Facebook Break

 From my files, female cardinal in maple tree.

I decided that I was going to take a break from Facebook to minimize the amount of negativity I was finding around me. Well, that lasted three days until I was back on the site. Yesterday morning I got a notice that someone had mentioned me in a post. I wanted to find out more and that was it. I not only read that post, but started scrolling. But you know what? I'm not that sorry that I didn't last longer because Facebook is not all bad. Here are a few things I saw this morning that I enjoyed.

1. A bad joke-"What was Harper Lee's favorite drink? Toquilla mocking bird." 

2. Beautiful pictures of a crescent moon from Maine

3. A picture of my grandmother with her older daughter and her first granddaughter. 

4. A picture of a baby gorilla. My nephew is a primate zoo keeper at the National Zoo and every time there is a shut down of the zoo, he posts a picture a day of one of the primates with a clever caption. The pictures are great and the captions are even better.

5. A link to a song by the Mama's and Papa's. One friend frequently posts links to old songs. I appreciate that she does the work of finding them.

6. A picture of a tree made from puzzle pieces done by a friend. I'm going to have to investigate this more because it was looked really neat.

7. A recipe for harvest stew.

8. Mention of a local event I want to see.

9. Notice about a happening in my neighborhood.

It took some discipline to just focus on these things. I had to scroll quickly past several negative, hostile posts to see them, but I did. I rarely read any negative posts in their entirety before, but would read enough to know what they were about--and that was too much for me. But focusing on the fun stuff, was just right this morning. I'm not going to avoid FB for now. My new goal is to keep scrolling when I sense that a post is negative and to enjoy the rest. After all, I'm looking for positivity and there is a lot to be found on FB.

Another day, I'll talk about the amount of time that can be spent on places like FB.

Thankful Monday

I am thankful for surprise connections.

I have a Facebook account but I am definitely not a frequent poster--maybe once a year or so. However, that does not stop others from reaching out to become FB friends with me. I made one of these friend connections recently with Sam.

Sam was with me throughout most of our school years. While we were together in many of our elementary school classes, we went different ways as time progressed. If truth be told, I remember more about Sam in fifth grade drawing elaborate pictures of army tanks and airplanes than I do about him in high school. We probably had classes together, but I don't remember them.

Sam recently became a new grandfather to twin girls that he posted about on his FB page. He was quite proud and sent me a picture through Messenger as I'm sure he did many others. I made an appropriate one line comment about the babies and he replied with the standard, "What have you been up to?"

Then we chatted a bit and tried to catch up on the last 40 years. He asked me if  I had ever been to a Grateful Dead concert or to a biker rally. I answered no to both of those.  He said he had led an unfocused life and was now in constant pain from showing off too much in his younger years. We had pretty much led totally opposite lives. But that didn't seem to matter. We were still the friends we had been in fifth grade.

Then Sam said something that took me by surprise. He said that he had been blessed to get to know my father in his later years and he was a fine gentleman. He added, "He was so proud of you." I said that my father had set a good example for me and my sisters. And Sam said, "Obviously." After a few sentimental tears, I spent the rest of the day smiling about the chat I had had with Sam.

Many of the connections I make on Facebook are not much more than a distraction from other things I should be doing. But sometimes, there is a special moment like the one with Sam recently and for that I am thankful.

You Can't Make this Stuff Up

My neighborhood has a Facebook group where we communicate with each other. Here is a recent exchange.
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W.   A dark bluish grey SUV drove thru the neighborhood around 6 and was dropping off chickens. If you have noticed any contact the Carey's at the end of Mullberry. they already came by and got mine but too dark to find any others.

Like

Love

Haha

Wow

Sad

Angry

Comments

C. I’m lost. Chickens?

Manage

W.  yes live chickens

Manage

W.  Saw 3 so far

Manage

A.  Just randomly “dropping off chickens”? That’s really weird! I wonder what the chickens think of that? Gives sort of a new twist to dinner delivery. I wonder if we can get some random vehicle to drive through dropping off dumplings, oh man that would be great.

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L.  Daisy and Emma didn’t find any here. Young man searched my yard. How very strange!

Manage

 W.  L, you have one and it will show up.

Manage

L.  I have a chicken?

Manage

C.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I mean, how hard is it to find a home for chickens? I’m sure much easier than rounding them up, driving to an unsuspecting neighborhood and sprinkling them about!

Manage

A.  Oh yeah! What a great thought! Chicken seeding!

Manage

A.  This is fantastic! What a great diversion in the middle of harvest!

Manage

A.  I wonder if the government is experimenting with “chicken seeding” now instead of cloud seeding.. it’s been raining enough for God’s sake. I wonder if “chicken seeding” is a new drying technique to wring the clouds out before they get here?

Man

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I can't tell you any more than the above exchange. 

It's all still a mystery.