A pop star flew into town (with his family) and needed a car,
so I gave him mine.
Thankfully,
he returned it.
He also paid me,
ME,
for letting him use it.
That’s right, in today’s peer-to-peer rental society you can actually rent out your car, your home, your pool, or most anything.
Last August, when we traveled to the mountains, we actually rented some local’s Audi to get there. It was bigger than ours and we needed the space for the dogs.
So I thought, my wife works from home, and her car is just gathering dust in the garage, so why don’t we make use of it and let other people enjoy it. Covid be damned.
So we did.
We actually traded her car in for a nice SUV that others would actually rent.
And its worked!
The first month we had it, the car was rented for 24 of the 31 days in the month. That took care of the new car payment as well as some extra spending money for this MBA grad that still hasn’t found employment during this Covid thing.
The Pop Star?
Well, I hate to say it was someone I had never heard of.
But that is not unusual as I am frequently critiqued for not listening to music from this century
…..by my kids.
His name was Reese Brunke a 22 year old out of Chicago, with a huge following there. He does some pop, hip-hop and some R&B.
I asked my kids about him and they checked his youtube profile. Sure enough it had over 23 million followers so he must be huge….according to my girls.
Originally filled with a little anxiety about renting my property to a pop celebrity, as I had done that in my early years with some very tragic results. But my fears were soon relieved when I met Reese.
For 22 he was mature beyond his years, a nice guy with a good head on his shoulders.
He and his family wanted to take the car to the beach for the week. (sounds from the movie Pyscho in the background)
What if he decided to run up and down the beach with my car!
Not good!
Not good at all!
And this new generation might do anything, right?
But he was cool with everything and returned the car just as I had given it to him.
I didn’t let on that I knew who he was.
….until his Mom asked.
I said I actually did hear of him and was honored to meet such a fine and successful young man.
He asked if I had a FB or Instagram account in which he could give me a shout out on.
(Me?)
I said no, just a very unpopular blog.
I followed with how I already had a title for this post though, “I gave my car to a pop star”.
They all laughed and so now I am living up to my end of the deal.
And then, as Mom’s do, she asked if I had seen his newest video called ‘Blackout’?
We learned in our Happiness class that one of the traps of social media is that you only see the best parts of people’s lives and not the tragedies and turmoil that make up our daily lives but don’t show up in FB or WP posts.
So before I let you in on my next post on our annual trip to the mountains to escape the heat and humidity on the coast, let me tell you, “it ain’t all fun and games.”
Trigger alert: pain and suffering…
Last week included getting a speeding ticket on our trip to the cabin, getting a flat tire, stop and go highway traffic jams, losing power in the cabin and no firewood in a cabin advertised with ‘unlimited firewood’.
But we did make it to our cabin rental in the Smokey Mountains of NC……
It was exciting settling in to our retreat.
The first day we thought we would rent a pontoon boat and sight see on a large resivor in TN. We brought both the dogs. We were gonna do a little fishing.
We were really looking forward to the fun!
Settle down everyone!
Settle down!
(it was a long drive)
So with things not getting too lively I thought I might liven up the day….
and toss Dylan overboard…
It was an overcast day in the Smokey Mountains.
We learned the smokey mountains get there name from the moisture rising right out of the ground and water.
… Chumley was excited when we did some fishing.
The next day we hit a mountain river for some slightly more excitement…
…for some white water rafting
It was alright
Then the kids got to go to the (tower of terror) zip line obstacle course…
that took about 5 years off my life the last time I tried it.
So I did some mountain biking instead…
.…not to be confused with trail riding
It was kinda intense at the time but this ol man, relying on his bike skills from his youth, made it to the top.
Our next day was an old favorite from our last trip, mountain trail riding on horseback.
It was a lot to enjoy…
..when our horse wasn’t brushing us against trees or trying to knock us off in the trees.
Then it was back to our cabin and the neighborhood ‘Riverwalk’ park that the girls enjoyed last time;
complete with their own zip-line…
..and for some more foolishness by the stream.
We also did the mandatory campfires with whatever wood we could find.
Along with the mandatory Blair Witch type ‘ghost stories‘.
It was kinda creepy.
For instance some ‘thing’ took this video.
It wasn’t me!
The night ended up producing the Ghost of a lost nittany mountaineer!!
‘Big John!’
Like I said,
Creepy.
And what trip to the mountains would be complete without doing some hiking trails
in search of waterfalls before heading home
Little did I know it was a set up for a new background in a Tik-Tok video
So our ‘cool’ trip to the mountains was a lot of fun.
(Brake)
Did I mention speeding tickets, no power, flat tires and traffic jams?
It wasn’t all fun and games!
(But still alotta fun)
That’s about it for now knuckleheads.
I will try to do a better job next time.
Until then, we are going back to school around here, virtually.
I would like to welcome a young lady named ‘Truly‘ to our WordPress family.
(sounds of applause in the background)
Truly is a rescue greyhound just off the track.
We are fostering Truly for a week or so, until someone adopts her.
She turns 2 years old this month, so still a pup.
She is very sweet and potty trained.
She also has a gorgeous, exotic, pseudo-tiger looking coat me thinks.
She has been getting along great with my male greyhound.
Or I should say he has been very accepting of her.
They swap food and
…..beds.
She has a wicked scar on her hip. Lord only knows how she got that one.
My girls have fallen in love with her already. There is talk of our family adopting her.
What do you think?
Should we?
In other news….
We completed our first day long training session on becoming foster parents over the weekend.
There are so many tragic stories we heard but I will leave that for another time.
I also completed my training to become a Mentor or Big Brother last week.
Folks, this is so simple!
Being a Mentor, here in town, involves only one hour of your time per week.
1
Uno!
I was almost disappointed that it wasn’t more than that.
And, given the signs of the times, that one hour is a virtual Zoom call.
How hard is that?
And ‘boundaries’ are very defined for both parties before entering into a Mentor agreement.
So its safe and private….for both parties
So do you think you have some good advice or support to give to a deserving child that might not have a great positive role model in their life?
Have you been a good parent
or
might you be a good parent when the time comes?
And do you have one (1) extra hour in a week, over a lunch maybe, that you could give some support or hope to a child that might not have so much as you had growing up?
If so, please consider looking into being a Mentor in your area.
YOU
Yes, you could make a significant positive influence in some disadvantaged child’s life.
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