Change

Benjamin Franklin once said that there were only two certain things in life: death and taxes. Considering the times in which he lived, he should have added a third certainty—change.

As humans, we emerge from the womb to become newborn babies. Then we change to become little children. From that to adolescents, then adults and finally we grow old and die.

That’s change.

It’s inevitable.

Imagine a cold winter period that never changed to warmth. Imagine a night that refused to give daylight a chance. Imagine a sun that refused to set.

So, if we all agree that change is something that must happen in nature, why should it be so hard for us to embrace change in our own lives?

How come we’re oft times so scared when change swoops down upon us?

All of us experience change in our lives. It’s the one constant. Some changes we look forward to and others we fear. However, one thing’s for sure. Things will not stay the same no matter how much we would like them too.

When our lives change, we have two choices in how to respond. We can assume that things will be worse, or we can look with excitement at the new possibilities that the change presents.

Is every man doomed to relive life, which is all the more profound because it grows comic with repetition? That human existence should forever repeat itself, like a record a drunk keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox?

Some folks see change as an occasional stroke of bad luck, like a traffic accident or a bad snowstorm. Something the Goddesses above and Gnomes below visit on us to test and try us, as we resist changes over which we have no control. Actually, it’s more like the weather, something we live with every day, just another dimension or aspect of our lives. It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the ruling factor of our lives. The decisions we make need to take into account not only the world as it is, but as it will be.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability; it is the engine that gives us the means to continue.

“Change is the only thing that is constant in life.”  Is a familiar expression used to help folks embrace change, even change they may find to be inconvenient or trying.

Speaking of trying times, as much as I myself oft times set in dreamy remembrance of how life was, or at least how my memories longingly portray, life sure seemed somehow easier, cleaner, more black and white and more logical back in my youth. The good guys wore white hats and rode gleaming white horses and the bad guys wore black hats and rode black horses with steam roaring from their nostrils like dragons from some other magical era.

Then it seemed there were solid identifiable truths no one would deny, nor argue with. Like right and wrong and ways of living that the vast majority deemed correct and proper. There were far fewer laws but more common sense and logic to everything back then.

As most would agree, all the things I remember from my distant past are slipping away moment by moment, like tulle fog rising from the hot pavement after an early summer rainstorm.

So what do we do about it? Is there anything we can or should do? Methinks all we can do is except the undeniable fact that change might very well be the only real thing in life. We are forced to realize any kind of perceived permanence is an idea or supposition that exists only in our feeble minds.

In the political realm nowadays, there are those who lament all the incredible changes they see happening in the world and especially in American right now. As much as I agree, we all have to realize 1950 was a long time ago and will never come back. Most people my age and older have nothing but fond memories of the 50’s as a time in history when stability and reliability reined supreme. A time when the attributes we grew up with were solid, predictable and real.

Monumental change started happening in the 60’s with everyone starting to question the sanity of trying to keep things forever as they were, which was ultimately an impossibility. That was a period when once people’s minds were subjected to new ways of looking at reality, a shadowy door was forever opened to never close again.

The truth is, those times are long gone now. With the social changing winds ablowing across the land, nature, social institutions, social behaviors and social relations changed forever, reminding us once more that change is the only real thing in life. All else are only temporary philosophical ideas. Once again reminding us that society moves forward by evolutionary means.

So all the anger, hate and blame coming from both extremist sides of present day politics as always has no meaning whatsoever.

The only real answers for our present constantly changing issues is a society of clear thinking, honest folks who actually care about each other’s inherent worth and goodness. People who strive to find a middle ground they can traverse together through whatever change brings us into the future.

Wonder……

In my best moments wonder follows me wherever I go like the wispy trails of a jet oh so high. It’s those magical times when I imagine life as if for the first or last time.
A time of great wonder in a little music, a little poetry and visualizing vistas unimagined. In order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul we so oft miss in our mad rush toward what?
Those rare moments when wonder’s tendrils tell me a rainbow is never found by looking down and curiosities reason is self fulfilling in due time.

Wonder, oh wonder….being the beginning of wisdom as I sit alone under the stars twinkling above. What about the galaxies inside my heart? I truly wonder if anyone will ever want to make sense of all that I was, am or will be.
 I oft realize we are nothing but impossibilities in an impossible universe looking for miracles. When our very existences are miracle enough if we were to simply shut the raving minds for but a moment.

Have you ever wondered that we’re going to die and that makes us the lucky ones? All those not born will never die. All the people who could have been here in our place but who will in fact never see the light of day or the wonder, outnumber the stars above.
It’s the wonder of the stupefying odds that you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here now, we privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds stand in our wonder here now.
And how dare we whine at our inevitable return to the prior state from which the vast majority has never stirred.

We the lucky ones can stand on the edge of a stream in the mountains, watching the brook trout in the amber current with the edges of the fins wimpling softly in the flow. When caught, they smell of moss in our hand. Polished and muscular, with backs filled with patterns of the maps of the world in it’s becoming. In the deepness they live, where all things are older than man and they hum of mystery and wonder benign.
They and all living things we share this blue ball’s oh so temporary stance with destiny’s grace are all wondrous things indeed, especially for those who learn to shut the monsters within.

In my best moments I think us here to wonder. To wonder. To ask. When wondering and asking about the big things, we learn about the little ones, almost by accident. It’s quite possibly true that we never know anything more about the big things than we started out with.
We’re all in a sea of wonders. We doubt. We fear. We think strange things, not daring to confess even to our own souls, rather having minds opened by wonder than closed by belief.


Wonder can be a wretched guest. It’s not careful with what is most fragile. If it breaks you, it shrugs and moves on. Without asking, it brings along dubious friends, like doubt, jealousy and greed. Together, they try and take over. Rearranging the furniture in our minds for their own comfort.
Oft times speaking odd languages with no attempt to translate. They cook strange meals in our hearts that leave odd tastes and smells behind. When they finally deem to go, are we happy or miserable?
Truth as patience is always left holding the broom.

Our oft times futile attempt at language is our way trying to explain away the wonder and glory of the world. To deconstruct or dismiss all that’s amazing and unexplainable. We can’t seem to deal with how beautiful the world really is. Nor how impossible it is to truly understand.

Isn’t a child’s world fresh, new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement? Unfortunately, that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is awe-inspiring, is dimmed before we reach adulthood.
If I had any influence with the Goddesses above and Gnomes below who are supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I would ask them to gift each child with a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the oft times boredom and disenchantment of later years. Would that that might be possible, I could proudly claim a small measure of victory and accomplishment to my life’s resume.

To my sometimes-great dismay, I’m no longer a child but still want to be, to live with pirates. Because I dream of living forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this only. When I was but a child, I longed to travel into, to live in wonder. Now, I know, that to travel into wonder is to be wonder. So it matters little whether I travel by plane, rowboat, book or by dream. That is what the pirates knew. There is only seeing and in order to see, one must be a pirate again.
Wonder is after all, only a spoonful of elusiveness beyond imagining for most.

My coffee gets increasingly better the more I drink and the closer I come to the bottom of the cup, where all the sugar is. I wonder if life is the same way as we approach the end.

Thoughts from the netherworld….

When oh when doth reality bend toward thine goals established in our youthful fantasies unannounced?
Can we but be driving our own unique molecules against the grains of time and place? Or is our fate a completely out of control mistress? Does time offer no reprieve from the everlasting ravages flowing within the swirling stars above or within?
Can it even know of us in our egotistical whimsies, as they haphazardly tease with their absurdities and misaligned oft times swirling waterfalls crashing to the rocks below?

These ponderings and more attempts to balance on my mind daily, with no truth nor equilibrium to show for the efforts. They come unbidden as small gusts of wind tugs at the edges just out of sight or unspoken awareness.
“Hush.” I often say within my ever-charging mind’s constant and unrelenting flow towards what? Madness, or just unbidden normalcy?
But saying so, nay, even secretly shouting it within doesn’t come close to altering its constant conscience provoking idiosyncrasies.

Nay, in this renowned oaken vault without a clear handle nor combination we balefully call life, a guiding light or beacon of sanity has no purchase. No foundation with which to lay our hopes and dream upon with credibility’s that hold with certainty.
Does the glass half full or empty have meaning beyond the elusions they playfully hint?  Or are they just the wispy clouds formed from the never-ending waterfalls we’ve been given by who?

Who indeed? Does that in any real way matter? Is all within or without? If within, within what? These frail and temporary fleshings? Fleshings that seem to spurn or fade from lady lucks finicky embrace?
If without, without what? Another mad hatter musing us from above for its own benighted entertainment?  Would that mad hatter be true, it would perhaps give some meaning or direction to pursue.
But clearly the Goddesses above and Gnomes below have in all their given names throughout mankind’s stand on this magical blue ball offered nothing beyond faith’s ambivalence and improvable suppositions and contrivances.

Then there’s the multiple follies of the demon in the box, some call Father time. We start as the ultimate innocents, barely aware, just out of the intimateness of the womb. Rudely ripped from the blessed calm dark and quietude into a strange world of swirling wisps of light and dark. Then unexpected assaults of sounds only heard until now through the insulate softness of Mother’s skin.
The only cares are intimate, immediate. Like bobbing on the storm waves of an ocean, an ocean presenting new vistas, vibrations and assaults with each new cresting. Showering moments of great confusion, the new feelings of fear, excitement and ultimately pains.
It’s then we learn of discomfort and need with inpatients at its helm. We learn to take in this strange new world through the mouth. Delightfully realizing that the liquid ambrosia sliding down our throats calms the monster wailing below.
After the feeding we slowly and luxuriously slide back down the long corridor to lay once more in the blessed piece and quiet of the land of fleeting dreams, along with ticklish feathers caressing our closed eyelids.

Oh, if only we could luxuriate in this in-between space for all time. A place where all our needs, desires, worries and silent wishes are solved, or at least soothed over as a baby turtle who soon learns to shut it all out by retreating back into it’s protective shell.
But its not meant to be. Father time turns out to be the devil in the details, forever moving us toward new highs and lows. We often lose our center in the continually changing maze of uncertainty and oft times delusionary madness we call life.

If we make it through the youthful period with our sanity still intact, mid life brings with it the clear-headed strength of body and mind. It’s the time of great dreams, some turned to goals and accomplishments stacked one over the next, like cord wood put up for the winter.
It’s a time when doing is more important than pondering. It’s a time when conquering the next mountain one step at a time is more vital than why its there. It’s an exquisite time when now is fully realized, if only for a moment.
A time for Yin and Yang to dance the dance of love and procreation, assuring the continuation of humankind on into the future. A future of constant change and newness only fools and false prophets claim to know, much less understand.

Inevitably father time grows weary along with all creation. With everything being temporary, illusive and fragile, the energy of youth slowly but ultimately wanes. With the assumptions of youth that everything would get easier with age variably crumbling around the ankles, its time for a reevaluation of all man thinks he has understood thus far.
It’s then we once more learn of discomfort and need with inpatients at its helm.

With pine scented fires, we have warmed well this oft times cold space and time
With a guttering votive’s flickering lighting our way
Sweet melodies amidst the cascading spheres
Breaks forth, a solemn yet entrancing sound
A harmony whereof the earth’s green hills
Give but the faintest echo, yet is there music everywhere
We do cool the tears of mortality and cover our fears with rationality
While hoping others tell of our poetry….

Desalination

There are currently two main proven methods to separate salt from salt water. The first is

Distillation and the second is Reverse Osmosis.

The Distillation process is simple, at least on the surface.

This is a simplistic example of how anyone can do it right in your own kitchen.

Get a pot and put an empty glass (Pyrex or metal is safer) cup inside in the center.

Slowly pour some salt water into the pot. Do not over fill. Stop well before the water level has reached the mouth of the glass. Make sure no salt water splashes into the glass while boiling.

Place the pot cover upside down so the highest point or handle is facing down directly above the glass.

Bring the water to a slow boil. A violent full boil can contaminate the drinking water by splashing into the glass.

As the water boils it becomes vapour, which condenses in the air as steam and on the cover's surface as water droplets, which then runs down to the lowest point (the handle) and drips right into the glass. As you probably know, when water boils, it becomes pure vapour, leaving behind anything that was dissolved in it. (This will probably take 20 minutes or more.)

To wait a little while before drinking the water from inside the glass should be obvious, since both the water and the glass will be very hot.

Distillation on a large scale, in which raw salt water is evaporated and then condensed as freshwater, requires high temperatures and a ton of energy, so that method is used mainly in the Middle East where oil is plentiful.

Also using the rejected waste heat from power plant operations can cut energy expenditures greatly, when available.

More commonly, however, desalinization plants rely on a technology called RO, which is based on running the salt water through high-tech polymer membranes that let the water through but block the dissolved salts.

Scientists call this phenomenon Osmosis.

In the 1950’s and 60’s scientists realized they could reverse the process by applying pressure to the more concentrated solution, causing water molecules to traverse the membrane, leaving behind condensed brine.

To counter the osmotic pressure that arises between the solutions and force the water back through the membrane, the plants have to use extremely high pressures of 1,000, to 1,200 pounds per square inch.

These advances, in combination with energy-recovery devices are slowly but surely making desalinization more affordable.

Current RO facilities desalinize seawater for 68 to 90 cents per cubic meter. The average delivery price of municipal water in the U.S. is around 60 cents per cubic meter.

Presently there are some 13,000 desalinization plants producing 13.8 billion gallons of potable water a day in operation. But that is only a half percent of global daily water use.

So after presenting some facts about the current science behind desalination,

I think it’s time the whole world got serious about this growing problem.

If you agree with most reputable scientists that we are in the throes of a global warming period in human history regardless of it’s ultimate timetable, or duration, don’t you agree that now’s a good time to start investing in whatever it takes to work with what Mother Nature laid at our shores. After all, there is more ocean than land on this blue ball floating in the heavens we were graciously allowed to exist on.

If you believe in anything, that fact alone should tell us something of our fate, much less the blessings we often so easily ignore.

Even though this is a world wide issue, I don’t live, nor am responsible for the world, so I’d like to concentrate only on California with my BS, err, I mean humble opinions.

California’s worsening drought is raising the stakes for a $15 billion plan endorsed by Governor Jerry Brown to build two 30-mile water tunnels under an ecologically sensitive river delta east of San Francisco Bay.
The tunnels, each as wide as a two-lane interstate highway, would ship water more reliably from northern California to thirsty farms and cities in the south.

The next proposed gigantic expenditure is the California High-Speed Rail system. The latest price estimate by the Authority for a Full Build option is $91.4 billion according to the 2012 Business Plan.

It’s projected by 2029, the system will run from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin in under three hours at speeds capable of over 200 miles per hour. The system will eventually extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations.

So, here’s my humble proposal. Take the combined cost of $106.4 Billion for both those questionable projects along with any other wasteful government expenditures (can you imagine how much that would be?) and instead apply every penny of that money to establish a high tech modern, fully equipped science center. Then find the best and brightest scientists that can be recruited. For the sole purpose of coming up with whatever it takes to make the Desalination process a financially viable and doable product.  Make this a 24/7 operation with only one goal. That would be to make water a complete non-issue, not only in California but also in the entire world community.

Part of my humble premise is based on the fact that I’ve always considered the human scientific mind to be literally mankind’s ultimate savior in every way. Whatever your beliefs about our place and how we got here, it’s a stone cold fact we arrived with not only a fully functioning mind but minds that continually grow and prosper as time moves us toward whatever fate we’re destined to explore and enjoy.

So therefore, I’ve always thought we should not only revere sciences exalted place in the scheme of life but never get in it’s way with our small sometimes narrow minded approach toward new findings and discoveries. 

To put in simply:

Let Science be!

The Drought and other nonsense

Well, contrary to the consistently wrong doom and gloomers, California looks like it’s going to survive the as usual freak out news projected and almost revered drought of all droughts, after all.

As I set here today once more letting my humble (ha) mind roam freely, I’m looking out the window to another gorgeous, nay, almost perfect California day after a pretty good little rain everyone was saying might not ever happen again in our lifetime.

I’m not sure if it could be any more perfect. Large puffy cumulous clouds dancing their dance of rejuvenation across a sky with blue patches interspersed throughout. Along with a slight breeze ruffling both the living leaves hanging and spent ones scuttling across the road out front, looking for a resting place to return to and feed the Earth.

And on the future weather horizon, the predictions call for more gentle rains coming up, furthering the falsehood absurdities tossed around by the doomers that the “end is near” as far as California “for sure man” drying up and blowing away as referenced by the Dust Bowl years of long ago in Oklahoma.

I’m sure the poor folks living there were sure as could be that life as they knew it was a done deal then but alas, eventually everything turned back to “normal”. At this time I’m sure the good folks of Okalahoma only shake their heads and roll their collective eyes at the false notion that “the end is near” then, now, nor into the foreseeable future.

Speaking of the weather, I’ve long thought that what was needed with all the weather services was a simple bit of the truth. For instance, when they predict a blasting storm front on the way and it peters out, as they oft tend to do, they should the next day say something like: “Man did we screw that one up.” With a small guilty shrug of the shoulders and smile. Then if they must, they could go on to explain how they could have been so very wrong, which usually would consist of Ma nature not following their made up rules.

But as you know, the next day, they pretend nothing was out of the ordinary at all, just showing us the radar views of the non-existent storm, as if it never were predicted just last night.  

“The Truth”….What a convoluted concept that turns out to be in this new and improved day and age we find ourselves in huh?

One day it’s an unequivocal scientifically proven fact that the yolks of eggs are the devil incarnate.

Originally, the egg received a bad reputation with regard to cardiovascular health, as one large egg contains approximately 187 milligrams of cholesterol. Now new studies show that the caution may have been an exaggeration and conclude that eggs are fine and may even improve your health, as they contain nutrients difficult to find in other foods.

Just the fact that our grandparents consumed at the least a few eggs a day and lived healthfully on into their old age might give a hint also.

Old Truth: Coconut oil is a saturated fat body bomb that should be avoided.

New Truth: Coconut oil can cure what ails you.

Old Truth: Coffee equals caffeine equals bad for you.

New Truth: Coffee is loaded with antioxidants and other nutrients. Plus a little caffeine makes the world go around.

Old Truth: Salt kills. It raises blood pressures, causes hypertension and increases the risk of premature death.

New Truth: Salt is essential to health. Too little salt can actually lead to premature death.

Those interesting examples of how truth can change with time bring me to the present day news sources. I don’t know about you but as I was growing up, it sure seemed that whatever Walter Cronkite and those esteemed newscasters told us back then was basically “The Truth”.

Never having been a “newsie nutcase”, I have no idea if there were opposing or contrary opinions or others accusing their ilk of having “Slanted or spun” views of the world events they nightly portrayed, but it seemed everyone I knew took what they said as “The Truth”.

What we have now seems diametrically opposed to what was presented to the masses back then.

Now we seem to receive nothing but extremism spun to the ninth degree opinions from both sides of the political isle now, having no real connection to any kind of real time tested verifiable truths.

With both proclaiming the other side guilty of spinning “The Truth” to Mars and back, what we have now to digest is mostly ignorant robotically repeated nonsense having more to do with each individuals political agenda than any kind of solid truths.

Another thing I find interesting is both sides of the extremist morons truly believe they are members of the vast majority with their political agendas, when in fact they are a tiny minority of folks only roboting whatever they are told to think by some radio nut job or entertainment news source pretending to know something.

Another thing I find nuts are those relatively regular folks on both extreme sides who start thinking they are somehow experts on incredibly complicated world issues. This is while some of the best minds in the world are in a constant struggle trying to do the right thing for mankind.

In my humble (there he goes again) opinion most world issues have a dozen, if not far more shades of gray to take into account before attempting any decision-making. To try and see them through any extremist black or white lens is beyond nutso, it’s flat ass idiocy and solves nothing except furthering ignorance, hate, blame and confusion between what would be mostly normal caring Americans.

If possible, we need to start attempting to solve issues through commonality born clear thinking, not extremist ideologies dug up straight from the bomb shelters and basements of the lowest common denominators of humankind.

Others will never taste Grandma’s great cooking.

I’ve had the total misfortune to witness a G.I.D. (governmental intrusion disaster) unfold for months on end now in the commercial space next door to my shop.

A very nice woman decided to try and achieve her dream of opening a great little pizza parlor there. Not just another of the hundreds of standard franchise models but a home made, brick fired oven variety. The kind of oven I’ve seen while watching a travel channel in some far away island community. A place the locals hang out drinking exotic drinks while watching the suns rays slowly sink into the abyss of the Ocean.

I’m guessing now but I can imagine she will use a secret sauce that was proudly passed down for generations in her family. My admittedly overindulgent imagination would also include the dough. Not a dough from a box with an ingredient list in some foreign language as long as the Constitution, thrown together with water but something her Grandmother taught her to make with the main ingredients being love and patience for perfection.

Now that’s one hell of a wonderful dream the lady has, wouldn’t you agree? What could it possibly take to throw together a nice little pizza parlor to serve the locals a great tasting pizza?

Admittedly the building we’re talking about is old. Very old. Probably pushing 100 years old in fact. Still, some wall, floor and ceiling treatments, a little paint, some kitchen appliances, the oven of course and some tables and chairs for the patrons and BAM! “Welcome folks. Come on in. Your nice hot, bubbling pizza straight from the brick fired oven will be ready in a moment. Have a glass of wine or a beer while you wait.”

Approximately 17 years ago, when I rented my commercial space next door, in the same 100 year old building, it was already painted so all I had to do to create a Barbershop was put up some mirrors, install a sink and slide the old fashioned Barber Chair in place. Then some nice rocking chairs for the clientele and “Welcome folks. Have a seat. I’ll be with you shortly.”

If I remember correctly, it took all of a week to open for business.

Now back to the nice lady trying her best to open a little pizza business next door.

The first activity I saw and of course heard, being right next door was a whole lot of demolition. They obviously had to tear out a lot of the old wood, wiring and what little plumbing there in order to upgrade the whole thing to modern standards.

It all seemed to be going well until everything stopped one day. Which turned into not days but weeks, then months.

When I asked, they told me they ran into the dreaded building department monster.

Now my life experience admittedly does not include all the modern requirements in this day and age to create a space to handle food but the things I was hearing from the contractor and workers’ trying to do their jobs was horrifying at the least.

First of all, instead of hiring some draftsman to pencil in some general drawings for the place, they had to hire an architectural engineer for god’s sake. Now his work extended the timeline another month or more. He for reasons unknown did not work out in the end, so they had to hire a new and improved architectural engineer. Of course his work only added another few months to the now ridiculously long drawn out process.

Again I have no idea what’s involved in achieving this little project but was constantly amazed at how long this was taking.

Finally one day, when I came to work it was a beehive of activity with grins on everyone’s faces as they told me everything was in place and it was a go! Then the bangs, crashes, air guns blasting and shaking enough to knock things off my walls commenced in earnest once again.

With every apology offered, I always responded with “No problem. Just happy you’re on your way now.”

Once more silence prevailed.

This new bureaucratic brick wall had something to do with a “Grease Trap doohickey”, which costs thousands of dollars by the way and has to be reviewed and approved by several arms of the permit department, as more weeks flow by.

Using her California bureaucratic travesty as a lead in, as the title of this piece infers, because of these insane food processing rules, our free choices of what, where and how we enjoy food is only going to get more and more mind numbingly generic and tasteless. Because Grandma is flat out not allowed to cook in her own kitchen and serve to the public from her front porch swinging bench, the general public will never get the chance to enjoy the delicious food she regularly prepares for her family. Food by the way she’s prepared and served most of her life with no one turning green and keeling over with some exotic disease never heard of before or since.

No sir. The only food available to the masses (that’s us folks) will be served from the confines of the mass marketed franchise verity. With meat products from boxes labeled “Eatable Meat”, as I observed in the loading zone of a McDonalds on my very LAST visit there.

So no folks. You will NOT be allowed to taste the wonders passed down through the generations from folk’s family recipes, straight from their regular kitchens. You’ll have to settle for the tasteless garbage offered at the McPlastic establishments only.

So at the least, treasure every chance you get to set down in Grandma’s kitchen and savor every morsel of heaven offered therein……..

Lastly, all I can say to the nice lady next door is “Hang in there. Hopefully in the end, we’ll all get a chance to enjoy your offering from the heart.”

A little bit of nothing

The dreaded alarm woke me this morning with a sudden start. After slitting my reluctant eyes open to the just brightening sky, I did the only thing I could then.

I rolled over, grabbed the down filled heavenly cloud and covered my head with an almost whimpering, begging hope I could make the world fall back into the softness I’d been so rudely dragged from.

You know what? It worked. I could feel my being drifting downward, getting smaller and losing it’s substance once more.

Aaah. What heavenly pleasure sleep’s embrace hath on our souls

Oh soft embalmer of the still midnight, shutting, with careful benign fingers

Upon my pillow, breathing away the days woes

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords

And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

Then…..Whumf! What the hell? As my mind once more dragged itself from the billowy softness below, reality twisted with the beginnings of what had plopped onto my side. As was his usual morning ritual, it was the great ball of fur that considered all else to be beneath his greatness. If I don’t immediately and obediently rise after the Zen like brass bell announces another breaking dawn, he assumes it’s his royal purpose to rouse the troubled masses.

His self-proclaimed duty is to get the show moving toward giving him the substance he demands. No matter he’s over weight enough to bounce the bed into a rock and roll shimmy of resonance landing there.

Still pretending to slumber, hoping against hope he’ll go away, he soon takes the next step. Crawling onto my side, he reaches out, to first lightly tap my face. Within seconds, if that doesn’t get the proper response, he extends the tip of his claw onto the skin of the only little exposed spot available. Then as all furred monsters do, he mixes bread, with little flexes of his hand, just short of breaking the skin.

Now having experienced this many times before, I still pretend he doesn’t exist, even as his nails digs slightly deeper and his bodies weight increasingly makes my breathing labored.

Soon it becomes a contest between the slowly increasing stinging of his claw and the weight of his formidable body pressing down.

During this ever-mounting torture, I kept slipping in and out of my soul’s hushed casket, with the lid becoming heavier and harder to reopen, now with the creepy hinge screeching upon my mind, as if from some horror movie.

There’s only so much even I can take and still pretend to slumber, so with an angry rude grunt along with a resounding whoosh, I threw the down cloud aside leaving in it’s wake a blessed moment of silence as the furred monster flew through the air to once again bounce the bed with refrains of shimmied resonance straight from one of Jimmy Hendrix’s most powerful feedback events. If it’s true that music is what your emotions sound like, the symphony pounding my just awaking mind can go to hell!

After throwing my legs over the side of the bed that’s lost its blessed moment, they hang there. With eyes closed to avoid dawn’s reality a bit longer, I consider for several seconds slipping back under my down filled cloud to deny my curious conscience, that’s just starting to rear it’s lord like dominance once again.

But that’s not to be.

Having been raised with the ridiculous premises of responsibility, honor and duty, the supremely fabulous idea of flaking off life starts losing its luster by the moment. So I force my body to slip off the edge of all that’s wonderful to again stand upon wobbly legs with full body weight bearing down upon the cold hard floor. A weight I imagined I’d lost back upon the beds grace tantalizingly just above me, now gone from my grasp in my need to achieve something with this new day.

Next comes the torturous walk with all its little painful creaks, pops and groans, half bent over, wondering if I might ever walk upright again, much less sans pain. Having finally crippled over to the bathroom’s quiet entrance, I stand eyes closed tight before the dreaded mirror, not yet daring to turn on the stark blinding lights that cold bloodedly allow no falseness.

The most amazing thing happens when one stands before the bathroom mirror first thing in the morn. All ones egotistical notions of who we are and what we look like in our mostly fantasized, idealized worlds stands in stasis at that moment in time, there in the blessedly muted light of dawn.

At that moment, we still hold fast to the lies of our fantasies. Fantasies that include young, hard, smooth skin, stretched over a handsome youthful face. On top of that carved from marble marvel, a head with rich, dark, thick hair cascading down over the ears and falling with abandon down the thin muscularly veined neck. The kind of hair one would imagine crowning a Roman Gladiator’s head.

Then as we revel in our combination of complete denial and robust imagination, we reach toward the light switch, which allows no falsehoods and pause there, finger almost touching, allowing ourselves just one more moment of wishful mind adultery.

Unfortunately, with the growing dawn light slowly beginning to make the whole exercise a sadly mute point, reality finally pushes it’s way through the madness we call early morn life and our finger pushes downward, as we automatically shut our eyes one last time, using the unspoken excuse to not cause them harm.

Then after allowing ourselves one more moment of seeing life through our closed eyelids, now lit from without like a living lightning strike, we finally open the one door we’ll not be allowed to close for another full day.

And who stands there before us? Who indeed? What the hell happened to the Roman Gladiator we knew we were just moments ago?

There is no explanation, excuse nor definition for what we see there in that damn morning mirror straight from the depths of hell. The shock is indiscernible.

We immediately avert our eyes, busying ourselves with the rest of the morning’s standard rituals.

After finishing, we cripple off toward the goddesses greatest discovery. Coffee, a cup of coffee that will hopefully dry the tiny tear still moist below our eyes. Eyes again in full slit mode against this God-awful morning’s realities.