One of the incredibly beautiful things about being human is our ability to learn.  Yes.  To broaden our horizons.  This helps us go with the flow of life, I think.  You know.  Roll with it.

It can come in many ways, shapes and forms.

Take tonight for example.  We took a friend to dinner at Fleet Landing, which looks out over the Cooper River and out on to the Atlantic Ocean.  While that in itself, is cool enough, the evening continued to be filled with little-horizon-expanders.

Nothing earth shattering.  But they were the kind of little horizon “broadeners” that are like those nifty elastic-button-gadgets you put on pants’ waists to make them larger… so you don’t have to go up a size.  Like those.

A new thing I tried tonight was some sort of snub-nosed-ugly-face-bottom-dweller-fish.  Chargrilled.  “Tastes like Grouper,” is what the waitress said.  Well it was much different than Grouper.  It was crazy good in a distinct way.  It came with homemade biscuits instead of rolls.  I like  a good roll.  But dang, the biscuits were better.

So I rolled with it.  I broadened my horizons.  And I found too…. that this is where those little pants-expander-gadgets really come in handy ….with the more biscuits you eat.

But there I go again, getting off track.  I almost forgot why I started all of this.

I was going to write about the Whiffenpoof, also known as the Gillygaloo.  I’m not making this up.

You see, the Whiffenpoof is one of the Fearsome Critters from Wisconsin and Minnesota.   These creatures lived in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Or so I am told.  I wasn’t about back then… at least not that I can remember.

Now… this here beasty-thing beast was said to be a bird that built its nests on the slopes of the Pyramid Forty.  Again, this is serious… I am NOT making this up.  Pyramid Forty was a building constructed by the legendary lumberjack, Paul Bunyan.  Their eggs were cube shaped.

The Wiffenpoof, or as Paul liked to call them… the Gillygaloo… had cubed shaped eggs so they wouldn’t roll out of the nests, and conversely… roll down the slopes of Pyramid Forty.  Smart Fearsome Critters.

Lumberjacks treasured these eggs.  They hard boiled them and used them as dice.  The legend goes on and on.  But now we know.

Broader horizons.  Ugly fish.  Square eggs.  We are smarter. Lucky us.

We live.  And we learn.  And this is good.

Yep.

Roll with it baby.  Roll with it.

“I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone.” – Dr. Castellaneta

A squirrel I met at The Battery this morning, reminded me of something, seemingly important.

It would seem that I have gathered and hidden, quite a few little items.  In preparation for something.

Now, I suppose, it is time for me to go.  And forage for these things.  And hopefully… I will find what that “something” is.

I think this calls for a sojourn.  As well as a respite.

So until later.

Time to scamper.

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  ~Anaïs Nin

“To infinity and beyond.” – Buzz Lightyear

Do you ever wake up, first thing in the morning, and decide… “Dang it.  Today, I’m gonna’ wear my sock monkey hat.”

Yep….. me too.

I think that is what we have in common…. me and you. I mean, if you put it in the simplest of terms, we truly are very alike.  Scientists say that we are 99% the same… genetically.

While that may scare you terribly right now…. remember this.

There is that ONE…. little, eensy, beeensy…. 1%.

That one percent.

Close, but yet so far.  So very much alike…. and very different at the same time.

And that 0.01 has a great deal to do with pi.  Or pie.

It is highly necessary that we are so much alike.  If we strayed too terribly far from that 99%… it would make certain aspects of sharing a planet terribly difficult.

On the other hand, the one percent separates us… just enough… to make life interesting.

Some things I like to do… and you may do them on a regular basis too:

I think it is fun to fill empty Windex bottles with Blue Gatorade…. squirt it in my mouth in public places. It really freaks some people out.

Sometimes, I like to go to Wendy’s and ask for directions to Burger King.

Every once in a while… when I buy bird seed at a feed store.  I ask the cashier how long she thinks it will  take for the stuff to grow… how much water to give,  shade or sun.   What kinds of birds they will be… Those sorts of things.  Most of the time, I am greeted with a blank stare.

Oh.  it happens that from time to time, that my fun is different from your fun.  On other occasions, our fun is alike.    And both are good.

So it would seem then, that we are commonly…. uncommon.  Thanks to one percent.  That little piece of the pie.

I’m glad to be sharing this part of the fun, with you.

“Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else” – Alison Boulter

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun” – Katherine Hepburn

Dirt Farmers.

All of them…. German Dirt Farmers.

Herman Heinrich Wehrman came to America in 1838.  He came from Oldenburg, Germany… on a big, overcrowded ship.

Dirt Farmer there, auf Deutsch.  Dirt Farmer here.  All American.

What a time that guy had.  Who names their kid Herman Wehrman?

No wonder he went by Henry.

By Henry.  By George.

Oh Henry. He had a bunch of kids, who then had a bunch of kids, and those kids had even more kids.  Eventually… it trickled down, and here I am.

The great-great-grand daughter of Herman Wehrman, the German.  Dirt Farmer.

I bet old boy Henry never dreamed I would be talking about him… right here and right now…. and like this.

I wonder who will be talking about us 200 years later.  And how…

“The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.” – Albert Einstein

There are some people on this earth, who are hugely profound and exceptional. While others seem either less than ordinary… or worse yet….  terribly evil.

There are those who think and do.  Those who are complacent.  And then, those who undo.

I often wonder what makes an Albert Einstein… an Albert Einstein.  And a Charles Manson… just that?

Genetics?  Environment?  Both?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

When I was little, I always thought I would grow up to do something amazing.  Super Hero Good.  I thought I would make a significant impact on the world…..

And five decades later.

I have come to think this.  Perhaps the most of us are supposed to be in the fourth category, not mentioned above.

The Wonderful Ordinary.

Not Rock Stars, Not Gold Medal Athletes, Not Leaders of Countries, or Wildly Famous.

Perhaps the most of us are meant to live with goodness in our hearts, dreaming our dreams, but helping others along the way.  Quite possibly success is measured by doing the common things in life, exceptionally well.  With radiance, and gladness.

Yep.  When I grow up, I hope to be just like amazing and sensational you.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

There was a big Halloween Dance downtown tonight.  Do you know why the skeleton couldn’t go?………

He had no body to take!

Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh…….  but wait.  There’s more.  Seriously.

Well.  Halloween.

There is a great deal involved in the evolution of this holiday.  So much history lies within.

The whole shebang got started a kabillion years ago.   Actually, the Ancient Origins of Halloween are 2,000 years old.  But I like to say “kabillion.”

So… it goes back to the old Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in… or sah-win). These folks lived up around Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France.

Those folks like to celebrate their new year on November 1.  (Again, the festival of Samhain.) For them… the day marked the end of summer and that great big harvest.   It also meant the beginning of the dark,  and very despicable cold winter.  It was a time of year that was often associated with human death.

Those whacky Celts believed that on the night before the new year….. the thin boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

SOOOOOO……. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain.  And this would be the time when the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Not only did those creepy ghosts come back… they would cause all sorts of trouble…. and they would damage the crops. The Celts also thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.  I like a good Druid from time to time.

Fortune-telling Druids speaking to ghosts.  Now THAT is a PARTY.  And….. for a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world…. these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

That is how this hot mess got started.  Oh, some think those Celts were primitive, slow, primordal, and a bit on the dense side…. for believing in such tripe.

So let us fast forward 2,000 years.

Now we celebrate Halloween in a much more sophisticated manner, being the evolved and highly intellectual people that we are.

We spend kabillions of dollars on costumes of past presidents, Scooby Doo, horror-movie characters, and Smurfs.  We don these costumes proudly.  We enter competitions to see who looks the most ridiculous.

As if that wasn’t enough.  We purchase mass quantities of shrunken candy bars, which we dispense to strangers on the street.  Yes.  And we sugar-up our kids to no end… after dressing them up in ridiculous costumes as well.  Not to mention our poor, unsuspecting pets.  We put our Greyhounds in Cheerleading outfits, and our Dacshunds in hotdog garb.

We go to parties and bob for apples in community-slobber filled water, consume too much spiked Cider.  Just when gourds thought the world was good…. we take to the streets and smash pumpkins.

Yes.  We are smart humans.  Scientific. Advanced.  Goofballs.

I love Halloween.  It brings out the Pugsley in me.  And the Wednesday.

Finally.  For the photo above…..   I hired a ghost photographer. The spirit was willing but the flash was weak.

Everyone, in America, is talking about Sandy.  I think.

And well they should.

The Storm of the Century, they say.  Yet…. we keep having them back to back… as of late.

Tonight on the news, they said…. “Get used to it.  This is going to be the norm.”

Promising.

Yet we continue to ignore our Planet.  Our Mother Earth.
She keeps yelling at us.  Louder and louder.

How much will it take before we get it?
Could it be too late?  How many times are we going to turn a deaf ear?
Or…. is there no such thing as damage to our planet?  There is a wide debate about this, you know.

But I ask.  Will we be able to explain this ignorance to our grand children… or great grand children?  How do explain things to them… like how bananas used to taste… or what green grass felt like under bare feet?  How do you explain the sight of a butterfly…. fluttering its wings on the fragile petal of a daisy?  When the breezes used to blow gently?  How?

Bless those who suffer through it tonight.  Bless them.

“The first duty of love is to listen.” – Paul Tillich

Sometimes…..   what isn’t really there….. is.

I think about this sort of thing.   A shadow is…. basically…. the absence of light.   It is that  crazy dark area produced when a body comes between the source of light and an area of surface.   Whacky.  It is cast.

And.  A reflection is the “throwing back” by a body or surface of light…..  without absorbing it.  It doesn’t cast… I guess it… emits.

So a shadow comes from blocking a light source, a reflection comes from the bouncing of light of one source and on to another.

Shadows get a bad wrap if you ask me.  People think they are “shady” and “mysterious” and “dark”….  uhhhhh.. …  .. welllllll…. I guess they are all those things.  But they aren’t evil or bad.  Shadows are simply misunderstood.  AND… look at the bright side:  They don’t blind you like some reflections can.

You have to really look…. to see the great details in shadows.  Oh, but they are there.

And once your eyes adjust, and you finally see it… really see it…. then you know.  Just like the shadow knows…  you have it too.

“Where there is much light, the shadow is deep” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Certainly, this is the most considerable thing I have ever come to realize:

No one, has ever experienced anything…..  anything at all…. that wasn’t part of single moment emerging.  Every moment, and instance, unfolds unto itself.  And that is how we experience life.

We don’t do things five minutes from now.  And we surely don’t do them two weeks ago.  We are doing, what we are doing, right now.   Here.  In this very minute.

So for me, that means my life’s only challenge is dealing with the single moment I am having right now.

If only I could learn this.  And remember it.

Intellectually, this concept is quite fundamental.   It sounds easy enough to understand….. but…. is it?  You see, emotionally, spiritually, even physically, this becomes the intertwined, one-moment-depends-on-the-next-BIG-MESS that I make of it.  Twist it all up in to tiny knots… ..  … .. …. is just what I do.  (And do it well.)

It seems I am constantly trying to solve my entire life.  Worrying about things that may never occur…. battling problems that aren’t actually happening.   I try to keep it all in line, and control it.

Yet, the single, present moment, is really my only point of contact with life.  Simply, that is all there is.

Why can’t I get that?

In the middle of the forest, is a tiny speck…… on a little vein, on a leaf….  of a tree.

“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Brilliant

Travel.  By definition, it means to make a journey, typically of some length or abroad.  People love to travel… or so they say.  They spend a lot of time and money on traveling.   They go to places unknown… like Dollyworld, and SantaLand, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

They say that travel “broadens your horizons” and “expands the mind.”  It makes the world a “smaller” place.

Ahhh.  But I am a bit of a Home Body.  There is SO much to see and do… at home.

Believe It…. or Not.  I contend that travel can make Little Monsters of us at times.

Or… it could just be me.  But I am certain of this…….

Oh, but it is good to be home.

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes