Happy Mother's Day 2024

Happy Mother's Day, 2024!

Our mom has been gone for a few years now. She's definitely in...what she would say is, "a far better place". Incredible mom the first part of my life. A very odd character the last half. 

Or maybe I just didn't notice it so much as a kid.

Mom's are our wives who mother our children, and...more.

They have to put up with a lot...

When my 1st born was yet to be born, I did a Tarot card reading for my pregnant wife and I which came out saying that he would be a "he" (which was correct), and a "demon" (which was also correct). "Demon" in the sense of a child that never ran out of energy, while his parents did, feeling far older than they were. 

You had to follow him, everywhere. "Out of sight, out of mind"? That was insanity. For us, and his safety. But just a good time for him. So I did wnat I could to enhance that for him, and for his safety. 

He was much as I had been as a child, apparently. My mother, over visiting one day pointed that out to me saying that it was like watching a little me running around. About the level of energy he and I had, she added: "If I put you down for sleep at 5AM, you'd be back up at 6AM!"

My comment back to her was, "Well, I just want to thank you for not killing me as a child. Because now I understand what I must have put you through." Honestly, I think I was the worse of the two of us.

My wife and I were often exhausted... but he was an amazing, happy, fun bundle of mostly never ending energy & happiness. 

I could talk here about my youngest too, but this isn't about kids per se, and they were both pretty pleasant to raise, so... what I will say is that I apprecaited my youngest having a more quiet demeanor and greater ease of handling. Still, both were a joy to raise, honestly. Though both were still "kids". So, there it is.

As for my siblings and my mom, there were a lot of issues with her over our lifetime together. And apart.

But the mom I remember best is the one whom I dearly loved...this version in the photos strip, above. 

The adventures we had with her as kids...through many different homes and schools, in different states, even different husbands and in different countries. 

That is the mom I prefer to remember.

Many of us have experineced such problematic things with our mothers. Some simply cut them off. Interpersonally, mentally, emotionally. I did myself from time to time. As did my siblings. They and I had a round robin over the years of who would take the lead to deal with her. 

Between having some form of mental issues and her self-medication, life was seldom ever simple or relaxed around her. I used to say within 15 minutes of being in her presence, she would start in on us. It would then take a day (or days) to try to recover from. Not a massive issue, but it wore on you time and time and time again.

Anyway, try not to do that to  yourself. IF you can find it in yourself, for yourself, to enjoy the once beloved "Mom" side of your mom whom you wish to remember. 

Remember, HER.

Just remember THAT person. Feel free to love that version you most perfer to remember. 

Especially if that was your first version of your mom that you knew. 

Because they were the "mom" who formed you. So? Love...HER.

And Love Your Self.

Happy Mother's Day. To us all.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Frank Zappa & the Mothers Of Invention

Happy New Year 2020!

Welcome to 2020! 

I'm mostly now adjusted to being out of the 1900s and now I have to acclimate to entering the third decade of the new Millennium....

Just please 2020... be better than 2019?!

But really, so glad you all could make it to here!

OK. To start off with I'd like to offer you a new book to start your year with. Written by the author/cartoonist of Dilbert, Scott Adams. His book is, Loserthink: How Untrained Minds Are Ruining America". It's funny, irreverent and America needs this bit of rational consideration. For both sides of the country and all sides of the political spectrum. Here is a segment of him on C-SPAN2's BookTV

2019 treated far too many of us with utter contempt and disrespect. I look forward to 2018 being much more congenial and powerfully friendly. And if it's not...then I look forward to wrestling it to the ground, crushing its face into the mud and beating the holy tar out of it because This year...I'm not putting up with that crap any longer.

As we enter this, the third decade of the new Millenium... so say us all!

Let's celebrate. Or would you rather skip all the trouble? I know, I know. Many of us have felt through this year that it would be better not to bridge that gap and just relax and fall to end it all. But a new year brings hope. And more strenuous efforts to deny the stupid, remove the ill-mannered, and better everyone's lives, not just the few.

I mean, what are holidays for anyway?

Who cares about them? Why should we care about them? Especially if we find in them, celebrating things we are not that partial to, or in support of, or see only the negative in them. Like an "Uncle Mike's" annoying habits, or a "grandpa's" drunken grouchiness. Aren't they just another waste of human resources? Emotional exhibitions with too frequently no need or basis in logic? Or reality.

Obviously, holidays are for the celebrations for which they were originally intended.

Though some do supersede those original reasons. Such as Christmas. A birthday. New Year's, Halloween, etc. They are a reason for celebrating their original intent, to be sure, but also for sharing communal experiences, renewing old alliances, expanding one's relationships.

They are for exceeding one's normal experience of any normal day. A reason to do the exceptional, a thing to plan for and enjoy the planning of, not to ruin it by stressing over that planning, not for exceeding oneself to the point of misery or destitution.

But to be the abnormal, in a positive sense. To pamper oneself, or others. To use that which we save up for over time (to use, not abuse), to remember our reasons for existing in the first place. Whatever that may be. To show others that you care when normally it isn't considered, executed, or appreciated.

We have to face the fact that holidays are not only for what they are claimed to be, or originally were all about.

They offer one an opportunity to shine, in various ways. To know one is appreciated, to show that the appreciation of others. To build memories that will last a lifetime. To, in even the smallest of ways, give others acknowledgment of your appreciation of their existence, of their help, or their care for you. And to assure that this relationship continues or even expands in ways that are a benefit to yourself, to themselves and to your associated communities, both local and extended.

They are there to enjoy ourselves in our own experience of them and through the experience of others sharing in those experiences with us. It can be a bonding experience far outweighing the effort of experiencing them, as well as in the shared memories of those events many years into the future.

Or even beyond life itself if recorded and later shared by friends, family or even unknown descendants or merely other citizens.

So don't blow off these holidays.

Do not fear them. Or the potential the future holds for the next one.

Embrace them. They will embrace you back.

In the end, we may all very well benefit from them.

All the best to you and yours in this new year of 2020!

Wishing you all a very safe and happy Thanksgiving 2013!

I just wanted to wish you all here in the US a very safe and happy Thanksgiving Day celebration. 

For all those others around the world I wish you the same in that you have something to be thankful for or that you will one day very soon. 

The world is a marvelous place and I only hope you have the opportunity and the luxury to be able to appreciate that.

As an example of the wonder all around  us, someone recorded crickets (bear with me here) and slowed their "singing" down to human speeds considering they live a faster and therefore shorter life. 

There is the amazing and wondrous all about us, if we only just can listen....

Singing crickets

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio

Remember not only to thank your Divine entity but also to thank all of those between you. 

It is enlightened to see that although God may be great, so are those who are here with us and equal to us as human beings, who also deserve our love and concern. If you are offended by that photo, then look beyond your feelings to the reality of what it is saying. 

Enlightenment also means we understand that others are there to support us and many times we give them no thought whatsoever. On a day of thanks, it is a part of our being thankful in looking both directions and not only up, or to the person next to us.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving Day celebration!

Cheers!

"Great changes start with individuals; the basis of world peace is inner peace in the hearts of individuals, something we can all work for."

Dali Lama

"It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community—a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living.

This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth."

—THICH NHAT HANH