Spinning Those Discs

When the Grand Funk Railroad song We're an American Band came on the radio I flashed back to the days of vinyl 33's and 45's.

In my mind I saw the one of those adapters that snapped into the center of a 45 - a piece of plastic shaped like a couple of plastic S's that allowed the 45 to be centered on the same narrow spindle that kept LP's centered on the turntable.

That memory took me to the select few 45's that had been produced in translucent neon vinyl. There were few things as far out as a lime green record spinning on a stereo.

While I certainly like the convenience of CD's Ipods's and digital downloads I wonder what it would have been like if we had never had vinyl.  We might never have discovered the hidden messages to be heard when a record was played backward or at a lower speed. We would never have stressed over Paul being dead or wondered at the darker side of Black Sabbath.

Then again I guess we might wonder at what is hidden is today's data bytes.

Play or Pay

The US Postal Service misses a 5 billion dollar payment to the federal government because Congress can't seem to vote on approving the restructuring of the USPS.

Taxpayers are looking at a substantial tax increase at the end of the year if Congress doesn't soon vote on extending tax cuts.

The U.S. faces a downgrading of its credit rating if Congress doesn't soon vote on a bill that will set a timeline for balancing the budget.

U.S. companies have trillions of dollars in liquid assets they refuse to invest because Congress has failed to identify a clear course of financial responsibility for the country.

I have a solution for all of this.  If members of Congress continue to refuse to get along, redirect their salaries to pay for at least a portion of the problems they cause by refusing to act.

Where's John Wayne when you need him?

Back to Back

They sat back to back on the beach, a man and woman, each reading a book and each relying on the back of the other for support.

I could think of no better physical example of how a healthy relationship. Each person in the relationship able to rely on the certainty that the other is there to support them.

Beyond that, I thought how perfect a way it was to spend the day lost in a book yet still connected with the love of your life. Rather than sitting in chairs side by side, only nebulously aware of the others existence, this couple was intimately involved even as their minds traveled the worlds revealed in the written page.

Morning Rift

The orange orb of the morning sun sat with its very base resting on the land. Layers of clouds pink, purple, and yellow and color formed steps up to the glowing ball.

It seemed I could place my feet upon those steps and upon reaching the top discover the orb not to be the sun at all but a rift in space - a perfect circle leading to a brilliantly lit world. A world where everything was the same pastel colors as those that had spilled through the rift and presented me with the opportunity for adventure.

Got Us a Convoy

It was a rabbit convoy.  Half a dozen Volkswagen Rabbit's traveling the highway together. Each car customized so that it rode so low to the ground that the furry variation of the rabbit would have had a hard time squeezing underneath.

Not a big car to begin with, a single VW Rabbit riding that low might have been overlooked completely - even in the middle of a busy highway.  But six of them in a row was enough to make all the other cars slow down to a pace that would have made a tortoise proud.


All of which gave me time to assess the low riding wonders....and wonder that the bottoms of the cars hadn't been ripped out at the last bump in the road. What would possess a person to modify a car so that a single speed bump could leave the car high and dry - all four tires spinning in the air and the chassis teetering just like a teeter-totter.

It occurred to me later that what the convoy had really resembled was one of those wooden Brio trains set loose in traffic.

Fruity Flies

They're one of life's mysteries, those pesky things that reproduce as rapidly as rabbits or a virus gone wild, and serve no useful purpose.

I'm talking about fruit flies of course. I saw the first one buzzing over my morning fruit on Friday and now they move through the house in swarms that look like miniature storm clouds.

I can only hope that they will soon reach a number where they can lift a banana - in which case I'll open a window and let them carry the fruit away.

Perhaps then I'll be able to eat a peach without swatting at the end of my nose and knocking my eyeglasses from my head.

Change to the Same

From wooden building blocks to building with wooden blocks. Things change and yet they stay the same.

Those were the thoughts going through my mind this weekend as I helped College Dude construct a feline Taj Mahal.

College Dude and Language Lass are welcoming brother and sister Siamese cats into their family. In anticipation of the cats' arrival, College Dude decided the royal pair needed a palace.

And a palace is just what we built. 

Only instead of sitting on the family room floor and stacking wooden blocks one atop the other as we did twenty-three years ago, this weekend we stood at a workbench fastening blocks of wood together as we built a towering edifice with no change of falling down as those building block towers were prone to do.

We worked with material pulled out of the back of College Dude's car rather that out of a toy box. And although College Dude had come with a set of plans we still considered each block of wood carefully - wondering if it really was the best piece for the next building phase.

In the end we constructed a kitty playground as fantastical as the towers we designed those many years ago.

It's nice to know that some things never change.