So are sweet nothings such terribe things to say? The provide a chancc fot peopble to expressd themselv. The mighht not always by the wright expresiion but they give us a chance to say what is in our hearts. Hallpy Vallentines Dad, To all my best friends.
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Why do we write
When we started we grumbld at what national tv gaves us in the guise of reality, we knew that reality had hold to do with our perceptiontion of reality. It sures seems real, therefor it must be real.
Afterr a while the perception draws into presumption. The logic of realism exceeding the idea that it could be real.
Or another way to say, “darned, it think we’re on to something. Sort of like saying “Wouldn,t it be nice to hear someone say “hank you’ before being pawed for payment.”. And in another bit we became inner experts making ourselves content in doing what is right for us the writer, hoping to get it right for the reader. Because now we interact. We ask partners to edit. We ask others to follow. We paraphrase winners.
And ocassionslly we ask favors. My turn. I had a pretty rough patch in the hospital the last couple of days . I am not above myslef asking for extra prayers so we can continue our real world of realality.
Take’s what I think. How ’bout you?
Let me follow neither path but blaze a new trail for others
Last night the Grammy’s were awarded. Peer managed awards are great hings. These are common people of common challenges determining common excellence. They are the choices of the people who do and know, not of the people who watch and wonder.
Most of us won’t ever get the chance of such a strong peer review process. Maybe we’ll get a “shake it out” job review but not anything like having thousands of our peers pass judgement on our performance. Then I thought, maybe we do.
Last summer I left a job to have a surgical procedure taken care of. The time was right. The contract I was working on was expired and I would be moving on to a new position anyway. I had a couple of awards under my belt and knew I could win a Grammy. But I didn’t know how. I figured I set back and let the world beat the proverbial path. But my mousetrap wasn’t good enough.
What it did was open a small clearing that eventually, and very slowly, I had to blaze into a new trial. I’m mixing my metaphors. Let me start over.
I thought I didn’t need professional communication. Everybody in my world knew me. But I needed to not get bored so I turned to the old stand-by “how was you day?” talk at dinner with Daughter of He. And do you know what? It didn’t work. What did . . . and to make a long story short . . . was that eventually we started talking about what mattered. I was lucky enough to actually have someone to talk to and “How was you day?” turned into “Why did you do that?”
It might sound funny but that started with cooking. Cooking is that universal extra thing most everyone likes to do. It got us into real talk about why when this is added to that it tastes thus. And we understood the process so that meant that we were comfortable talking about it.
While we were busy critiquing my dinners we started speaking of more profound topics – finances, relationships, responsibilities – and becoming more comfortable with those. What was most important was that I was finally getting a peer review like no other.
Did I earn my Grammy? Don’t know, but keep reading. There might be some clarity opening up soon.
That’s what I think. How ’bout you?
This Blog is a Mess and I Am Too
Sometime in January I was admitted to the hospital. This has happened before. Since I wasn’t doing anything else when it happened I had packed up my laptop and moved along like nothing else happened. Hospitals aren’t good places for laptaps but I had a bunch a partially written posts and the mobile app on my tablet. Problem solved! It was untill I discovered instead of saving new drafts I was posting embarassingly, gramatically compromised final products. Ooops. Right on up to emails announcing my boo-boos. Double ooops.
I think I have fixed all of the messed up “new posts” and you should be able to go to home and read what I really thought. And can do it without thinking too poorly of me. At least I hope so.
Now that’s what I tink. How ’bout you?
The Things People Do
Recently, some crazy person was on TV expounding on the benefits of artificial milk products, justifying her opinion by declaring that “humans are the only mammals that (sic) drink milk into adulthood.” If you want to be crazy, be crazy. It’s one of the things humans do into adulthood. And then I started thinking of all the things humans do that other mammals don’t. I really hope the crazy lady is reading because these are all things she should not be doing and helping others is another thing humans do.
Humans are the only mammals who:
Read for pleasure,
Read for anything,
Know that war and battles are so wrong that one of us donated a lot of money to establish a prize to celebrate peace,
Laugh
Clean and cook food to feed to our families so we aren’t limited to dinners of furry rabbit tartar with a tall glass of rice milk,
Invent stuff,
Can write all of Shakespeare’s plays without the help of 1,000 close friends and random blind luck (in fact, one guy did just that),
Know that music soothes the savage breast,
Heal illnesses,
Discover vaccines,
Create and maintain safe habitats for other mammals,
Appreciate ballet, tap, jazz, break, and dirty dancing,
I don’t begrudge the crazy lady for voicing her views. If it weren’t for us humans she’d not have the right to speak her opinion freely. I am upset that she is inferring that her view must be the correct one based on faulty logic. It might be a fact but is has nothing to do with the argument. It is like saying that indoor plumbing works because humans are the only mammals who make doctor appointments for themselves.
There are no count of the things that make humans different from other mammals. For that we should be infinitely grateful.
That’s what I think. How ’bout you.
Happy Groundhog Day
Yes, today is the most useful holiday of the year, determining if you keep your winter whoolies available or plan for early spring cleaning. But first, a couple thoughts. If you aren’t interested in my thoughts, skip to the last paragraph. I won’t mind.
Used to be when you cheated and were caught, whatever it was that you got by cheating was taken away from you. That must have been before people paid a couple of thousand dollars to watch you cheat. But that’s a post for a different day. And besides, someone else already coined the word “deflategate.”
Of course I am referring to the AFC championsip game of two weeks ago. There weren’t a lot of people who said that if there was some question of how either team got to the championship game there should have been an immediate investigation and maybe even replay the game that decided who got to go to SB49. If you cheated on your test to become a doctor and were caught, you might get to still become a doctor but not on the strength of that test. Again, a post for a different day.
What was more unsettling was that toward the end of the game a fight broke out. Last fall in Pennsylvania at the state football championship, the team expected to win was losing. It was almost at the end of the game and a fight broke out. The officials stopped the game. Didn’t let them play out the ritualistic kneel-down. Didn’t even let them shake hands. Eventually the instigators apologized, were put on probation for a year and the coach was suspended for the next game which will be next year. It didn’t change any outcomes but it let coaches and players and administrators know that someone is watching. Still another day’s post.
Someday, someone will decide if a rule was broken (it was) and if someone did it intentionally (he did). Maybe somebody will be punished but outcomes won’t change and people will continue to watch.
The most unsettling of it all was that it cast a cloud over Groundhog Day. Pun intended. Today’s post is being released a little later than usual because I had to wait for Phil to make his appearance. And appear he did, a bit after seven this morning, seeing his shadow regardless of those clouds, thus forecasting six more weeks of winter. Naysayers say nay, nay, the animal is right only 40% of the time. I say that isn’t so bad, it’s great even. Ask any major league baseball player htting for average. So to those who say we’re putting too much faith in what we can’t control I say too bad. I for one will not be pulling out my spring wardrobe this week. Actually, Phil is correct 100% of the time. It says so on his Internet site, groundhog.org. If he says he’s right 100% of the time then he is right 100% of the time. After all, he’s a champion prognostigator and he didn’t cheat to get there.
That’s what I think. How ’bout you?
Mondays (and Thursdays) with Those Reality Blog People
It’s been 18 years since “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom was published. I saw a reference to that book a while ago and thought to myself (as most thoughts are), what a great concept for a blog. Then I thought again to myself not just what a concept but what a pioneer!
If this were then, or then were now, was now, was then…you get the idea. If there were blogs then we could have been graced with Morrie’s wisdom without Mitch’s intervention. Morrie could have posted his own blog!
Really, isn’t that what we do everytime a post is uploaded – share a little piece of ourseves and share our wisdom? Mitch and Morrie were indeed pioneers. They just didn’t know it yet.
That’s what I think. How ’bout you?
No Means Why Not
Jerry Seinfeld once said that the only warning label people really pay attention to is “Dry Clean Only.” He has a point. Just about everything else we are told not to do we do and do it with gusto. If you take a warning label, put it on steroids, turn the fabric to metal, and hang it on a pole along the side of the road you get those big warning signs. They don’t have anywhere near the impact of “Dry Clean Only.”
Perhaps it’s because we got back to real winter weather. Perhaps it’s because all of the stars lined up just right and all of the blind, nearly blind, and soon to be blind-sided were out driving at the same time. Perhaps it’s because so many people take traffic laws as suggestions. For whatever reason, yesterday was not a day to be out driving in the local business district.
There are some “No” traffic laws that are never going to be heeded. No passing on right. No turns from shoulder. No lane changing in tunnel. Most people do them and get away with them without much problem. There are other “No” laws that are to be heeded because they are more vital to life. They usually involve aiming the car at a point that crosses traffic and that traffic is usually high speed and busy not paying attention to its own warnings. No left turn. No U turn. No turn on red. Yesterday was the day that for every “No” the signs said there was a driver saying “Oh yes I can.”
It’s along one span of a quite large business route that there are traffic lights every 500 feet or so. Shopping centers, malls, clusters of stores and restaurants, and car dealerships line both sides of the 4 or 5 mile stretch of roadway. To keep unnecessary traffic out of these various shopping areas’ parking lots, most of the lights permit U-turns. But then, most of the road is only 2 lanes in either direction. At the two lights where the road expands to 4 lanes each way the lights are clearly signed “No U Turn.” At both of these there were cars literally lined up to reverse their courses rather than travel the quarter-mile to the next legal switching point. At both of these the cars were still lined up after at one intersection the U-Turning car was struck by another and at the second the U-Turning car crossed two lanes of traffic and did half a donut to avoid being struck by a car bearing down on him.
Along a different road there are two “No Left Turn” intersections that, if permitted, would require the turning car to pass in front of three lanes of uncontrolled oncoming traffic. At the first of these I had to stop while not one, not two, but three of the four cars ahead prepared to make an unlawful left turn. To be safe about it, they all had their turn signals on. At the second of these there was only one car making its illegal turn. That car was a police car.
There just isn’t enough space to detail all of the No Turn on Red turns but one was absolutely spectacular. That will be a post for another day.
There was no indication of how many of these scofflaws needed to have something dry cleaned. By the end of the day, I did.
Now that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you.
Swing Your Partner
Did you ever run across something that is just so bizarre you can’t stop watching? Then you are ready to experience the world of tractor square dancing. Go ahead and re-read that sentence all you want. It really does end with “tractor square dancing.”
I don’t know when I first ran across this spectacle (there really is no other word for it). I think it might have been some 10 years ago when my mother was sick and I would spend afternoons with her so she wouldn’t be alone. It was this time of year and our state was holding its annual farm show which was televised on the statewide cable network. Yes, I know this is January. Yes, I said farm show. No I don’t live in the southern hemisphere. Yes, this is getting sillier by the paragraph. Anyway, on television back then, in the middle of the afternoon, there were soap operas, Jerry Springer shows, or silly cable programs. Neither my mother nor I were farm people, animal people other than the occasional house pet, prize winning produce people, and certainly not tractor people. Yet between choosing among soaps, Springer, or Farmville, tractor square dancing caught our attention.
There was a couple year period when I thought I might have successfully detoxed from the phenomenon. Again, it was about this time of year and I was on the phone with She. Our televisions were on and the inevitable “What are you watching?” was asked. “The farm show.” “Haven’t seen that for a while. What’s on?” “Tractor square dancing!” Another victim — err, fan.
That was when I gave up and made it a point that every January I would click my way around the TV remote until I landed on the Tractor Square Dance event. Four “couples” of antique tractors in a dirt arena, do-si-do-ing and allemande-ing under the direction of a dance caller just like a regular square dance but this one powered by John Deere and diesel.
I see you don’t believe me. Go to your favorite search engine and type in “Tractor square dance.” Among the 300,000 or so returns you will find plenty of clubs dong it all across the country. And videos! Watch the videos! But don’t blame me if you get addicted.
Although not even a regular (?) square dance person, tractor square dancing is so out of the ordinary that I considered it (albeit briefly) for inclusion on the bucket list. Apparently there is a group not that far from me that is always looking for new drivers. No experience necessary. In fact, no tractor necessary either. They keep their own stable of antique tricycle configured contraptions. I’m pretty good with a riding lawn mower. How hard could it be?
Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?
Then I Lay Me Down to Sleep
I don’t want to get maudlin here but lately I’ve been wondering if there are some things I want to do before kicking the proverbial bucket. Proverbially. Not so long ago we posted a “Hole in the Bucket List,” or those things we really don’t want to do. (See “I Would Do Anything – Not!” Feb. 11, 2013.) That list ran the gamut from alligator wrestling to tornado chasing. And even in thinking of those things I’d like to do there are more that I don’t and certainly won’t than those that I wish I had and will try to do. But if one was to write a bucket list and if that one was me, what would be there? First it would be of three parts – things to do, places to go, and experiences to um, experience.
Starting with the second first we find the easiest category. There was once a time that I’d have been convinced that I couldn’t call it a life fulfilled if I hadn’t visited all fifty of the United States. With apologies to the Midwest, once I got to Kansas, that goal tarnished. There’s only so much flat and level one can take. There just isn’t that much difference between North and South Dakotas, and ditto the Carolinas to require four stops on that Triptik. Alaska is way too big and Rhode Island is way too small to compose jaw dropping long weekends. Fifty states are just too many for more than just weekends. Regions are a different story. New England, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, West Coast, Northwest. Those are manageable. And I’ve been to them all so that’s off the list. But within each region there are special places. And some special places deserve special notice.
One city that I have to get to while the getting is still getable is Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, home of Punxsutawney Phil, the world’s greatest weather rodent. Another go to place is the home of the world’s greatest, and first pizza, Naples. Naples is also the home of half of my heritage so a trip there would kill two tomatoes with one wheel of cheese.
Things to do before that bucket tips are probably at the top of everyone’s list. I guess I never have been that conventional. If I wanted to do it, it has already been done. There aren’t that many noteworthy things that I feel I have to do again. Drive across country – done that. Jump out of a flying object – once was enough and I did it more than that! Race around a race track in a race car just like a race car driver – no desire. Nope, there aren’t many things to do to be done or else feel like there is something missing in my life. Two things to continue to do are to wind down in the hot tub and to wind it up cruising top down along a country lane. And if I get to pick a companion it would be She.
Part place to go, thing to do, and experience to experience is the last item on the list. Last here is certainly not least but is at least the least likely to be experienced, or done, or gone to when last call is called. That would be the Mediterranean Wine Cruise. Years ago while dreaming of vacations to consider, She and I ran across an ad for a two week cruise across the Mediterranean Sea and all the ports of call were where “wine country” was one of your first thoughts of the area. Whoever put this together did not use Mediterranean euphemistically like we feel compelled to in this country. It was not code for Turkey or Greece. It covered all of the countries that touch that body of water and there are a lot of them. And they all make wine. We didn’t get there and for why ever that was it never seemed to be a big deal except for now when I think of places I’d like to go or things I like to do or an experience I’d like to have that I didn’t, or hadn’t, or wanted.
So they aren’t the most adventurous things and places and what nots. That’s my list and I’m sticking to it. I wonder now, what would happen if you compare this list with the Hole in the Bucket List? I guess that makes these sort of the pros and cons of things to do today.
Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?
The Real Reality Show Blog 