Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder Gives Us The Moment We Need

The boulder that fell on this Colorado highway
prompted a most glorious Tweet that
made everybody's day. 

This past week on a snowy mountain highway near Telluride, Colorado, a big rock fell off a cliff and landed smack dab on the eastbound lane of Highway 145.

Not exactly a national news story until the San Miguel Sheriff's office Tweeted to the public: "Large boulder the size of a small boulder is completely blocking eastbound lane of Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd."

Everybody, including me, said, "Huh?"  

This odd tweet went totally viral, as deserved.  The absurdity of it was a winner in a week of grim tweets over impeachment, coronavirus and other lovely developments.

Reactions were classic:

"Did a self-conscious small boulder write this?"

"This is how I want to be described in my obituary."

"Americans really will use any other system of measurement than metric won't they?"

Someone else explained why this incident happened:  "It came off a large mountain the size of a small hill."

One Twitterer helped the sheriff's department by providing this update to the situation on Highway 145: "Road is closed while emergency crews bring in equipment to break it into larger, smaller boulders." 

One person cautioned people on Twitter to "not take these things for granite," to which someone else replied, "I marble at your sense of humor."

That fun tweet also inspired lots of gloriously bad puns.

OK, I love bad puns.

Someone else wanted to delve into the technicalities by asking whether a large boulder the size a small boulder is heavier than a small boulder the size of a large boulder.

Personally, I'm glad that the San Miguel Sheriff's office never deleted the tweet, and only updated motorists about the situation on Highway 145.  

Even better, a woman named Susan Lilly who works in the San Miguel Sheriff's office disclosed she was the one who wrote the now-famous boulder tweet. On Wednesday, she tweeted: "I am the author behind this now viral tweet. I own my mistake and now I rock it."

Which is the second best tweet of the week, behind the original large, small boulder missive.

I love Lilly's attitude.  She explained that she meant to write that it was a "large boulder the size of a small car," but that would have made sense and would have been no fun.

As one person replied to Lilly: "You are the reason that Twitter became a lighthearted place for awhile."

Personally, I hope the Colorado road crews saved that boulder and will put it in a prominent place. It will be labeled the "Susan Lilly Memorial Large Small Boulder."

Nice Move! Letter Carrier Builds Handicap Ramp For Elderly Dog

Maddie Dimetrosky, 11, helps Tashi, 14 down the handicapped
ramp letter carrier Jeff Kramer built for Tashi so' they can
greet each other every day.
Photo by Jeremy Pappaso/Boulder Daily Camera.

I get so negative in this blog sometimes, and I will continue to do so, I'm afraid, but any bit of heartwarming or good news does the body and mind good, so I'll keep throwing those in, too.

Today's installment takes us to snowy Boulder, Colorado, where a letter carrier named Jeff Kramer always liked the greeting he got from a dog named Tashi at one particular house on his route.

According to the Boulder Daily Camera: 

"'He would just come by eery day and pet him,' said Tashi's owner Karen Dimetrosky. 'Tashi would hang out outside and would always get so excited when Jeff came. He would always try to pull me toward the mail truck.'"

Tashi is now 14 years old, elderly, and can't walk so well anymore. So Tashi's  human family started having to carry the dog up and down the front stairs to greet Kramer.

Kramer had recently lost an old dog, which had used a handicapped access ramp to get into his house.

So why not give Tashi the ramp?

At first, Kramer just dropped off the wood from the ramp and the Dimetroskys would use the wood to build a new ramp. But the family isn't particularly handy, or good at carpentry

So, Kramer came back and built the ramp himself. "I just noticed they needed it," Kramer explained.

"I can't image not having the ramp now. It's the only way he gets in and out," Dimetrosky told the Daily Camera. 

Now, no need to carry Tashi to greet Kramer. He just uses the ramp so Kramer and Tashi still get to have their daily happy moment.

The irony of being a letter carrier who did this is not lost on Kramer. "Yeah, a mailman who likes dogs. Go figure," Kramer said.

Yeah, I know the story about Tashi isn't a big important news flash, but ti's always great to see a small, pleasant moment in the middle of the world's chaos.

Here's the Boulder Daily Camera's YouTube story on Kramer and Tashi: