They don’t call it the Magic Kingdom for nothing.

There is all sorts of magic to be found … in this part of the maze…..

I would not be lion to you about that….

Nor would I kid you.

No.

There seems to be magic everywhere.  People have come here… from the whole word round….

to see a Man named Walt……  about a  Mouse.

And what a little mouse he is…..

A couple of things about this mouse…..

Mickey was almost named Mortimer Mouse.  Walt’s wife Lillian,  convinced him to name that little mouse something “catchier” and “cuter”…. so she suggested…… Mickey.

Mickey’s character was created to replace another animated individual named “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.”

Mortimer and Oswald.  Morty and Ozzie.  Sounds more like a couple of Hit Men… or washed-up Rock Stars….  really.

Mickey’s first full animated film was Steamboat Willie… which was created in 1928.

Since that time… Mickey’s allure continues to grow and grow.

But not quite as much as you’d think.

Minnie has never had any baby mice.    I’m not completely sure what that means……

Most people are not privy to this fact… but the International Parcheesi Competition is held every year in March.  “We” in the Competitive Parcheesi World like to call it March Madness.  (NCAA Basketball stole this catchy phrase from us.)   At any rate… this whole deal is HUGE in Iceland.  But here in the United States… not so much.

But as you all know, I am… well…. I don’t want to sound like some sort of a swaggering braggart …..but…..  well….

…. …

Okay… all modesty aside.  I am a Parcheesi Whiz.  They call me Parcheesi Polly the Playa.   Yep.  The Triple P.  (Plus… I drink a LOT of Diet Coke during the tournament.  Hence, I pee at least three times during the course of any given game.)

So… Thursday, March 29 the Parcheesi Finals were held in Duluth, Michigan.   I made it all the way through the brackets to the finals.  Yep.  Me, and Jimmy the Brick… the Master Blockader…… faced it off early this morning.

It was quite the match I’ll tell you.  I threw in all my Pawns first… despite the fact that Jimmy nearly set me early with a blockade.  I hit exact-o rolls, back to back, at the end… to nail the door shut.  It was riveting.  Riveting.  At any rate… I WON the WHOLE TOURNEY…..

So guess what they asked me.

“Polly!  You just want the International Parcheesi Competition.  What are you going to do now???”

To which I responded…

“I’m going to Disney World.”

Away I went.  And here I be.

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

“All our dreams can come true…if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

“A day without sunshine… is sort of like…. night.” – Kevin the Parcheesi King

Today…. I received a birthday present.  Imagine my surprise.

First and foremost… I LOVE a present… birthday or otherwise.  I am funny that way.  I think it is the kid in me… but I still get giddy like an eight-year-old when I get a gift.

Secondly… it is not even my birthday!  Not for more than a month.  So whammo, jammo.  This one caught me from right out of the blue.

And lastly… this one came ALL the WAY from the great state of Texas.

Now, I don’t know if it is from THE George W. or not… but the card read…

To Polly,

Happy Birthday.  I hope it is nuklar… nukeyular… nukeyarler.  I hope it is a BLAST.  I know you are a big fan… so I sent you one of my favorite t-shirts.

Sincerely,
Your pal,
George W.

HA!  Now how rocking is that???  I will wear it every time I put on my Jeb Bush “Hanging Chad” necktie.  You betcha’ ya’.  Styling, I will be. Now I have 2 things Bush!

And as the old saying goes.  “Two Bushes in the hand is worth one in the bird.”  Or does it go …. “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Well… I don’t know…. but I sure do like a good gift.  Thanks W. or J. or C. or B. or K. or…   or….. whoever YOU are.  I love it.

This morning on my run, I saw…. of all things…. a Wing Nut.  Yep.  A little Wing Nut right there …on the side of the road.  I kept running for a few blocks…. and then decided to double back.  I sort of felt sorry for the little guy.

You see, this poor little Wing Nut was getting run over by all sorts of heavy traffic… which was driving WAY far over…. on that Wing Nut’s side of the road.  So… I trotted over… and scooped up that little Wing Nut and took him home with me.

That poor little Wing Nut.  He was beat all to crap.  Heaven only knows how many times he had been struck while sitting there… way, WAY far over… on his side of the road.

So I said to the little fella…   … .. I said… “Little Wing Nut.  You don’t have to keep getting run over by all that heavy traffic on your side of the road.”

I talked to him about his freedoms, his choices, and his ability to decide for himself where he wanted to go.  I suggested that he didn’t have to keep getting pummeled again and again, by all those same heavy vehicles… carrying the same heavy things….. way, way over there on the fringe.  Not to mention all the noise!  It was deafening!

“Little Wing Nut… why don’t you venture out toward the middle of the road.  Right there near the center… where you can see the traffic from both ways… coming and going from two separate directions?  Yes… there are good things happening on BOTH sides of the street.

And instead of getting smashed to smithereens, you might even be able to help direct traffic… from right there… near the center.  You can see so much more from that vantage point.  Why…… you can do so much more than you could from sitting over yonder in the gutter.”

Finally that little Wing Nut agreed.  The little wing nut was happy, and smiled his little wing nut smile.  He was pleased to see things from both sides now…..

“The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind”  — E.B. White

“Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier.” — Charles F. Kettering

“I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.” — Harold T. Stone

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”  –– Unknown

This morning I was talking with someone very dear to me.  At one point,  our conversation fell to the topic of “dogs”.  She was relaying a story of a very wonderful canine we know.   To which she said… “I just truly like that dog.  He is such a cool dog.”  Then, after a thoughtful pause… she said….”But come to think of it.  What dog isn’t a really cool dog?”

My first thought was… how lucky I am to have such a profound and wonderful person in my life.  Someone who shares my respect not only for the human spirit… but all life energy and its creatures (with the exception of Wood-Boring Bees, and Sierra Leone Spiders).

And then my next thought went straight to the dogs.

I do love them so.  And I am lucky to have met so many of those magnificent little beings.  They are delightful in most every way.  The dogs in my life are smart and intuitive.  They know when I am happy, or sad, or frightened, or upset.  They make me laugh.  They make me ponder.  And….  they make my world a better place.

I am grateful for dogs.  And I am very, very grateful for the humans who share this same regard for the four-legged-wonders of this world.

For you must understand…  I have seen that look in a dog’s eye… for a single fleeting moment.   It is when you know their unconditional love is very real.  If you hold completely still with that moment… that glance… you will surely discover …. that their understanding of YOU…. is much greater than a mountain is tall.

Above, is a dog I met at the Battery today….  what a tail wagger ….

So….. now for a dog tale… or two.

A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a woman with a dog at her feet.

“Does your dog bite?” the man asks. “No,” she politely replies.

A few minutes later…. the dog growls, rears back, and takes  a huge chunk out of the man’s leg.

“Holy Dog Crap….What the  &%@#!!….. I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” the man says indignantly.

To which…. the woman replies….. “That’s not my dog.”

It was the end of the day when a policeman was parking his police car in front of the station. As he gathered his equipment, his K-9 partner, Spike, was barking in the back of the patrol car.

The officer saw a little boy staring at him with curiosity.

“Is that a dog you got back there in the back of your car?” the boy asked.

“It sure is,” the policeman replied.

Puzzled, the boy looked at the officer and then towards the back of the squad car. Finally….. the boy nervously asked…..

“So… What’d he do?”

And a dog pause….

“I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.” — Rita Rudner

“The difference between cats and dogs is, dogs come when they are called, cats take a message and get back to you.”  — Unknown

“Terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs.”      — Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

And this little terrier… I met at the Dog Park.

I am a bit of a Play Baby.   It’s true…. I like a good game.    A good game of just about anything.   I used to participate in the more “formalized” method of play….. college softball for instance.   But since those days, I have taken things down a notch or two.

Now I am happy with a good game of Wii Archery or Bowling;  a game of Apples and Oranges; Yahtzee…. or even pitching cards into a hat.  The other side of this… is that I love to laugh.  It makes me feel very fine to laugh.

And the older I get, the more these two thing intertwine.

When I spend a lot of time by myself, I often need to find games of my own to play.  With the advent of the digital age, this has become increasingly accessible and convenient.  But it lacks human interactivity.

That’s where the creativity has to come in.

One of my favorite stand-by’s is the reliable old elevator.  There is so much to do there.  So much fun to be had.  Of course one of my favorite things (which I have mentioned before)… is the “Oh my gosh.  I think my contact lens just fell out!.  And then drop to your hands and knees looking for it.  This has gone to a new level with the emergence of sound effects on an iPhone.  You  can download a “crunching glass” noise.  Yep.  There’s an App For THAT.

At any rate… I headed down to the Charleston Place this afternoon… to have a ride or two on their elevators.  The taller the building, the better.  Unfortunately, in Charleston, we only have Shorty-Morty Buildings because of the Historical Preservation Laws.  But the Charleston Place is a very nice hotel.  It can be a bit on the stodgy side… which adds to the intensity of the fun to be had.

So back to the elevator.  My first one was the Runaway Funny Sneeze.  In a pretty full elevator car….my first move is to “sneeze” once…. a high-pitch, one syllable “CHOO”!  And then I say… “Pardon me.  I kind of sneeze funny.”  Now here is the adventure.  I string two together.  Then three.  And then, I start a rapid succession… which sort of sounds like a train. Choo, choo, choo, choo.  Choo, choo, choo, choo.   Choo, choo, choo, choo.  THEN, I start cranking my arm in circles at my side…. you know… the train motion.  And if I want to really crack myself up… I let out a “WOOOOOO, WOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

People get off quickly… as soon as the next floor appears.  And when the door closes…. and I am alone in the elevator… I laugh until I cry.

Or……sometimes… I like to start grinning at someone… and then I finally say… kind of cocking my head sideways…. “Hey.  I’ve got brand new socks on.”  There were a couple of college age kids today that couldn’t exit quick enough.

The next one I did was to stand right in front of the Control Panel.  The Charleston Place is great for this one.  There is only one panel in each elevator.  When the people get on… I ask them “What floor would you like?”  And then I push the wrong button.  If confronted… I deny.

Another fun one this afternoon, was making car noises… like a race car.. when the elevator starts moving. Vrrrrroooom, vrrrrrroooommmm… sort of in that “shifting gears” cadence.  And when it begins to slow down for the next floor… I make the “putting on the breaks noise.”  Errrrrrrrrrrrrtttttttttt.

No Elevator Excursion would be complete with my Sock Monkey.  I take one in my backpack.  I pull him out and cradle him in my arms.  Then I turn to whoever is  next to me… and say… “His name is Billy.  Billy is my friend.  I like Billy.  He’s my Little Silly-Billy-Boy… say ‘Hello’ to the nice Lady Billy….”

It is also fun to “Meow” randomly.  Or cluck like a chicken.

Here’s the deal though.  You can’t stay on doing this ….in any one place…. for very long periods of time.  That spells trouble.

So today I ended with a couple of interactive “Big Finishes”…..

I ask questions of the other passengers.   Each person entering the elevator gets polled with….  “What side dish did you finally decide to bring?”

And the next time up or down….. I asked….  “You feel like playing a game of Hide And Seek?”

Finally… a good game of “Patty Cake” with the door each time it closes.

That was my big fun for the day.  And now I get to wonder if any of those people are talking about the “Crazy Lady on the Elevator” while they are at dinner this evening….

“If I have to move up in a building, I choose the elevator over the escalator. Because one time I was riding the escalator and I tripped. I fell down the stairs for an hour and a half.”  –Demetri Martin

I think this Demetri and I …. well….. I think we must be related.

Some people have a great sense of direction.  Ask them which way is north, and low and behold… they seem to be able to point right in the direction of Santa’s Workshop.

Other folks can do things like look down onto a huge patch of clover, and pick out the one that has four leaves…. and they do it lightning quick.  Like Little Leprachauns, they are!

Some people have a talent for picking winning sports teams ( how are your NCAA Brackets tonight? ), or successful stocks, or great restaurants.  Still others can figure out which line will move the fastest at the grocery store.  I am totally miserable at this… I can assure you.

There are those people in life  with perfect pitch…. or  perhaps….the ability to match colors…. like they work in some  Garanimals Factory or something.

I like to call all of this “The Knack.”    We all have a knack for something.  Take the Old Man for example.  Knick Knack Paddy Whack… Give The  Dog A Bone.  This Old Man was really smacking it down… one through ten…..  wasn’t he?  Paddy Whacking the holy heck out of things.

Now me.  I have the uncanny knack for running into solid objects.  Walls.  Flower boxes attached to the front of houses.  It doesn’t really matter if it is stationery, or moving…  I can surely run square in to it.  Most of the times… this leaves a pretty decent mark.

In fact, just the other day, I knocked into a flower box with such force, that it thumped me down to the sidewalk, split the top of my ear open, and scared the Kibbles-n-Bits right out of our dogs. It wasn’t a new flower box.  I have passed that way a hundred times before.  You see….. I just have this crazy knack.

But I am straying from my original point… which was… we all have our special abilities.   That interior know-how. A hunch. A sense or a notion. Intuition.  The ability to listen to your inner-self.  (I am not so intuitive these days.  It seems it may have to do with the fact that I have run into so many different rock-solid objects.)

Now call me crazy, but I also believe this is directly related to Quantum Physics…  that branch of science which deals with indivisible units of energy (called Quanta…. and also known as Paddy Whacks…… ).  There are five main ideas which make up the  Quantum Theory…. and these offer support of this belief.  Energy is not continuous… for one thing.  The elemental particles of energy are inherently random.  Willy Nilly all over the place.  It is impossible to know position and momentum of those particles at any one point in time…. no rhyme and no reason.

So when you apply this to our inner abilities to “know” when something is going to happen… or think about a certain person and you see them later that day…. or knowing what time it is without consulting a clock….  ALL related to Quantum Physics… intuition… and The Knack.  Random Paddy Whacks.

I am of the opinion that some people are better at at this than others. Me?  Sometimes good… other times… I’m just running into to solid matter head first.

So what is my point to all of this?  Well… I don’t know that I  have much of a point… or that this is merely just an observation.

I guess I had this “gut feeling” that you would be reading this right now.  And look at that…. you are.

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.” — Albert Einstein

“Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.”  — Johann Kaspar Lavater

“Holy Crap.  I can’t believe I just ran right into that tree.”  — Polly C. Kronenberger

The air conditioning contractor was noted for his efficiency because he kept all his ducts in a row.

When vegetables want to converse with petunias, they use a cell phone and cauliflower.

The plumber had to quit his job because it was too much of a drain.

“If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.” – Lord Byron

We don’t know what we don’t know.

And we don’t understand what we don’t understand.

We can go through life… never looking for new ways.
We can simply forge ahead on our current paths, never considering any other options or possibilities.

We can be totally content not to learn anything new.

And if everyone in life did this… it would all just remain status quo.

Same old.  Same old.

In which case… none of us would be reading this. We wouldn’t have computers, electricity, running water, aspirin, automobiles, Cheetos, or Chia Pets.

Nope.  None of it.  We’d be sitting around in dark caves right now… grunting.

It is all about change.  And making change.

No…. not change for a dollar.  Not that kind of change.  But making improvements in this world of ours.  It is my contention that we are all connected… like street lights ….  albeit  some of us brighter than others.  But regardless of our intensity of light in this life… we are all wired on one gigantic circuit.

Now here’s the thing.  There may or may not be a God.  That belief is up to you.  But I will assuredly tell you this.

The Universe is a MAGNIFICENT place… and we are all very small.  Small little tiny specks in the continuum of things.

But small in size… doesn’t not necessarily mean small in importance or influence.

And with all of that in mind….  I can’t tell you what to do.

Although I have convinced my iPhone to address me as “Captain Amazing”.…. I cannot convince you to do the same. 

But If I could… I might say something like…..

Be you.  Be the best you.  And I will too.

I merely want to be the best me.

You see, I think there might be a better way.   Oh…. who knows really……  A better way out there to chop an onion, or clean the lint out of the dryer filter.  Yes.  An easier method for wrapping a burrito. Heck.  It might be possible to fix the common cold.    There may be a cure for Cancer or Alzheimer’s.

Perhaps there is  something we could do about our human population explosion which has catapulted to more than 7 trillion.  Seven Trillion….on a ball that is running out of resources.  Yeah, well… if that sounds impossible… I even think there is a way to stop the hate.  But it will take a collective effort.  That means everybody.

Because, while it is very true that we don’t know what we don’t know…..

it doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

And I still……  just want to be the best me.

“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are” – C.S. Lewis

There are endless possibilities in life.  Sometimes, we are not even aware of all the possibilities that exist in our very own scheme of things.

Endless.

Take Amelia Earhart for example.  She’s been in the news here lately.  But when she was seven years old… or so, she could not have possibly imagined her own life as it turned out.

She had her sights set on medicine when she enrolled in Colmbia University in 1919.  Dr. Earhart.  Not a good name for a heart surgeon…. if that was what she had in mind.  And then….. a  year later she visited an Flight Expo with her father and took her first ride in a plane…

And that…..  as they say…. is history.  Amelia was born in 1897. That would make her about 115 years old today.  Now, I for one, think she is still alive on some remote island in the Pacific.  A brand new search has recenlty been launched.  They are searching for her plane in deep waters.  I suggest they should be looking for her.

I speculate that a small group of the  Featsongraund Tribe took her in when her plane crashed off the coast of their isolated island.  They thought she was a Goddess that had come down from the heavens above.  They made her Chief.  Chief Earhart.

Years of eating fresh raw fish, fruits, and vegetables has kept her as fresh as a daisy.  Each year, on the anniversary of her “Sky Arrival” they hold paper airplane flying contests off the highest cliff on the island.  Then, they all jump off the cliff, cannonball-style…. into the water below.

And finally… they drink Pineapple Squeezies until their bellies hurt.  But I am way off topic at this point.

Yet… I am pretty sure that is exactly how it all went down.  It is the very same island where all the Misfit Toys live.  (Rent “Rudolph” on Netflix… watch it again closely… you will see a cameo of Amelia during the Charlie-in-the-Box scene.)

The Featsongraund Tribe… for the most part….  are your basic variety of four-toed people.  Four on each foot that is… which really makes them eight-toed.  Occasionally they will have six on each foot… but never an odd number.  I think this has something to do with the Misfit Toys.

Amelia thought this was interesting.  She made little leather sacs, filled with beans… that they could kick around on the beach with all eight toes.  Soooo… not only is Earhart the first woman to make the Trans-Altlantic flight… she is also the Inventor of the Hackey Sack.

Another amazing possibility that she never could have dreamed of.  (Vice Chief Matsubobbee rowed a long boat all the way to Hawaii. His first name is Michael, and he rowed that boat ashore.)  At any rate, it was on this trip that he traded the handmade leather balls for boxes and boxes of little Paper Umbrellas for the Pineapple Squeezies.   That is how the Hackey Sack made its way back to the states.

The long and short of it is this….. Earhart doesn’t really want to be found.  She is perfectly happy where she is… hanging with her tribe, and flying paper airplanes.  Happy.

So as your day begins… don’t discount any of the possibilities that may be waiting.  Who knows… by the end of the day… you could be naked from the waste up, wearing a grass skirt, and playing Hackey Sack somewhere… with four-toed people.  It could happen.

You see…  I am just saying… that at seven years of age… or maybe even at 20…  Amelia couldn’t possibly  have imagined that is what she’d be doing in 2012. A big Chief with a great tan.

And that is how life is.  Like cannonballs dropping off a cliff.

“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” – George Bernard Shaw