Beginning and End

I'll be away from the blog-o-sphere for a while.  Look for a new post on March 7.  In the mean time I offer this contemplation:

Embracing the beginning of one thing is to acknowledge the end of something else.

A Friend of a Friend of a Friend

I've had a Facebook "account" for something like nine months now - and I just discovered the option that shows me all the people I could potentially be friends with - based on the people I AM friends with.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I started to scroll through the names and pictures of potential friends expecting to find maybe fifteen or twenty.  I stopped counting at two hundred and gave up at what I guess was somewhere around four hundred.

I couldn't imagine who I could possibly know who would in turn know all these other people. So I explored the link that shows me who the mutual friends are - and that's when, discomfited, I navigated away from the whole page. I felt like a peeping tom examining other people's private lives.

Now I begin to understand how I have come to get friend requests from people I've never heard of. I always thought such requests were really weird. It seems to me the proper first introduction should be a friend suggestion from someone I'm already friends with. The equivalent of: Hey, I'd like to introduce you guys to each other.

A friend request out of the blue... that's like walking up to a stranger on the street and saying, I've seen letters from you in my friend's mailbox.  Want to be friends with me too?

You can wind up shaking hands with a rooftop killer that way.

Drinking Thin

Ahhh, the waistline advertising season. 

I'm referring to the ads and articles that remind us we're fast approaching the time of year when we will no longer be able to hide our midriffs beneath layers of clothes. We're pelted with information about health clubs offering discounts, exercises guaranteed to build six, eight, and ten pack abs with virtually no effort, body fat indexes, and  diet plans.

More and more frequently those diet plans include drinking a significant portion of a water reservoir every day. I want to know if anybody can drink ten to fifteen glasses of water a day and spend more time being productive than visiting the restroom.

I've come to the conclusion that diet plans based on water consumption are the brain child of companies that sell anti-bacterial hand soap, paper towels, toilet paper, and janitorial supplies.

In fact.... oh, sorry, gotta run

Blindsided Prognosticator

If I were Punxsutawney Phil, I'd be one irate rodent right now.

Having predicted a premature termination of the Nightmare season, Phil seemed to be well tuned in to Mother Nature. With temperatures in the area rising into the sixties over the weekend all signs supported Phil's prognostication prowess.

Then wham! Ma Nature spun on her heels and blindsided Phil by tossing out a heaping helping of snow and sleet.

And what does that do to Phil? Why cuts the legs right out from under him of course. (Not that he was that far off the ground to begin with).

Pride wounded, how is Phil to show his face next year?  I tell you Phil ought to be plotting revenge. Like maybe hiring a body double next year.  He could arrange for Ma Nature to think he called it one way when in fact he called it the other. That would leave the Ol' Lady with nothing to do but spin in place.

Feathered Daredevils

The wind was so strong here the other day that with a ball of string and a piece of cloth for a tail I've no doubt I could have flown one of those wooden tangerine crates like a kite.

So I was actually a little surprised to see a trio of hawks attempting to navigate the higher altitudes. I can't remember having ever before seen birds struggle the way those three hawks did. The outer most quarter of their wings actually folded and collapsed beneath the force of the wind.  And each time a wing went down at a ninety degree angle the hawk went into a downward spiral until it could turn itself to catch rather than fight the wind.

I figured the three had to be the daredevils of flock. Almost certainly the rest of their bretheren were safely  hunkered down in the underbrush. I could imagine the sane majority whispering between one another.

What - me go up in that?  Are you out of your mind? I'd sooner walk an hour for some worms than go searching for a rabbit in these conditions.  Just look at Hardy, Har, and Har up there in that wind. I tell you Agnes never could control her boys. The three of them are going to end up in splints from beak to tail.

Moonrise

I see an orange moon arising.
I see a sparkling orange trail.
Could be the morning sun arising.
Not sure if time is here or there.

In celebration of temperatures lingering in the mid sixties well into the evening the other night, Motivated Mom and I took a short stroll on the boardwalk.  Far out over the ocean, hovering just above where the horizon would have been had the line not been hidden by purple twilight, was an orange full moon. Big enough to have been the sun breaking the horizon at dawn, the orange orb cast a trail of light that sparkled on the surface of the ocean.

Had it been morning, it would have been the once in a lifetime event tourists gather at the shore in pre-dawn  hours to witness - the morning sun rising in a cloudless sky, golden light kissing the cheeks of those watching in awed wonder.

Belatedly I realized that folks were embracing the awe of moonrise. Couples and groups sat huddled together on blankets hastily thrown on the sand. Occasionally a flash of brilliant white gave testament to a photographer capturing the moment.

No one spoke, neither those on the beach nor those on the boardwalk. It might have been 2:00 a.m. when the only sound is that of gentle surf kissing the sand. And I realized that for all of humankind's accomplishments, there is nothing that can capture us like the simplicity of nature.

Shedding Clothes

I'd always wanted to do it.  Just the way you see in TV commercials and movies.

Tonight, coming home to an empty house after a particularly challenging day at the office, I did.  I left a trail through the house - kicking off one shoe, then the other, discarding my jacket, flinging my tie across the back of a chair, letting my shirt drop to the floor while I stepped out of my pants. The trail led straight to the refrigerator and a chilled bottle of wine.

I sipped the wine while zapping food in the microwave, then collapsed in a chair.

Feeling totally mellow, I turned on the stereo and glanced back toward the front door.

Sh....ucks.  Now I had to go pick up all that crap up off the floor. Stripping while you walk isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Healing Heat

One of mankind's greatest inventions is the plate glass window. 

I came to this conclusion today while eating lunch in a room warmed to near 90 degrees by the noon sun shining through an impressively sized piece of glass.  There's no better way to clear the cobwebs brought on by the season of Nightmare than to turn your face toward the blazing sun and let solar energy bake you to better mental health.

So I wasn't really  surprised when I came across a news article later in the day reporting that saunas are fast rising to the top of the list of most popular home improvements.

With the past two Nightmare seasons pretty much squashing the worries of global warming, folks are looking for a way to cope with global cooling.

There is after all a basic need to be warm. If a little piece of paradise in your own home can offer both soothing heat and better health, even on a cloudy day - well it doesn't get any better than that.

Cleaning House

Mother Nature has been cleaning house the past few days. Winds gusting to 40 miles per hour have been sending the remains of last year's growing season tumbling to...  well, where ever Mother Nature sweeps things to.

Dry blades of decorative grass, clumps of matted leaves, branches broken from shrubs, and even some snaking vines have been sliding across roadways and slicing through the air.

Ma Nature seems to be attacking her dust bunnies with a particular fury.

Folks opting to stand in her path do so at their own peril - risking the loss of scarves, hats, and hairpieces.

Hmmm... I think that was just a rabbit skin hat and not a toupee I saw tumble across the sidewalk in front of me today

The Five Seasons

After the past few months of bitterly cold weather pushing into historically "safe" southern climes, I've come to the conclusion that my litany of seasons needs to allow for a fifth season.

Pre-Summer, Summer, Post-Summer, and Christmas do not allow for the inhuman conditions that have been visited on us during the early months of  two consecutive years.

I had counted on January, February, and March of 2010 being a fluke, but with early 2011 bringing a repeat performance I am forced to acknowledge weather patterns just might be changing.

But what to name that fifth season?  I have been struggling with that for several weeks now. The season of Hibernation was a forerunner possibility, but since human kind can't just bar the doors for weeks at a time, it wasn't really the best fit.

Then a friend came to visit this weekend, remarked on the welcome warm weather, and commented that walking out the door into forty degree temperatures is like waking from a nightmare.

And there it was  - the name of the fifth season. Nightmare.  What better way to describe the bone chilling wind and life threatening snow and ice that have plagued us the past few weeks.  I fear recent days are but a brief waking from Nightmare, but ultimately Pre-Summer will prevail.

Senior Objection

An acquaintance who has been particularly down in the dumps recently about having passed the age of sixty was in happier than normal mood yesterday.  When I inquired about the turnaround he laughingly thrust a copy of a local newspaper into my hand saying: turn to page eighteen, now I know I'm not alone.

On page eighteen I found an article about an incensed sixty-five year old man. It seems the gentleman, well known in the area, had been identified in a previous newspaper article telling how he had suffered a "senior moment", run a red light, and caused considerable damage.

Thinking I was going to read about how the guy was angry about having his public reputation tarnished my a rather lengthy write-up of his accident, I was surprised to find such was not the case.

The article is absolutely accurate, the man at fault acknowledged. But they referred to me as a senior citizen and that pisses me off.

Banana You Say

Surely I had misread the sentence.

I pulled my glasses from my head, polished the lenses with my shirtsleeve, set the glasses back in place, and read the sentence again.

The words were unchanged. A strawberry is not a real berry, but a banana is.

I grabbed the corner of the table to steady myself as my world turned upside down. Once certain a floor was really still a floor I hurried to consult with Mr. Google, PhD.

And learned that true fruits are "simple fruits".  Simple meaning that they form from a flower with a single ovary.

Strawberries grow from a flower with multiple ovaries, making strawberries a complex fruit and therefore not a true fruit. (A banana, it turns out, comes from a flower with a single ovary - so it is a real fruit.)

This explanation sounded a lot like the government documents I spend my day reading but... if one is going to split hairs, then I guess one might as well split fruits too.

But now I had a new dilemma: True fruits and almost-fruits begin as ovaries. Human life begins in an ovary. So does that mean when I go into my garden I'm looking not for fruit ready to be picked, but plants that are ready to deliver?

Extended Break

The problem with taking a break from exercising is... starting to exercise again.

Suddenly those twenty-five pound weights feel like sixty; and when your arms start shaking at the thirtieth push-up you wonder how you ever made to fifty.

After a few dozen chest and shoulder building exercises the bench that felt exceedingly firm when you first laid flat suddenly seems perfectly acceptable for a quick nap.

And that protein drink you have waiting for you when you finish - well suddenly that has all the appeal of chugging sour milk.

Perhaps that break from exercising should extend just a little longer.

Solar Charge

Now I know what a rechargeable battery feels like.

I'm talking about the type of batteries that recharge with solar power, like the batteries in outdoor accent lighting.

Just when snow and cold and clouds and sleet and cold and snow and clouds and cold and freezing rain and clouds and cold had brought me to the point where it was simply too much effort to swing my feet out of bed, too much effort to prepare a meal, too much effort to tie a tie, along came a blue sky sunshine day with temperatures near 50 degrees.

Most importantly that day came on a weekend. I carried a chair out to the front porch, positioned the chair so I would be directly facing the sun, and sat down to absorb vitamin D. For two hours the only time I moved was to keep the chair perfectly aligned with the sun.

Slowly but steadily I felt my internal power meter rising. After that two hour recharge I was energized enough to...

go inside an take a nap.

Aguilera's Anthem

Those of you who had tuned in to the super bowl in time for the opening festivities heard Christina Aguilera flub the national anthem.

While I'm in no way a fan of Ms.Aguilera, I feel sorry for her. Don't get me wrong, she totally messed up and it should never have happened; but we've been headed for this moment ever since the first time an artist decided he or she could improve on the way the national anthem was written.  I don't know who that first person was, but creative interpretation should have been stopped right then.

This would be the perfect time to enact standards on the singing of the national anthem.

There's a whole portfolio of rules governing the do's and dont's of displaying the American flag, there should be a similar set of guidelines attached to the national anthem.

An honor guard carrying the American Flag doesn't recreate the flag as a diamond to show off artistic talent - they are honored to carry the flag as it was created.

A singing artist should feel honored to be asked to sing the national anthem just the way the song was written.  The national anthem is a challenging song. Belting it out just right should be proof enough of an artist's talent.

Singers who want to create unique tunes should schedule a concert tour.

Too Warm to Count?

Today was the day for the polar bear plunge in Rehoboth Beach.

The town has been filled with people coming to both watch and participate in the annual event and I've been catching pieces of conversation.

With air temperatures in the forty's many of the conversations ran along the lines of this doesn't hardly count.

Doesn't count?!  Folks were getting ready to strip down to bathing suits and run into the ocean in February.

At a minimum that should count for one free visit to a mental health clinic.

Spotting Gargoyles

When the gargoyle turned to look at me I decided I had been working too hard.

I had just returned from a meeting and was pulling my chair up to my desk when movement outside of the window caught my attention. In truth I couldn't imagine what I had seen. The second floor window offered a view of only a couple of trees growing in the courtyard of the U shaped building. Seldom did I see anything moving other than branches shaking in the wind. Waving branches had become so commonplace that they would hardly have caught my attention as something out of the norm. 

It was while gradually adjusting my line of sight ever higher that I caught the movement again. Not in the trees but atop the substantial brick chimney that rose some fifteen feet beyond the slate roof of the four story building. Frowning, I found that I couldn't remember having previously noticed the two stone gargoyles positioned on the top corners of the chimney.

When I stepped closer to the window for a better view, one of the gargoyles turned as though having seen my movement. Removing my glasses and rubbing the bridge of my nose, I was contemplating rescheduling the remainder of the day's meetings to afford an obviously much needed break when both gargoyles spread their wings.

Only after they lifted into flight did I recognize the turkey buzzards for what they were.

Historical Coping Skills

When you think about it, history shows us mankind has always hated the time of year that brings cold, snow, dark, and ice.

December 21st is perhaps the most depressing day of the year - having the least amount of daylight. Desperately in need of a pick-me-up, we decided to hold a party for Christ.

February 2nd is pretty much the midpoint of the atrocious weather period. Desperately in need of some positive reinforcement after six weeks of cold and snow, we decided to throw in an event that gave us at least a 50/50 chance of the hurried return of warmer weather.

With an equal chance that cold weather might continue, we quick needed to through in a day where we could reassure our loved ones that we loved them despite our seasonal foul humor - what better method than to exchange poetry from the heart on February 14.

And then once truly warm weather returns what did we decide to do?  Close schools and send the kids outside to celebrate.

Yep, our past deeds confirm that these inhospitable months have always been about coping... and counting down to the return of civilized conditions.

Groundhog Tidings of Joy

Break out the sun block and the swimsuits - Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow. I repeat, that's a big negatory on the shadow.

Which means warmer weather is just around the corner for the northern hemisphere.

With an ice storm this morning creating downright hazardous conditions for groundhog watching, I venture to say old Phil would never even have left his warm and cozy burrow if he hadn't been dragged into the open.

Which doesn't say a whole lot for the common sense of the people who gathered around the burrow while freezing rain fell from the sky.

Though I guess we need to give credit where credit is due.  Without those dedicated groundhog watchers, we wouldn't know that relief from this abysmal weather is in sight.

Now what did I do with those flip-flops?

A Homeless Trip

So I saw the article about the homeless couple who won a trip to the Super Bowl.

And my first thought was... They're actually going?  You gotta be kidding me.  In their place, I'd be asking for the cash equivalent.

Then I read further and learned the couple currently live in Green Bay -- and now have an all expense paid trip to Dallas.

And suddenly I was in complete agreement.  Get thee the h... out of the cold northern tundra and go where it's warm.

Though I think I'd ask for the cash equivalent of the return flight.