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.