Living In the World, Not on It

As usual, I live in fantasfy land. Reading Madeliene L'Engle's A Severed Wasp , one of my most cherished authors, listening to the Eagles' "Hotel California". This is not the version that most know, ind]cluding what I knew. I have that, too, not to worry. This is an amazing. It's from their live release, Hell Freezes Over . It is the same song, but with a slower tempo, and more on the Spanish guitar side than rock. I heard at the last Installation dinner, when I was sworn in as Recording Secretary. I love it. I find it so easy to get lost in things. I love my life, but books give me the life I don't have. I have love, and I have responsibility, and I have adventure. This is important. But there is nothing... cosmic, I guess... about my life. Mostly that's fine. But sometimes we all want a little cosmic. To make a difference in some unimaginable way that Martin Luther King, Jr. or Charlemagne or whoever did. Without fighting a war, wouldn't that be ...

Sometimes you have many good days. I usually do, anyway. There were some down points, but mostly, I had happy days. The past few have been really great. High points have been the weather. It couldn't have been better if we'd a note from God. Pick a god. Any god! It was perfect. I think it still is (although at 00:40, it is a little on the cool side). I suspect it will continue to be delightful. Well... maybe not. I just checked the weather... Not all that and a bag of chips but they tend to be wrong. On the other hand, how many perfect, temperate, lovely days can you have... at the end of June? Answer: Not that many. Not to sound negative, it is just that the odds are against it. It is New Jersey, you know. I've taken a Benadryl. I'm having an allergic reaction to something. I hate having a runny nose. Anyway, other high points. Thanks to Joe (he knows who he is), I found a better way to get out of Springfield when commuting home (this is saying something!). Thanks to...

Another day, another headache, another triump! A day full of the good, the bad and the ugly and I loved it. Loved it! The day prior, I ended with having work done on my teeth. Baby's fourth crown... not exactly an amazing homage to my caretaking of my teeth. I always hated listening to my parents about that, and I took not-so-great care of my teeth then - and that was with them watching over me! Imagine what happened when they weren't... I didn't. That was fine until I hit around 15 - between that and the endless amount of candy I ate, I began to get cavities. Admittedly, I did not get my first crown until a couple of years ago. Last year was my first root canal. And they were all completely painless. This one... was not. My mouth hurt on waking, and increased as the morning wore on. It was not pretty, and I was a complete wretch. Most people didn't notice it but I was very quiet, and stayed in my office when not getting tea. Mitch noticed (which was very nice) but then...

I suppose, it being Father's Day, I should only be thinking about my fathers. But I'm thinking about someone else. He is an amazing person. I love him, I respect him, I have not yet found any real flaws to him (which bothers me, because, like all people, he has them. But they are not right at the surface, the way mine and seemingly everyone else's are). He is really something else. Everytime I get worked up about something and hung up on an issue, I talk to him. And not just because I need to, as a requirement, but because I can't often see past the injust of the issue to see what... well, what ripples I'm going to create. Maybe that doesn't make much sense, but it does to me and this is one of those times I can explain it. Next time you are by a lake or a pond, throw a rock into the water. When it hits the water, it creates ripples, and they go out in ever-widening concentric circles. Every time I undertake an action, it creates ripples that flood out and affec...

"Recently BBC News reported that some British police departments have decided to add extra officers on nights with a full moon. The concern isn't over werewolves or vampires —no need to issue silver bullets or wooden stakes—but more human threats such as petty thieves and violent criminals. For years, some who work in police and emergency services (such as doctors and nurses) have anecdotally claimed that full moon nights are busier, crazier , and more dangerous than nights when the moon is dim. This perception may be rooted more in psychology than reality. Belief in the moon's influence is an ancient one, and common in many cultures including our own. If police and doctors are expecting that full moon nights will be more hectic, they may interpret an ordinary night's traumas and crises as more extreme than usual. Our expectations influence our perceptions, and we look for evidence that confirms our beliefs. (The same thing happens on "bad days" when everyth...

A friend of mine sent me this and I really enjoyed it. I must say, though, I'm disappointed - I went to Scotland and did not see a single one of these! The country is not that big - how'd I miss them all?! "It seems certain that wells, springs and pools were accredited with healing powers long before the Christian era. The custom of visiting “ holy wells” on the days of the saints who had blessed them can be traced back to a pagan water-cult of much more ancient times. Scotland is a country of many waters, and thus there is no shortage of wells and springs. There were over six hundred holy wells dotted over this country at one time, and no doubt the Tay region had its fair share, though many have now fallen into oblivion. Probably these magic or holy wells were originally the shrines of local deities. A spring of water bubbling out from some secret crevice of the rocks or from some obscure pocket of the soil meant life, and where there was life there was a spirit. But in d...

I'm reading - for the thousandth time - a book called A Ring of Endless Light , by Madeliene L'Engle, one of my most favourite writers. She is a writer, a scientist, a poet - all those things that I understand. She is also deeply religious - no, that isn't right - deeply spiritual , and that is a wonderful quality. She is very much a Christian but in a normal, unassuming way that is not phony, like so many "religious" people I know. From me, high praise indeed. I feel that way about Luis, too. He clearly believes but it is not that phony overbearing let's-do-everything-right-for-the-neighbours sort of way like his father or my deceased grandmother. It's very unassuming, a normal part of him like any other part of him. I am much more comforted by people like him in that way. This book, which I have read so many times since I was a kid, is an easy read in the literal sense but not in the emotional or thinking sense. It is very deep, very emotional, very......

It's been that kind of a week. Intense, crazy, and a blue moon to boot on Thursday night. We are prepared for the madness that is a full moon - any full moon - but really, a blue moon on top of it? Not fair, not fair at all. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been non-stop action... not an unheard of thing on a full moon night. It could have been even worse than that - it could have been a full moon on a Saturday night. That is the worst. First time I ever rode a full moon night was a Saturday and we had seven calls between 1900 and 0100. Horrifying. It was completely exhausting. A blue moon is a full moon amplified. Actually, a blue moon isn't even blue (yes, I was quite disappointed about that. I kept looking for it to change colour...). A blue moon is - for reasons passing understanding - the second full moon in a month. So we had the first full moon on 2 May and the second one on 31 May. In some countries, they did not have the blue moon - it occured on 1 Jun...

This is so true. The things that rip you up - or at least, trip me up, are the things I don't know. And there is much more that I don't know than the things I am sure of. Lots more. Too much, sometimes. Anytime I trip up it is thinking that I know something when I patently don't. Not being able to really read and understand those contracts... I feel like it is torture to read those things. I did not try very hard to really read them and understand them and then I had all the trouble in February and March with those two projects - two huge gaffs that held me back at work in a big way. There has not been anything as devastating as when someone whose opinion I calue most looked me in the eyes and said, "I'm disappointed in you." I was, too. That was more upsetting than being yelled at or ignored or anything else that could have been done or said. It's not what you're sure of... ...it's what you don't know.