Category Life

Happy New Years +1

Michael 11 Comments

Happy New Year’s Day everybody. Oh, wait. Happy New Year’s Day everybody in the gold old U.S. of A! Yep, that’s what the calendar says. Oh it makes perfect sense. Because the real January 1 falls on a Sunday this year, and horror of horrors and woe to those who would dare to cheat the hardworking citizens of a day off, they “shifted” the holiday to Monday. Of course, those hardworking citizens who now have Monday off all went to work yesterday, which as we now know, was not a holiday. Right?

I’ve railed about Monday holidays before. I don’t know why I find them so distasteful, but I do. Almost as much as the insistence that if a holiday has the nerve to show up on the weekend (talk about anthropomorphizing), it owes those people who are already not working on that day, another day off sometime during the week, preferably at the beginning or end so they can benefit from multiple, consecutive days off. And then there is the worst part about it – it is system that was created by people who barely work at all, politicians(!).

I recently saw a Twitter thread started by an American visiting relatives in England that there it is “illegal” to work more than 48 hours a week. “How does anything ever get done?” queried the Tweeter. The responses ran the gamut from in same countries you don’t even think about working extra to “I work every extra second I must until I know the job is done!” (Yeah, right, and probably sucking up all the overtime possible.) When did going to work, or not going to work, become so competitive?

Look, I know it’s important to have time off and recover and refresh yourself. I also know it’s important we honor certain people and events and to that end we have anointed certain days as special, as holidays. You can have one and still have the other but you don’t have to shift the whole calendar around to accommodate- who? Certainly not everyone.

Maybe I’m just cranky already. In round figures, 2022 was basically a not so happy year. And now I’m figuring if it’s already going to start off bowing to the privileged, this year isn’t going to be any better. It shouldn’t matter to me who gets when off. I worked an entire career when even Sundays were just regular old work days, and I started work back in the day when Sundays were pretty much days off for everybody. Some fields know at some time you’re going to have to work every hour of the day, every day of the year. Not “emergency” calls or responses, but on the schedule, doing the same things you’d do on any random Wednesday.

Today, many of the rest of working humans have caught up with us although there are still a handful of people whose work emails do not end in .gov who will benefit by today’s declared holiday. If you are one of them and you feel a need to go see a movie, fly to some far-off destination, buy a head of romaine or a bottle of aspirin, listen to the radio, report a fire, or visit a friend in the hospital, be nice to the people wearing the uniforms and name tags. To them, it’s just another Monday.

That’s a wrap!

Michael 2 Comments

It’s been ages since I published a post in Thursday. I routinely did twice a week posts until I realized I just didn’t have that much to say – even to myself! So I dropped back to just Monday. Here that is. Many of you  know I also write a second blog in a second site ROAMcare.org. I was sitting here today working in new ideas for that one for next year when I thought to myself, between these two, I really did write some good stuff to wrap up the year. (If I say so myself) So, I invite you to wrap up your year with some of my favorite thoughts, from here and there.

Nov 9, ROAMcare

Today is only a day away

What do you do with a day that’s cloudy and gray? Don’t wait for tomorrow. Start a new day today! The sun that will come out tomorrow is already up there. Let the light in!

https://www.roamcare.org/post/today-is-only-a-day-away

Nov 16, ROAMcare

For the people who love us into being

From our earliest day there people molded us into the who we are now. They have been those who loved us into being. Thank the people who make us the who that we are.

https://www.roamcare.org/post/for-the-people-who-love-us-into-being

Nov 21, The Real Reality Show Blog

On being loved into being

Gratitude is not an exercise in saying thanks for what we have, for in truth we will not always have. We should be expressing thanks because we are, because even when we do not have, we always will be. Be grateful you have people who have loved you into being. Say thank you to them, because without them, you are not the who you are.

https://therealrealityshowblog.wordpress.com/2022/11/21/on-being-loved-into-being/

Dec 14, ROAMcare

If you could do it again…

If you could do it all over again, would you? Could you? You shouldn’t even have to ask if you take time now to review where you are in life and get ready to reset for the new year.

https://www.roamcare.org/post/if-you-could-do-it-again

Dec 21, ROAMcare

A Winter Carol

Christmas is just ahead and winter holds many holidays. It is when we remember something special shared with special people at a special time.

https://www.roamcare.org/post/a-winter-carol

Dec 26, The Real Reality Show Blog

Finding joy

We are responsible for our own happiness for if we rely solely on someone else to bring us joy, we always be living by their definition of happiness. It isn’t that the world gives us sorry. It’s that it isn’t the world’s job to make us happy. Happiness is out there. We take what the world gives us and make it something joyful.

https://therealrealityshowblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/26/finding-joy/

Dec 28, ROAMcare

The gift of gratitude

Didn’t get everything on your wish list? Fill that wish with something else. Gift yourself the gift of gratitude.

https://www.roamcare.org/post/the-gift-of-gratitude

Oh there were others, maybe more profound even, but these were my favorites from Thanksgiving on. Words that warmed me in some of the coldest days I’ve seen, and boy have I seen a lot of days!!

Happy New Year everybody. I’ll see you again in 2023.

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Finding Joy

Michael 12 Comments

If this year was a horse race, we’d be coming down the stretch, nearing the finish! There’s not even a full week of 2022 left, 6 days – and that’s counting today! Plenty of time to bask in the glow of a year well lived. Unless you haven’t. What about those who didn’t live as well as they hoped? Those whose 2022 left much more to be desired that can be had in 20% of December’s allotment of days. What are we to do?

Oh dear. Now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve alluded to myself being one of the unfulfilled. Well, let me come right out and say it, this has not been my year. But maybe there is time to turn that around.

I heard something this weekend or maybe read it somewhere. The weekend was a busy one..

The world gives us sorrow. It’s up to us to find the joy.

I think that means we are responsible for our happiness, but I don’t believe we are solely responsible for it. It means nobody can make us enjoy life but even though it might seem others may throw up roadblocks, even those who are usually on our sides, they aren’t inherently against us and we should never let others into our lives. But if we rely solely on someone else to bring us joy or happiness we will never experience it because we will always be living somebody’s definition of happiness rather than our own. The best we can hope for from life is honesty from those who mean the most to us, and their love and support to be the person we are. It isn’t that the world gives us sorrow. It’s that it isn’t the world’s job to make us happy. Happiness is out there and we take what the world gives us and make it something joyful.

I don’t know. It sounded better in my head when I was thinking it but you get the idea. Do what you need to do to be happy and don’t rely on anybody else because what brings you joy is in you already. You just have to find it. (Likewise we can never hope to please everyone all of time because we can’t bring them joy, we only add to their experiences.)

This year hasn’t been my year. They have been bad times but good ones too. Did the bad ones outweigh the positives? Or were those the times I let the world try to make me happy, tried making others responsible for my good feelings, or didn’t put in the work to see what about whatever was going on that was good and positive and use that to work up some happiness for myself? I’m not so sure the world brings us sorrow but I do believe it is up to us to find the joy.

Hmm. Six days. I should start looking!

The winter months are packed with religious and secular holidays, all defying definition. It is when we remember something special shared with special people at a special time. Read more and explore winter’s special times with us in “A Winter Carol” at ROAMcare.org.

Sincerely yours

Michael 12 Comments

Maybe it’s because of the last few posts I’ve written between the two blogs that had to do with letter writing or maybe because of all the Christmas cards I wrote last week and are receiving and reading this week. Or maybe it’s because I was telling myself to start taking my own advice and in the new year to write real letters to real people. Whatever reason started my musings, I’ve been thinking about the way people sign off on their cards and letters.

Email got the world on the fast track of communication back in a different century. It’s been with us since the early 70s but businesses really took to it as a means of information sharing in the 1990s. Before the calendar turned that really big page onto a new millennium, just about every business in the world was conducting business correspondence by email, and tens of millions of individuals had signed up for personal email addresses.

The earliest email users still followed pretty formal letter writing styles with proper greetings, proper punctuation, full words, and even closings just like, well, just like mail. I know because I was among the earliest email users getting my first exposure to it in 1984. An obvious draw of email was the speed by which ideas could be exchanged. The rapid returns and replies took a toll on some of the niceties. “Yours truly” plus your full name became “Yours” and maybe your initials to just your initials. Today with the ability to pre-format signature blocks, an email is likely to be closed with more information that what might have been on a 1970s business letterhead! But when it comes time for the sender to actually close an email, we’re still struggling with things like “Yours,” or “Best,” or for the higher up corporate officers, “Regards.”

All this has seeped into personal letter writing, such as what still might exist. I look at some of the cards I’ve gotten this week and of the ones that have more than a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” most senders added word or two, usually “Love,” but a couple “Soon” (one with a !), a few “Take care,” and one “Blessings.” (I liked that, and appreciated it too!) But if you told someone they had to use more than 2 words to close a letter, a real letter, not just a card, how would they do it? What would you write? 

If I am going to start writing letters next year I better get on the ball now and figure out how I’m going to close them. What will be my personal sign off? “And you must now consider me, as, dear [sir or madam], your most obliged, and most humble servant,” has a wonderful sound to it but alas, Samual Johnson used it so often it’s become downright trite. But it is certainly better than a curt “Yours truly” or even a “Very truly yours.” But no, I need something somewhere between them.

Some ways I’ve decided I will not end my letters are:

  • Sincerely yours (Of course I’m being sincere! I am writing, aren’t I?)
  • Cordially yours (Of course, I’m being cordial! I am writing, aren’t I?)
  • Affectionately yours (Of course I’m being affectionate. I am writing … oh, never mind.)
  • Respectfully (Really?)
  • Hugs and kisses (Cute, but not for everybody.)

In the running are:

  • Always and forever, profoundly and affectionately, your dear friend
  • With sincere best wishes for your health and happiness
  • Stay well and happy, your dear, loving friend
  • Please forgive my horrible letter writing

I’ll get back to you about what I decide. Until then,

     I remain your humble and faithful servant, yours truly.

If you could do it all over again, would you? Could you? Read why we say you shouldn’t even have to ask if you take time now to review where you are in life and ready a reset for the new year in the latest blog post at ROAMcare.org.

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Dear Santa

Michael 6 Comments

I was asking just last week, do kids still write letters to Santa Claus? For many children, the Letter to Santa was their first exposure to letter writing and a sneaking way for parents to teach their children the etiquette of personal correspondence. But now in this time of text messages, emails, and social media direct messaging, are the parents even aware of letter writing and getting that all so important wish list to the big guy at the North Pole?

Fast forward a few days to just last weekend and I uncovered some answers to some of those questions. Yes indeed, children still write letters to Santa, and the United States Postal Service is there to help. Who better than the USPS to promote letter writing, even if just to Santa? And they do it in an intriguingly organized program that nearly everyone can join, Operation Santa.

In 1912 (that’s 110 years ago!), Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock created Santa’s first mailroom and officially authorized local postmasters to open up letters sent to Santa, and when possible, to answer the children. Sometime in the 1940s the program was open to the public and the current program was born. Operation Santa has four “steps.” Children write and mail letters to Santa (if they, or their parents, need help with that, the USPS even has letter templates available on line), volunteer letter “adopters” read the letters and as much as they can fill the children’s wishes, they buy, wrap, and ship the presents, and the kids get a surprise under the Christmas  tree. 

There is more to the program than that simple outline but not much. Letters have to go to an official Santa address (123 Elf Rd., North Pole 88888). People who are interested in adopting letters must be vetted by the USPS. Only US residents can send and adopt letters.

I tried to find out how many children have had Christmas wishes granted through this program or how many individuals and teams have adopted letters but couldn’t dig those figures up. That might be proof that the USPS is serious about their commitment to keep personal identifying information of letter writers and adopters secure. I also tried to find out why I never heard about this before. You readers know better than anybody how arcane some of the information I share is, yet this didn’t even make it to my radar screen.  If you’re as intrigue by Operation Santa as I am, you can find all the information you could even ever want, or at least enough to join up, at the official Operation Santa website.  

Merry letter writing to all, and to all a good present!

On a related note, December 7 was National Letter Writing Day. In a day of quick text messages and emails, letter writing sets you free to pour your thoughts out completely, taking part in an activity so special you may call it noteworthy. Naturally we at ROAMcare had some ideas about letter writing in general. Read our letter to letter writers everywhere here.

📷 USPS Operation Santa

 

Numberology

Michael 13 Comments

Is it live or is it…you remember that. Everybody who’s anybody can finish that line. But how about, is it a number or a numeral?

The same internet search came up with these two answers:

  • “A numeral is a symbol or name that stands for a number. Examples: 3, 49 and twelve are all numerals. So the number is an idea, the numeral is how we write it.”
  • “Number is expressed with digits, while a numeral is a word describing a number. For example: four is an example of a numeral and its digit representation: 4 is a number.”

I’m not going to identify who said what because I’m a nice guy and I don’t want to start an internet war. But come on guys, this is a little basic math, versus arithmetic. If we can’t even figure out what makes a numeral a numeral, or is that a number, how can we hope to understand numerology?

Well, just because I really do have that kind of time, I ran another internet search and turned up this definition of numerology.

Numerology is the study of particular numbers, such as a person’s date of birth, in the belief that they may have special significance in a person’s life.

If that’s the case, that it is “the study of particular numbers” then why isn’t it numberology? Hmm? There are sites on the internet that can give you a daily numerology reading. But I ask you, yes you the numerologists of the world, oh why, yes why, do I need a daily reading if my birthdate never changes? Hmm?

Who remembers dream books? Have a dream, look it up, and see into the future. The biggest draw to the dream books of yore were the dream numbers.  Aha!! Numbers again! Yes, have a dream, look it up, see what number it represents, and find out what number to play in the daily lottery. Of course everybody has different dreams and different dreams mean different numbers, but only one lottery result is announced per day. Just how do you account for that, numerologists of the word? Hmm? Maybe because they should have been playing numerals instead!

To be perfectly honest, I could case less about numerology but something rattled around in my brain a few weeks ago when I saw this on my dashboard.

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What was really significant about this was it happened right at startup, before I had the car in gear and out in traffic, when I could actually take out my phone and snap a picture of it. And I did! And I got to thinking, all those twos, or actually all those 2s must mean something.

Now as I said, I could case less about numerology but these were numbers. Maybe I was on to something when I brought up numberology. Who case what the numerologists say, what does the number mean? So I did some research and dug this up.

Number 22222 is a reassuring message that wonderful things are on the way if you maintain your emotional stability and keep your attitude positive.

Hmm. “Wonderful things are on the way.”

Let’s add a little context. As I said, this was a few weeks ago, actually a month ago, just about the time the PowerBall was sitting at $2,000,000,000.00. That’s a bunch of zeros but it starts with a 2! And the tickets cost $2. And I was staring at the number 22222 taunting me with “wonderful things.”  Now I ask you, what things are more wonderful than dollar bills when they add up to 2 billion of them?

So, I took 2 dollar bills out of my pocket, and then I reached in a second time and took out 2 more dollar billers, and I bought 2 tickets for 2 chances at 2 billion dollars based on the magic number reassuring me of wonderful things, 22222. And it worked! Yes, oh ye of little faith, it worked! On both of those tickets, those 2 tickets, those 2 chances at 2 billion dollars, were 2 matching numbers to the winning numbers drawn. Sigh. Two. Err, 2.

You know what you get for matching 2 numbers? A receipt for $2.

Twice.

Don’t wait for January to make resolutions. Resolve to do something positive right now, while we still have a whole month to get a running start on a Happy New Year. The goal is to remember there really are good things that happen to us every day, and then to remember them every day! Read more about this in our blog at ROAMcare.org. See you there!

The sort of annual way too talked about Christmas movie controversy and why I’m right again

Michael 12 Comments

It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving and that can mean only one thing. Well it could mean billions and billions of things but if you’re here (and clearly you are) it means it’s time for this year’s My Favorite Christmas Movie post. If it’s my favorite why do we need to rehash this every year? Because, “I say my current favorite because like children there can be no real favorite among Christmas movies. The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday, the one encouraging a perfect alternative to an imperfect world and providing an escape from the ordinary.” –Me, 12/5/2019. One more thing. It’s the sort of annual because I missed a year here and there. Maybe more than here and there but I’ve done a lot of them!

This year I started watching Christmas movies early and I’ve already seen close to a dozen of them. And only one of them had “Christmas” in the title. And that got me wondering, how many movies have been released as Christmas movies and included the word Christmas in the title? There are plenty of movies and you often know from the title you are going to be in a holiday themed show, but in the grand scheme of things, precious few come right out and mention the word “Christmas” or even “Holiday” and leave no doubt. (Just so there is no doubt, Twentieth Century Fox and John McTierman could have shimmied out on that limb and title the 1988 disaster of a flick “Die Hard on Christmas Eve” and it still wouldn’t be a Christmas movie.)

“Miracle on 34th Street” could be about any inexplicable event happening in New York City in December but it’s pretty clear we’re talking Santa, and “Elf” could be about cookie bakers living in hollow trees but again Santa clarifies that point. The majority of Christmas movie titles themselves can be addressing almost anything. “Love, Actually” could be a garden variety romcom. “The Polar Express” might be an Agatha Christie mystery gone north. “Home Aline” could be about the plight of inner city latch key kids, “The Apartment” might be a prequel to “Rent,” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” a travelogue. Even my favorite from last year, which is still a favorite in any year, “Remember the Night” might be about the sinking of the Titanic if your memory is just a little faulty.

So I did some research and I tried to dig up all the Christmas movies with Christmas in the title. Naturally I mean theatrical releases, not Hallmark or Lifetime or any other movie mill cable network holiday offerings. It’s not an exhaustive list but a list until I became exhausted by it. (And you won’t find “Black Christmas” and “Christmas Evil” among them because even though they have Christmas in the title, see the Die Hard in Christmas Eve explanation above. And unfortunately you will not find “A Charlie Brown Christmas” among them either because it was released directly to television.)

  • A Christmas Carol (all 20-some versions)
  • A Christmas Story
  • A Christmas Story 2 (really, from 2012)
  • A Christmas to Remember (I didn’t)
  • A Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Christmas in Connecticut
  • Christmas in July
  • Christmas with the Kranks
  • National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas
  • White Christmas

Almost all worthy to carry the word Christmas in their titles, there are a couple that stand out for me. “Christmas in Connecticut” stars Barbara Stanwyck and that’s never a bad thing, and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” made moose head egg nog cups complete with antlers THE gift in the early 1990s. But of them all, my favorite Christmas movie with Christmas in the title has to be “White Christmas.” It has singing, dancing, comedy, romance, a gruff old guy and a gruffer old gal. It’s one of only two movies with Vera-Ellen that I can name off the top of my head (“On the Town” is the other), and it’s just plain fun. How can you not look at the final scene when the wall opens and the first snowfall of the year is blanketing the Vermont countryside and not smile about it.  

What was that I said? “The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday.” I’d say “White Christmas” does a little of both. 

Merry Christmas Movies everyone!

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There aren’t any post about Christmas movies but there are lots of articles on refreshing your enthusiasm for life and finding the motivation to push through the day everyday at ROAMcare.org. I’d be honored if you were to visit.

Put Giving into your Thanksgiving

Michael 4 Comments

Several of you made the trip to the ROAMcare site to read last week’s blog, For the People Who Love Us into Being. There’s a second part to that just in time for Thanksgiving and I thought you might like to see it through. Briefly it says, “It is better to give than receive but just what do we give? How about us! Give thankfully knowing by giving yourself you could be loving somebody into being.” I would be honored if you read it all at Put the Giving into Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Used with permission

On being loved into being

Michael 6 Comments

I was working in adapting a post I wrote for my foundation site for here because, well, because I think it’s really good and would make a great lead up to Thanksgiving blog post. I thought after what we as country just went through having to experience the childishness that accompanied s years general election, that a word from someone who worked so successfully with children is just what the doctor ordered. So I ordered it.

And then Colorado Springs happened. You’ve heard of that incident. Five dead. Nineteen wounded. One nut case up with a f-ing assault rifle destroys the dreams of 24 People because he has a “right” to carry an assault weapon into a crowd and start firing. Of course you know that same day in Philadelphia, Mississippi nut case or nut cases unknown shot seven people, killing one, over a dice game.

If you’re keeping score, those are mass shootings #26 and 27 in the US for the month of November. Not the year – for November’s, which still has 10 days to go. One of them is Thanksgiving. Are you still thankful we have the “right” to carry guns at will? Maybe this will help. How are 602 mass shootings for this year.

It’s time to stop this madness.

The  post that  I was going to rework, you can read it here. And actually if I were you I would. It’s a whole lot happier and more positive than this dreck.

The theme running through that post is based in an idea voiced by Fred Rogers in his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed to him at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997, “All of us have special ones who loved us into being.” What a wonderful way of thinking of how we have become who we are, that there are people who have loved us into being. Gratitude is not, and should not, be an exercise is saying thanks for what we have, for in truth we will not always have. We should be expressing thanks because we are, because even when we do not have, we always will be.

Maybe the nut cases of the world didn’t have anybody to love them into being. We did. Be grateful. Be grateful you have people who have loved you into being. Say thank you to them, because without them, you are not the who you are.

Seriously, do yourself a favor, go read it. It will take you less time to read than you’ve spent reading this junk that I’ve written here.  Go find out about this idea of being loved into being. And then go out and love somebody that much.

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Used with permission

Some things I don’t know that I don’t know why I don’t know them

Michael 4 Comments

You would think if I got to be as old as I got to be, I’d have figured out most of what it is that got me here. Nope. There are still way too many things I don’t know. Some of the are just beyond my grasp and I now take it for granted that I’ll never know how radios work without wires and why yellow and blue make green. But some things shouldn’t be that hard and I still can’t figure them out. For instance:

Why does only one shoelace come undone in the middle of a long walk. Both feet are going the same places and the same paces. Both shoes and both laces are made of the same materials. The temperature and humid at my left foot are pert near identical to those at my right. All things being equal, why are the laces? What makes one slip its knot and not the other?

Why does a cracker spread with peanut butter always fall face down when it slides off the plate to get away from its cracker cousins? In a similar vein, have you ever noticed when you pour a bagful of wrapped candy pieces into a candy jar, they always land with the pretty shining label face down leaving the tacky loose edged wrapper “tails” facing up and daring you to turn each one over?

Why do microwave ovens at work, hospital and garage waiting rooms, and other public venues always smell of popcorn and pizza? I once was involved in the opening of a hospital. Brand new facility.  New paint on new walls, new tile on new floors, new tables and chairs in new break rooms, and a brand new microwave right out of the box. And even that one smelled of popcorn and pizza when it was opened the first time!

Why does my email spam filter redirect newsletters to which I’ve subscribed to the junk email folder but allows ##HEARING_AID_ADVICE ‼️ and **Prostrate Help is Here**  through to the inbox unmolested?

Who is Pete and why do we keep doing things for his sake?

And the biggest puzzle of all: Why do people go to the grocery store wearing camouflage? I’m not talking about military persons completing a household chore in their way home at the end of their duty day. I mean the guy who closet brush with the army is watching The Dirty Dozen on his favorite football team’s bye week Sunday? Hey fella! Those animals in the meat case are already dead. You don’t have to sneak up on them. Hmm. You know what? On second thought, I don’t want to know the answer to this one.

 

What do you do with a day that’s cloudy and gray? Don’t wait for tomorrow; tomorrow is a long way away. Start a new day today! The sun that will come out tomorrow is already up there. All you have to do is let the light in.

This is really a good one. If you haven’t been there, go to ROAMcare.org and check out our last week’s blog “Today is Only a Day Away.”

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