Roads

If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.

~ Dolly Parton

- - - - -

December 31st is one of my favorite days of the year. It is a day for looking back and looking ahead. It is a day for celebrating, commemorating, and deliberating. 

Depending on what you're eating, it may also be a time for refrigerating. If you don't do that, it could lead to a time of regurgitating. And if you do that on someone's new clothes they got over the holidays, it could lead to vituperating, which may be exasperating.

But I digress. My point is that it's good to think today.

(pause)

And every day.
 

Interesting

If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in, the chances are very high that you will interest other people as well. 

~ Rachel Carson

- - - - -

Teaching is the same. Bring enthusiasm and a sense of interest to your classroom, and you will draw others into the learning. Write with enthusiasm about your areas of interest, and you will draw others into the reading. 

It doesn't work for everything, though. For instance, I don't care how enthusiastic you are about your collection of ceramic doll heads which you display in a room lighted by the anise-scented candles you make, I'm not going in there.

Attention

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

~ Mary Oliver

- - - - -

Every place has a name. It might be a name we give it or a name others have given it. Regardless, it is precise and the true name of a place is not a name that is shared with any other place. 

The place in the photos above is named "Specific." That is the one true and precise name of this place. Specific Alley.

Life

Life's not fair; Why should I be?

~ Margaret Atwood

- - - - -

So I ordered something recently - a set of motivational cards. The very first one said, "Noting in life is fair (tough shit)." Noting. I think it should have said "Nothing" but it didn't. And that seemed even funnier than what they were probably trying to say.

Sibling

Siblings that say they never fight, most definitely are hiding something.

~Lemony Snicket

- - - - -

I always think of Kirk when I hear that one Tina Turner song. I figure he must sing it when he is thinking about how lucky he is to know me. You know the song. I think it was on Schitt's Creek. "Your Sibling's the Best!"

You're right, Kirk. I am.

Kirk

What strange creatures brothers are!

~ Jane Austen

- - - - -

When I went to visit Kirk and his family a couple of weeks ago, I saw this truck around Greenville. It made me think of Kirk because the mud flap says Kirk. It doesn't take much for me to think of Kirk when I see the word "Kirk".

Christmas

"Today is one of the top days for cooking fires in Iowa and the rest of the nation..."

~ Iowa Public Radio

- - - - -

This is what I heard when I turned on IPR on Christmas morning 2021. It might make you sad, but - hey! - truth is truth. It really isn't safe to roast those chestnuts on an open fire...

(pause)

... in the kitchen.

Electricity

Electricity is really just organized lighting.

~ George Carlin

- - - - -

It is the holiday season today and other days. We have been without electricity for more than 12 hours after being without it for about nine hours. I'm not mad about it. We had some nice conversations and naps, and I did some leisure reading. I wouldn't have done a lot of those things if we had electricity.

Know what else I wouldn't have done if we had electricity? I wouldn't have been freezing and walking around in three layers of clothes with a hood up most of the day. They call Anderson the Electric City. Thats' what they call it. 

But I won't complain... because I just did that in the previous paragraph. 

P.S. Electricity really is organized because my computer shut down as I was typing this. Clever, electricity. Very clever.
 

Waiting

We are not born to wait. We are born to do.

~ Dean Koontz

- - - - -

We are not born to wait. We are born to do.

 ~ Lily Gladys waiting to open her holiday gifts.

 

Christmas

We've made ourselves miserable with wanting.

~ Mercy Torres

- - - - -

As you get older your Christmas list gets shorter because the things you want are so much more expensive. And you forget what you were going to write down. And your hand gets tired. And you know you're probably getting slippers so why even make a list?!

 

Winter

What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?

~ John Steinbeck

- - - - - 

This is a pretty summer-centric way of looking at the seasons. What good is the cold of winter without the warmth of summer to give it sweetness, huh?! What good is that? Or what good is the coolness of fall without the coolness of spring... Don't distract me. Let's just stick with summer and winter, okay? What about that?

Rehayndeer

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.

~ Francois de la Rouchfoucauld

- - - - -

A hay bale dressing up as a reindeer is ridiculous. Reindeer EAT hay. That's like a pig dressing up like a person. NO, I'm not talking about

Miss Piggy. She is a puppet. I'm talking about Porky Pig.

 

Food

"Canned food is a perversion," Ignatius said. "I suspect that it is ultimately very damaging to the soul."

~ John Kennedy Toole

- - - - -

I usually hate it when people give their opinion about shows they haven't watched or books they haven't read or food they have tried. However, I'm going to do that right now. I have not tried "Spaghetti's Beefy TacOs," but I suspect they should have been called "Beefy TacUh-Os". Or perhaps I just don't have the palate for that.

I almost put that I might not have the pallet for that. Truth is, I don't have a pallet for Beefy TacOs, either.

Sunrise

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

~ Aristotle

- - - - -

I love mornings. I am usually up before sunrise. For me, sunrises are about hope and the potential of the day. Most anything is possible around sunrise. So many hopes for the day.

Leslie usually hopes she doesn't have to get up at sunrise. 

That's okay. I still like her.

 

Hot

When you're hot, you're hot.

When you're not, you're not.

~ Jerry Reed

- - - - -

Working drafts of this sign included:

Feeling warm? Get in here before you burn in hell.

Feeling warm? Join us - this is where all the "cool" kids are.

Feeling warm? This church is air-conditioned.

Fence

The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

~ J. R. R. Tolkein

- - - - -

A fence without a gate is a cage. A gate without a fence is full of wasps and if you play around it, you're going to get stung a bunch of times by your eye. Well, at least that's what happened to me. 

Help

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.

~ Oscar Wilde

- - - - -

       Overheard...

       Parent: We put aside money to help people.

       Child: I think I might use my money for Pokemon cards.

       Parent: No.

       Child: I mean to help people.

       Parent: Like how?

       Child: Like when one time we saw a guy who needed help when   

                  we were driving home.

       Parent: Yes! Exactly. And what did we do?

       Child: We didn't really have anything, so we just drove home. 

 

 

 

Play

All meaningful, organic, and foundational learning is at heart playful and ludic.

~ Marcelo Suarez-Orozco

- - - - -

I'm not sure what you do when you tell a kid he can't get up until 7:00 a.m. and he keeps getting up and talking and playing in his room and then you go up and tell him he needs to stay in bed and be quiet until 7:00 a.m. like you told him and you close his door and walk downstairs just as the cuckoo clock is cuckoo-ing that it's 7:00 a.m.

Gas

Your old road is rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new on 

if you can't lend a hand

'cause the times, they are a-changin'

~ Bob Dylan

- - - - -

"Hey! Michelle! Go to that gas station up the road! The gas is $2.59 cheaper!" you scream.

"That gas station is closed and has been for years," I say calmly. "Also," I add, "Please don't scream at me when I'm driving."

 

Mythology

Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure.

~ Fredrik Backman

- - - - -

I guess that means that they can nurture a garden about their life too. Of course, it would be a shitty garden.

 

Nap

I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.

~ Yogi Berra

- - - - -

Lily is excellent at napping. She can do it most anywhere and in a number of odd positions. 

(pause)

I need to add that to her resume.

 

Lines

 Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

~ Lao Tzu

- - - - -

What if, after we achieved something great, we crossed a line and got a trip to Finland? We'd be pretty excited to reach the Finnish Line, I bet.

Teaching

The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character.

~ Dorothea Dix

- - - - -

The best part of this post is that there were seven "likes" right away from former students. Not a single one of them chose the laughing emoji. I said what I said. My students know.

 

Spiders

Man did not weave the web of life.

He is merely a strand in it.

Whatever he does to the web,

He does to himself.

~ Chief Seattle

- - - - -

This past summer I saw a black widow in our garden box. It ran away, so I sat down and looked up black widows on my phone. All I can say is that the first full page of information was about the comic book character. I was mildly annoyed and inconvenienced.

But then I thought, "What if I had just been bitten? What if I was not sure what to do and I was looking up what to do about a black widow spider bite?!" 

Was I angry at Scarlett Johansson? No. Of course not. She doesn't control the internet. 

(pause)

Or DOES she? She DOES play Black Widow... and it IS called the WORLD WIDE WEB. 

Coincidence? Future lawsuit? Conspiracy?

Tune in next week when we don't solve this mystery because we've moved on to something completely different.

Joy

If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment.

~ Carlos Santana

- - - - -

Maybe, Carlos Santana, but I'd still like to see the paramedics if I'm ever involved in a chainsaw accident.

Quirks

Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- - - - -

I was watching a reality show and one of the men on the show used the word "manneurysms". I'm pretty sure he meant "mannerisms" as in quirks or gestures instead of "aneurysms" as in a bulging blood vessel, but I hope he said what he meant.