Happy New Year and...

Happy New Year - and welcome to Pre-Summer.

In our house January 1st is the day for taking down Christmas decorations.

With the season of Christmas come and gone, our thoughts turn to pre-summer. Once again the tabletops in our house are adorned with vases and bowls filled with sea shells and other ocean side finds.

As the lights come off of the tree, my thoughts turn to oiling the fishing reel, lubing the joints on the beach chairs, and making sure the beach bag is properly stocked.

Because every so often Mother Nature tosses out a seventy degree day during pre-summer, and I have to be ready.

First Stocking

College Dude was home for Christmas with his fiancee, Language Lass.

I decided on Language Lass for her name in my blog because she's majoring in languages and she is so slim that wee lass comes to mind when I see her.

Our kids still get stockings at Christmas - only now the stockings are filled by Motivated Mom and I rather than Santa (we figured we'd let Santa focus on younger children around the world).

Over the years stocking stuffers have evolved to things like toiletry items that kids tend to let run dry before replenishing. This year though, I had the brilliant idea of turning back the clock.

So off I went to the dollar store to find some fun stuff for three stockings. Three because Language Lass was getting one too.

Christmas morning Media Girl, College Dude, and Language Lass opened such desirable trinkets as Silly Putty, expanding towels, PEZ dispensers, ball & cup games, and more.

I didn't really keep track of the unwrapping process but I'm sure Language Lass was speechless (in all the languages she speaks) - just so overwhelmed by her first stocking that she was at a total loss for words.

Extra Time

You know that extra time we're always wishing we had? Well, we're getting it on the 31st.

Honest Injun.

An extra second is being added to 2008 to account for the fact that the earth is spinning ever so slightly slower on it's axis.

This extra second is great! Now I won't feel like I'm running behind all the time.

...And I'll get to knock an extra something off my To Do list.

You have your doubts?

Think of all the times we say things like:
Hang on a second while I finish this
I'll be with you in just a second
I'll be done in a sec
We can go in a second

It's obvious there are an incredible number of things that can be accomplished in a second.

Maybe we should petition to have an extra second added on a routine basis.

Nah, it would only get squandered. We'd just start saying I'll get to it in my extra second.

Mechanics and Doctors

Remember when mechanics took your car for a test drive - and doctors made house calls?

Both of those traditions have passed as those who repair our cars and treat our bodies become more and more specialized.

I'm finding that out with our SUV. Our Isuzu Trooper died while Media Girl was driving on Wednesday. You can probably guess what the chances are of getting a mechanic to look at a car on Christmas Eve.

Friday morning the mechanic finally made an assessment and told me he couldn't find anything wrong with the car. Well, that sounded like good news - but I had my doubts. I reviewed once again with the mechanic everything that Media Girl had heard and observed just before the car quit.

The mechanic finally decided it might be best if he took the Trooper for a test drive.

I called back two hours later to see if things were still good, and was told there was a problem with the transmission.

Bad news - followed by more bad news. The Trooper needed to get towed to a transmission specialist. You can probably guess what the chances are of getting a transmission specialist to look at a car on Christmas weekend.

Is all of this sounding like trying to get an accurate medical diagnosis? The similarities were not lost on me.

Remember when you could take your vehicle to your neighborhood mechanic and he could fix anything short of a bent frame? Remember when a doctor would take the time to listen to what you had to say before handing you off to a specialist?

Sometimes the good old days really were the good old days.

Right now there's nothing to do but sit and wait for the diagnosis.

Wind, Sand, and Geese

With temperatures in the seventies here today, Motivated Mom and I went out for an afternoon walk in search of sea shells.

It turned out that apart from the warm temperatures, mother nature was not feeling particularly cooperative.

High winds drove clouds of stinging sand across the beach. I was glad of my hooded sweatshirt. The hood kept my face and neck from getting sandblasted.

Unable to hear one another, and focusing on keeping our eyes averted from the intermittent sandstorms, Motivated and Mom and I were soon separated.

Following a thunderously loud onslaught of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet, a riot of shrill cries in the distance caught my attention.

I turned to see a wall of white preceding a mass of roiling black clouds. The wall of white turned out to be hundreds of geese that were soon racing over my head.

Goose "bombs" were dropping all around me as the howling winds buffeted the geese first one way and then another.

Somehow I escaped unscathed.

Motivated Mom and I quickly sought each other out. We decided it would be prudent to follow the example of the geese and head for the shelter of our car.

Remember When

Raise your hands. How many of you, as you gathered with loved ones over Christmas, were part of a conversation that started with the words remember when?

And how many of those remember when conversations were rehashes of stories that had been relived in previous years?

I was wondering why it is that there are certain events we want to continue to revisit.

It finally occurred to me that remember when conversations are like comfort foods.

Remember whens lead us through past times that we know to be safe. There are no surprises in these conversations - no chance of offending anyone, no chance of the conversation straying into uncharted territory.

Remember whens almost always put smiles on everyone's faces. Either because the event being relieved was humorous when it occurred or because it was a serious occasion that can now be looked back on either with fondness or relief.

Just like mashed potatoes and gravy, remember whens leave us satisfied, relaxed, and content.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas.

If you happen to celebrate a different tradition, I wish you all the joy to be found at this time of year.

The great thing about this time of year is that it encourages us to be appreciative of our blessings and to share kindness and peace with those around us.

As you gather together with family and friends may you all experience the warmth of the season.

Sights, Sounds, Shivers

This morning it was COLD here. I didn't need the thermometer to tell me that, there were sights and sounds aplenty.

It started with the realization that our cats, who had just come barreling in through the pet door, were fluffed up to twice their normal size. Thanks to that visual warning, I was warmly dressed when I went out to start the car.

The complaining whine of the car's engine confirmed that temperatures had plummeted overnight. The frosty crystals on the car windshield that refused to clear even after the car had been warming for fifteen minutes told me every bit as accurately as a thermometer that the temperature had made it into the lower teens.

A glaze of ice covered the nearby pond and geese were standing atop the water rather than swimming in it. The honking of the geese echoed endlessly in the crisp dry air.

Thick smoke billowing out of house chimneys like steam coming out of the cooling towers at nuclear power plants, made it evident that heaters were working overtime.

Yes, it was definitely cold.

We've Made It

Congratulate yourselves folks, we've made it through the shortest day of the year.

That whole shortest day of the year thing can be a little misleading can't it? I've seen people scratching their heads over it. Seems to me like it still has to be twenty-four hours or else the clocks would be messed up.

Yes, well, we're talking about about hours of daylight - but calling December 21st the day with the least number of daylight hours would get a little cumbersome - hence shortest day of the year.

It's all good from here. From now until June 21st we get an extra little bit of daylight each and every day that goes by.

Which makes me wonder - why is February the highest suicide month? Granted the majority of us are sick to death of cold, miserable weather at that point, and cabin fever is raging. But the increasingly long hours of daylight should be a boost.

I'm no exception to the February blahs. Despite my best intentions to reform, February of each year I'm prone to start lashing at some poor unsuspecting soul over incredibly insignicant things.

It doesn't seem to make sense. November and December should be when we feel ourselves sinking into misery as the days get shorter and shorter. Maybe the holidays just defer all the negativity.

So let's all resolve to maintain good cheer, put smiles on our faces, and think happy thoughts. The worst is behind us.

Siestas

I take a nap nearly every day. Afternoon siestas are jewels whose value go unappreciated by so many.

Like jewels, there are an assortment of naps. There's the lunchtime power nap - fifteen to twenties minutes of down time to recharge the battery. Then there's the body has been pushed too far nap - two hours of oblivion followed by the feeling of trying to climb up out of a deep, dark hole. Renewed energy does occur following the body has been pushed too far nap, but not until fifteen minutes of disorientation has passed. If a life threatening event were to occur during those fifteen minutes, the next nap would last forever.

The weekend nap is an opportunity to treat yourself. The weekend nap comes in multiple flavors. The under the covers nap is just that. Shed your clothes, snuggle down under the covers, and slip into sleep for however long your body chooses to remain comatose. The under the sun nap is a chance to stretch out under the warmth of the afternoon sun in a place of your choosing. The brain throws up a muffling barrier against sound, the mind lazily spirals into sleep, and the sun's rays take the place of a blanket.

You'll have to excuse me, I feel an under the covers nap coming on.

Cruise Control

I've been doing a lot of highway driving today.

Once I had cleared the local congested areas and was on open road I activated cruise control. What a luxury that is.

I was remembering back to earlier years before cruise control when I took trips that required extended hours of driving. What contortions I would twist myself into. Crossing my legs one over the the other to give my right foot a break from the accelerator was always my first attempt at relieving driving fatigue.

Later, if the vehicle was roomy enough, I would tuck one foot under my butt just to get the muscles in my leg to flex differently. I'm sure drivers around me were cursing my sudden reduction in speed as I went through my physical readjustments.

There were even times when I asked the person in the passenger seat to lend a foot while I tried to work a cramp out of my leg - because it wouldn't make sense to just pull over and switch drivers now would it?

Standard transmission vehicles increase the difficulty of relieving foot and leg weariness.
Trying to untuck or uncross my legs in time to hit both the brake and clutch pedals was not a challenge I was interested in taking.

Of course, for every pro there is a con. While cruise control does allow me to "drivercise" while maintaining consistent speed, I find that my mind has a tendency to wander when constant monitoring of the speedometer is not required.

Maybe cruise control features should have automatic timers requiring the driver to return to active control of the speed periodically.

Hiding the Nut

I watched a squirrel burying a nut under one of the trees that line our back yard.

Balanced on his hind legs, the squirrel furiously dug at the ground with his front claws. He dropped his prized nut into the hole, pivoted on his hindquarters, and rapidly filled the hole back in.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of remaining inconspicuous. Either I moved just a little or the wind shifted and carried my scent. The squirrel froze in place - nose twitching and eyes taking in everything.

A good minute passed before the squirrel decided his hiding place was undetected. Apparently a little extra protection was in order however. The little critter again turned on his haunches, picked up two hefty sized leaves in his front claws, and deposited them on top of the burial site. A couple energetic kicks with his back feet were required before the squirrel was satisfied the camouflage was securely in place.

Confident his treasure was safe, the industrious little guy scurried off.

Funny, I never saw him pull out his steno book to record the location.

Sound is Relative

When I go to bed at night, there is generally a time span of no more than two minutes between my becoming horizontal and slipping into sleep. And once I'm out I usually don't hear a thing until the wee hours of the morning. Motivated Mom comes to bed after me and I never hear a thing.

So the other night when I was seriously in need of a battery recharge and looking forward to something like one hundred hours of uninterrupted sleep I was surprised to find myself staring at the ceiling twenty minutes after lying down.

Not only were my eyes refusing to remain closed, my ears were tuning into every sound in the house. I heard every volume change between television show and commercial coming from the TV in the family room. Ice being dropped into a glass sounded like a calving glacier. Slippered feet on the linoleum floor might as well have been the boots of the Marine at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Like many things in life, sound is relative. Normally any of the sounds I mentioned would have been inconsequential. Why did the relativity shift have to come on the night I needed sleep the most?

Bird Viagra

This past weekend I noticed a turkey buzzard standing in the middle of a recently harvested field. What caught my attention was that the buzzard was just standing there with his wings fully outstretched. Not getting ready for flight - just standing there.

For those of you unfamiliar with this bird, the turkey buzzard easily rivals an eagle in size. So, when fully extended, the wings are a good five or six feet tip to tip. Considering the body of the bird is only maybe a foot wide, standing in place with three feet of wing stretched out to either side has to be physically exhausting.

So why was the buzzard just standing there like that?

I thought that perhaps the posture was the bird equivalent to a teen age boy flexing muscles to impress the girls. But I didn't see any other buzzards around - unless they were hiding in the trees and giggling behind their wings.

And then I thought that perhaps the buzzard had ingested a form of bird viagra - and was experiencing wing extension lasting more than four hours.

Music To the Ears

Motivated Mom and Media Girl were out of town for part of the weekend. I was a bachelor for twenty-four hours.

There was a substantial list of things I wanted to accomplish in that period: Listen to music with the sound system set REALLY loud, get some Christmas gifts wrapped, listen to some music REALLY loud, take a walk on the beach, listen to some music REALLY loud, get in some deep meditation, and listen to some music REALLY loud.

For most of the day I had Christmas music playing at moderate levels, but once dinner was done I cleared the decks and .... yes, you guessed it.

I chose three DVD's: Pink Floyd's PULSE tour, Peter Gabriel's GROWING UP tour, and an Eric Clapton performance from the 1980's.

I dimmed the lights to concert lighting levels, mixed a tequila based beverage, settled into my recliner, and set the volume on the surround sound system to a level guaranteed to make the walls and floor vibrate.

Ohhh the ecstasy. Such an experience is the next best thing to... well, this is a family rated site...but you get the idea.

This is what it's all about for a rock and roll aficionado - watching legends perform while FEELING the music.

.... A special thanks to BOSE for a distortion free music fest.

Stealth Car

I've been driving a hybrid car for about four months now. Perhaps the biggest difference I had to adjust to was the lack of engine noise. When I'm cruising along on battery power, the only sound is the tires on the road - kind of like riding in a golf cart.

What I never really took into account was that lack of engine noise inside means lack of engine noise outside. The other day I pulled into a parking space next to a pickup truck. The tailgate of the truck was down and a gentleman, looking away from me, was sitting on the tailgate. I turned off my car and opened my car door.

It was the car door opening that caught the attention of the man on the pickup truck. He turned in my direction and his entire body jerked in surprise.

That's just scary, he said. I never heard your car. One of those electric things huh?

And with that comment a whole lot of things were explained.

Recently I had been thinking that parking lot pedestrians were becoming increasingly inattentive. More and more frequently they wander aimlessly, never so much as looking over their shoulders, even when I'm right behind them.

Now I realize. The pedestrians have no idea I'm there - no engine noise.

Maybe hybrid cars need a warning label on the dashboard.

Warning - stealth car - objects in the windshield may not move as quickly as anticipated.

Seagull Encounter

I took a stroll on the beach today. One of the things I enjoy most about living so close to the beach is that I can usually find time for a short walk along the ocean between chores and errands. It is a little gift from the universe that I never fail to appreciate.

I noticed a very young seagull sitting in an overturned horseshoe crab shell. Two thoughts struck me simultaneously. The seagull looked cute as a button sitting in his little sand sled, and, I could not remember having seen a baby seagull before. I guess seagulls must give birth to their young in the fall so that by the following summer all the birds are full grown.

With the realization that it was a baby I was looking at, I wondered where mother was.

Ah, that would be the very large seagull with mottled plumage standing just at the edge of my vision - and looking like she was quite willing to embed the tip of her beak in the top of my head.

I figured standing still was my best option.

The baby seagull apparently decided I was not a threat and went back to picking the remains of the crab from the shell. After a few minutes the little seagull was satiated.

Baby and mom then flew off and I was able to resume my stroll.

Uncomfortable Difference

I was out running some errands today and something different caught my eye.

In the middle of the divided highway that runs through the shopping district stood a person holding a sign. Because it was in the shopping district, I was expecting the sign to be something about a giant sale of some sort.

Not so. The sign read Keep Christ in Christmas. It was a hand lettered sign that was attached to a cross. And the cross was being held by a bearded man dressed in the type of robe that Jesus is usually portrayed as wearing.

My first thought was look at that wack-a-doo. And I immediately chastised myself for that thought. Because Christ IS what Christmas is supposed to be all about. Properly chastised, I consciously changed my thinking to good for him - not many people would have the nerve to do that.

The traffic light turned red and I took the opportunity to check out the people in the cars around me. Many of them were glancing surreptitiously at the robed man.

If the man had been dressed as Santa, those same people would most likely have been honking their horns and waving.

So why was everyone so uncomfortable with someone dressed as Jesus? Were they thinking, as I first had, that the guy was a little nutty? Or was it just that the appearance of a Jesus look-a-like was so unexpected that they didn't know how to react?

Had it been a live recreation of the Nativity scene in the median of the highway, people would probably have openly admired it - because though it would have been a surprise, it would have fit in with expectations of the season.

So I'm wondering... why are we so uncomfortable with something that's different from our expectations?

Santa Degree

I was reading an article in a Guideposts magazine yesterday about a man who works as one of Santa's many helpers every year. The article referred to a Santa Claus school in Michigan.

Really? A Santa Claus school? I went on line to check it out. Sure enough the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Michigan has been training Santa helpers since 1937. The school has a Dean, a Registrar, numerous instructors, and offers a degree to its graduates. There is even an international extension of the school. Graduates with genuinely white beards can then join the guild of naturally bearded Santa helpers if they so choose.

I think now I know why some Santa helpers are SO much better than others. The really good helpers must be the ones who have attended the school.

I think it is great this school exists! I've been called on to serve as Santa's helper many times (I even have my own suit now) and I can tell you it's no easy task. My first assignment was at Wanamaker's department store in 1975. I REALLY enjoyed it, but it wore me out.

After that first assignment, if I had known there was a school I would have signed up immediately. I would have been anxious to soak up as much information as possible about Santa, reindeer, elves, and the North Pole.

I am being sincere here. Serving as Santa's helper has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. It is an incredible honor and a HUGE responsibility.

And to anyone who's wondering... Yes, of course there's a Santa Claus.

How do I know? The first time I put on an offical Santa's helper suit I was infused with the magic of Santa and Christmas. And it has happened every time since. It's something you have to experience to appreciate - but the suit must be donned with the correct intent. The magic won't come if you're not committed to being the best helper that you can be.

I loved the quote from Charles W. Howard that appears on the school's website:
Anyone who believes Santa comes in through the chimey is mistaken. Santa comes in through the heart.

Dental Therapy

I had to make an emergency visit to the dentist today.

Putting the words dentist and emergency together has the same effect as fingernails on a blackboard doesn't it?

When my name was called, I was led past the hygienist chairs to the luxury recliners in the back room. I guess the chairs need all that extra padding to conceal the restraining straps.

I didn't get the restraining straps. I got the Clockwork Orange behavior altering therapy.

The pleasant assistant took a look in my mouth and said Oh yeah, you really did a number on that tooth.

Whereupon she took an x-ray, the results of which appeared on a high definition, wide screen computer monitor suspended directly in front of my face.

I can tell you that a broken tooth enlarged to one thousand times it normal size looks very similar to the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

Doctor will be with you shortly - oh, let me numb your mouth so you don't feel the shots.
(Notice the plural on shots)

And I was left to study the shipwreck hanging in front of me.

See sucker - this is what happens with you throw a handful of almonds into your mouth instead of chewing one at a time. Bet you won't be doing that again any time soon will you? Cause that handful of nuts is about to cost you one thousand greenbacks. You just sit there and study that jagged mess on the screen in front of you for the next few minutes while you're waiting for the man with the drill.

Holiday Evolution

The temperature made it into the sixties here today and I have been as happy as an Iguana basking in the midday sun on a hot tile roof.

When I was a kid, warm weather this close to Christmas would have had me in a state of panic. How would it ever be cold enough to snow for Christmas. And if it did snow, how would it stick if the ground wasn't cold?

Because when I was a kid, in my mind there were four absolute requirements for a great Christmas: a visit to Santa Claus at the department store, a colorful Christmas tree, presents, and snow - lots of snow.

In fact, I clung to that criteria quartet all through my twenties. A blizzard just before Christmas was great!

Things began to change when I hit thirty years of age. An inch of snow on Christmas Eve was the perfect touch. And if the snow was gone by New Year's so much the better.

By the time I hit forty, a heat wave in December with a small break to allow for some flurries on Christmas morning was my idea of perfect holiday weather.

Now I'm in my fifties and I'm thinking it would be great to spend Christmas sitting under a palm tree sipping fruity drinks.

I can remember seeing the first Bing Crosby Christmas special from California. I was still pretty young then and I remember being appalled that Bing had sold out. Now I'm appreciative of his wisdom.

Heads Up

You may have seen the article about this in the news a few weeks back.

A refrigerator sized piece of space trash fell to earth and landed harmlessly in the middle of the ocean. The space trash was an expended coolant cylinder that was intentionally thrown out of the space station.

I'm thinking the fish in the impact zone didn't think it was such a harmless landing.

Hey Gill, swim over here and check this out. There's not a cloud in the sky, but if you float right in this spot there's this big rectangle of shade.

You been sippin' saki again Marlin?

No, seriously - come on over here and....

SPLASH

Who decided it was okay to pitch used refrigerators out of the space station?

I'm just a little nervous about some NASA guy projecting the path of descent for an object that could turn my living room into an open air theater. I mean what if the programmer spilled coffee on his pants just when he was entering a key part of the calculation? Suddenly the middle of the ocean becomes the pond next to my house. With an unexpectedly strong easterly wind.... well, let's just say I'd rather they keep the space junk in space.

Where Are the Lights?

Quite a few years back, right around Christmas, the results of a study were published.

In a nutshell, the study found that people tend to put more Christmas lights on the exterior of their houses when times are bad. In good times, holiday lights are less prevalent.

So I've been wondering this past week - where are all the lights? Based on that study we should be taxing the nation's electric grid this year. But I actually see fewer lights this year that in recent years past.

Motivated Mom says it's all my fault.

I usually put up our outside Christmas lights in mid November, before the temperatures turn frigid. This year I kept putting it off, then vacation came up, and well... you know how it goes.

Motivated Mom says since our lights didn't go up on schedule, no one else knows it's time to decorate.

So this past Saturday I put up the lights. There are less of them than usual because, well, it was very close to frigid this weekend - and, as I've indicated before, I don't do cold.

Spread the word - it's time to decorate!

Morning Colors

I am watching the sunrise this morning.

Rolling lines of striated clouds have been painted countless hues of blues, reds, and yellows. It appears as though I am looking out across an endless chain of pastel mountain ridges.

Flocks of birds cross the sky in V's of flapping wings. There are occasional gaps in the formations. Straggling birds come behind the main group, positioned in alignment with the gaps - as though unaware they are not side by side with their comrades.

For a moment the clouds separate enough to let the giant yellow sun come into view. As if it is the signal they have been waiting for, hundreds of geese take to the air from a nearby field. For a moment the sky is chaos with birds flying in all directions. But they quickly form ranks and dozens more flying V's head off for more southern points.

Ahh nature - it's beautiful.

Decorating Evolution

Motivated Mom and I are decorating the Christmas Tree tonight.

I've been musing on the evolution of decorating the tree.

It began with our first year as a married couple and we were suddenly faced with .... (gasp) decorating differences.

You mean the way MY family always decorated the tree isn't the only way?

The next step was family decorating. Determined Dad took the top branches, Motivated Mom the middle, and the children decorated any branch they could reach.

Then Motivated Mom and Determined Dad sort of moved to the background as the kids grew taller and wanted to do more.

Teenage years hit and suddenly decorating the tree was boring after fifteen minutes. So it was back to Motivated Mom and Determined Dad again taking the forefront.

Now College Dude has moved out and Media Girl is conspicuous in her absence. So it's back to just Motivated Mom and Determined Dad.

The one, and most important, common denominator throughout this evolution - I have always decorated the tree with someone I love.

Media Girl Goes Flinstone

When we went on vacation, we did not activate international calling on our cell phones, and we did not take our laptop computer with us.

So Media Girl was without her lifelines.

Needing something else to fill in the hours and hours of thus vacant time, Media Girl became creative and lined up babysitting jobs with some of the other families in our time share hotel.

I was impressed. Not only was Media Girl handling withdraw extremely well, she was showing maturity - and making money to boot. I was prepared to give her a hearty congratulations at the end of a media free week.

I woke early on the morning following Media Girl's first babysitting gig and was surprised to find Media Girl was already gone from the apartment.

Not being particularly concerned, I headed downstairs for my walk on the beach - and found Media Girl in the lobby.

She had used her babysitting earnings to purchase a phone card and was standing at the pay phone talking to friends back in the states - at the rate of twenty five cents a minute.

Media Girl had needed a communication fix so bad that she gone back to the Flinstone era - talking on a land line attached to a wall.

Is It Live Or....

I was going through the supermarket fliers tonight and something caught my eye.

Live Littleneck Clams (harvested from certified waters).

There are just sooo many questions raised here.

Two of those questions are: What, exactly, is certified water? And if the clams have been harvested from those waters how can they still be live?

The answers to these questions could mean we have to look at many things in a new way.

If being alive now means something has been dead for less than a certain period of time, then....

When someone dies, instead of having a viewing, do we now celebrate a last meal together.

Join us Friday at 7:00 for a last meal with beloved Paul. He stopped breathing certified air on Wednesday afternoon. Death will occur at midnight on Friday. The meal is being held at the dining room of the local hotel. Rooms are still available if you'd like to stay in town to attend the funeral the following morning. Please RSVP ASAP as the window of opportunity is narrow.

Okay, so my sense of humor is a little twisted sometimes.

Lemmings

Back in the early days of Nintendo there was a game titled Lemmings.
Lemmings were little creatures that blindly followed one another into either safety or death.
The idea of the game was to keep the Lemmings from falling into a great abyss.

Put real live people on an airplane and they turn into Lemmings.

At the end of a flight, as the airplane lands at its destination, the steward or stewardess announces the arrival over the intercom and instructs everyone to remain seated until the plane has come to a complete stop.

Whereupon at least a half dozen people immediately jump from their seats while the plane is still moving. And once those first half dozen are on their feet, the majority of the passengers follow suit.

.... so that they can all stand in the aisle craning their necks to see what the person in the very front is doing.

If I were a steward, I'd be tempted to open the door and give the first person a helping shove to the tarmac below - just to see if the rest would follow.

Smart assing aside, WHY do people jump out of their seats like that? Where do they think they're going to go? And why do they start complaining when the line doesn't move foward the very second that the plane's forward momentum stops.

A passenger can get at least an additional twelve pages of a book read between initial touchdown and the time the door finally opens.

Lighting Up the Night

Driving home tonight I noticed that a parking lot I pass every night was brilliantly lit.

It was the special type of lighting that I associate with ball games, carnivals, and - tonight - Christmas trees.

Lighting really does have dramatic effects on us doesn't it?

The brilliant lighting I observed tonight immediately triggers expectations that something special is happening.

Streetlamps create pools of light that induce feelings of safety in an otherwise dark and frightening night.

Florescent lighting in our kitchens and workshops inspires us to be energetic; while dimmer lighting in our living rooms and dens puts us in a subdued and relaxed frame of mind.

Red lights - well we won't venture into those districts.

And then there's the mix of multicolored lights that lets us know a celebration is imminent.

But the best lighting of all is stress relieving, vitamin D building, body warming, all natural sunlight.

Romance Is Not Dead

College Dude proposed to his girlfriend while we were all on vacation last week.

Motivated Mom, Media Girl, and I were not on hand for the big event, but pictures were taken so we were able to relive the moment later in the evening.

College Dude proposed during a sunset cruise in the Carribbean waters off the coast of Aruba. College Dude had slipped the ship's captain a CD containing his and his girlfriend's special song. With the sun setting and the song playing, college dude got down on one knee and proposed.

On a romance scale of one to ten, I give him a fifteen for that one.

Hmmm, since I'll now undoubtedly be referring to College Dude's fiance in my blog periodically, I guess I need to add her to my Cast of Characters. College Dudette jumps to mind but somehow sounds a little clumsy.

Got any suggestions College Dude?

Duck Feathers

We returned last night from a vacation in the warm sunny climate of Aruba, and awoke today to the chilly rainy weather of Delaware.

Okay, so maybe fifty three degrees isn't so bad for the end of November, but compared to eighty five degrees it's pretty darn chilly.

I was noticing that the ducks in the pond near our house are not bothered by the current weather.

I've been thinking about those ducks for some time now. Even when the temperature was in the low thirties a couple weeks back the ducks were contentedly paddling around the pond. When they submerged their heads for feeding and left their wet tail ends sticking up in the air, looking like an inverted bottle bobbing on the surface, I thought the poor creatures just HAD to be freezing their butts off.

Apparently not. The ducks seem quite content. Their feathers must have incredible insulating properties.

So why didn't humans get insulating feathers? If I had been equipped with a fluffy natural insulator, I would not have had to go to bed last night wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

Then again, I probably would have been molting while laying on that ocean side chaise lounge last week.

I guess it's true that everything has its trade offs.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'll be away from the internet for a while.
Watch for a new post on December 1st.

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Kissing Under the Parasite

Now that the leaves have fallen from the trees, Motivated Mom has been pointing out to me the balls of mistletoe hanging in the barren tree branches.

I was surprised. Not that I had really thought about it before, but I guess I just always assumed that mistletoe was a shrub of some kind. Whenever I've seen a complete ball of mistletoe it has looked like something that's been pruned from a bush.

As I processed this new information I came to realize that if mistletoe grows high in tree branches, then the mistletoe must be getting its nutrients from the tree. That would mean that mistletoe is a parasitic plant.

I did some quick research and - sure enough - mistletoe is a parasite.

This new found information just totally changes the way I think about the Christmas tradition of kissing under the mistletoe.

I could sort of see the kissing tradition possibly having started from new loves huddling under an evergreen shrub in the winter to steal a kiss.

But kissing under a parasite? Yuck!

Say a Prayer

An extra entry today.

When College Dude still lived with us, he worked at the local BOSE store. One of College Dude's coworkers was an older gentleman named Jerry.

I've just learned that Jerry has passed away after a bout with cancer.

Please include in your daily prayers that Jerry may know everlasting joy, and that the wife he leaves behind will know God's love and support.

For privacy sake I'm not giving Jerry's last name. If you feel a need to be more specific -just call him Jerry, College Dude's friend.

God will know who it is.

Thank you

Peace

Cold Weather & Ancestors

When I stepped out into the parking lot after work tonight I was greeted by a cold wind that made my eyes water, my nose run, and the tips of my ears burn. I HATE cold weather.

I firmly believe that humans were never meant to have to endure cold weather. So why is it that we have to?

During the drive home I realized it is our ancestors' fault.

Everything was good back in the dinosaur age. Tropical conditions, lush plant growth, the entire world was a giant jacuzzi.

Then came that cataclysmic climate change that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Our ancestors had their chance then. They could have moved deep within their caves, sealed off the entrances and said Uh-uh, no sir, we are not going out in that.

Then the Creator of the world would have been forced to say Oops, my bad. Let me crank the heat back up.

But nooo, our ancestors had to go and figure out a way to tough it out. Clubbing animals over the head for their skins, building fires to pollute the atmosphere, it's been all down hill ever since.

And now I have to deal with frostbitten ears.

Weather Mis-advisory

A winter weather advisory has been posted for our area tonight.

I need to call the Weather Service and tell them they totally blew it.

Winter is still twenty-five days away, so whatever is rolling in tonight can't be winter weather.

The front could could be bringing in unseasonable post-summer conditions, but not winter weather.

Yes, I'll admit that snow showers with possible accumulations sounds winter-like but...

Wait. That's how the forecast should read. A winter-like weather advisory.

Got'ta keep things straight after all.

Baby Makes Four

Media Girl's baby arrived this weekend.... in a manner of speaking.

Media Girl is participating in a special curriculum in high school. The high school, a local technical college, and a local hospital are cooperating on a health care program. The program's goal is to fast track students into the nursing field by starting college courses and nursing training while the student is still in high school.

One of the advanced courses has to do with child care. This weekend was Media Girl's weekend to take care of a baby. The baby is an incredibly life-like doll equipped with a computer chip. The baby cries and coos in cycles that mimic the real thing. When the baby cries, it's up to the student to figure out if the baby is hungry, needs to be changed, needs to be burped, or is just being cranky. The student keeps a log of the care given, and information saved in the computer chip is used to confirm the baby was not ignored.

The weekend started out with Media Girl constantly cradling the baby and speaking in that cutesy voice that any parent knows only too well.

After two nights of interrupted sleep, Media Girl's cutesy talk had changed to a husky snarl; and her fascinated smile had twisted into a curled lip.

At dinner Sunday night, Motivated Mom asked So what have you learned about babies?

Media Girl's reply: They're a pain in my ass. I can't wait to take this thing back tomorrow.

Hmmm. Considering the number of teenage pregnancies, maybe this baby care thing should be something every high school student has to participate in.

In English Please

When I'm at my writing desk, I'll sometimes randomly flip through the pages of my dictionary to learn a new word or two. I received a new dictionary for my birthday last month, so I'm doing a little more page flipping than usual to familiarize myself with some of the added features my old dictionary did not have.

A consecutive run of entries having two words back to back caught my eye. In my mind, dictionaries list single words followed by a definition. What was the deal with these multiple word entries?

I zoomed in on binomial distribution the definition for which is: a probability function each of whose values gives the probability than an outcome with constant probability of occurrence in a statistical experiment will occur a given number of times in a succession of repetitions of the experiment.

Funny - I was sure I had received a dictionary of the English language. Perhaps the person who gave me the dictionary had mistakenly picked up the version for lawyers and politicians.

Here's my thing - dictionaries are supposed to be helpful. I know no more now about binomial whatever than I did before. I'm assuming it is a mathematical formula of some kind - in which case that's what the definition should say: a mathematical formula.

Here's my other thing - If we've reached the point where we need to string words together to convey what a single word ought to be able to do, then we've become way too technologically minded for our own good.

Shadow Heart

I was so captivated by a flock of birds flying overhead the other day that I had to pull my car over to the side of the road lest I cause an accident.

The birds were small, some type of sparrow I would guess, and there were probably eighty of them in the flock.

As they flew, the distance between each bird constantly changed so that the flock was first condensed to a nearly solid mass - then expanded to a vaporous shadow stretching out to cover ten times the amount of space. This expansion and contraction continued with a constant, pulsing rhythm as the birds traversed the sky.

I could almost believe that I was not watching birds at all; rather a single living organism - like a giant shadowy heart- drifting purposefully through the air.

Turning a Blind Eye

Media Girl will never win the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. The incredible variety of things piled one atop the other gives the floor of her bedroom a geographic resemblance to the lunar surface. If Media Girl had been a teenager before the first lunar rover was built, NASA could have put the robot through all of it's paces right in her bedroom.

Motivated Mom and I have long been at odds about the condition of Media Girl's room.

Motivated Mom tosses and turns in her sleep dreaming about what lurks behind the bedroom door. While I turn a blind eye saying The door is always closed - if we don't have to see it, why should we care.

Well, now that Media Girl is sharing one of our cars, I'm learning the price of turning a blind eye.

Forget NASA. I need someone from the National Center for Disease Control to come inspect our Isuzu before I slip into the driver seat again. Just looking in through the window has me shivering at the thought of what kind of pestilence is breeding inside the car.

So to those of you with sloppy kids - unless you intend to never have to share a car with your teenager - start implementing the white glove test in their bedrooms today!

Out of sequence

Don't know how I managed to do it, but today's post is actually beneath yesterday's entry.
So please scroll down to Phones Revisited.

Veterans Day

I probably should have posted this last night but... there's nothing that says thank you's need to be confined to one day.

Thank you

To all of the folks who have served and are serving in our nation's armed forces.

Thank you for ensuring we have a safe place to live and raise our families.

Thank you for your sacrifice of leaving your families behind.

Thank you for protecting the system of government that, while not always pretty, allows us to chose how we will run our lives.

And to the families of the members of our armed forces - Thank you for giving up your most valuable possession. I pray that your sacrifice is temporary. If the parting is permanent, I simply will never find the right words to offer.

Phones Revisited

For new readers ... welcome. To understand who the folks are that I refer to in my blogs, please go to the September archives and scroll down to Cast of Characters.

Media Girl is having cell phone problems again. Her recently repaired phone went kaput once more. The saving grace was that schools were closed for Veterans Day so Media Girl was able to keep in touch with the outside world via the house phone and instant messenger until she could get to the local Verizon store.

Whew!! Disaster averted - because for a while there Media Girl had been looking a little like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.

The phone problem prompted discussion about phones in general. Motivated Mom and I mentioned that we had heard of families who were having their cell phones turned off as part of cost cutting measures.

That put genuine fear into Media Girl. Seriously. She exhibited an increased breathing rate, nervous pacing, the whole nine yards.

Which reminded me of earlier phone related conversations in which some of Media Girl's friends had been involved. When the idea was put forth that cell phones really were not a necessity, the general reaction from those other teenage girls ran along the lines of I'd rather give up meals than give up my cell phone.

Watching Media Girl's panic attack, I came to a realization. Cell phones have become as addicting as caffeine, nicotine, or virtually any other drug.

And I realized there is an urgent need for a new worldwide support group. CPA - Cell Phones Anonymous.

Because when the next solar flare disrupts cell phone transmissions, thousands of teenagers are going to start running in search of a location that offers more bars of service.

And when those additional bars are nowhere to be found, the need for immediate withdraw support is going to be overwhelming.

Cooler weather

A recent news headline proclaimed the U.S. could well experience the coolest weather in ten years.

Cold weather and I get along about as well as a lion and a gazelle.

So colder than normal temperatures would mean I'd be dressing in layers and layers... and layers of clothing. I started running through a mental inventory of heavy socks, thermal underwear, flannel-lined pants, sweaters, sweatshirts, down vests, coats, hats, and gloves.

With current economic conditions already making my wallet feel about as heavy as a piece of dental floss, I pictured myself slurping down bowls of steaming soup while huddled beside a fire blazing in my fireplace.

Continuing to read the article, I was mulling over the practicality of shrink wrapping my entire house to minimize heat loss when a specific statistic in the report caught my attention.

The expected difference in average temperature between 1997 (the previous coolest year) and 2008 was 0.2 degrees.

WHAT!! A cooling alert has been posted for two tenths of a degree?! Isn't that a little like posting a tropical storm watch when a summer sun shower is passing through?

Maybe 0.2 degrees is an important statistic to someone - but keep the information in a science publication, not the daily newspapers.

Still - it will no doubt get colder in the coming months so I'll keep looking for my battery powered earmuffs.

Sunshine & Seashells

It was wonderful to finally see the sun see again. We have had a full week of cloudy, rainy, dreary weather. To open my eyes this morning and see sunlight filtering through the blinds was a real joy.

Motivated Mom and I wasted no time in taking care of our morning got'ta do's so that we could head out for a walk on the beach.

Considering it's November, the weather was perfect. The air was not overly cold and the sun beaming down on our heavy post-summer attire kept us comfortably warm.

At this time of year I'm a beach walker whereas Motivated Mom is a shell hunter. Once we hit the beach the distance between us generally grows pretty quickly as I stride off for a distant target while Motivated Mom trains her eyes on the sand at her feet.

Today we moved as a team and what did we find but the whelk shell mother load. (Since moving to this area, we've learned that the spiral shells found on Mid-Atlantic beaches are whelk shells - not conch shells as they are called by most people.)

It's a good thing it was a relatively warm day because the shells were clustered in tidal pool. Motivated Mom and and I quickly shed shoes and socks, rolled up our jeans, pushed up the sleeves of our sweatshirts, and scooped nearly one hundred jumbo sized shells of the water.

All in all a great day of sunshine and seashells.

Short

Some curious things are demanding my attention tonight so here is a short contemplation.

Never cheat yourself out of amazing experiences by assuming nothing exists beyond what you can see with your eyes and hear with your ears.

OMG 80B

I was watching the television show Mad Money tonight. The show is Jim Cramer's very unique approach to educating folks on investing in the stock market. Not that I have money to invest mind you. I just find the show interesting.

On tonight's show, one of the executives from Verizon was being interviewed. Mention was made that text messaging has been a significant money maker for Verizon. The Verizon exec was asked what the next big breakthrough would be.

As part of his response, the executive made reference to the fact that 8o billion text messages are sent every day.

80 BILLION?! I was sure I had misheard - but the guy repeated the number. I started trying to figure out how many test messages would have to be sent by each cell phone user in order for 80 billion messages to be generated. But since I haven't a clue how many active cell phones there are in the world, that proved to be a futile exercise.

Suffice it to say that there must be enough beams of some kind shooting through the atmosphere to make Scotty from Star Trek wet his pants. Captain, our shields aren't strong enough to enter earth's atmosphere. All those cell phones will damage the reactor core.

Wait. I think I have a way of backing into the total cell phone quantity. I figure Media Girl must be good for 1,500 text messages a day by herself. 80 billion text messages total sent by others like her would mean 530 million cell phone users around the world.

Wow, where I was when the first stock offering on cell phones came out?

Return Day

Today, November 6, is Return Day in the state of Delaware. The festivities take place in the city of Georgetown.

The event originated in the 17oo's. Georgetown was where the residents of Sussex County had to travel in order to cast their vote. Two days later, voters returned to Georgetown to hear the election results publicly read out.

A highlight in the day's ceremonies is a parade in which all candidates ride side by side in horse drawn carriages and antique autos. At the conclusion of the parade, there is a ceremonial burying of the hatchet after which the campaigning and election are officially announced to be closed and everyone agrees to work together.

This year's events were particularly historic. Since schools are closed for Return Day, Media Girl headed to Georgetown to see history in the making.

Senator Joe Biden was covering all of his bases this year - running both for the vice president of the U.S. and for Senator of Delaware. In past elections, Senator Biden had always been in attendance for Return Day and it was expected this election year would be no different.

And in fact he did attend. Only not as a Senator returning to another term in office, but as vice president elect.

When we asked Media Girl if she had taken any pictures she replied that she had not - she was too busy talking on her cell phone.

Hmmmm... pictures of the vice president elect of the U.S. riding in a horse drawn carriage through a local town versus carrying on a non stop conversation with friends you see every day.

Have you ever had the urge to knock common sense into somebody?

Avian Warning System

We're having quite the wind and rain storm tonight. We really need the rain and, as I've mentioned before, I love the sound of rushing wind.

I got to wondering how birds feel about this kind of weather. For a creature that makes its home in the trees, 40 mph wind gusts have to be a concern. I would think that at some point there has to be a decision to head for the shelter of low growing brush rather than remaining high in a tree.

How would that decision to head for low shelter be made? A winged creature would not want to wait until the winds had exceed 25 mph before deciding to head to ground. Opening wings in that kind of wind would almost certainly result in broken bones or being carried miles away.

There must be some type of Avian Warning System (AWS). It's said that lots of creatures can hear sounds that humans can not, so it is conceivable an AWS could exist on a frequency unheard by people. It would explain why we don't see birds being cartwheeled through the sky during storms.

I'm thinking that if we humans could tap into the AWS, we could save a lot of lives. We would know - for sure - of the approach of life threatening storms and evacuate the affected areas. If there are any scientific minded folks out there reading this... the idea might be worth an explore.

What's Lurking?

Ever since I arrived home tonight one of our cats, Ginger, has been stalking through the house. Ginger has been going from room to room sticking her nose in the heating registers, scratching at the floor around the registers, and emitting mournful cries.

Ginger's behavior is making me very nervous. It's not like the cat could be crying over having dropped her keys through the slats in the register. There must be something lurking in the duct work in our house.

Come to think of it, isn't the cat supposed to be silently lying in wait for the intruder so she can pounce on it - leaving me none the wiser? This running around the house wailing out a warning in imitation of an air raid siren isn't helping anything. Whatever is lurking will only hunker down and wait for the lights to out and the house to fall silent.

Now my mind is flipping through the plots of such movies as Aliens, The Fog, Arachnophobia, and Dracula. (Hey, in bat form a vampire can fit in a heating duct.)

At least if it's a bat - or some other flying thing, once it escapes from the nether regions below the floors it will have to go airborne and I'll have a decent chance of spotting it.

But spiders, mice, or other crawly things could climb the bedpost during the night and scurry under the covers. What might seem to be an itch on my foot might be...... I'd rather not think about it.

Aaagghhhh! Jeesh! Ginger just decided to attack my foot. My laptop darned near sailed to the other side of the room.

Cats!

Hokey Pokey

Set your hour hand back, set your hour hand ahead, set your hour hand back, and shake yourself about.

That's what I'm going to be doing over the next few weeks and my head is spinning at the thought of the mental Hokey Pokey I'll be doing.

The clock changes at either end of daylight saving time always through my body's rhythm out of whack. For two weeks after the clock change I'm just not in sync with the world around me. It's kind of like a movie where the sound is half a second off from the picture.

I should have recovered from the recent clock change by the16th of the month.

I'll be good for a week.

Then, on the 21st I leave for vacation and my destination will require that I set my watch an hour ahead again (I'm not complaining mind you - just making an observation).

I'll be midway through my second time resynchronization when it will be time to return home and set my watch back an hour once more.

Frankly I'm a little concerned that maybe this type of time play was the cause of Rip Van Winkle's extended sleep. I mean, like maybe old Rip took a misstep between clock changes and just kind of slipped between time lines.

What ever will I do if I find myself waking up in the seat of an airplane that has become part of aeronautics museum in the year 2074?

Doctors' Secret

Doctors are holding out on us.

The past couple of weeks Motivated Mom and I have been taking turns taking Media Girl to doctor offices. Media Girl has come down with something that just continues to defy the doctor's attempts to get her well.

Sitting in the various waiting rooms, I have been cringing at the coughing, sniffling, and nose blowing going on all around me. I have been certain that germs are viewing me as a new attack zone.

During my waits, I have been thinking about how germ spreading folks parade in and out of doctor offices five days a week, eight hours a day. Yet how often have I encountered a sick doctor? Almost never.

Which means doctors must be holding out on us. Obviously health care providers have access to a doctors only super pill that wards off germs and diseases of all varieties.

I say it is time for us to demand that those magical medications be made available to the populous at large.

A Gift

We had a beautiful Indian Summer day here today. Temperatures flirted with the eighty degree mark. Such weather on the first of November demanded that any other plans be put aside so that I could head for the beach.

I watched a young child exploring the beach today. The boy could not have been more than four years old. Trying to keep up with his mother, the child's short legs scissored quickly, his feet leaving a miniature sand storm swirling in his wake.

But keeping up with mom was soon forgotten when the boy took notice of all the baubles in the sand. Each sand polished pebble and sun bleached shell was a treasure screaming to be discovered.

I was thankful for the gift of getting to watch the young boy's fascination. It was a reminder that in these days filled with the weight of uncertainty, nature continues to provide endless offerings to lighten the load.

Trick or Treat

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Busy getting ready for the live Ghost Hunters

More thoughts tomorrow

Unearthly Mornings

We've been having some chilly mornings here recently. I'd call them cold, except that would leave me no room for describing the days yet to come when just walking out the door is bad for your health. (Everybody knows people have no business being outdoors when the temperature is below freezing - right?)

And with these chilly mornings we've been getting that weather oddity where a layer of fog forms about twenty feet above ground level in random patches. The sheet of fog creates an artificial ceiling, blocking the sky above from view, giving everything a dead-gray color, and making it appear as though any tree over twenty feet tall has had its top half lopped off.

Every time I hit one of these creepy patches as I am driving to work, I feel like I've entered some kind of parallel universe where I'm over sized by about five hundred percent. I half expect the car radio to turn itself on and emit the voice of Rod Serling saying, Welcome to the twilight zone.

Toss Those Pumpkins

Once a year, the eyes of the world turn to Sussex County, Delaware. Don't believe me? Keep your eyes on the national news broadcasts this weekend. (Really)

Yes, it's time for "Punkin Chunkin" when people from far and wide flock to lower Delaware with their gizmos and contraptions in the hopes their creation will be the one to toss a pumpkin the farthest. This event has grown so much over the years that it keeps having to be moved to bigger venues. This year a whole hunk of some Delaware farmer's land has been set aside for the event.

Now I don't know how it works if the winner is from another state. But if the winning vegetable tossing machine is built by a local Sussex County resident, the engineering marvel is proudly displayed in the winner's front yard (or nearest major intersection) for weeks afterward.

I can personally attest to this having come upon just such a contraption two years ago, staring dumbfounded and saying to myself, What the h... is that?

I know, I know. You're wondering how you have missed this event all these years. I don't know how to soften your sense of loss. I can only provide advance notice of the event this year in the hopes that you can make it to Delaware in time to give witness. (The big day this year is Halloween itself. Why go trick or treating when you could fill your goody bag with smashed pumpkin?)

How did all of this start? My guess would be that a couple of generations back there was a particularly poor pumpkin season. Some farmer walked out in his field and tossed a pumpkin in frustration. His throw happened to be noticed by a neighbor who walked over and said, Awh, shucks Clem, let me show you how to throw one of them there things.

And history was changed for ever.

Glowing Bananas

Recent research has revealed that yellow bananas glow blue in black light.

First of all, I want the job where you spend your time studying things under black light to see if they look different than they do in normal light.

Secondly, this discovery would have been made a long time ago if marijuana had just been legalized back in the sixties. Instead of sitting in sterile laboratories dressed in crisp white lab coats following strict protocols; researchers would have been wearing tie-dyed outfits and saying: Dude, I wonder what would happen if we put a banana under a black light? It makes me wonder how many other life-altering discoveries have been missed as a result of the failure to legalize.

Thirdly, whatever happened to all those variations of black lights and black light posters? Apart from the back corners of Spencer Gifts, you just don't see them anymore (or maybe I've gotten so old that I don't know the right places to look).

Reading the article about the glowing bananas got me thinking back to the days of glowing t-shirts and three dimensional posters. If I had known then that I could have framed posters with banana peels - well I could have started a decorating trend that would have allowed me to retire years ago.

Hmm.. I wonder how Motivated Mom would feel if I.... no never mind... bad idea... fruit flies you know.

Phone Reaction

Why is it that we feel compelled to drop what we're doing and answer the phone when it rings? Is it some carryover from the Neanderthal era? Do our brains liken the ringing of the phone to a clan leader banging on a hollow log as a danger alert?

I have been fascinated by this need to run for the phone ever since I was a teenager. I used to call my friends and when they answered the phone I would say, Isn't it interesting how I, sitting in my house, can cause you to do something in your house? When my friend asked the real reason for my call I would say, That's all - just wanted to make you do something you hadn't been planning on doing just now.

When my friends tried to turn the tables they were often disappointed. I never felt compelled to answer the phone if I was in the middle of something. I always figured that if the call pertained to something really important the caller would try again almost immediately.

Today, with cell phones practically having become a new evolutionary appendage, the phone interruption in our lives is worse than ever. I have observed that teenagers are on the phone 24/7 - it is absurd. There HAS to be downtime in our lives.

If you are the parent of a teenager and have Verizon service here's a tip for you. You can go to online account management and program your teenager's phone to be inactive during the hours your child should be sleeping. The programed down time does not affect calls to 911, nor calls to and from parents - so you can be assured that your child can still make contact with the outside world if there's an emergency. You can also pat yourself on the back for making a least a small contribution toward better sleep and better health.

Sea Witch

This was the weekend for the annual Sea Witch Festival in the town of Rehoboth Beach. The festival is Rehoboth's unique Halloween celebration and always takes place on the weekend before Halloween.

The festival runs for three days and includes parades, contests, crafts, games, and more. Sea Witch weekend is a huge draw and the town is as busy during the festival as it is during prime beach season.

I missed the costume parade for children and families on Saturday because the weather was pretty miserable. In fact, I was surprised when I heard the parade had gone off on schedule because there had been some really heavy rain showers.

Sunday was a beautiful day so I went down to check things out. I arrived just in time for the costume parade for pets. I suppose you can enter any type of pet, but all of the entries I've ever seen are dogs. Dogs dressed up in every type of costume imaginable.

There are dozens of ways to win a costume award. This year's winners included pet families from as far away as Reston, VA. and Scranton, PA. The dogs were dressed as King Tut, Jimmy Basset (Buffet), a roll of salt water taffy, a lion, a bumble bee, a ballet dancer, and even a rooster.

It seems to me an animal psychologist could make a killing at this event. If the psychologist were to set up a booth in the craft area (which is where the parade ends), dogs by the dozens would be dragging their owners to the doctor's booth.

The line for the psychologist would move slowly I'm sure. It would take a long time to talk a dog back into a self-confident state of mind after it had just paraded down the boardwalk as a rooster or a bumble bee.

Ghost Hunters

If someone were to ask me what interests me the most, without hesitation my answer would be the paranormal.

I am fascinated by things that go bump in the night. Probably because I've heard and seen things most people don't ever since I was in elementary school. (For you smart a...s out there, no I had not discovered recreational drugs in elementary school.)

One of my favorite television shows is Ghost Hunters. The show is on the Sci Fi channel Wednesday Nights at 9:00. Even if you're a skeptic you should check it out - it is fascinating. I would LOVE to experience some of the things that those guys do.

Every Halloween, Ghost Hunters does a live broadcast from a reportedly haunted location. Sometimes the live broadcast is fascinating, sometimes its a dud - ghosts do not perform on cue.

This Halloween the show is being broadcast from a spot nearly in my own back yard - Fort Delaware. They did a regular show (not live) at Fort Delaware last year and got some pretty amazing results. I'm tempted to hop in my car and join in the fun, but since Fort Delaware sits on an island in the middle of the Delaware River I'm guessing measures have been taken to keep over zealous folks like myself away.

I'll definitely be tuned in though.

This Could Be...

This could be your last catalog.

That was the message on the cover of the mail order catalog in my mailbox today.

Gosh I hope so, was the first thought to cross my mind.

But I quickly stifled that line of thinking. There was no point in setting myself up for a big let down. This could be your last catalog was just an empty promise. I've been to every website and called every phone number to be removed from mailing lists, but the darned catalogs just keep coming.

I've decided mail order companies must be subsidized by the U.S. government to ensure the post office has things to deliver. Requests to be removed from a mailing list probably actually wind up at the Office of Anti-American Behavior so that those people making the requests can be added to a watch list.

If a mail order company wants to ensure I at least open their catalog, then the message on the cover should say something like Your neighbor just bought item H on page 17 - or- We will start sending you three times the number of catalogs if you don't order within 30 days.

Canine Courtesy

If you have ever been a dog owner, you know there are certain rules of etiquette when walking your dog. One of those rules being to keep a respectful distance from other folks out walking their canine companions.

Maintaining a courteous distance is imperative for letting the dogs concentrate on the business at hand - if you know what I mean. It also keeps the human companions from being tugged into an unexpected trot and running headlong into one another as the dogs race to check each other out.

Tonight I saw what, at first glance, appeared to be just such a display of courtesy. A man and his dog were standing near the end of their driveway while a woman with her pet made their way along the shoulder of the road. But when the woman had walked a considerable distance and the man had still not moved, my curiosity was piqued.

Slowing my car, I saw that both the man and his dog had nearly identical expressions on their faces. Expressions that suggested they had just eaten something incredibly bitter - or had just witnessed a stranger excrete bodily fluids on their property. With their expressions so alike, I had to wonder which one was going to raise their leg to mark the property as theirs again.

Snoopy for President

When I started this blog site, it was my intention to stay away from politics and religion.

But given the current choices voters are presented with, I feel compelled to do my part in resurrecting the Snoopy for President campaign.

Let's take a look at Snoopy's qualifications:

Leadership & negotiating: Snoopy deals with a horde of preteens on a daily basis which gives him the necessary skills to deal with Senators and Congressmen.

Budgeting abilities: Have you ever seen his food bowl empty at meal time?

Communication skills: How many dogs do you know that own a typewriter?

Foreign Policy: Snoopy put the Red Baron in his place.

Energy Policy: Rise at dawn and go to bed at sunset. Apart from decorating for Christmas, lights are not required - the energy savings will be enormous.

Health Policy: Eat three balanced meals a day and take naps as required. Dance when the mood strikes you.

Policy on creative arts: Snoopy endorses making pianos available for kids who want to learn Beethoven and Bach.

Running mate: Garfield. A cross species ticket will be very attractive to voters.

Do your part to get our country back on track. Forward this page to everyone you know. And on election day, demand the right to write in Snoopy as your choice for president.

Sports & Health

Sports are bad for your health.

I'm convinced of it.... at least watching sports on television is bad for you.

My mother has been complaining of a sore shoulder recently. She's a Philadelphia Phillies fan and I'm convinced she hurt her shoulder either trying to hit the ball out of the park, throwing a guy out at home, or waving her arms at the umpire.

When she was visiting the other week, I frequently heard my mother "coaching" the players. Come on, hit the ball. What are you walking him for? Now let's go, get him out. Oh you just blew the game.

My mother is her upper seventies and has trouble getting around, but I'm certain there was some arm swinging accompanying those shouts of encouragement and cries of dismay. Not to mention heart palpitations and blood pressure surges.

My father was much the same when he was watching sports -only a zillion times more emotional than my mom.

With two parents knowing how the game should be played better than the actual players, it was inevitable I would inherit the same traits.

I finally recognized the health risk for what it was and started watching the sports summary shows instead of the actual games.

Some sports fans may feel I'm short changing myself - missing out on the minute to minute excitement of the game.... but I'm not nursing an injured shoulder.

Surprise Party

It could not have gone off better if it had been planned - which it was not.

Tonight ended up being my surprise birthday party. It came as a surprise to everybody.

College Dude called to chit-chat about everyday stuff, which was a pleasant surprise in itself. He had no idea at the time that he was adding to the evening's festivities.

Just as we were finishing our conversation, Motivated Mom arrived home.

Since it was obvious I had seen it, Motivated Mom and Media Girl presented me with the eye-catching brown cardboard box that had been delivered to the front door during the day and was now sitting in the middle of the living room.

I had moved the box indoors when I had arrived home, pointedly ignoring any markings on the box even though the corrugated container was exactly the right size to contain the one thing I had asked for.

While Motivated Mom and I sang a couple of very off key verses of The Beatles' song titled Birthday, we removed the handsome new end table from the box. We moved the table to its home in my writing area and loaded it up with books.

Then we all went about our respective routines for the evening.

That's really all it takes to have a great birthday once you've lived to see half a century and then some.

Sugar Has Left the Building

Ying and Yang. It is the way of the world - the balance of life.

Yesterday we celebrated the marriage of Motivated Mom's mother to the new significant other in her life.

Today our family mourns the loss of our cat, Sugar. Yes, that very same cat who was making the administering of medication a challenge a month ago.

At 108 in cat years, the old guy just never fully recovered. He breathed his last as we were preparing to rush him off to the pet emergency center.

It is fitting that a cat who despised the cold should check out before the bleak days of winter.

We said good bye with a simple ceremony in the back yard just as the sun was dipping below the horizon. I'm sure that Sugar was already confidently stalking the warm, sunny Savannah of his new world.

May he always enjoy abundant sun, green grass, restful shade, and nourishing water.

Peace.

Promise & Threat

Two days ago I spent the evening on the back patio enjoying temperatures in the eighties. Today the thermometer refused to leave the fifties and I turned on the heater to get the chill out of the house.

Pre-summer and post-summer have these temperature swings in common. But that is where the similarity ends. The temperature fluctuations of pre-summer promise warmer weather and longer days; the weather changes of post-summer threaten colder weather and shorter days.

A month ago I was surprised by my new found acceptance of post-summer. That acceptance is rapidly withering like the plants all around.

The steel gray clouds that have been blanketing the sky today have sapped my energy and muddled my mind. All I have been able to think about is taking a nap.

Well, there is that one redeeming aspect of this time of year. The opportunity for lots and lots and lots of naps.

Fasting

I was due to have blood work done this morning. My instruction packet emphasized that I was to have been fasting for at least eight hours in advance of my appointment.

Fasting is a huge misnomer. Nothing happens fast when you are told you can't eat. Time slows down exponentially.

In fact, I'll bet that if one hundred fasting people stood around that super accurate atomic clock in Washington, the fasting effects would cause the clock to slow.

It's the period of getting ready to fast when things move quickly. I had planned for desert, then a little something extra just after desert. Of course there would need to be a little something extra just before a bedtime snack, then the bedtime snack itself.

But at ten o'clock I realized that it had taken only twenty-five minutes for the preceding hour and a half to speed past. Now I was going to have to combine the pre-bedtime snack with the bedtime snack.

Which meant I would be too full to sleep well and would wake up - GASP! during the fasting period when time moves so slow.

At night. In the dark. All alone. Awake and listening to the abnormally slow tick....pause... pause... tock of the clock.

Subliminal Excercise

My rational self and sensible self were at odds tonight.

It was exercise night. All evening my rational self was insisting on exercising to keep my joints from becoming as stiff as those of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. My sensible self was equally adamant that with the earlier setting of the sun, a nap was in order.

My rational side won out by falsely agreeing to a compromise. Lighter weights and half the repetitions.

It did start that way, but on the second set of exercises I reached for the heavier weights.

A decidedly Gullum-like voice screamed in my mind. It tricked us my precious!

The back and forth arguments in my mind continued all during my work out. It was obvious that my sensible self would not continue to fall for this misdirection. What was I going to do?

A brilliant idea finally blossomed.

It is said the human brain learns best at a subliminal level. For instance, play a recording for learning a foreign language while you are sleeping and supposedly you will learn the language must faster.

So why wouldn't it work for the body as well as the mind? Here's my plan. Get into my exercise clothes, dampen a sweat band under the faucet and then put it on my head, put an exercise video on the T.V. - and then sit in my easy chair and take a nap.

When I wake up, I'll remember the exercising, my forehead will be damp with what I believe to be sweat, and I'll be well on my way to better health.

Great Pumpkin

I read where some farmer out in California won a contest with his 1,528 pound pumpkin. According to the article, the pumpkin gained nearly thirty pounds a day for a couple weeks in August.

I'm really hoping that was a type-o, because anything gaining thirty pounds a day that is attached to a vine needs to be hauled off to Area 51 or wherever the Air Force is hiding alien life forms these days.

I've grown pumpkins in my backyard garden before and they are creepy under ordinary conditions. The vine is anchored in place by tendrils that reach out and curl around any nearby object. Watching those little tendrils actually search for something to grab is way too close to a cognizant life form for my money.

A vine that could yield a fifteen hundred pound pumpkin would have to have tendrils the size of an infant's arms. Can you imagine walking out into your garden to find a sea of arms reaching and flailing? The mere thought gives me shivers.

And if, in the middle of those arms, there was something growing at the rate of thirty pounds a day.... Well, Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be upper most in my mind.

Flash

For a split second I was certain my life was changing forever. The brilliant flash of light had to mean one of two things.

One. I had just died and was now experiencing the beautiful white light so often described by those who have had near death experiences.

Or, two. I was about to experience divine intervention. Don't folks in the Bible always cower in awe of the radiant beauty that precedes the appearance of an angel bringing a message?

Turns out I failed to consider option three. The light bulb burned out just as I flicked the wall switch. Good thing I was in the bathroom at the time because it scared the you know what out of me.

Why do light bulbs do that - put out a zillion times their ordinary level of light just as they're dying? If they can put out that much light at the end, why can't they put out the same level of brilliance throughout their entire life cycle? Think of how many fewer light bulbs we would need.

It has to be plot. I can see that now (now that I can see again). Some giant light bulb consortium bought the patent to some garage inventor's superior light bulb design. Not content to simply stash the designs in a locked safe, they ingeniously shortened the life cycle to a nano-second so that at the death of every bulb we get a snap shot of what we can never have.

Beach Combing Fashion

I got a lesson this weekend in beach combing fashion. It's not the clothes I'm talking about, but the accessories.

I had no idea accessorizing was so important. It turns out that for a serious beach comber, heading onto the beach with an improper collection bag is as unthinkable as the caterer of a two hundred dollar a plate dinner setting out paper plates.

Motivated Mom is definitely a serious beach comber, while Determined Dad (yours truly) is a serious beach sitter. The difference is important. The trunk of Motivated Mom's car is filled with bags of all shapes and sizes, things to poke with, and things to reach and dig with. The trunk of Determined Dad's car is filled with beach chairs, umbrellas, books, and towels.

We were in Determined Dad's car when we drove to the beach Sunday. When the lid of the trunk was popped open, Motivated Mom was mortified... Empty plastic grocery store bags were the only things available. HOW was she going to go beach combing with plastic bags? Plastic bags screamed amateur. Canvas bags were a necessity.

I pointed out that some of the bags were different colors and perhaps we could find a couple to complement our attire - but no go.

Just when all seemed lost, Motivated Mom let out an ecstatic whoop having spotted a duffel bag in the back of the trunk. The duffel bag was quickly emptied of its contents and we set off for a happy afternoon of beach combing.

I thought it best not to mention the color of the duffel bag clashed with her clothing.

Sea Glass

The theme for today's activities was beach combing.

Motivated Mom and I started the day at a sea glass festival.

(If you're a new reader, go to the September archives in the sidebar and highlight Cast of Characters to get up to speed on the different folks I refer to in my blog.)

We were surprised to find people from all over the United States and Canada at the festival. We had no idea the collecting of sea glass had such a following. Some folks were the crafty sort who were displaying things made from sea glass; others were selling just the individual found pieces of glass.

(I REALLY have to start paying more attention to those shiny pieces of glass along the beach. Today I saw pieces no bigger than the nail on my little finger selling for twenty and thirty dollars a piece.)

After our visit to the festival, Motivated Mom and I went off for a walk along the beach. And what should Motivated Mom find but a lavender colored glass bottle, obviously old, that was completely in tact save for a small chip in the neck.

We hurried back to the sea glass festival with the find. People oohed and ahhed over the bottle. They loved the color, they loved the completeness, they loved the shape. The general consensus was that Motivated Mom's discovery was a whiskey flask from the 1930's or 1940's.

Imagine - a glass bottle rolling around in the ocean for 60 or 70 years, surviving the crashing surf, and washing up virtually in tact. Pretty neat.

Cars and Orangutans

When the taillight on Motivated Mom's car was damaged last week, I decided to have the replacement part sent directly to me and save the installation charge. I had replaced taillight assemblies before and it was no big deal. All I had to do was remove a couple screws and unhook a wiring harness.

This morning I took a look at the replacement assembly for the first time - and had one of those sinking feelings. There were no screw holes visible from the exterior of the taillight which meant all the fasteners needed to be accessed from inside the car.

Trying to calm my shaky hands, I popped the trunk. As I feared, considerable deconstruction was going to be required. First the bottom liner needed to come out of the trunk in order to free up the side lining. The side lining was interlocked with the plastic trim that needed to be loosened. The plastic trim needed to be pulled out of the way in order to... well, you get the idea.

It all might have been possible if I had been an orangutan. I could have crawled into the trunk, held lining and trim out of the way with my feet, stuck a flashlight in my mouth, bent my head down to my butt, and worked my eight inch fingers into the cubby hole holding the taillight.

Not having the dexterity of an orangutan, all I could do was scream like one.

Next time I'll pay the installation fee.

Hair Moment

2:00 Hair

That was the message written on the dry erase board in the kitchen. It piqued my curiosity.

Was it now possible to pinpoint a time when bad hair would occur? Think of the relief in not having to worry about an entire day of bad hair. Whoever left themselves that reminder only has to worry about bad hair at 2:00.

But was the message a reminder to the person who wrote it - or was it a heads up for someone else?

Could it be me who is going to have a bad hair moment? Suddenly a moment does not seem less stressful than an entire day. What will I be doing at 2:00? Will I be meeting someone for the first time? How will I make a good impression if I'm having a hair moment?

Got it. I'll have to run out first thing in the morning and get a pocket mirror along with a folding comb. Perhaps a pocket size bottle of hair spray as well. Oh - that means I'll need to be concerned about the pants I choose to wear. They'll have to be baggy enough that the bottle won't cause an embarrassing bulge. But baggy pants won't help me make a good impression.

Wait. Did that message just appear on the board today or did I miss it last night? Maybe I already had the hair moment. Oh JEEZZZ, I was in the bank at 2:00. The tellers were probably snickering under their breath. Okay, I need to calm down. Maybe it was just mussed hair and not rooster hair.

Hey - I remember. Motivated Mom has a hair appointment at 2:00 tomorrow.

I knew the message didn't have anything to do with me.

Two Faced Cricket

It's that time of year when the air conditioners get turned off and windows are thrown open. Stale air is replaced by fresh; and the monotonous hum of the circulating fan is replaced by a variety of outdoor sounds.

The evening orchestra of frogs and insects is what I notice most. Foremost in that orchestra is the cricket section. The varying octaves of chirping that rise and fall in synchronized volume can send me into a deep sleep faster than a handful of Sominex.

Yet, let a single cricket find its way into my house and the chirping is the equivalent of Chinese water torture.

A single cricket can have me stalking around the house at bedtime like an apprentice Crocodile Hunter. I will crawl under beds, move furniture, and burrow my way through the questionable stuff that piles up in the corners of closets in my search for the offending insect.

And when, I want to know, did crickets learn how to throw their voice (or chirp)? There is no other explanation. I can track the chirp to a shadowy corner, upside down waste basket poised for a certain capture, only to find nothing but dust bunnies. Even while standing there like a confused trash collector, I can hear the chirping SO clearly. The little devil HAS to be right in front of me.

The outcome is predictable. I will fling the waste basket away in surrender, bury my head beneath a pillow - and wonder where I left the Sominex.

H R Puff'nstuff

I'm going to let you follow the twisted path my mind takes when I'm giving it free creative rein. I give you fair warning - it's scary.

Which is how tonight's blog started - with the word scary.

Cleaning up from dinner, I was wondering what I was going to write about, and I remembered the teenage girl I had seen on my way home. Dressed in black, the girl had black hair with neon purple highlights. I remembered thinking that's just scary.

Which, I guess, reminded me of the Halloween CD of scary sounds I had recently picked up. So I put the CD into the stereo and started wondering how I could tie the together the girl with the purple hair and the scary sounds.

Which made me think of Wilamina Witcheepoo. Witcheepoo was one of the main characters in a kids show that was on in the late 60's.

And the name of that show was... was... was... GOT IT! HR Puff'nstuff. With the Banana Splits, Wilamina Witcheepoo, and some guy with a magic flute.

HR Puff'nstuff was on weekday afternoons.... Which got me started thinking about the other afternoon cartoons like Speed Racer, Clutch Cargo, Space Ghost.

If you weren't a kid in the 60's then I know I've lost you along this two minute journey - and I'm sorry about that. But the memory of all those great things just had to be put in writing because...

OMG, like I am just so totally having a major flashback.

Exception to the Rule

I prepare a fair number of meals, or at least portions of meals in the microwave. I figured out early on that the caveat cooking times may vary depending on the power of your microwave means that every microwaved meal is a potential science experiment gone wrong.

Preferring to err on the side of caution, my routine starting point is seventy percent power for two minutes. The power setting is not high enough to cremate the food, and the length of time allows for at least one stir or flip before a subsequent "nuking".

When he was still living with us, College Dude routinely asked for microwave guidance and I always answered seventy percent at two minutes. Not that college age kids tend to be sarcastic or anything, but one night College Dude mumbled something about there must be SOME reason why they put all those other buttons on the keypad.

Turns out College Dude was right. There IS a reason for the other buttons. Tonight I found the exception to my rule.

Tilapia (that's fish for those of you who don't speak seafood) plumps to roughly twice its original size at one minute, thirty seconds into the cooking cycle. It really looks moist and delicious at that point. In the future I'll remember that, I assure you.

I'll also remember that at one minute and forty-seven seconds, Tilapia explodes with a force that, for just a split second, causes concern about the intergity of the latch on the microwave door.

The Smell of Comfort

I stopped to do the week's shopping on the way home from work today. I exited the grocery store to an early dusk courtesy of the leading edge of an angry looking weather front. The chilling breeze whipping across the parking lot had me transferring grocery bags to the trunk of my car as quickly as possible.

The chill stayed with me for the short drive home. Once the car was safely in the driveway, I grabbed as many plastic bags as I could safely manage and hurried up the walk to the front door. Stepping across the threshold I was greeted by the smell of home made chicken soup simmering on the stove. The smell, heavy in the air, warmed me every bit as effectively as a warm, soft blanket. By the time the door had closed behind me, the chilly weather was forgotten and all was right with the world.

I was overcome with the need to immediately change into a set of loose fitting sweat clothes and a pair of warm slippers before sitting down to dinner.

Isn't it amazing the comfort we can find in a simple smell?