Sleep puts the day behind you. You go to sleep after a wretched day, then wake up the next morning. It’s said that tomorrow never comes but this is not true. Tomorrow comes when the sun pops up over the horizon. You get up, and the day that you just dealt with is yesterday.

Yesterday, after a good night’s sleep, has a differing perspective. As bad as it was (and sometimes some days are pretty bad), you are distanced from it, making it possible to move on. And there is the day ahead of you to deal with.

I don’t remember yesterday – wait, I was in Bugge Park, and we talked with the kids about worms. It actually went quite well. Today, in Amoosement Park, we again talked about worms. It didn’t go as well.

It was somewhat cold and raining on and off. We headed for the picnic shelter area and set up camp and waited for the children to appear. And they did. We didn’t have critical mass, nor did we have a mixed age group. We three got through the hour and a half. I said in our debriefing that if this had been our first day out, I would have been very discouraged. Instead, I thought, well, there are going to be rainy days and days in which there are a small number of younger children.

Okay. I figured that the day would not get any worse. But it did. I came back to the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel and there was this woman with three children, stamping books. She was stamping books. The children, they were all over the place. They grabbed and started throwing the hula hoops around. It was 20 or so minutes of mayhem. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to discourage a good volunteer, but I also didn’t want to encourage a bad one.

I let her go and am going to talk to the person who let her in before the 2:00 p.m. work time. I am going to more than talk.

There are times in which (and today was one of them) begin to fantasize about being elsewhere. New Mexico, riding horses, getting ready to do competitive trail rides. This is me. Or it could be me.

One of our volunteers, Lydia, recently drove down to Seattle and back by herself. She called it going on a retreat. I said that I was envious and got the standard response, which was that yes, I could do this.

I said, maybe I could do an hour-long retreat.

Some would love my job; of course, they, like me, would love it even more if it paid. Pete and I both have a vision of what this project might be, but it is hard watching it materialize because it’s so slow.

Tonight I talked with several individuals who were getting books from out of the newspaper box. Yes, it’s a good project. I just need more people to share the vision.

Next: 158. 6/10/26: Lucky or Unlucky?