A "That's Good, That's Bad" Kind of Day

You might have heard the story of the man whose horse ran away. His neighbor said, "That's bad."
"No, the man said, "That's good." Because his horse returned with a stallion by its side.
And so the story goes on, one bad thing canceled by another good thing. Today was that kind of day.

First, the toilet refused to flush this morning.Now that's bad, right? I have to agree. Yeah, that's bad. The good thing was that Larry would be here all day to fix it.

Then I had to go to work. That's bad, you would say.
And I would say, no, that's good. Because two storytelling friends from Virginia, Megan Hicks and Lynn Ruehlmann just happened to be in Charleston last night, and this morning they stopped by my workplace and I took an early lunch so we had a wonderful hour together over coffee. Do you know how rare it is for other storytellers to come into Charleston? Rare, let me tell you.

My sister Julie sent a message to all of her sisters that the strong winds had done some real damage to their house. Even worse, when they inspected the damage they also found even more damage caused by water over the years. Major repairs were needed. Bad, bad, bad day for her yesterday. But today it's good because men who knew about construction came to help her husband and repairs are on a fast track.What good friends and neighbors--they worked in cold and rain to get the house protected again. Nothing is as bad when you have friends by your side, is it?

Then there is our house phone that has been not working more than it has worked for the past week. Larry is at the end of his patience with it. Bad?

No, it's actually kinda good because we have been getting so many robo-dialed calls and other weird things like that it's a relief not to have to deal with them. And I can always check messages from my cell phone. (So family, call my cell if you need us!)

And it rained all day today. That's bad, you might think. No, that's good because in many other places they're getting slammed by yet another snowstorm.

Tonight, Larry told me that the seal is gone on the toilet. It will flush, but it leaks around the base. Note I said toilet--we only have one. While it's not a good thing, it's not so bad because a least it flushes and he can fix it tomorrow (I hope).

So all together, it was a pretty good day.

If you'd like to see Megan in action, here's a clip on YouTube.


And here's one of Lynn!