Its Monday morning and my mind is like a hummingbird flitting from blossom to blossom.  Each idea is a blossom waiting to bloom into a full blown thought.  Each thought waiting to connect together into an observation or reflection or the occaisional diatribe on life and all its mechanations.   In other words, this is a random recording or what I'm thinking this morning as another week gets into full swing.

It's so easy to dream.  Its much more difficult to acutally fulfill one.  

Shampoo Warning: I figured out why I'm so fat. The shampoo I use in the shower that runs down my body says, "for extra volume and body." Going to start using Dawn dishwashing soap. It says, "dissolves fat that is otherwise difficult to remove." 

(stolen from a friend - it made me laugh so hard I had to share)

I'm wondering about the Oscars, which, as I write this, were given out last night.  I guess I am not ready for the new generation to take over.  While Anne Hathaway was charming, she was a bit giggly.  And James Franco was not really present.  People went on and on in thank you's (even more than usual).  I agreed with the awards in general, wondered why only 4 songs and 3 nominations for make-up?  Maybe I am getting old.

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, 

small minds discuss people. 

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Why are people surprised it gets cold in winter and hot in summer?

I'm wondering where the time goes.  Every day I wake up and it is a day later.  Sometimes I think, "A day late and a dollar short".  Other times I think, "And the days grow short...".  And sometimes I think, "Seize the day!".  Most of the time I think, "What day is it?"

Be careful how you live; you may be the only Bible some people ever read." ~ William J. Toms

Today is National Tooth Fairy Day!

I still believe dreams come true but if wishes were horses, beggas would ride.

"Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears."

Albert Camus 

Me, I wonder if I am even capable.

Monday is wash day.  My sheets are in the wash now.  Old saws are the best.  They help us keep focussed and from running amuck.  Or so one would think.  

And now off to the matters at hand whatever those may be.

Overcast Reflections on a Winter's Day

I don't know about you for certain, but perhaps you too feel the sense of amazement I do over the clouds above on a winter's day like today.  Cool and crisp, I like the way the air feels on my face as I walk the dogs or make my way downtown.  The sky seems to be expressing the passions of the universe.  You must know what I mean.  An overcast day:  the weather seems to be calling me to go inward, reflect on the things that really make life worth living.  It is a time to hunker down, to wear warm, knitted garments to keep you snug against the elements.

As you may notice, I tend think deeper thoughts on days like today.  Maybe it is just me, but I truly believe God wants us to look inside, at least now and then, if not more often, just to keep in touch with the wonder of Nature and the world around us.  I tend to think about the meaning of life, what's really afoot in all the upheaval in the world and how fragile and brief life really is.  And I take note.

It is truly awe-inspiring to me is that, even with the skies covered with grey and the looming of a storm, and that even when the heavens seem to open up and threaten to wash us all away or cover us in a white blanket of snow, there is beyond the clouds the eternal blue sky.

Its gonna be a good day.  It can be every day as long as we remember that there is a blue sky beyond the clouds and some call it heaven, some, the universe.  I call it the promise of life and love and the connection to all that is truly holy.  

This day, like all days, was made for us to live into.  Who are we to waste it?

To Be Totally Present

I would love to think that when I am with you, everything else drops away.  I try.  It is a discipline to be practiced.  I succeed much of the time, but there are times when I drift off and find myself thinking about things I need to do, people I need to contact, peanut butter pattie cookies or what a pretty day it is.  This is drifting.  I am good at drifting away.  That is when I catch myself and through in the anchor again and try to focus on the matter at hand.  If that is you, then you are all there is.


A local therapist and philopher recently posted the following which caused me to reflect on meditation and motherhood for reasons you hopefully will come to understand. 


"To be totally Present with someone is a form of meditation. When we are intensely focused on another person, all thoughts of self drop away and the mind becomes still, like a deep pool in a forest. There is no worry about what to say or do next; thoughts and actions simply arise, express themselves, and return to deep silence. In this moment of LOVE, all separation disappears and PERFECT ONENESS is all that remains."  --Richard Young


True meditation is when everything drops away and there is just the now.  I often think to myself how can there be anything else but the now?  But there looms the potentiality of the future and the reflections on the past which carry us away from the now.  Now is all we have.  Now as I am writing this, there is just the words being formed in my head, flowing from my mind to my fingers to the keyboard to the screen and ultimately to you, the reader of this.  This I am doing in my "now".  You are reading it in your "now".  My now touches you in my future which is now my past but is your present.  Time, you see, is very complicated and yet time truly does not exist.   If you are lost in this reflection, don't dispair.  Time will move on and it does indeed heal.  


No one can be more present than a mother.  Giving birth is probably one of the most intimate and scarey things a woman can do.  There is nothing quite like the love of mother who loves her children.  The ideal mother is one who is present fully for their child.  We can all "mother" by giving birth to those around us of their ideas and aspirations.  We can listen.  We can be present.  


Today, February 24, was my mother's birthday.  Today she would have been 92.  She passed away at 57, younger than I am now.  Her life was never easy what with many physical challenges an alcoholic husband, a developmentally disabled son and me.  But I never felt slighted.  I always knew she loved me with all her heart.  I was told by several other family members and her friends that all she ever wanted was to be a mother.  I was glad I was able to help her with that.    It is because of that unconditional love you gave me that I grew up understanding what true love is.  Happy birthday, Mom.  Thanks for the gift you gave me.


Not sure why, but this sign seemed appropriate to include here.  Maybe if we all "mind the gap" between ourselves and other, between reality and imagined, we would not fall into the gaps between now, the future and the past.

Sleeping Toward Morning

I dreamt I slept the day away dreaming.

I understand we spend a third more or less of our lives asleep.  Last night I was thinking about that as I got into bed.  Pulling the covers up to my chin on a cold winter night, how good it feels to get into bed and just lie there all snug and secure, waiting for the night train to dreamland.  Then I realized one can only truly sleep when one feels safe.  My dogs and cats must feel very safe indeed. They can sleep at the drop of a hat.  Whenever the activity comes to a halt, to sleep they go.

Sleep is a journey one takes to places one would never dream of while awake.  I guess that is why they call it sleep.  You can do the most amazing things while asleep: travel to exotic places, even the moon and beyond.  You can talk with the living and the dead and come to understand deep philosophical truths such as "Who is God and does He/She really exist?" and the most mundane facts of life like why someone would put back an empty milk container in the refrigerator.

One thing that stood out in my mind as I was preparing to fall asleep is that even when we are awake, we may still be asleep.  I have been reading some books that talk about being mindfully aware of ourselves and our activities to the point that life becomes a living meditation.  So often I find myself doing things automatically such as when I drive to a place I have been routinely over and over, I find myself suddenly jolted by the fact that I don't remember the trip at all.  The I fear is truly being asleep while awake.

Asleep while in a sleep.  Awake to find I am am still asleep.  The awakening to a wakefulness to find you are still in a sleep asleep.  There's an old song I used to love but haven't heard in a long time.  It won the Oscar in 1969.  That was the year I was a high school senior and playing the role of the melancholy poet.  I felt alive then, just as I am beginning to feel again now.  Thinking deep thoughts, dreaming mystical dreams, that is feeling alive for me.  Here is how that song, "The Windmills of My Mind" ends:

Like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning, 

On an ever spinning wheel

As the images unwind

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind

So up I get again today to go out into the world and whether this is just a dream or it is reality, well, only the next awakened moment will tell. In the meantime, as Shakespeare once penned, "To sleep perchance to dream...ay, there's the rub."

Those Presidents Among Us

I remember thinking of the President as just this side of a diety.  He was a man of mythological proportions as were all the men who preceeded him.  And he was always a man.  And he was always white.  And he was always Christian after a fashion.  In grade school there were pictures of the presidents from George Washington to Dwight D Eisenhaur.  Then they added John F Kennedy and then Lyndon Baynes Johnson and then reality for me started setting in with the election of Richard M Nixon.  No, I supposed the first glimpse of reality for me came when JFK was shot.  First, he was Catholic.  Then, he was young with a beautiful wife and two little kids who treated the White House like, date I say it, a home!  I knew then that presidents were not gods.  They were mortal.  They were not perfect.  Some were not even role models.  They were vulnerable to the crazy whims of madmen and zealous politicos or members of the press who in their zeal sought to expose their feet of clay.  They were men, yea, mere mortals.  

There was a time when presidents were accorded a lot more respect they tell me.  But that was usually when they left office...and sometimes not until they were dead.  Histroy tells us they were often in the fray, often criticizing and even publicly vilified.  Why, a few of them were shot dead just because someone disagreed with what they stood for.  Now you know that would not happen to "gods".  

When I was in school there were separate days honoring George Washingtion, the Father of Our Country, (Feb 22) and Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emanicipator (Feb 12) because those were their actual birthdays.  But because we needed more three day weekends and there were too many holidays in February, we consolidated them into the third Monday in February.  I can remember hearing the tales of Lincoln growing up in Illinois, studying law by the light of the fireplace, splitting rails, becoming a lawyer, senator and eventually going to Washington DC and guiding the country through the Civil War on the 12th.  Then on the 22nd Washington's stories were told: chopping down the cherry tree, crossing the Delaware, refusing to be made king of the fledging United States of America.  Now it is President's Day in most places althought the offical federal holiday today is still called Washington's Birthday.  And everyone celebrates by taking the day off and going to Vegas (or some other vacation venue or even a staycation at home).  

Of course, what should we be doing on President's Day?  Should there be a parade?  A fireworks display?  Lots of flag waving?  Hot dogs and apple pie?  Seems we don't do that either.  I guess it is enough to remember.  It is enough to take note of all the men (yes they were all men at this point) who took on one of the biggest jobs in the world as the leader of the free world.  And if you look at their pictures before going into office and upon leaving office, it does leave its mark.  They age tremendously. That is enough to deter me from pursuing high office

But somehow they went on.  There are five surviving presidents. 

Today is their day.  No matter their politics and no matter what you may think of them, they served their country and stepped up when many of us would not.  Some say it was ego, some say ambition.  Some say it was simple love of country and wanting to provide the best service they could.  History will sort all that out.  In the meantime, happy Presidents' Day and be sure to take a moment at least, to remember the office and what it means and finally those who took it on and did the best they could to fulfill a challenge beyond  what would be expected of most mortal men and women.  

For more information on the history of Presidents' Day:

The Modern History of Presidents' Day

For something humanizing about our beloved presidents:

20 Riduculous Things Our Presidents Did

The Tale of the Jack Rabbit: Another Wild Hare

While walking my dogs in the early morning we often pass an antique store on Elizabeth Street near my house.  Last week in the window there appeared a terracotta statue of a giant jack rabbit.  He was at least two and half feet tall.  He was wearing a grapevine garland.  I thought he was quite handsome standing there and I thought I should investigate the price and see if maybe he would like to come home with me.  I could see the tag and the price was really quite reasonable.  So I decided to return to buy the big bunny when the store was open.

As I walked on, I began to think about how for years, off and on, I have had these bizarre nightmares.  They involved me being in some desolate place, generally the desert, where there were cacti and sagebrush and debris left by careless people.  I was exploring the terrain when out jumped these giant jack rabbits.  Now I love rabbits and bunnies, but these guys seemed unusually ferocious.  I was definitely intruding on their territory and they were probably very hungry to boot.  They stood up on their hind legs and glared at me.  I was afraid, very afraid.

In these dreams, I would run from the rabbits and they chase me, nipping at my heels.  Usually I find refuge in an abandoned cabin or make it back to my vehicle.  In any case, I usually wake up about then and lie there awake wondering what the heck that was all about.

So, of course, when I saw this giant bunny in the store window that morning, I knew had to have him.  Perhaps it would resolve the dreams and also look good in my backyard.  After a few days, I went back yesterday and bought him.  The shop itself is another story for another day.  The young woman who sold him to me was very shy and wearing an old (and soiled) jacket with a price tag on it.  I had found her in the back of the store trying on some shoes.  But as I said, that is a story for another day.   I paid for the rabbit and left.

At first I put the statue in the back yard.  But for some reason, he did not seem to want to stay out there.  I relented and brought him indoors to where he sits now, on a small table beside the fireplace.  He seems happy there for now.  I do believe he will want to return to the outdoors once the warm weather returns.  Okay, I am beginning to realize I am anthropomorohizing this rabbit.  But it does seem odd to me how he appeared in that window just to refresh the memory of those old nightmares.  I still cannot figure out why I had them.  As I said, I was never frightened by a bunny of any kind and I doubt my mother was ever frightened by one either.

So now he sits here in my living room.  I was telling someone that I am not sure I care for the garland.  They suggested I could dress him for whatever the current holiday is.  But I don't think so.  I think I will eventually remove the garland and let him go au naturel.  After all, that is how nature intended it.

An Itch in the Ear

My left ear has been itching off and on for a while now.  I clean my ear canals regularly with a cotton swab and a little alcohol.  I know, that might be TMI (too much info), but I just wanted to be sure you, dear reader, knew I was practicing good ear hygiene.  That said, I believe this itchy ear thing can be cured, but first I must determine the cause of the itch.

Now I have heard it said that an itchy ear means someone is talking about you.  Now I suppose this could be true.  Are you talking about me right now?  Now if I believe this to be true, it means that I have a rather large ego to even believe people are out there talking about me.  And if that were true, I mean that someone or someones are talking about me, I must have given them something to talk about.  Well, having spent a good deal of time reviewing my recent activities, I cannot imagine anything that I have done that would be fodder for gossip, speculation or even well-deserving admiration.  I have, to put it mildly, been living a rather ordinary life of late.

So, if it is not someone talking about me, and I really think it is not, then it must be the result of my second theory: a wild hair.  Now everyone knows that as men grow older they begin to lose the hair on their heads and begin to grow hair out their ears and noses.  Gross as this may seem, (and rest assured I am not trying to gross you out in this attempt to sleuth out the solution to this somewhat absurd mystery), it is just a fact of life.  It is, of course, one that can be easily remedied by againg practicing maticulous personal hygiene.  Let me assure you that I do indeed regularly trim both nose and ear hairs as stated above.  So, there, you see, that is not the cause of this ear itch thing.

So this is how I have come to the following conclusion.  People are indeed talking about me!  How delightful!  Of course people talk about others all the time.  I am just one of those that pop into conversations now and then and that is just how it is.  I never thought about it much until now, but even as I write this, people are out there in the world, living their lives, going about their business and I really have no idea at all what they are doing or who or what they are talking about.  All I can say is that it is the human condition.  We go about living our lives parallel and perpendictular to each other.  Sometimes we encounter each other and then eventually go our separate ways again.  So I suppose it would be only natural to talk about each other while apart and cause the occasional ear itch phenomenon.

The best of this "bi-natural" theory though is that there is a wild hair in my ear and it itches...or that I just have the proverbial "wild hair" that causes an itch now and then and it manifests itself symbollicly and literally in my ear!   I love this idea.  I like the idea of having a wild hair now and then that inspires me to just do something just for the fun or the heck of it.  Spontaneity is the spice of life.  It can take you places you might never actually plan to go.  The wild hair, either real, as in my ear, or metaphoric, as in the old saw sense, is welcomed by me.

So talk about me all you like.  It helps my existential angst to know that my existance might cause someone to talk about it and me and that I therefore do exist.  And knowing that I do, indeed, exist, gives me the zeal needed to follow the occaisional wild hair where ever it may lead.

Additional thought and muse:  Please don't tell me that the wild hair is actually the wild hare.  I much prefer the  first spelling in this case.  Of course, if it is the second, then I guess like Alice in Wonderland, following the wild hare would lead to amazing adventures just as it led her down the rabbit hole.  

The Sorrow of Cold French Fries: A Metaphor

What does one do with french fries once they've grown cold?  Do we pity the cold french fry, languishing on the plate of unfillment?  Having lost its edibility, is simply now just wasted, so unappealing as it was once an object of desire.  Are leftover french fries just no good?

There have been times I have eaten cold french fries, but those were times of quiet desperation.  Cold and oily, they have lost their appeal.  Sure, you can reheat them.  But it is not the same.  That splendid balance of hot and crisp outside and mooshy inside is lost in the warming up of leftovers.  It becomes a grease-saturated unappealing slog of a mess.  The tongue recoils and the teeth, if one does attempt to eat it,  grimly chew.  Cold french fries should simply be tossed sadly, into the brown waste can, for they are not even fit for the recycling bin.


There is nothing like a hot batch of fresh fries direct from the vat of boiling oil.  And the best fries, even being completely drenched in vegetable oil or cooking grease, emerge with crispy outsides and tender insides that seduce the taste buds into an almost sinful state of nirvana!


No, I am afraid french fries are a dish best served hot.  Cold, they are no better than second hand love letters from a suitor who is settling for second choice.  Those letters like the cold french fries, are deeply unsatisfying and an insult to the consumer.  Just toss them, my friend!  Get fresh, hot ones at the next drive-thru.  Of course we all know that no two drive-thru french fries are the same.  And home made and restaurant fries are differrent still.  But all are intended to be served hot!   


Alas, for french fries, tomorrow is not another day.  Age will not "become" them.  Just like opportunities and inspiration, they must be savored and experienced hot.  Cold, they are yesterday's news.  There is a reason they say "Get 'em while they're hot!"  or "Strike while the iron is hot!"  When the fries cool, not unlike the inspiration or insight, revenge is indeed, a dish best served cold.  Now, my friend, now is the time.

Gathering Clouds

Sometimes I lie in bed in the morning just as morning is breaking and I find myself chasing thoughts like clouds on the horizon.  I try to gather them in and hold on to them.  They often elude me.  They sometimes fade with the light of day.  Others are so random they do not take root.  They drift off never to be seen again.  Quickly, I try to lasso them, as if they were some sort of wild cattle needed to be brought in for branding.  They are mine, afterall, my thoughts and musings.  But alas, many get away and are forever lost to the nether regions of my mind...or are they?


Thoughts are a bit like the proverbial sheep.  They cluster together and yet the most appealing one will wander off, seeking its own way.  It will not follow the flock.  That particular thought has a mind of its own.  It will meander and explore in the mind field and find fodder for rumination that may or may not need cultivation.  Some thoughts like these are best left to their own devices.  Others are best taken in hand and nutured like a belove protégé.  Attention must be paid to each passing thought while not allowing the thoughts to control the thinker.  It is a delicate dance to be sure.


So if I have been diligent, I have carried a pen and paper or my laptop or even my cell phone with the ability send e-mails to myself, up the stairs the night before and I am able to write down the thoughts and musings that most appeal to me and keep them for later development or inspiration.  That is if I have been diligent and if I can transmit some coherent scribblings down that will keep the thought safe and warm from the predators of day's routine and humdrum.


The morning hours before arising are alive with lingering dreams of the night and imaginations of the coming day.  Life itself, it seems, consists of what is thought and what is incorporated into experience and production.  Knowing which to keep and which to let pass is a fine art.  It is an art one must learn to practice not only in the early hours of morning, but in the attempts to remain mindful of the here and the now.

Valentines Box

I remember when I was in second or third grade and we were supposed to make a "mailbox" to bring to school to receive Valentine's from our classmates the next day.  I remember I wrote out a Valentine to each of my classmates one of those that came 25 or 50 to a box...the ones that were little and single sided with corny puns for greetings.  But somehow even though I had the crepe paper in white and pink to cover the empty tissue box, it got too late and was past my bedtime.  Much to my amazement, my father said he would decorate the box for me.

Well, I wondered and worried about this as I tried to sleep.  After a bit, I snuck out of bed and peeked into the kitchen where my dad sat at the kitchen table working on the only piece of "art" I had ever seen my father work on.  And through my sleepy eyes, in the dim light of the small lamp by which he worked, it looked beautiful.  I could not beleive my father capable of creating such a wonderful valentine mailbox for me to take to school the next day...all covered with white crepe paper and red crepe paper hearts.  I went back to my room and fell soundly asleep.

My father left for work at 4:30 every morning, so he was long gone before my brother and I got up the next morning.  I ran to the kitchen to see the finished product.  My mouth fell open and I was tragically disappointed when I saw the box my father had created.  The glue had dried in blotches and the crepe paper had shrunk in places and was not very tightly adhered to the box.  The hearts had curled up until they no longer looked like hearts but red scraps primitively attached by tape to the white crepe.  Even the slit in the top of the box was not cut even.

I remember I took it to school and put it on my desk.  I never told any of the other kids who made it.  I just put it on my desk and hoped for the best.  I honestly don't remember what happened after that.  I guess no one said anything.  Everyone circulated through the room depositing their valentines and I did get my share, I am sure.  No one said anything about the sorry box I had, not even the teacher.  At least I don't recall anyone saying anything.  The only thing I do remember is my father, who had to get up so very early the next morning, sitting up until very late, putting together this work of art for me, as best he could, with love.

My dad was rarely able to show his affection.  He was often cold, usually distant, frequently at the local bar after work drinking away the sadness that so pervaded his existence.  He was a very sad, lonely man I have come to understand.  And it is on Valentine's Day that I always think about this little box he made for me out of a tissue box, crepe paper and glue.  He tried.  And when I remember the box now, it has become the most beautiful token of love I could ever have received from him.  

Expressions of love comes in unexpected forms.  I know this now.  

Happy Valentine's Day