Leigh's Views

Have you ever heard of kudzu?   It’s this plant that was brought to the South supposedly to fight erosion or to feed cows.   Depends on which rumor you believe.   Doesn’t matter.   The important point is that this stuff grows fast and out of control.   It’s almost impossible to kill.   Left unchecked it smothers other plants, topples utility poles, overruns buildings.   Do you have people in your life that are like this?   They seem innocent enough to start with.   Then the worm turns.   I’ve been dealing with someone like this.   This person was nice, friendly, sweet.   For a while that is.   Then something happened, I’m not exactly sure what.   Now this person is calling me ungrateful, evil, crazy, dangerous.   She’s telling others to avoid me.   She’s frequently calling me and texting me whenever she realizes anyone she knows is talking or hanging out with me.   I’ve decided not to acknowledge he...

I have this friend who has a few food issues.   One of them is he prefers his sausage naked.   Yes, naked.   One time he was at my house and I served him a sausage and rice dish.   He sat there and pulled the skin off the sausage pieces before he would eat them.   His meal ended up cold long before he finished it.   The whole time he was doing this, he was telling me how the ‘skin’ wasn’t ‘skin’ at all but rather plastic.   Fine.   I never served him sausage again since there wasn’t any way in heck I was going to take the time to strip sausage.   Then one glorious day, I was at the grocery store and they had free samples of local sausage.   I was helping myself to a second bite when who walks by?   My naked sausage loving friend.   I tried to tempt into trying a bite of this wonderful sausage.   Of course, no dice.   I even offered to remove the casing for him.   Still no deal.   This got me to thinking, h...

  A friend of mine wasn’t feeling well and needed to go to the ER.  I volunteered to go with him, since who wants to spend hours waiting in an ER alone?  During this trip, I think I figured out one of the problems with healthcare in this country.  The room my friend was placed in apparently was the only place in the ER with gloves.  Because during the 3 hours I sat there, every few minutes someone was popping in to grab gloves out of the dispenser on the wall.  It was insane.  Talk about a lack of privacy.  One nice nurse made the comment that it would be better for gloves to be in the hall.  Well, yes, it would.  It would be better yet for there to be enough gloves to have them be all over the ER.  But if wishes were horse than beggars could ride.  Yet, there was a large TV with just about every cable channel known to man.  Hey, who cares if your doctor isn’t wearing gloves?  You can watch shark week or mud wrestli...

Ah, the lazy days of summer.   BBQ’s, fresh corn on the cob, watermelon seed spitting contests.   Plus, kids are out of school.   Therefore, they’re running amok around every neighborhood in the country.   But a few places are savvy to this problem and are finding creative solutions.   I’m not sure if you remember midnight basketball from the 80’s and 90’s.   Now we have churches who put up giant slip and slides for a week to keep kids out of trouble.   Cities who host days at the local attractions.   What my question is, then as it is now, ‘Where are the parents?’   Do these children have no one keeping an eye on them at any point of the day?   Come on people, wake up.   You can’t have a kid and then ignore it.   Even house plants you have to feed and water.   Now I’m not saying you have to be with your kids 24/7.   But hey, every once in a while shouldn’t you use that smartphone for something other than Facebook...

Okay, I went to lunch the other day with a friend.   I was struggling to get my umbrella out of the car because somehow it had managed to get stuck on the short trip to the restaurant.   He yelled something to me about hurrying up because it was raining.   Well, duh, that’s why I wanted my umbrella.   Fine, I abandoned the umbrella and rushed into the restaurant.   When we were seated, I asked what the hurry was.   “It’s raining.”   Uhm, got that already.   We placed our order, my salad came.   He knows I prefer to eat it with the rest of my meal.   However, he kept insisting I eat it right then.   I again asked what the hurry was.   “It’s raining.”   Yes, can we be a little more specific than that?   I wanted to have a nice lunch.   Our food comes, I start eating as fast as I can.    Because, hey, it’s still raining and I don’t know how long he’s going to give me to eat at this point.   He gets ...

I love to find local radio stations when I travel.   No, not because I have to have my favorite music.   It’s because I love the crazy local ads you sometimes hear.   The ones that go beyond the obvious use of local words for things, like soda for pop or dinner for supper.   No, I’m talking about the ones that must have some meaning locally which goes right over the heads of anyone who’s never been there before.   I’m sure you’ve heard them too.   Those ads that have you scratching your head, going “Huh?!”   Take these ones I heard recently – “When the aliens have landed we have your cellphone.”   Uh, okay.   Does that mean they never have cellphones since there are no aliens?   “Green eggs and ram, green eggs and rams.”   Yeah, I don’t think I want to know what that means.   Because it sure sounds to me like there might be big problems on the farms around here.   “Mac and cheese fest…”   Yum, you’ve got me interest...

Now I’m not a huge fan of modern technology.   If you ask my son, he’ll happily tell you I’m a dinosaur.   Take the modern toilet.   They flush by themselves.   I hate them and let me tell you why.   Most of the stupid things don’t flush properly, you have to find the little button and force them to do their job.   If I have any other option, I avoid the things like the plague.   However, I’ve been traveling a lot this summer.   There hasn’t been a way around the stupid things.   And now I have another reason to hate them.   The other day, I needed to use the restroom.   So in I go without a care in the world.   This is a simple task, no problems here.   Thus, I sit down to do my business and the toilet flushed – splashing me with water.   I jumped up, startled, wondering what happened here.   When the stupid thing was finished, I sat again and it flushed again.   Okay, fine, there’s something wrong with t...

I was watching a flock of geese the other day.   Within the group there was 2 distinct families with a dad, mom and 4 chicks.   One family was very strict.   Dad was pacing back and forth keeping the chicks in a tight bunch.   When they sat down to relax for a while, dad was watching closely each time a chick made a move.   And occasionally he would make a squawk to make sure they were understanding him.   However, the other family was all loosy-goosy (pun fully intended here).   Dad and mom weren’t that close to each other, the chicks were wandering all over the beach.   And one of those chicks decided to visit the chicks from the super strict family.   Well, the dad from that family wasn’t having any of it.   He went nuts.   He flapped his wings at the intruder and snapped at the loosy-goosy chick until he went running the opposite direction.   When it came time for the flock to move on, the strict family’s dad barked an or...

Okay, I know most people are polite and considerate.   They think about doing what is best for others.   They obey the law.   They realize that signs aren’t just suggestions.   Right?   Yeah, I’m clearly looking at the world through rose colored glasses.   It’s a free for all in parking lots, as you can see from this picture I shot the other day.   Unless I’m wrong and this is a clown car and they had stuffed 20 plus people in the thing and thus felt it qualified as a bus.   People weave in and out of traffic to get to their destination a second sooner.   Like that is ever worth it.   Come on, what's ever important enough for even a few seconds to make a difference?   Everyone snaps at everyone as a form of communication.   What ever happened to being civil and speaking nicely?   Take this conversation at a store I heard the over day.   Two people were shopping.   The man snapped at the woman because they cou...