Happy Days

Four things that gave me a smile this weekend:

1. A catalog that came unbidden through the mail from Despair, Inc., featuring the sort of motivational posters you might expect to see in a Dilbert cartoon. Like, "MEETINGS: None of us is as dumb as all of us." Or, "GET TO WORK: You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams." You've got to see the whole package -- classy inspirational photo and all -- so if you've ever worked in a soulless bureaucracy, check out the Despair, Inc. Web site and imagine which waste-of-oxygen co-worker you'd give one of these gems to.

2. Do you remember your first computer? Mine was a Kaypro, purchased in the mid-'80s after I'd sworn for years that I would not compute. I saw a fellow writer at a writer's conference toting around one of those blocky metal things with the keyboard that snapped over the screen and the cute little carrying handle, and suddenly the future didn't look so scary. This little walk down memory lane comes courtesy of Old-Computers.com, where you can visit your first digital love -- or, if you're a computer newbie, browse the museum and be amazed that anybody ever processed words without a giant screen and superfast chips and gigabytes of memory.

3. A nice story in our local paper this morning told of a teenage girl with autism who runs cross-country for her town's high school. I tend to look a bit skeptically at stories that try to wring inspiration from neurologically impaired people making like normal folks, but this story had enough little quirks in it -- like the fact that the girl needs a "shadow" running with her to keep her safe and directed, and that the faster and better she runs, the harder it is to find somebody to keep up with her -- that it hit me just right. You go, girl.

4. Our whole family attends a Sunday-night bowling league, my husband playing with our son, and me bowling with our high-scoring daughter. You'll understand my general skill level here when I tell you that my average is 84, and last week I didn't even make that. Sunday night bowling, for me, falls under the category of "Things you do for your kids." But tonight -- ah, tonight -- I bowled an astounding 112 in the first game. My daughter had a good game too, 148, including a turkey (three strikes in a row, for you non-bowlers). But then came the second game, in which three miraculous things happened:

a. I bowled a turkey! Me! And the fact that I followed it up with a gutter ball only momentarily dampened the excitement;

b. I bowled a 139, certainly the highest I ever bowled in my life and probably the highest I ever will; and

c. I beat my daughter, who merely made her average of 124.

And may I say, at the risk of being tagged a bad sport: WOO-HOO! Cyber-high-five me, y'all!