says, “Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel car fly,” apologized to my ever-present but unseen companion, and flew! I was across the intersection and safely on the side of the road when the monster truck hurtled by. I said a quick prayer of thanks and pulled back onto the roadway to continue my leisurely drive. About 2 miles down the road, Mr. Macho was looking down out of the cab of his metal manhood at the top of the nice officer’s head handing over his license, registration, and insurance. Who says prayers are never answered?

Okay, that’s it for this week’s random thoughts. Tune in again next week for another exciting episode of “What will he come up with now?”

Hey, while we speaking of spices, that reminds me about condiments. Did you know people are like condiments? We explain why we think so in the most recent Uplift! It only takes 3 minutes to read. Go ahead, click that link!