Rain is predicted for this afternoon; however, the dark clouds in the SW look like they're ahead of schedule. Barbie's 30% chance looks like 95% to me. The doppler does indicate showers in Rankin Co at the moment, so I'm postponing the walk until it clears. The dogs and Mick walked to the mailbox with me, so they will be ok for a while. The long morning walks have made them less restless during the day, Jay-Jay is less anxious, Gus is less whiny, so it's been good for all of us.

Sharon, the nurse in Dr. Lagarde's office, left word for me to call her yesterday. I didn't check messages until after they were closed, so I've had plenty of time to worry about test results from last week's check-up. When I get DSL installed, I can answer the phone and be online at the same time. That will be good in a case like this.

Most phone calls, though, are just a waste of my time. Talk is cheap and is so often used in the place of actually doing what needs to be done. I trust very little of what I hear, due, in part, to being so easily influenced in the past by what people say.

Action speaks louder than words, my grandmother always said, and the older I get, the more wisdom I see in that pithy proverb. She had to deal with a son-in-law who could be a silver-tongued devil in her eyes. "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless." To her, it was not just an emotional issue, but a conflict of faith. She held him and his preacher father in such high regard until she moved in with us and found out how very human he was.

Dad wasn't always unkind to her, but could be when he was angry. His eloquent apologies didn't relieve the pain he caused; I observed her crying for hours after his vicious outbursts. She, on the other hand, rarely talked about how much she loved us, she just took such good care of us that we never had to wonder. More evenly tempered than he, she didn't give us bellicose scoldings and lectures like he did. If we misbehaved, she popped us a couple of times on the backside and sent us on our way. That was the end of it. And I don't remember her ever saying anything critical about him.

Verbal abuse didn't have a label back then, but it does now. I regret that I did it to my kids, too. From what I've read, some people never recover from it. If there is a psychological component to my hearing loss, it may be from that. My ears have been too frequently assaulted by unpleasant sounds. I guess that's why the book of James inspired as many sermons as it did. Wise people have known for ages how much damage can be done by the uncontrolled tongue.