Sometimes when your brain is uber focused on one thing you find that the rest of the world gets a bit hazy and grey.
Something about forests and trees.
Things that are time critical are getting done. That’s good.
Without a smart watch I couldn’t tell you what the day or date is. That’s not so good.
Gotta keep that balance.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
Here in the US everything has a bar code so that it can be electronically scanned, tracked, inventoried, sold, returned, and consumed. Even fruits and vegetables started having these little stickers with barcodes attached to them about ten or fifteen years ago.
I was eating this pear’s twin this afternoon (the pear’s pair, as it were) and I was distracted. I was eating over the sink to minimize the mess since it was an excellent, tasty, and juicy pear. I was staring out the kitchen window into the back yard, watching a couple of squirrels clean up the leftover bird seed from the morning’s feeding. In my hunger and distraction, I may have bitten in and eaten that little sticker.
It made me pause. Then the questions started. (My brain does that…)
Was I in danger? Probably not I figured. I guess the biggest danger would be that it would lodge someplace and not digest or move on, blocking the natural flow of things, if you know what I mean. (You know what I mean!) But it was small, thin, and lightweight, so it wasn’t like when little kids eat quarters or dogs eat the squeaky thing out of toys that they got by ripping the “indestructable” toy apart in thirty seconds. I didn’t see any surgical interventions in my future.
As some philosopher said, “This too shall pass.”
Would it poison me or degrade into something toxic? It’s not even really paper, more like some kind of thin plastic, or Tyvek. Late-stage capitalism might be encouraging that sort of thing, especially if it actually costs money to use materials that not only don’t kill the consumer but are tested in advance to prove that. But still, there’s also the healthy fear of being sued for $50,000,000,000,000 by my heirs (and not a penny less!) so let’s assume that I’m okay there.
Just in case, should I try to make myself vomit it back up? First of all, ewwwww! Secondly, as stated above, it was an excellent, tasty, and juicy pear. Why ruin that experience with a backwash of gastric fluids? And thirdly, if there was any danger from this sticker going down, having it coming back up with some velocity behind it would have to be more dangerous. Right?
So should I go to urgent care? The emergency room? Um, no. Those places are full of sick people! These days with the flu, the seventh (or is it the eighth? ninth?) COVID wave in full swing, and god knows what other contagious bits flying about, I’m far, FAR safer here at home and taking my chances with the natural passage of the sticker through my GI tract.
Great! I have nothing to worry about! Enjoy the rest of the pear! (I did.)
Except…
It occured to me later that, with the government at all levels having abandoned us to COVID, the best and often only measure for tracking it is the wastewater monitoring. And by “wastewater,” in case you haven’t thought this through, we mean “raw sewage.” And now in about 36 to 48 hours that wastewater is going to have this sticker and its barcode sailing through the system. The testing is all automated, which means computers. The wastewater testing setup probably has various optical and biological testing equipment hooked up to a big computer and it’s running a lot of specialized algorithms to run a lot of specialized sensors and equipment. Which is all well and good, except that that ultra specialized software’s 17th cousin twice removed on its mother’s side is the scanning software from the self checkout line at Piggly Wiggly.
It may be looking for parts per billion of COVID in my sewage, but it’s gonna see that bar code and go off the charts. Or it’s going to launch our ICBMs. Or it’s going to call the aliens hiding in the asteroid belt and tell them to abandon us because we’re neither intelligent or civilized. (If the alien overlords are watching Fox News, this will not be news to them.)
Whatever happens – it might be my fault. Or the squirrels’.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Farce, Health, Photography
Wouldn’t life be boring as hell if everything was always smooth and easy, with no bumps in the road, no detours, no challenges?
Don’t we need a little texture, some rough spots to make it more exciting?
I’m sure we do. That’s a good philosophy…I guess.
But I would like to put a good word in for balance. If we need “textured” times, we also need the “smooth” times.
I don’t know if I would be bored to tears in a stretch of a couple of years where everything’s smooth and easy, with no bumps in the road, no detours, no challenges – BUT I WOULD SURE LIKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FIND OUT ONE OF THESE DAYS!!
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
I mean, besides December 27th. That much I had figured out. So I googled it and was told, “Wednesday.”
Not quite what I had in mind.
Wikipedia pulls up a long list of historical events which I’ve never heard of, births of people who I’ve (mostly) never heard of, and deaths of people who I’ve (mostly) never heard of.
And there are mentions of some government holidays in New Zealand and the Phillipines? Okay.
I think I’m back to “Payroll’s Due” and month-end data entry and budget calculations.
Year end 2023, hitting 2024 on the dead run.
Filed under Christmas Lights, Deep Thoughts
As Leo Bloom reminds us repeatedly from his semi-catatonic state near the end of “The Producers,” there is “no way out, no way out, no way out…”
Yet the signs are everywhere.
And, sure, while I had hoped to exit the ginormous parking garage here which would have let me simply turn right, go a half block, and then turn right again onto the correct freeway going in the correct direction, and this exit dumped me out there onto a different street on a side I didn’t even know about in a warren of one-way streets, homeless encampments, and no sign of a freeway, correct or otherwise, a little “exploration” led us back to an onramp.
One rule I always taught my kids when I was teaching them to drive in LA was in a pinch, especially leaving a crowded venue like a concert or sporting event, get on a freeway onramp. You might have a preferred freeway and direction, but that’s secondary. Get on. That will get you away from the crowd. All of the freeways interconnect in almost infinite permutations, so you can ALWAYS get there from here. You might have to travel a few more miles and then go to the 22 to the 405 to the 605 to the 210 to the 101 instead of just going on the 134 to the 101, but you’ll get there eventually. It beats sitting in that parking lot and fighting a gazillion other cars to get on that one, perfect onramp.
So back to the original point – it feels like there’s no way out sometimes. But get moving. Get out of the crowd and get it in gear. You’ll figure it out.
BTW, did anyone else notice that it’s the 20th? That there are like four days until Christmas?
No way out. No way out. No way out…
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
I suspect that one reason we love (or hate) roller coasters is that, aside from the physical thrills and sensations, we recognize the way our emotional and spiritual real life situations are mirrored in all of the ups and downs, spins and loops.
I just hit a handful of key deadlines (as part of an amazing team, the kind that my Pepperdine MBA program told me about, but which I had trouble believing in at the time – that’s a story for another day) and after more weeks and weeks of stress and long days and all that goes with it, all of a sudden today it’s just…normal. I have plenty to do, and to a certain extent there’s some chaos in trying to figure out which items to pull off of “the back burner” first, but getting it wrong has minimal consequences. Annoyances, possibly. Inconvenience, probably. “Consequences?” Not really.
And then I looked at the Chiefs’ calendar and saw that we’re playing the Raiders in Las Vegas next week, on the 25th, and wait, that can’t possibly be right because we’re playing them on Christmas and HOLY GUACAMOLE, BATMAN! Christmas is in just ten days! When did this happen? Why didn’t anyone warn me?!
I understand intellectually where we are on the calendar. There are lots of lights up outside. There are stacks of gifts waiting to be wrapped and put under the tree.
But mentally, coming down off of that “deadline high” (and being a little bit sleep deprived) I had slipped into an emotional state where I figured that I could kick back, relax, and coast a little bit.
But there’s Christmas stuff to finish and cards to get out and presents to wrap and all of that stuff on the back burner and the budget to be working on at work and a couple of other big projects that are lurking around the corner and all of a sudden the corner is RIGHT HERE and we really, REALLY need to make 2024 the year we find our forever home, buy it, and move…
And above all, having coped for weeks with one critical task and deadline after another, gone (for an hour or two) into coasting and relaxing mode, and now almost immediately being surprised and ramping back up, there’s an element of PTSD. What have I missed? I’m tired, I’m worn down, I’ve let down my guard for an hour, is there anything I’ve overlooked? Day after day after day of critical deadlines, how can I not have one tomorrow? What ball am I dropping? What’s gonna bite me in the ass? I almost forgot about Christmas for crying out loud, what else am I capable of forgetting?
It will be fine. Really.
But.
It is a roller coaster. You can go through all of those plunges and rolls and curves and manage to make it through, but in life you don’t get to just stop and get off the ride. There’s another lift hill ahead. Or a hidden cliff that you’re going to plunge over.
Breathe. ENJOY! Relax.
But you may not get to kick back into cruise mode just yet.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography
The things we take for granted…
Something works. Then it doesn’t. And it’s a pain to fix it.
No matter how careful or skilled we are, even “fixed” it’s not quite the same. It’s close, and you’re grateful to not have to deal with the moderate to severe issues from when it was broken.
You probably don’t even notice it at first. Because it was “fixed!” If something were still seriously off, well, then you would keep working on it. Until it’s “fixed!”
But at some point you realize that it’s not the same. Maybe the health app on your phone or watch gives you an odd, totally unexpected notice. Maybe the door that used to swing shut tightly with just a feather touch now needs to have some pressure applied to shut and stay shut.
So you adjust. Or maybe you just realize that you’ve already adjusted, you just didn’t realize how much until your phone gives you an odd, totally unexpected notice.
Aware now, coming into tune with the new reality which you didn’t ask for, you pick up your pace, you learn new habits, you start pushing that door, you try to keep the health app on your watch happy.
Or at least, happier.
And you move on. With the occasional, wistful thought for the way it was before. When the things we took for granted were there, and not replaced with the adjustments and compensating habits.
All of which we’ll soon take for granted.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography
What are you passionate about? What really, really makes it all worthwhile?
Sure, romantic passion is likely to be high on the list for most of us, whether we have it or not, but that’s not all. What else?
Can you list five things? Ten? Travel? Music? Books? Sports? Flying?
Do you have those things in your life? A smidgen? A bunch? None at all?
Why not? Are you working on getting more? Are you just going to settle on doing without?
Why?
What are you passionate about?
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Flying, Photography, Weather
When did fortune cookie fortunes become so bland and boring?
“The social scene can be fun these days” They don’t even try putting an exclamation point on the end to fake excitement. What happened to the days of, “A new lover will bring joy, adventure, and romance to your life!” Or, “You will win the Lottery and retire to your own private island in the Carribean!”
None of those things are actually going to happen, but it at least gave you something to fantasize about.
Why do they have tarps at the side of the field in domed stadiums?
Okay, maybe an aircraft is going to crash and break through the roof during a hurricane, allowing the field to get soaked. But I’m thinking that if the flaming wreckage of a 747 has to be moved in order to put the tarp out, there just might be other things that are going to delay the game.
Can wisdom teeth re-grow? Or at least can they come back and haunt me?
Getting a lot of “moderate discomfort” for months at the back of my jaw where the wisdom teeth were before they got yanked something like twenty years ago. I figured cavities or some sort of gum disease, but last July and August the dentist said there was nothing like that there.
Since then it’s gotten worse and comes with the added benefit of some massive headaches. It’s no longer a day or so every now and then, now being more like daily.
So I went to a different dentist and got told the same thing.
So next week I start bugging the doctors. Something’s definitely off, and my patience is shot. I want someone to figure out what’s causing this and fix it?
Some sort of massive but bizarre ear infection? A ruptured eardrum of some sort? Eardrum cancer?
Probe me, but figure it out!
I think we’re back to just Solo Junco, maybe a pair. Like previous years, all of a sudden I just notice that there’s only the one out there, where sometime in the near past (earlier this week? last week? end of April?) there would be a dozen or more out there every time the seed gets thrown out.
You would think with all of the hospitality we lay out that they would bother to stop by to say goodbye before they head off to wheverver it is that they stay over the summer. (You would be wrong.)
And why does the one (maybe two) stay here 365 days a year? I’m sure the seed helps, but are their teeny, tiny, miniscule bird brains capable of the logic involved?
Filed under Critters, Deep Thoughts, Health
The last few weeks have been… “intense” would be a good word. “Good” intense, as it were, goals to be met, dragons to be slain, sleep to be lost, but still.
This morning, scraping my sorry ass out of bed and preparing to meet the day, I froze at one point in my routine.
Something was off. I was fuzzy, couldn’t put my finger on it quite yet, but something was definitely off.
Hey, Siri! Tell me about dissociative disorders!
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Farce, Photography
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 