The Beauty of Relaxation

Gwynneth and I decided to take a weekend trip to the historic hamlet of Salado, Texas. The photograph above was taken on one of the smaller tributaries that feed into Salado Creek. I’m not sure who decided to plant the chair, but my hats off to them for picking the perfect spot. Our trip was filled with dozens of small shops, featuring everything from authentic Chinese carvings, to western American acrylics. And that’s not even mentioning the food! I’m thinking too many more trips like this one and I’ll need a new wardrobe!
For everyone who decides that sitting at home every weekend is the way to go, I beg to differ. Sitting at home most assuredly has its benefits, but adventurous excursions like the one we just returned from are the stuff that memories are made of. Take it from an old, fat man… go make some memories!
Peace and prayers…

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.” – Herodotus

“Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.” – Henry David Thoreau

I Love Long Weekends

Definitely a fact, for sure. Long weekends simply rock. No fist fights with the alarm clock, or trying to remember what socks go with what shoes. No rush to cram a breakfast biscuit down my neck before the telephone starts ringing – which it always does whenever my mouth is full of biscuit. Sort of game we play, I suppose. Yes, there is nothing quite like a long weekend. Especially the five-day variety, which I’m enjoying as I write this! And recently, I find my thoughts and dreams converging upon the solitary vision of retirement. Yes indeed, that long-awaited, eagerly anticipated, and much debated cessation of my labors!
I took the opportunity to visit with my employee retirement system counselor early this week, and was quite pleasantly surprised to find that I’ll only take about a $100 hit when I retire next year. That beats the hell outta the $500-$600 hit that I was previously told I’d take! I’m beginning to actually believe I can do this! Yet, as I sit here typing and listening to soft jazz on the digital music channels the cable company provides (no doubt out of some deeply embedded guilt over what they charge for the rest of their smarmy programming), I begin to wonder exactly what I’ll do with myself if I don’t have to work anymore. And I realize, almost frighteningly, that I don’t have an answer to that question.
Most of the people I know that retire have ended up coming back to work within a few short months, claiming that once they got all their errands run, yard work done, and houses cleaned up, they were quite bored and needed something ‘constructive’ to do with their time. You know, that’s not how I ever envisioned retirement to be. I’ve always seen myself traveling around this big ol’ country and seeing with my own eyes all of those wonderful things I’ve only seen on postcards or in magazines. Things like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and the giant redwoods of the pacific coast. Things like the lighthouses in Maine, the Empire State building, and Mount Rushmore. There are tons of things I want to see. Surely enough to keep me from being bored, right? And, if I invest in a decent laptop computer, I’ll be able to keep up with everything I do at home now. Well, everything but World of Warcraft (which my son informs me I’m certainly addicted to)!
Maybe I’m wrong, but I hope not. I’ve opined over spending too much of my life playing step and fetch it for the prison system, and now that I’m quickly approaching an end to that career, I’m hoping to experience a large and even sloppy dishing of life on my terms. As conceited as it may sound, I think I’ve earned it!
Well, almost. I’ve still got just shy of 13 months to go!
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Peace and prayers…

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.” – Joseph Addison

“Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.” – Barnard Baruch

Free J.J. Heller Music!

Good stuff from one of my favorite indies… and free, too! Thanks, J.J.!

Lovin’ a Road Trip

The lovely Gwynneth and I just rolled in from a wonderful weekend road trip. We took a leisurely ride up old Hwy. 59 to visit one of Gwynneth’s favorite shopping grounds, the famous Marshall Pottery. Not only do they sell some pretty cool pottery, but they make a good bit of it right there on the site, with windows for you to watch the potters work through. And they’ve only been doing it since 1895! Gwynneth said it wasn’t as big as she remembered it being, but there was still enough there to spend an easy couple of hours browsing their wares. Cool stuff!
From there, we traveled a short 15 minutes north to one of my favorite tourist haunts, the immortal Jefferson, Texas. Folks will say that half the little town is haunted, and maybe it is, but the plethora of specialty and antique shops will render your fear of ghosts totally impotent! As Gwynneth had never experienced Jefferson before, it was especially fun for me to escort her to as many of the local sites as we could fit in. We didn’t get see them all, so we’ll definitely be going back. Besides, the Big Cypress Bayou was so high they could operate the boat tours that I wanted to take in… after all, who doesn’t love a boat ride (other than E.J. Smith), right? Gwynneth was quite taken with the Jefferson General Store, which is filled with just about anything you can imagine and absolutely blankets you in blissful nostalgia. More cool stuff!
All in all, this was the best weekend I’ve had in quite some time. And while I do indeed love a good road trip, I’ve got to say that it’s good to be home.
Peace and prayers.

“I promise, buttermilk pie does NOT taste like buttermilk!” – Jeff Jeter

“I love rhubarb. It’s like tart celery, only bigger!” – Lady Gwynneth

Even in a Crowded Life

There are so many things I’ve done in my life. Many of them I remember with joy, while many only pass across my brain cells with shame. And sometimes, they can be both. Today has brought me a nagging feeling that I’ve let life slip through my fingers. I’ve traded adventure for security and found that singularity most often equates to fewer responsibilities. Don’t get me wrong… I’ve lived as I wanted to live, most of the time anyway. Yet, as the grains fall quietly through the hourglass, I fear that Sidney was right all along. I was too stubbornly convinced in my own immortality to ever pay attention.
I wish I had lived more and worried less. That I had worked to live, rather than lived to work. And as my golden years seem to be approaching with blinding speed, I find that even in a crowded life, I can still feel so very alone. Not unhappy. Just unfinished.
Not for commentary, but merely for consideration.
Peace and prayers.

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” – Sidney J. Harris

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

Waiting for the Moment

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”
- Paul McCartney

I’ve always heard that the song from which I quoted above was about freedom… sort of a response to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s from the band that seemed to rule the later part of that decade. Of course, I’ve also heard that it is based in Egyptian mythology’s battle between Horus and Set. And then, lest I forget, I have heard that it is purely satanic in origin, and relative only to Lucifer himself. For the record, Paul McCartney always said it was about civil rights. But what does he know. He just wrote the stuff, right?
As I was going through some photographs taken earlier this year, this one caught my eye. And after pondering it for a minute or two, the song started playing in my head. And after the song started playing, I fit myself and my photograph into McCartney’s lyric, seemingly having waited all my life for that moment to arise only then to see the warning that the blackbird sits atop, the contradiction of the lyric with the sign’s warning slowly turning the rusted cogs of my brain. It seems that we (or perhaps just I) spend a great deal of life waiting. I know… I’ve written of waiting before, but it persists.
Every day for the past few months, I started my day by looking at my wall calendar and counting the months, weeks and days until I can retire. When I moved to my new office last week, I shredded my calendar. I found that it was no more than a monument to my own infinite impatience. After all, once I get past those months, weeks and days, what will I do then?
I don’t know. To borrow a statement from the William Feather Magazine,

“Too many of us wait to do the perfect thing, with the result we do nothing. The way to get ahead is to start now. While many of us are waiting until conditions are “just right” before we go ahead, others are stumbling along, fortunately ignorant of the dangers that beset them. By the time we are, in our superior wisdom, decided to make a start, we discover that those who have gone fearlessly on before, have, in their blundering way, traveled a considerable distance. If you start now, you will know a lot next year that you don’t know now, and that you will not know next year, if you wait.”

Most of the time, I just think that I think too much. A perfect example of why brains should all come with an ‘off’ switch.
Or maybe it’s just me.

Peace and prayers.

“I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then – I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn’t luckily have to bother about that.” – Agatha Christie

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

“As of today, I have 14 months, two weeks and four days to go. But I’m not counting.” – Jeff Jeter

Hangin’ With Mikey

Last night I got to be reminded of how great babies can be. The lovely Gwynneth and I got to hang with big Mikey for a few hours while the rest of the family went to see his big brother play baseball. It was really nice, and Mikey is a really calm baby! While I was there when he was born, and actually had the privilege of taking his first photographs, last night was the first time I’ve ever gotten to hold him. And if he appears to be a bit, let’s say “chunky,” in the photos, that’s because he is! Mikey will be 7 weeks old tomorrow, and he’s already pushin’ that 20 lb. mark! (Those of you who follow me on Twitter will remember that Mikey was 9+ lbs. when he was born!) Let’s just say that sometimes it does an old, fat man some good to nestle a sweet little one in his arms. Thanks, Mikey… I needed that.

In the first picture, Mikey is punching me in the mouth because he’s hungry and I’ve forgotten how to speak newborn! In the second picture, my dear Gwynneth happened to capture my sheer excitement in not being hit in the mouth again! And, hey, I didn’t even get spit up on! Sweeeeet!

Life is good… well, away from work anyway! Peace and prayers!

“That’s the miracle of babies, their ability to lay bare the tender, beating hearts of raging assholes.” – Heather Armstrong

“Anyone who uses the phrase ‘easy as taking candy from a baby’ has never tried taking candy from a baby.” – Anonymous

“Gwynneth… I think Mikey has a present for you. I’ll grab the diaper bag.” – Jeff Jeter

P.S. – This post marks the milestone of our 18,000th visitor! I know it’s because Mikey is so cute (or ubercute, as Aafke would say), but I am sincerely thankful to all you nonetheless! As long as you keep reading it, I’ll keep writing it! Peace and prayers!