Groceries

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there the guy was locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He said, "Yes, but not in a row."

~ Steven Wright

- - - - -

Our yard backs up to a grocery store. Not the grocery store in this photo. That one looked kind of abandoned.

My point is that we can smell what they are making at the deli in our backyard grocery store. Sometimes it's fried chicken. Sometimes it's ham. When it's ham, it reminds me of Grandma Boettchers. She never made ham, she WAS a ham.

If you had known my Grandma Boettcher, you'd know how funny that is because she wasn't a ham at all. My Grandma Hamlin on the other hand... 

Again, if you knew that my other grandma actually was named Hamlin, you'd realize how hilarious this post is. 

I guess this particular entry is for a pretty specific audience.

(pause)

Quit pouting. You're fine. You'll understand most of the rest of them. Maybe.

Playing

A toy is seen as both a bauble and an intellectual machine.

~ Brian Sutton-Smith

- - - - -

Zak has some good toys. One of them is a rocking horse. But he seem to like playing like he is driving. I wonder if there is something very much like a rocking horse that also involves driving something very much like a car.

Something like a "rocking hearse." I think Zak would like to play with one of those.

Up

Those who think of freedom in this country as one long, broad path leading ever onward and upward are dead damned wrong.

~ Molly Ivins

- - - - -

The other night / a few months ago Leslie and I went to see Ranky Tank on campus. They were great.

There were a lot of older people there and as we were leaving after the concert, I was behind a 120-year-old man and his 115-year-old friends. They had to go up a hill to where they had parked. One of the 115-year-old friends turned to the 120 year old man and said, "If you can't walk up this hill to the parking lot, just run up it instead."

Teacher

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple. 

~ Amos Bronson Alcott

- - - - -

A false teacher guides students to himself and indoctrinates his pupils with his own beliefs.

A true false teacher gives the exams that many students like the best.

Pillar

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.

~ Pliny the Elder

- - - - -

I don't think you should put people on a pillar. At least when I tried to do that in the grocery store parking lot the people squawked at me to let go of them. And they didn't seem to like my pillar of old magazines, either.

Journaling

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters into your brain.

~ Jack London

- - - - -

I like to journal. I don't always do it every day. I don't always do it in legible handwriting. But when I do journal, I find I am either capturing or creating. Ultimately for me, the things captured are captured only to be used creatively in the future.

Unless I had a trap set for burglars and I captured them. I would give them to the police. 

(pause)

And then I'd write a story about that. So I guess, yeah, even the experience of capturing burglars is something I would use creatively in the future. Mainly in marketing for my burglar traps.

Waiting

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.

~ Robert Fulghum

- - - - -

Maybe worry when they don't listen when you scream, "Quit staring at me!"

But in that case, worry about yourself because - why are you screaming like that?

Freak

"There is nothing to talk about," she said. "I'm just a freak, that's all."

~ Stieg Larson

- - - - -

I like the word freak. I guess it probably has negative connotations. I just think of it as something outside of the norm. And given the state of the norm these days, I don't see how that is a bad thing.

Beauty

Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.

~ Charles Lamb

- - - - -

Look for beauty in the world every day. It is almost always there. Some days you have to look a little harder than others - but often that might be because of you, not because of your surroundings.

Unless you're in a dungeon or a pig sewage lagoon. Then it might be because of your surroundings. 

Doll

Of with their heads!

~ Lewis Carroll

- - - - -

I just had an idea. If you took a bunch of doll heads and attached them to a piece of wood as wide as your bed and mounted it at the head of your bed, you'd have a literal HEADboard.

Also, I would never, ever, ever come visit you.

Sunset

The best things in life are free. The second best things in are very, very expensive.

~ Coco Chanel

- - - - -

The third best things in life are pretty expensive too, but sometimes you can find them on sale.

Watches

By the 1930s, wristwatches were the norm and the pocket watch was an anachronism. Time itself had become a human appendage.

~ Derek Thompson

- - - - -

When I first saw this, I thought it said, "Smokey says please do not play with watches." I thought, "Don't play with watches??" Then I thought, "Is the punctuation right on that sign?" And then I thought, "I'm cold. I should start a playful fire."

Games

Life is more fun if you play games.

~ Roald Dahl

- - - - -

I like games. Beyond Balderdash is my all time favorite of all time. I love it.

I also like Words with Friends. 

I would probably like less a game called "Swords with Friends."

Singing

Birds will always sing a song for those that they love.

~ Anthony T. Hicks

- - - - -

The other day I was in my office at work. Two students walked by - maybe 20 minutes apart. Each of them was singing, "Stacey's mom has got it going on..." I have to think that a teacher must have used it in class. That song is from 2003. The students were maybe 4 or 5 then. 

If it was just a coincidence, that is very strange.

And if it was a message from the university, what does it mean?

HA!  I meant to type "message from the universe" but I typed "university."

(pause)

Wait. Now what do you suppose THAT means?

Everything is a mystery. Especially if you don't really try very hard to figure things out.

Looking

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.

~ J. R. R. Tolkein

- - - - 

You know that saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth? Well, that is only one in a series of sayings. Others include:

Don't look a gift dog in the eye.
Don't look a gift fish in the ear.
Don't look a gift chicken in the anus.

Sure, these sayings are less well-known, yet they each carry their own important message.

Jump

Those who don't jump will never fly.

~ Leena Ahmad Almashat

- - - - -

Why is it a "trampoline" and not a "jumpoline"?

Laughter

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.

~ Audrey Hepburn

- - - - -

Leslie: (talking, talking, talking... laughing, laughing, laughing)

Me: . . .

Leslie: You didn't get it. I made a joke.

Me: I understood the words that you said.

Leslie: (stops laughing). You're so un-sense-of-humory! (starts laughing again).

Me: . . .  Yep. . . .  That's me.

Leslie: (still laughing) I'm funny!!

Ready

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

~ Emily Dickinson

- - - - -

LOOK OUT, FUTURE!! HERE WE COME!!!! 

(pause)

I mean, we're mostly going to just stay in the current moment and wait for you to get here, but you know what I mean.

Postcard

The world before us is a postcard, and I imagine the story we are writing on it.

~ Mary E. Pearson

- - - - -

My brother is a playwright. I am an academic writer. We both write about the stories around us. We both thrive on creativity. We share our work with each other. We offer feedback. We accept feedback. We both have fire alarm pull stations by our desks for those moments when we are writing and we find that we are just ON FIRE with our writing.

(pause)

Most of that is true.

Sit

All men's [people's] miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

~ Blaise Pascal

- - - - -

I think it's good to sit and reflect at this time of the year. Or, yes, you can stand. Okay, or lie down. 

I don't know why you're being so difficult. You get the point. 

Sheesh.

Hospitality

Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out.

~ Ted Allen

- - - - -

I just learned when you put quotes around a word or phrase they could be SCARE quotes. I was not scared of the image above until I read that. Now I'm scared of the quotes and all the foods pictured on this box. 

Wait.

I was a "little scared" of most of those foods before.

Kirk

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

~ Maya Angelou

- - - - -

Today is my brother Kirk's birthday. I agree that our siblingness has required work. Particularly on his part since I use words like "siblingness."

He is one of the greatest people I know.

Mandonna

Children always understand. They have open minds. They have built in shit detectors.

~ Madonna

- - - - -

I call this photo "Mandonna with Child." I thought that was a little more clever than, "My Brother Staring Off in the Distance While Holding his Son Who is Laughing and Wearing a Green Dinosaur Shirt."

But what do I know. No one pays me to name things.

(pause)

I wish they would, though.

Tree

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

- - - - -

Today isn't every tree a Christmas tree?

Decorating

It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters, but who's around it.

~ Charlie Brown

- - - - -

I agree, Charlie Brown. I think you can have gifts or not. You can decorate or not. And if you do decorate, it doesn't matter how you decorate. It's about the people you get to spend time with.

I think this message is emphasized in a quote from my own family. Here is that quote --

Erik's Kid: (not sure which one it was) Wait - that's not an ornament!  That's a tag from a sweatshirt!!

Nick's

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.

~ Nick Carraway 

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

- - - - -

Did you know that Santa... St. Nick... Saint Nicholas - who was Greek - was also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker?

He was.

I bet if he was alive today he'd be surprised at how much people use his image all over the place and how people dress up like he probably never dressed up, but then pretend to be him.

I also read that Martin Luther tried to replace Santa Claus with Baby Jesus as the bearer of gifts. In German - "Christkindl." Later that got transformed into Kris Kringle - another name for Santa Claus. 

Now that I think about it, I be the Christ Child is pretty surprised at how much people use His image all over the place, too. I don't think He is all that much into self-promotion. Of course, I'm just speculating. I wasn't around then. I don't know for sure.

Except that I do know pretty much for sure. 

On a very loosely related note, I think that in the off-season Santa would make a great bar owner / bartender. 

Holiday

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

- - - - -

Don't literally write it on your heart. That will make it not a best day of the year.

Priorities

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- - - - -

At this time of year we might all be well-served to take a moment and reflect on our priorities. Rather than things, who are the people we want in our lives? Whom do we value in our lives? Have we told them that? As evidenced in this photo and blog and a lot of my random posts, Leslie really matters to me.

Apparently Leslie's phone really matters to her.

Winter

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

~ Pietro Aretino

- - - - -

You have to watch your step when it's icy out.  You could slip and fall.  You could break something like a hip or your leg or your collarbone.  Or you could crack the ice and fall through into the freezing waters below.

Also, don't walk on ice that is over water.

Also, if it's so cold that the breeze is frozen - don't fall on that either. If you do, you might break wind.

Art

An artist can best speak as a member of a moral community.

~ Ursula K. LeGuin

- - - - -

An artist can also speak as a member of a morel community if they draw mushrooms.

Grandmother

If nothing is going well, call your grandmother.

~ Italian Proverb

- - - - -

Some notes from a summer visit to see Aurora and Ezra:

Aurora - in a tone both wise and annoyed, "Baby brother's still hiccuping."

Aurora - losing at a board game, "Aw NUTS! Are you kiddin'?!"

And then we watched some kid show. Here is the plot summary:

The main characters on the show made their grandma lift a piano to the upper level of their home through a window by pulling it up on a rope. The family then sent the grandma to the grocery store for ice cream, but didn't let her get the kind of ice cream she liked. They next sent her up to the roof to retrieve a kite that was stuck there. Finally, they sent her to the cellar to get a toy for one of the kids.

It's a big job being a grandma. Apparently, it's an even bigger job if you are a cartoon grandma on TV. 

Early

Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. 
It's the best part of the day.

~ George Allen, Sr.

- - - - -

I am definitely a morning person. A good day for me is when I wake up on my own around 5 a.m. and get up and journal for a while, then work for a while, then get to enjoy the world around me. That can happen on a beach, that can happen when I teach. It can happen when I'm reading, it can happen in a meeting.

(pause)

Okay, I'm going to be totally honest with you. It probably doesn't happen in a meeting. I just used that because it rhymed. And it sounded nicer than "It can happen when my eye is bleeding."  

Assistance

I think life is hard without assistance from others.

~ RuPaul

- - - - -
Overheard

Kid: HEY-UP HEY-UP HEY-UP HEY-UP HEY-UP HEY-UP HEY-UP

Mom: Someone help Rebel. She needs some help.

C'MON!

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

~ Carl Sandburg

- - - - -

Aurora: C'mon you lazy bums!

David: Don't call us "lazy hobos." 

Aurora: You're not "lazy hobos."

Me: You're just regular hobos.

Aurora: No - you're LAZY BUMS! Nuts!!

Pioneer

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

~ Deepak Chopra

- - - - -

I think the pioneers are always strong and brave - no matter what they are pioneering. Like the first person to play a keyboard instrument. I'm sure the doubters and those resistant to change were really unkind. It took a lot of strength and bravery to be a pianoeer. 

Web

The web of life, love, suffering, and death unites all beings.

~ Alex Grey

- - - - -

I was looking online at my ear infection symptoms. This list of options came up:

I thought the second option said, "history of exposure to assholes." Then I thought maybe I had vision issues as well as an ear infection.

Breaks

Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break. 

~ Earl Wilson

- - - - -

Do workplaces have coffee breaks anymore? And if they do, do people put away their devices while they're at coffee break? Well, not the coffee making device, but the other ones?

Pennyslvania

Pennsylvania is home to some of the hardest-working, toughest, most decent people in America.

~ Bob Casey, Jr.

- - - - -

The other states are home to the rest of them.

Orange

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.

~ D. H. Lawrence

- - - - -

Making marmalade is a brilliant way to deal with a gloomy future. When you're done and you think of the future you can think, "Oh! I'll have some marmalade on toast later." Then the future is better.

Attention

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

~ Jose Ortega y Gasset

- - - - -

Leslie talks to and listens to her mom every day. Some days - many days lately, actually - her mom shares that she has been watching The Sound of Music. Other days her mom has played Bingo. Other days she has been coloring or painting. Other days her mom has questions about what movies Jimmy Cagney has been in.

Personally, I think that Leslie should put a camera in her mom's room and one on a helmet for her mom to wear. Then she could be really immersed in her mom's daily routines. I think the idea of a Grannycam is brilliant. 

However, I'm pretty sure neither Leslie nor her mom nor the people who help take care of her mom would agree. Because they're all so disagreeable.

Glass

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

~ E. B. White

- - - - -

If my friend Wayne Glass complained all the time, he would a Glass of Whine.

But he doesn't really do that.

Danger

Remember that life's big changes rarely give advance warning.

~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

- - - - -

I believe that Grandparents are psychic. Especially in knowing when bad things are about to happen.

The other day I saw a baby belch up food on its grandpa. 

Grandpa: I saw that coming.

Fence

Fear is the highest fence.

~ Dudley Nichols

- - - - -

Sometimes I find myself scrolling through social media, and I'll come upon an image of a person with their head in their hands. I wonder, "What's that about?" and then think, "I should probably read that." It is never a photo of a person I actually know. It is never a problem with which I can actually help. 

I don't know what that says about me.

I do know this - I'm taking some "unplugged weekends" to disconnect from those messages (almost always negative) and all other messages (almost always negative). So, if you find yourself with your head in your hands and I am someone who can actually help, try not to have that happen on my unplugged weekends, because you won't get a hold of me then.

Negativity

Negativity is the enemy of creativity.

~ David Lynch

- - - - -

A while back I posted that my friend Terri always says, "Is it really that bad or is it just November?" or "Are you really angry with that person, or is it just November?"

Then I thought about sharing the same thing now that it is early December and people are worn out. "Is it really that bad or is it just December?" "Are you really angry with that person, or is it just December?"

Then I thought you could do that for all of the months. There is a reason to be cranky any month, I suppose. 

So then I had to stop and think, "Is it really that bad or is it just my friend Terri?"

Sightseeing

Sightseeing is the art of disappointment.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

- - - - -
When Marty and Carol came to visit, that was fun. They were pretty interested in going to see the Georgia Guidestones. It was only later that they admitted they thought they were going to see the Georgia Satellites. They both love that song, "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." 

Of course when they admitted it, they didn't actually say it out loud, but I could read it on Marty's face. I think Carol had written it there.

Tractors

Technically speaking, you drive like a rabid chicken who has hijacked a tractor.

~ Sarah Rees Brennan

- - - - -

Technically speaking, only mammals can get rabies.

Reading

If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.

~ Roald Dahl

- - - - -

This is a screenshot I took when looking for kids' books for kids I know. 

It reminds me that song from Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other..." 

Seat

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

~ Herman Mankiewicz, All About Eve

- - - - -

And if there isn't a seatbelt to fasten, well - I don't know what to tell you. It's still going to be bumpy. And it's still probably all about Eve.

BLT

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.

~ James Beard

- - - - -

This was an excellent BLT that Leslie made for me. 

Big tomato
Little strips of pork meat
The green salad stuff

Mmmm.