shoes on the power line?

This is one of those things I find rather peculiar and I wonder if anyone else has ever had the same experience. I drive down the same road almost every day. And every day for about two years now, there has been a pair of sneakers that someone threw up on the power line that runs across the street. Actually, there was another pair of shoes in the same area, on another line; dress shoes I think, and I would always look to see if the shoes were still hanging. Well the dress shoes are gone but the sneakers are still blowing in the wind. I wonder if the person that did that, did so just to get people like me wondering why there were shoes hanging from the power lines?

In another similar situation, there was a woman who had a vacuum cleaner hanging, more like clinging to the window sill of her house. I totally never got that at all. She often had other adornments attached to her house but the vacuum stayed for a long time. Then she blacked out all her windows. I know it was a she because I would see her outside on occasion. I am thinking there was a weird voodoo thing going on. There are tales of voodoo things happening on the island where I live. Jut plan weird if you ask me!

gone, but not forgotten

I went to a funeral this past week.. Guess as I get older, chances are greater that someone I know will move upwards or hopefully not, in the other direction, to that great, rather hot abyss. Such was the case today. Someone who I actually had spent a fair amount of time with in prayer. Great woman, godly, joyful and really lived for the Lord. Genuine, as another friend of mine tagged her and appropriately so. She truly is in a better place now.

What always bothers me about funerals though, (beside the fact that someone you know is dead) is that I do not have the gift of small talk. Polite, courteous chit-chat is not my cup of tea. No matter how hard I try I usually end up saying something really stupid. And today was no different. I rather cheerfully said to the grieving husband, "Hey, how are ya doing", like he was going to say "fine, and you?" I need an instruction manual with a few simple ideas of what to say in different social situations.

Like someone who just lost their job, or their house. Tough times call for tender comments. It's not that I don't have the right sentiment in my heart---it is just that it gets twisted on the way out of my mouth.

Am I the only one? I think not. What do YOU say at times like these?