A woman walked into the room.

A woman walked into the waiting room of my doctor's this afternoon. The doctor I was to see was a podiatrist I'd never seen before and he comes to my regular doctor's office to see referrals one afternoon a week. I'd been waiting for 40 minutes. I was reading a book.

A UPS delivery guy came in with three huge Styrofoam packages about 4' tall and stacked them on the reception counter. After getting his electronic signature box signed he turned to leave and pulled the still open door closed. I said, "Leave it open!" He turned around and smiled, "It is a pretty day!" The solid wood door was off a glassed in vestibule and the blue sky was visible outside in the bright sunshine.

A woman with a man sitting on chairs further from me said, "Thank you for asking him to do that. It's so nice to see sunshine after so much rain."  We've had 26 days of rain out of 33 these past weeks. I took a picture of the sky when I was getting in the truck to drive over.

She and the man were in their 40's. We continued to talk about all the rain we'd had and the disastrous tornados in the south as well as the Kentucky Derby that's to be run Saturday.

As we were talking, the woman walked in. She was older maybe 75 or so. She was carrying a small oxygen canister and clear plastic tubing ran encircling her head resting in her nostrils. She went to the counter, signed the book and then came into the room seating herself across from me. She placed her canister on the floor and sat watching the door.

A few moments later a younger version of her walked in. The younger woman spotted the older one and came over to her asking, "Did you sign in?" The older woman said, "Yes I did. I always do that. You know I always do that." The younger woman sat in the chair next to the older one and said, "I know Mother but I'm just checking so we don't wait longer than we should."

They sat there beside each other not speaking. The daughter eventually said, "Did you go to Steve's birthday party the other day?" Her mom said, "No I didn't go up there. It's all too much. All these birthday parties and they always have cake and ice cream and they all eat it when they shouldn't and I can't eat it for sure." Her daughter looked up at me and smiled tensely and said, "I just thought you could get out of the apartment for a little bit. You went to Jenny's party the other week, so I thought you'd go to Steve's too." Her mother said, "All those things are the same, same people, same cake, and same ice cream. It's boring."

The older woman looked up at me and I smiled at her and said, "Maybe you should go to some strangers' parties. Just go on in and get to know new people." The older woman laughed.

Soon they were called back. Yes, they came in after me and were called back before me!

The older woman walked ahead of her daughter who was holding the oxygen tank following. I said, "It looks like you've got your mom on a leash." The daughter laughed, "Yes it does doesn't it? Hey, nice to talk to you. Thank you for making my mom laugh. I can't seem to do it anymore."

So, there I was internally bitching about waiting again when I was early and I knew no one was ahead of me for this doctor because they just got back from lunch. And then a mother and daughter walked into a doctor's office. Sounds like the first line of a joke.

I feel compelled to say a word about Osama. The man was a fanatic who happened to be born into a Saudi family that had extreme wealth. The family was in construction building buildings and homes for extremely wealthy people who sell vast amounts of oil to western countries. Although he felt he was waging a religious war, he was not a good moral man. And some Americans believed and still believe we are in a religious war with all Muslims. He and his followers are the enemy, not all other Muslims.

Our country not finding this man in Afghanistan the first time and then leaving that country to go into Iraq on contrived proof and manipulated association with Osama is a crime that will never be adjudicated. This means that a decade later we not only lost people in New York, DC and Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001, we have lost more people in Afghanistan 1, Iraq and Afghanistan 2. While he is responsible for the first events he was validated by how we responded to that. That is America's responsibility.

I believe that if the first response had been patient and deliberate we would have had Osama before GW left office. I applaud the current leadership of all involved in killing Osama because that was a man who needed killing. All the people both in our military and their countries' civilian dead didn't need killing. That is the shame of this.

Today in Louisville the fillies ran a horse race for a blanket of stargazer lilies sewn to a large piece of satin. The color for the day is pink and everyone followed the plan; pink dresses of every tint, pink ties, hats, jackets, shoes, purses. They put pink shades in the spires or the original grandstands. It was quite a sight.

Tomorrow the 137th Kentucky Derby will be the biggest party in Kentucky. Rain late in the afternoon is predicted but I'd not bet against it. Everyone who lives here will be at a party literally or virtually and mass amounts of food and liquor will be consumed.

Pray for us.