When you write, you learn to become alert to life. That's just noticing what's going on around you and always thinking about how you can turn something into a lesson or an anecdote or illustration.

Some writers are great at it. I recently met Denise Arzoian who can take an experience like driving in the fog and turn it into a wonderful application about trust.

A few days ago, I was in the recliner in the living room, settling in to watch my TiVo'd House episode and a movement on the patio outside the glass door caught my peripheral vision.

A duck waddled by.

Yes, a duck.

Yes, we live in the country. And our menagerie has included dogs, cats, horses, pot-bellied pigs, rabbits, and geckos.

But never a duck.

I hollered at my daughter to come look. Actually, I wanted to see if it was a hallucination or was I sane. She saw it too. And decided it needed to be rescued. She chased it across the street where it settled in the brush.

I followed and between the two of us herding it, she managed to pick it up and bring it back to the patio. She showed it the water. She loosened her grip and he was on the move again.

He didn't understand that she wanted to help. She didn't understand that he had an appointment and she was making him late.

That's my story. I wasn't being alert to life, but life found me. Now I just have to figure out what it's saying and why.

I remember a line from a Dick Francis novel from the amateur sleuth/jockey to the bad guy. He says something to the effect, "I hear nothing angers a criminal as much as being found guilty of the one thing he didn't do."

Isn't it the truth? We can be guilty of all kinds of sins, but accuse us of the one thing we didn't do, and stand by. The converse is equally true. We may do something annoying all the time (interrupting, ignoring, jumping to conclusions, whatever) but let someone else do it to us... well, it's not pretty.

I'm not really a sharer, but sometimes I do need to talk. When I'm ready to talk, I want to talk. I don't want to be interrupted or have a running commentary.

Hubby is a talker. He's an interrupter. Who hates to be interrupted. But he does recognize that about himself and is completely open to reminders and correction.

I'm a detail sharer, who wants the bottom line only when someone is sharing their details.Me + Him = (Occasional) conflict in communication. But I realize that if I want to talk about the difference between genre literature, the trade off is that I get to listen to and discuss the differences in different species of fruit flies. Or whatever.

Life is sweet - most of the time. Because of the give and take.