The Cat In The Hat is Waiting for…

… Godot? … The bus?… The end?… Hell to freeze over?

.

Happy New Year my friends… welcome to a shiny, brand new 2023 blog post!

I hate waiting… I love waiting… yin and yang… blessings and curses…

… it’s about impatience… it’s about eagerness… it’s about aging… it’s about anticipation… it’s about expectation…

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known“… Carl Sagan

So what am I waiting for?

No delays for you… no waiting today with an Auld Lang Syne New Year upon us…

……….

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite.

Or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break

or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance.

Everyone is just waiting“… Dr. Seuss

.

Let’s go right into my “waiting list”, both positive and negative… some may contain elements of both. … I’m (You’re) waiting for:

1. my knees or hips or feet to tell me I can’t run or cycle any more – so many folks I’ve known over the years tell me that their joints just aren’t up to it any longer. My day will come, I’m certain, I just don’t know when yet. Today is not that day…
2. my Apple shares to reach $200 … again, today is not that day, but hopefully this year!
3. words to come to me while writing this blog
4. my urethra to lock up and say, “that’s it, no more pee coming through here until you take a pill or go under the knife to have that prostate whittled down.”
5. a highly anticipated movie that’s been advertised for months… and the buttery popcorn that is the real attraction.
6. a special, perfect gift to be opened that I’ve purchased for a loved one
7. a Hawaiian pizza (or turkey) cooking in the oven – ah, the smells…
8. for a moment of intense anger (road rage perhaps?) to pass before doing or saying anything – this is such an important life skill that I know can save immense emotional distress in so many circumstances
9. the first perfect day of spring when I can sit outside in a t-shirt and enjoy a light beer or tea in total, blissful comfort
10. the moment my wife or, in more recent years, daughter, blessedly walks through the door after I’ve spent the entire day with zestful young kids who are a total delight but an incredible energy drain’er
11. my toes to feel the sand shimmy between them on a Caribbean beach for the first moment after a long plane trip
12. the moment when you know you’ve “mastered” a skill after days/weeks/years of practice… a choir song, a golf shot, a tennis lob, a guitar/mandolin lick
13. the last second to tick off in a championship winning game either as a participant or a spectator…
14. bigotry, misogyny, sexism, ageism, intolerance in a hundred forms…. to drop off the edge of this flat earth (did I misunderstand something in my geography class?)
15. the exhilaration of crossing the finish line of a running race… long or short distance, the build-up of pain that comes, and then the release that is a huge catharsis afterwards (sound like sex?)
16. the return of a prized TV series where you finally find out … who REALLY shot JR!!!??
17. the world envisioned by Dr. MLK in his essay/book WHY WE CAN’T WAIT, to be realized
18. and finally… death – when the final breath arrives and a lengthy life story with a thousand and one elements has come to a close…

.

OK, I’ll just gonna sit here and tap my toes a bit longer, but my late bus of patience might just cause me to scream… no no no Larry…. don’t break your first New Year’s resolution THAT fast!

Yoga breath! Ommmmmm… Prospero Año Nuevo a Todos…

………….

Too much New Years’ Midnight Champagne for me!

My Few Moderately Inflammable Retirement Peeves

I’m feeling powerfully peever’ish this week.

More peeves? Of course. I get this peever fever (not Bieber fever) once a year or so.

Despite all the wonderful things happening in our world – and there are many – we’ve cornered ourselves into some of the most dark and desperate days of the last generation or two. Headline anxiety is running amok.

Yes indeed. Pandemics and Racism (see last week’s post) and Social Networks and Global Warming and Sociopathic Politicians and Military Muscle have driven us to the brink just when we thought we had civilization all figured out.

We’ve muddled our way into a transition period perhaps not unlike moving into the Industrial Age; a time of huge upheaval for humanity and the planet’s existence, before the golden days return.

I hope.

Before I step back and give my head a needed respite from this multitude of negativity, I have to offload some more pet peeves to set my mind at ease for a little while… Ommmmmmmm

I’m a word and spelling snob. I’m not proud of it but I admit it.

Improper word usage, phrases, and speling erors drive me batty, just as exaggeration (any Trump sentence), hyperbole (any Trump sentence), and obvious non-factual misdirection ie lies (any Trump sentence) make me reach for high blood pressure meds.

Let’s just dive into a few of my language irritants… my “wordle” pet peeves, shall we? … feel free to add to my list if the irritation moves you:

1. MODERATE – who decides where moderate lies in the spectrum of a little to a lot… I think that eating 4 large slices of cherry cheesecake is being moderate, while you believe that eating 1 tiny square of a Fruit and Nut Bar is excessive. Who’s right? (ME, of course!)
2. PIANIST – OMG, nope, nope, nope… this sounds much too much like my boy parts… let’s just stick with “piano player”, OK?
3. RETIREMENT (R) – I know that most of you reading my blog posts are either retired or on the precipice of the blessed event. Congratulations! BUT… “Retired” is an anachronism that speaks to my parent’s generation. We don’t “retire” anymore… we change direction into one or more other regions of who we are, so in my pretend world of make believe I just use the letter “R” to represent this non-sequitor.
4. (IN)FLAMMABLE – we should all know by now that placing “in” in front of this word doesn’t change its meaning… the words are synonyms. “i.n.” are just throwaway letters… so let’s toss them into the flammable pile, OK?
5. MOIST – it’s interesting that MOIST is apparently the most despised word in the English language according to a number of surveys. I can only find it funny now that my Canadian Prime Minister used it during the deepest pandemic days, uttering: “If people want to wear a mask, that is OK. It protects others more than it protects you because it prevents you from breathing or speaking moistly on them.” Moist conjures up an impression of moldy flotsom in my head, definitely not a pretty vision. And please don’t breath or speak it at me!
6. SANCTION – yeah, one word with opposing definitions. Dictionary def’s? 1. a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule, or 2. official permission or approval for an action. “Sanction me? So… are you coming back to my place for the night or not?”
7. FEWER/LESS – I’d die a happy guy if folks just used fewer less‘es. Try using fewer with countable nouns like cookies. Less means “not as much.” We use less with uncountable nouns like milk. Most often, you will not have to be Hercule Poirot to deduce whether a noun is countable or uncountable, so the decision between less and fewer will be an effortfewer …er … effortless… one.
8. HAVE A GOOD ONE – sorry, a good… what?? A good life? a good marshmallow? a good bowel movement? Don’t leave me hanging, what should I be having that’s good?
9. THE FACT IS – in my experience, anytime someone prefaces their phrasing with “the fact is” means they have no idea what the facts are and are making this shit up. Leave “the fact is” out of your statement and actually provide me the documented (3 peer-reviewed studies is ideal) facts.
10. BLOG/PHLEGM/PUS – there’s nothing really wrong with any of these words except they strike my “irritation centre”… the sound of each is unappealing and leave me feeling like I want to slap the person next to me for no reason at all.
11. PANTIES – The word panties in itself is innocuous, but for some reason, it gives me a weird feeling. An innocent name for female underwear, and yet it sounds pornographic in my head. Worse still is that it sounds like kid-speak, and so combine porno with kids and I feel like a wretched pedophile merely saying the word.
12. FLACCID – As a male, this word may be descriptive, but it sounds demeaning and “belittling” to my manhood. I know it says something about my insecurities and sensitivity. I’ll try to get over it!
13. WHATEVER – when spoken, this usually means the end of any potentially meaningful or productive dialogue, but in an insulting fashion. I’m pretty sure the fact is, with his panties in a knot, and knowing that sanctions would be forthcoming, “whatever” was the last, moist word a flaccid Putin said to the world before he unleashed his moderate, yet inflammable forces on Ukraine … Have a good one Vlad!

The Wondrous Beauty of Being AND Doing

I get confused when I hear the expression, “we’re human beings, not human doings.”

I like to think of myself as BOTH a noun AND a verb… yes, this one thing I can multitask in a focused way!

You got it… I’m part sloth, part puma…. grrrrrr….

Here’s how I maintain myself as a human being and a human doing…

My desktop – the real physical one I can touch and spill my latte all over – is filled with sheets of foolscap and lined paper pads … papers that run top-to-bottom and side-to-side with my daily scribbled LISTS!

Without lists, without a calendar, without the morning sunrise… I’m solely a human being… you just might as well take me to my grandson’s daycare each morning and show me which toys to play with because I will have ABSOLUTELY NO Direction.

None, nada, zilch… you catch my drift? I get “LISTLESS”.

…………………

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

~Marcus Aurelius, Stoic philosopher

…………………

The three greatest hallmarks I possess (*one of which used to be my hair*) are

• 1. my calendar
• 2. my lists, and
• 3. a slave-like devotion to “Own The Morning”… getting the most important things done early in the day.

I get it. I understand that we don’t want to become automatons enslaved to “do do do“, but I also understand that I don’t want to imprison myself in a philosophy of “idleness, indolence and inertia“.

     (Aside: Pet Peeve: It drives me nuts when I see men (it's almost always XY chromosome creatures) who think that earning a living ie. being the hunky breadwinner, is sufficient excuse to collapse on a couch after a workday. 
     Meanwhile, the (usually) woman partner: works, cleans house, grocery shops, prepares meals, looks after children.

     Any relationship where one partner believes that doing only 20% of the daily work involved is equitable, is stuck in Slave-holder Plantation-Master mode. Beware the Underground Railroad!  

OK, where was I?

Right. As part human doing, I’m not advocating for non-stop busy work or a compulsive need to be constantly accomplishing stuff… yes, rest and recovery are important. My human being part needs regular refreshing.

But a life well-lived, in my books, is one where we experience things directly, by doing… we learn, we try out all kinds of things both easy and difficult, we meditate and sweat, we love and hate, we laugh and cry, we eat and fast … doing and experiencing= invigoration.

…it’s part of the ancient stoic philosophy of overall self-improvement blended with healthy balance.

It’s no accident that my daily practice of making lists, checking my calendar, and owning the morning, allows me to revert to a partially relaxed and satisfied form of slothdom later in the day. However, if you happen to flip the day on its head and Own The Night, well, good on you too!

When life’s critical doohickeys are done, my head becomes clear and unbothered, my body trained and physically tested, my spirit able to enjoy and absorb.

I’m an ordinary Tale of Two Humans and that’s a wondrously wonderful thing.

Forget Me Nots …

Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play

Leonard Cohen – Tower of Song

Leonard Cohen may have been talking about something a bit more lusty and sensual, but memory and memories are the playground where a lot of us go to work and play …. and sometimes ache.

When surrounded by my peers – mostly around my age +/- 10 years – almost without exception, they occasionally complain and worry about memory loss:

• loss of individual words on the tip of their tongues.

• loss of short term “what did I do yesterday” stuff (or my personal favourite: where are my keys/glasses).

• loss of long ago activities that can jumble things together so that a ten year time span feels like only one day in retrospect.

And they worry…

Memories long and troubled…

memories short and sweet …. memories lie inside us as a novel or a tweet

What was I saying? oh yes… Memory. My fading memory…

But, know what? I’m not worried about it… yet…

I don’t want to discount dementias and Alzheimer’s, and the terrible brain pathologies that truly only know the arithmetic of subtraction.

No, today I’m talking about the everyday person which likely includes you and me.

I’m not an expert in the area of memory… it’s not profound thinking here today but light verse… I merely have an opinion based on my own personal observations, which is not very scientific of this guy who spent years in a white lab coat (Larry, were the arms wrapped and tied on this white coat?).

Here’s something silly… It’s astounding the memories that stay with us at the top of the heap; the minor inconsequential vs. the momentous and life-shattering.

I clearly remember my Mom’s chocolate chip cookies from the 1960’s. We all know that chocolate chip cookies are crack cocaine to kids, right?

I see them, I smell them, I share them with my little friends.

In retrospect, they weren’t fantastic cookies (certainly not as good as the ones my wife makes today!)… but I can only believe that I remember this so well because they were a symbol of what she meant to me… after all, what is more comforting in life than a mother’s love and warm, chocolate chip cookies?

Here’s my take on memory slippage, you decide if I’m on track or not: The arithmetic and multiplication effect of aging, and the sheer volume of memories is flabbergasting.

Each added day, month, and year of our lives piles another layer of images and words and deeds… layer upon layer upon layer.

Plus, the world is more complex today with the inclusion of exponentially growing volumes of internet-based data, some of which we attempt to absorb.

Finally, on top of this, realize that our language is evolving, so much so, that the Oxford English Dictionary, on average, adds more than a thousand new words to the lexicon every single year. OMG, where are my glasses?

Bottom line folks: our heads, our brains, our “hard drives” (again, not to be confused with Leonard Cohen’s lyric lines above) are more and more overloaded with “stuff”.

I can’t worry about the little things I forget… I can only try to stay afloat and find small coping methods and tools to trick myself so I appear organized and coherent.

Two small fixes for me? 1.Reading glasses everywhere. I have at least 10 sets of inexpensive reading glasses strategically placed in rooms around the house and in the car. 2.Thank goodness for lists… every day I prepare a list or schedule to keep me focused and on track… I would be dead meat without my index of activities…

Lady Gaga might say of me:

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in
I’ll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us
We’re far from the shallow now

Yup, I’m far from the Shallow, but I’m treading water in this memory pool. Grab your water wings and join me?

……………

OK… another small guitar instrumental I put together this week. Welcome to a slightly countrified Silent Night.