A Moment of Childish Wonder

 For the record? I've declared Squish the winner in the soul collection race, although her biggest brother may be hiding many of his freckles under his gigantic lumberjack beard, the better to sucker us into believing he is entirely benign.

That being said--

I managed almost a mile today, and my knee was... well, not great, but not in extreme pain either, so, hey, I may be back to a mile and a half, which is where I was when it went bye-the-hell-bye.

I can't decide if I'm happy or bitter, and then I realized that real news has been a crapfest this week, so I'm taking what I can get and going with happy. Yay! Three miles by the end of the year, I can DO it! (ftr--I'm not really this excited, but I'm trying.)

Anyway, while on my walk, I noticed a bunch of signs blocking off part of a little throughway, and I noticed this big-assed crane. (I did not, however, notice the swimming pool in the backyard until I took the picture, and then I was insanely jealous. I've never really wanted a swimming pool, because small children, but still. The people with the pools always seem to have a better life.)

But the crane--like, stretching from the middle of the block, over a house, to loop around the telephone pole. THAT was a thing of beauty.

I continued on my walk until I met a guy in full reflective gear kit, and after Geoffie stopped threatening to EAT him, we started a convo.

"So, all this to pull a telephone pole?"

"Yeah, it was in someone's backyard."

"Gotta say, that is one cool erector set to work with."

"Oh yeah-- these guys who run this equipment, they love going to work every day." He was cute--goatee, a little gray, a great smile. Welcome to romancelandia, hot traffic guy, you may or may not end up in a porn shoot, I promise not to tell your friends.

"I imagine so. That's pretty tricky." I'll be honest, I was just making conversation here--he was cute and willing to talk, the dog finally shut up, and I was dying for something else to say.

"Wait until you see the telephone pole go over the house. Although I don't think the people in the house are that happy about it." Sadly, I did not get to see this--they were a long way from swinging a telephone pole over a house at this point, but that doesn't mean I wasn't tempted.

"No, that could be nerve-wracking," I replied, because DUH!

"Well, these guys know what they're doing."

Now, at this point Geoffie lost her tiny-dog-shit again and I felt compelled to move on.

"I'm glad it's them and not me--with me, there'd be lots of bodies.  You have an interesting day!"

"I always do!" he replied. "Can't go wrong here!"

I waved and took off--and thought, "You know, I'm going home to play god, but these guys? They get to play with giant tinker toys. I think they win!"

Because inside ALL of us beats the heart of a six year old boy with the set of building blocks and a dream.