At a certain time in life, the world shifts on its axis when suddenly the lyrics to old songs are the only ones that stick in your head, but even the oldest, lamest knock-knock jokes are suddenly new again.

In this case I remember the punch line of a joke I first heard in grade school, but I don’t remember the words leading up to it.  The punchline goes like this:  Don’t hatchet your count before he chickens.  If anyone out there can provide me with what comes before, I’d be eternally grateful.  It bothers me that my little gray cells seem to have misplaced this one vital piece of information.

My mother was big on not prematurely counting chickens, but she also had any number of other handy sayings.  One of my favorites goes like  this:

If you lead a horse to water and can’t make him drink, give me that horse and I’ll figure out a way to make him thirsty.

As for what other items might be hiding in this particular Evie Busk file?  Let’s see:  A wise man changes his mind; a fool never does.  God helps those who help themselves.  A stitch in time saves nine.  If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

But what brought up those blasted chickens in the first place?  I’m back to counting, of course.  I’m writing the blog on Wednesday afternoon, and I’ve just come in from finishing a chilly set of 10,000 steps.  That puts me at 23,982,000 steps and 9909 miles.  By Friday, when the blog goes live, I should be at 24,000,000, unless something catastrophic happens between now and then.  But sending along the score a whole week after it happens seems like publishing yesterday’s news as breaking news. Not that The Seattle Times minds doing that these days.  Their on-line edition carries the same headline for weeks at a time, but I digress.

I can’t quite believe that I’m still walking, but six years in, I am.  Every single day.  My streak of days is now 750 days long.  That’s a lot of days and a lot of time as well.

This week Bill had a dental appointment that included the installation of two crowns.  In the old days I would have sat in the waiting room and … well … waited.  But now I’ve turned waiting rooms into walking rooms.  While he was being treated, I went out into the parking lot and picked up 4000 steps.

So that’s how my life works at this point—it revolves around my three Ws—William, Writing, and Walking.

Once I hit that 24,000,000 mark, I’ll post it in the comments, just to let you know for sure that I’ve made the grade.

By the way, we’re still having problems with the blog.  The email subscriptions are becoming intermittent at best.  If you don’t receive yours, you can always access the blog yourselves by googling www.jajance.com/blog.  But please be sure to check send me a note at jajance@me.com to let me know if your copies aren’t coming through.  I’m keeping a list of those whose are missing and sending theirs out manually.

And once again, if anybody knows what that ornery count was doing that got him into so much trouble, please let me know.