Certainty?

Takin' a break for a trip up the eastern seaboard.  Look for a new post somewhere around August 7.

In the mean time I offer the following for your own musings... that which you count on as a certainty seldom is.

Back to the Way It Used to Be

I just heard a commercial for a dating service advertising themselves as the on-line dating service without the on-line.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't that the way dating always worked before the internet - Pick up a phone, ask someone out, and then actually physically meet someplace? What's the new invention here?

To my mind, physically meeting remains the best way to really get to know someone.  After all who knows what lurks behind an internet persona?

It saddens me to think that perhaps in this information technology age the idea of direct personal interaction has become a foreign concept.

Baby Germs

Oh, I remember these days...

Baby goes to daycare...baby gets sick... baby brings the bug home... and suddenly the entire household is fighting over Kleenex boxes and ibuprofen bottles.

The normal sounds of daily living are punctuated by the blowing of noses, raspy coughs, and gargling.

One by one members of our household have been filing into the doctor's office to receive the news that bronchitis has come our way.

With clogged noses, sore throats, and coughs that go further down the octave scale by the day even the tiniest of chores require more energy than can be mustered.

And yet we continue to stumble out of the house and into work to further spread our misery.... because misery loves company after all.... and because that's what we crazy Americans do after all.

The Dreams You Dream

It's a wonder we ever manage to wake from a might of sleep feeling rested.

It seems the average person has 1,460 dreams a year or four dreams per night on average.  Which got me wondering how long the average dream is?  So I consulted Dr. Google.  After all if someone took the time to count the average number of dreams in a year it only follows that someone also studied how long a dream lasts.

Turns out dream times are as individual as the dreamer - but in between each dream we go on a roller coaster ride through sleep stages ranging from near wakening to totally oblivious. Which is sort of like enduring an Iron Man triathalon four times over. Near awake, deep asleep, dream, totally oblivious, rising to near awake, deep asleep.... well you get the idea.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.  I better get to bed a few hours earlier tonight to compensate...or will I only end up churning through one more cycle?

What's In a Picture

Well this is something of a milestone... blog post number 1000.  The event calls for a special story:

He sat on the toy box in his children's room comparing the room to the two pictures in front of him. The first picture, taken with his digital camera was unnerving enough that he had searched out an old Polaroid camera. He felt certain the Polaroid could only record what was in front of it whereas the digital camera - well, who knew what might go on inside data chips and megabytes.

And yet both pictures showed the same thing. A room furnished with a wide four poster bed, a dark oak armoire, and a small writing table.

In just two camera clicks his home was turned into a foreign, uncomfortable place.  Both pictures were taken this very night in the very room in which he now sat. And the room in which he was sitting was furnished with a set of bunk beds, a toy box, and two bureaus painted semi-gloss white.

A prickling at the back of his neck caused him to look up. He watched as a woman wearing a flowing dress, ankle high shoes with black buttons, and a linen bonnet that tied under her chin entered the room....through the wall...and sat at a desk that wasn't there.
   

Baby Roll

Media Girl's baby is generally so laid back that it's rare to hear her yawp for any period of time - but she has surely been giving her lungs a workout tonight.

Though we are all suitable impressed that Mini Media can roll from back to front, she does not like being face down.  Doting adults that we are, Media Girl, Motivated Mom, and I have been coming to the rescue and flipping Mini Media back over.

But the doctor has advised that the baby needs belly time so that she can learn to roll the other way. So tonight there have been no adults to the rescue and Mini Media is pissed. She has yawped more in the past three hours than the past three months and I just know that when she gets old enough to talk she is going to say - you remember that time you just watched me cry into the carpet.

Which is why I made like Snagglepuss and exited stage right.  My hands will be clean of any emotional trauma.

Mindfulness Challenge

There is a Vietnamese monk and Zen master named Thich Nhat Hanh who wrote an inspiring piece of work titled The Miracle of Mindfulness.

In his book Thich suggests that too many of us get to the end of a day with no memory of what we have done because while we were doing one thing we were thinking about something else.

As an example he challenges the reader to do dishes by doing dishes.  The challenge set here is... while washing dishes think about absolutely nothing except washing dishes for the entire time you are washing the dishes. Don't think about the meal you just finished of the meal you'll have next. Don't think about what you now need from the grocery store, don't think about sweeping the floor after you finish with the dishes. Think only about doing dishes

Sounds easy right?   I tried it and guess what... not so easy as it sounds.  Try it yourself and see what you think.

Once (if) you master the doing dishes thing, apply the principal to other things in your life.  When someone is taking to you, do nothing except listening to what they are saying.  Don't think of how you will respond, don't allow yourself to ponder a similar experience of your own.  Listen only to what the other person is saying.  You might be surprised by all that you hear.

Just Below the Surface

Shadows slipped across the ocean's surface. The sky was cloudless so it could only be that some great leviathans swam mere inches below the tops of the ocean's swells.

And yet the dark patches in the water were irregular in shape - not attributable to any imaginable sea creature.

As the shadow blotches moved closer I could make out splashes in the water - first one or two at a time, then dozens, then still more. Gradually I came to understand I was seeing the tails of a slew of fish moving in schools so great they darkened the water above.

Along the shore dozens of fisherman cast and reeled, cast and reeled, hoping the lures and bait on their hooks would catch the interest of the migrating schools.

The hundreds and hundreds of fish moved on with total disregard for the lines the fishermen threw - leaving all the fisherman to wonder just what it would take to actually catch their dinner.

Lucifer by Another Name

Folks of certain religious persuasions are frequently surprised to learn that the latin word lucifer means light bringer; and wonder how light bringer came to be associated with the devil.

I think I gained some insight on that last night.  Heading home I was thankful to drive into a torrential rain falling from a purple-black sky. I thought sure the weather promised a break in the latest heat wave. But only minutes after the rain started falling an orange-red light filtered through seams in the clouds. Not even the blackest of clouds could stand against orb that glowed furnace hot - hot as hades - and soon the closing day returned to blazing temperatures now accompanied by rising steam.

So in the sense that the bringing of light can equate to the bringing of stifling heat, I suppose lucifer is a fitting name for the prince of hellfire.

A Story for the Telling

A fun little piece of fiction;

Brakes screeched, briefcases fell, passengers collided, and from outside of the bus came an inhuman bellow. Henry looked up to see who might have pulled the next stop is mine cord hard enough to make the driver lock up the brakes.  No one was moving from their seats.  The bellow came again. Getting to his feet, Henry kicked aside purses, briefcases and diaper bags as he made his way down the center aisle until he could see out the front windows.  On the front of the bus was a carrier for bicycles. There was no bike in the carrier; rather a panic stricken black and white cow raised its head, looked through the window at Henry - and bellowed yet again.  The angry mood inside the bus was swept away by laughter as the passengers realized they had gained a story they could tell for the rest of their lives.

Trip Across the Recent Universe

If you grew up in the 60's and early 70's, and if you like Beatles music, then you have to see the movie Across the Universe.

No, you won't find it playing in a theater near you - unless you're fortunate enough to live near a theater that offers late night movie fests of past oldies but goodies.

Across the Universe was a 2007 movie release that just happened to recently come my way in a Netflix envelope.  I had seen a brief preview many weeks back but wasn't really sure what to expect when I popped the DVD in the player.

I was quickly transported back to memories of alternative lifestyles, student demonstrations, and underground newspapers - and found myself wondering what happened to the generation that dared to call the government to task?

It seems we've allowed ourselves to be trained to be acceptably compliant to the mechanisms of Big Brother. Which I have to say is a bit of a surprise considering the gears of those mechanisms certainly aren't meshing properly.

Yes, there were the recent Wall Street protests which looked promising early on but ultimately fizzled out.

I guess the difference today is.... there is no one thing to point to as being the culprit. So many things are broken in so many places that the thought of structuring an appropriate revolution leaves your head spinning.

Which I guess makes it appropriate that I found my stress relief this past weekend in the form of a spinning DVD.

Turtle Meets Turtle

I'm definitely not at my best early in the morning.  When I first roll out of the driveway during the workweek there's a fifty-fifty chance that I'll notice anything out of the ordinary.

So I nearly missed the creeping movement at the very edge of the speed bump just down the street. There, in the narrow shadow created by the just-risen sun, was a turtle working its way across the road.

Had I been coming from the other direction, I would have never seen the little guy and turtle soup would have been on the menu for sure.  Instead, I redirected the car to the far side of the road. Nevertheless the turtle froze in its tracks, lifted its head, and stared directly at my approaching car.

It occurred to me that the turtle was probably thinking this who crossing the road thing was a REALLY bad idea. Then I started to wonder just how the turtle perceived the car.  I drive a Honda Civic and with a little imagination the car could be an enormous turtle - low to the ground, arched shell...err roof line, four dark tires that might be feet.

So the little guy might have been ecstatic rather than terrified. He might have believed he had reached spiritual enlightenment and was tuned in to the great turtle god in the sky.

Obnoxious Crow

From his position on the tip of the dead, barren branch rising from the top of an oak tree, the crow bobbed as it spit out it's raspy call. It was a though the bird was trying to throw it's annoying caw as far as possible.

And if that was the crow's intent it was succeeding admirably. It's caws and screeches were drowning out the sounds of all the other birds and crickets for hundreds of feet around.

It occurred to me that crows are like the obnoxious drunks who show up uninvited at parties. The ones who get into everybody's face, spouting absurdities, drowning out all other conversation and tempting the other party goers to toss the drunk back out the door.

Body Heat

So now that the heat wave has broken I find myself wondering...

If our normal internal body temperatures are 98.6 degrees farenheit - why does that same air temperature cause us discomfort?

It seems to me we should feel in perfect balance when the mercury rises to 99 - and just a little warmish when the temperature breaks 100.  Anything less than 90 degrees should have us donning a sweater and below 80 we should be looking for a fur line parka.

Just why is it that what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander?

Silenced by the Light

The evening had come alive with a cacophany of croaking frogs. The rain shower that had brought the frogs out of their heat induced comas had passed on - but there was another weather front approaching and the frogs seemed to sense this one promised far more rain.

As the winds picked up, the frogs got louder. A third and fourth chorus of amphibians joined the first two.  The noise was enough to make my teeth hurt.

Then a bolt of lightning streaked from the sky and as it did the night fell silent.

I could picture the bullfrog prince sucking in lungs full of air, then spotting the silver-white flash. Instead of blowing out a baritone croak, his eyes ballooned out of his head and a squeaky Uh-oh leaked past his lips.

No doubt the subsequent roll of thunder muffled from my hearing the prince's command for all his fellows to dive into the mud for there was no resumption of the concert save for one lone timid croak that was quickly silenced by another flash from the sky.

Morning Stretch

They stood on the sand near the water's edge: Warrior, upward facing dog, locust, king pigeon and hero.  In front of them, a fitness trainer urged the members of the group to stretch higher and arch their backs further while paying attention to the energy rising through their bodies.

Light from the newly risen sun gave definition to the sinewy muscles that stretched and twisted as the members of the yoga class moved from one stance to the next. Warrior morphed to king pigeon as the ocean waves surged rhythmically to shore. Upward facing dog transformed to hero as sandpipers raced between clumps of sea foam.

Sweat glistened on the bodies of the morning stretchers but they were oblivious; lost in their inner peace.

I silently wished them success in maintaining that peace during the day and continued on my own walking journey to zen.

A Real Burner

After another day of near record temperatures, the early evening light had gone a dull gray.  It was as though the sun had either burned itself out or the air had filled with ash from the scorched earth itself.

Outdoors, a damp musky odor like hundreds of well worn boots suggested the air was pinned to the ground by a muffling blanket.

Indoors, it wasn't until the air conditioner cycled off and the sound of air rushing through vents died leaving an abnormal quiet that I realized the AC had been running non-stop for hours on end.

Though no radio was on, I could imagine the AM disc jockeys rolling out their It's a hottttt one, a real burner, with no relief in sight.

Perpetuating Freedom

We are fortunate indeed that throughout history there have been people with a unique blend of integrity, courage, wisdom, and fortitude to fight for the right of people to be free.

These champions of change exude an energy from which the rest of us draw our strength to do the right things as we move through our daily lives.

Those right things can be as small as offering a meal to someone down on their luck or as large as taking up the cause of a repressed sector of humanity. Combined, these efforts keep the blood of freedom flowing.

On this Fourth of July, while celebrating your own good fortune, look for the opportunity to perpetuate freedom in whatever way you can. Keep the blood of freedom flowing. Be a champion of change.

Here's wishing everyone a happy holiday!

To The Sea

They came by the hundreds. Moving across the burning sands they made their way to the water's edge. There, packed shoulder to shoulder like horses herded to a fence line they waited their turn for relief.

As the front row stumbled and dove into the nearly placid ocean, a second and then third row moved into place. Splashing and shouting the ocean goers moved deeper, making room for those who still waited on the sand. 

Had someone shouted shark the warning would have been to no avail. For those in the water there would have been no turning back - the wall of those still pressing in would have prevented escape

I could not help but make a comparison to the National Geographic films showing penguins leaping into the ocean by the thousands - a mass of warbling black and white surging into the water.

Only today it was people, not penguins who stood rocking from one foot to another, working their way inexorably to the ocean. The went not in search of food, but in search of relief from triple digit heat indexes and sand that singed bottoms of feet.

And when at last that tide of humanity turned, allowing those first in to return to shore, they came with shouts of triumph and smiles of relief.