Friendship is a wonderful gift. But I am pretty certain, other beings… other than human beings… can forge friendships of the most remarkable sort.

My dogs are MY friends. My dogs are confidantes with one another.

You never know who you’ll bump into in Utah. Today I met Lucy and Sadie. They hung out together like a couple of old ladies at the church basement bingo. I would definitely say these girls were pals.

Lucy seemed to watch over Sadie… protect her… make sure she was doing okay. Even when it came time for Sadie to do some deep knee bends… Lucy kept an eye out for trouble. (At least…. I THINK Sadie was doing knee bends…. )

Yep. I’d say they were good pals… taking care of one another, in just the right way.

I guess that’s what doggies DO.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together….. there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart….. I’ll always be with you.”
-Winnie the Pooh

Complacency is an easy place to settle down in.   One stops looking, seeing, and noticing.  Everything becomes status quo.  Maybe even boring.  “When will something good happen?”  “When will I find true happiness?” “I am so bored right now.”   And on.   Who hasn’t wondered these things from time to time?

Early this morning, before the sun came up… I walked up to the entrance of Snow Canyon. It became apparent to me that happiness and contentedness aren’t dependent on something in the future. It is really more a matter of being comfortable in the present. This moment is really the only thing that is happening. Time is a continuum. But the only part that we “have” is the “right now.” The past is over and done with… we can’t alter it. The future hasn’t happened yet… and once it transpires… it will be this very moment in time.

It is beautiful here. Vivid. Unique. Bold & Colorful. I am seeing things I’ve never seen before. Unfortunately, I didn’t see that pile of Roadrunner poop on the trail…. now THAT was a real present!

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”
-Leonardo di Vinci

Today I decided to fly out to a little state called Utah.

It was an early start. The alarm went off at 3:45 a.m. That is an early start for me.
The clock on the wall tells me it is now some 20 hours later, and I am tired.

So my funny bone is kind of sleepy too.  Not to mention my thinking cap.

Before the sandman gets me…. I’ll make a couple of observances though.

I enjoy an airport Egg McMuffin every now and again.

Flying through turbulence makes you wish you hadn’t eaten that every-now-and-again-McMuffin.

Something I didn’t know about Utah….. It is called the Beehive State. I haven’t seen one bee yet. There hasn’t been an excessive amount of honey anywhere either. I think the obvious nomenclature is not in place here.  I am guessing that a whole-kaboodle of the women in Utah have really big hair. Hence the state nickname.

And one more thing, before I turn myself into a pumpkin.

The State Cooking Pot is the Dutch Oven.

The Ubiquitous Dutch Oven.  I am not even sure if Ohio or South Carolina have State Cooking Pots…..  State Pots?

But here is another fact I have noticed throughout the day…. there are a ton of cool rocks.   All over the place..  I love rocks. I would have rocks everywhere if it were all up to me. Rocking.

And finally, I think you rock.

There are phenomena in this world which I call “Teeny-Go-Wrongs”

One little Teeny-Go-Wrong all by itself, isn’t much. But a bunch of them all together sure can add up. Today was one of those days. Yes it was filled with a lot of Teeny-Go-Wrongs.

I went to pick up a prescription this morning. I try to clump a bunch of errands together when I go in to town. It just make sense to me to do it that way. My first stop was the bank… an annoyingly long wait, for no apparent reason.

Second on the agenda was the Hardware Store. I wanted to have 3 door keys made. (Not one of them worked when I later arrived home.)

Next on the list… gas up the car. I always pay at the pump with a credit card. When I was finished… the pump flashed a “Please See Cashier” message. So in I went. After another long wait at the counter, it was finally my turn. The cashier said begrudgingly, “Can I help you?”
I responded… “I hope you can. I am supposed to see you.”
“Wha….” she countered.
“Pump Number Two told me to come and see you. It asked politely. So here I am.”
The cashier punched at the little gray machine positioned on the countertop. She wiped her nose, long and hard, on the back of her sleeve. “Nope. I don’t need anything,” she surmised.
“Hmmm.” I said. “I thought perhaps you did something special…. sang, or juggled, or magic tricks … since the pump wanted me to come see you. Do you do anything?”
She stared at me blankly.  Perhaps angrily.
“Do I at least get a toy, or a prize, for coming in and seeing you?” I angled.
To which, she uttered, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“That’s OK. I don’t understand what the pump meant either. I’ll ask it on my way out… Thanks.”  (I am not entirely sure why I thanked her.)
Pump Number Two was steadfast in its biddings. “Please See Cashier”

Grocery. Next stop. The place was buzzing. It must have been 8-for-1 coupon day… or something. At the checkout, I asked the cashier, Trevor, for “All paper please.”
After completing the monetary transaction, he proceeded to bag the first items in plastic.
“Hey Trevor. Would you mind putting those in paper please.”
“Oh sure.” ………….One bag complete.  Next one… back to plastic.
“Trevor, how about using paper for me bud?”
“Oh sure. Sorry. I forgot. I’m under 18.”

Now, I am not sure what the connection is there….  the correlation with being under 18 and memory loss.  I simply don’t know….

Pump Number Two seemed to stay more on track.

I am certain that the numerous “Teeny-Go-Wrongs” wore me down.
I finally made my way home… and forgot to pick up my prescription…. which was the entire purpose of the trip.

My only recourse was to walk to the pond… and watch the leaves float.

“Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.”
– Queen Victoria

Seems to me, a lot of men who are about my age, buy a motorcycle.   I’m just saying.  They get a little gray on the ol’ noodle… or spawn a shiny spot at the top of their heads… and go out and buy a Harley. Or an Indian… or some kind of a ride.  A hog.

On occasion, the Mid-Life Crisis Man looks good on a bike. Other times…..

Wellllll…. let’s just say the black knee socks with the white gym shoes tend to detract…. ever-so-slightly …. from the Cool Factor.

I am not sure what the real reason is for this trend among the 50+ blokes.

Now if I were inclined to buy a bike… it would be just like the kind I had when I was 5 or 6 years old. I loved that old bike. It was blue with white handle grips which had yellowed and cracked with age.   Oh… and Training Wheels.

This bike had been through 4 or 5 siblings before me. It was a boy’s model. I used to wash that thing right alongside my older brother, as he washed the family car. It had those plastic fringy strings hanging out of the handle bars. A shiny metal horn with a black bulb of a honker. That was great fun, I’ll tell you.

I always put a playing card between the spokes. I attached it with a wooden clothes pin. The sound it made was the best… that bbbhhhhtttthhhhhhhd when you went real fast… and that phthp… phthp… phthp… when you crept along.

Once, my Aunt Doty told me that diamonds were a girl’s best friend. (She and I shared the same birthstone. Diamond.)  So when I would select my card out from the deck… I always took the diamonds.  Seven was my first choice. Then the Ace, Queen… it goes on.

Ahhhh….. I wonder how many times my folks had friends over to play Bridge… and the decks came up short on diamonds. I bet it happened a lot.

But yes. That is the kind of bike I would buy now. Training wheels and all. I’d get it in my size. I mean, riding around on a tiny little bike would just be silly.

Okay, so I know the cool factor might not be ALL there. Yet I think ultimate beauty can be defined by whatever gives you joy.

I would have to have keep the training wheels though. It was my favorite thing about my first bike.

As adults, maybe that is what we need in our lives sometimes. Training wheels. Just because we are older, doesn’t mean any one of us knows everything. We shouldn’t pretend to.  We are not perfect, after all.

But a good set of training wheels as we try to navigate through life would be…. the best. We could bobble back and forth a little bit, when things get rocky. We might wobble, but we wouldn’t fall down. And…. in the end, we could maintain our balance, and keep rolling along down the path.

“You can do anything, but not everything.”

– David Allen

I grew up in the city. My Dad worked for Frigidaire back then. We had two washing machines, and two dryers. Unheard of in those days….. but there were seven rambunctious kids in our family.

We didn’t have a clothes line growing up either.   Mom said it took entirely too much time, and that the clothes would get dirty all over again… hanging out there on the line.   Mom always seemed to tell the truth… but I often questioned the validity of this statement.

The other day, I drove by the place pictured in the photo above.

Holy smokes. My Mom wasn’t yanking my chain.

I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out why the clothes get dirty… all over again.  There was a rock group…. Kansas…. who wrote a song about it.

“Dust in the Wind.”

Back in the day. I am talking about the day, day.  The Ben Franklin-white-knee-socks-up-to-the-knickers-dusty-white-wig-day.

Yes, back in the day. Language was King. People back then came up with all sorts of clever idioms and axioms. Why, just consider ol’ Benny F…..  since I’ve already mentioned him.

“A stitch in time saves nine.”

“Fish and visitors stink after three days.”

“The worst wheel of a cart makes the most noise.”

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“There was never a good war or a bad peace.”

Oh, he goes on and on. Clever, I’ll tell you. Canny.
But today, our generation(s) are underwhelming in the adage department.  Lately, it seems that the only thing  that we the people can come up with, are shallow abbreviations. Mostly because things are much too busy to type out full words (on fast computers and other mobile gadgetry.)

OMG. Oh my god.
BRB. Be right back.
LOL. Laughing out loud.

The shear brilliance of these is blinding.

The one that worries me the most, though, is WTF…… … What the Fork?

What do people mean by this?

I truly do not understand the huge obsession with forks these day. I see it written everywhere. WTF. (There was a time it meant Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…. but now… What The Fork.)

You know, I think it started with Yoda. Yes….. all the time, little Yoda would say…

“May the Forks be with you.”
“The Forks….. is everywhere.”
“You have the Forks within you Luke.”   WTF Yoda?

Hmmmm. Well, I propose that we start a revolution. A Phraseology Revolution. We should start coming up with things that generations, for years to come, will marvel at.

I’ll try my hand at this.

“The dog always poops in the middle of the path.”   This is kind of a “Murphy’s Law” thing. What can go wrong, will.

“Fried chicken in the bucket is not an egg boiled hard.”   This translates into an apples vs. oranges analogy.

“The monkey wears the green hat.”   This means you are happy and you know it…. clap your hands.

We’ve got a good start here.  Guess who’s wearing the green hat?  Yep… and I’m clapping my hands.

Acclaimed Artist and Photographer, Aaron Siskind, once said this:

“We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.”

This reflection goes WAY beyond photography…..

If you take a moment, and consider it, there is a very powerful concept within.

We look at the world… and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect.

Just knock me off my chair… this is probably one of my all-time favorite quotations in that little Ziploc Baggie of observances I carry around.

One person who has a firm grasp on this concept is Andy Rooney. I like that guy. Whether one agrees with him or not, the man has made some amazing observations. He sets aside all else, and looks at things with a fresh and contemplative mind. Still. At 92 years of age. He has a keen sense of curiosity. I am betting it has gotten him in some trouble over the years.

Most of you have heard…..he’s scrunching up his fuzzy eyebrows for the last time. Yep, this Sunday, he is giving his final commentary on 60 Minutes. I’m going to miss that old curmudgeon and his elucidations.

He has offered so many outstanding and visionary thoughts.

“Nothing in fine print is ever good news.”

“I’ve learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.”

“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person”

“I’ve learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.”

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”

“If you smile when you are alone, then you really mean it.”

“People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.”

Funny. I think that last one is what Siskind was saying…..

It seems that at this point in my life…. I am a lot of different things.  Certain people have some very unique names for me, at times.

But, I know for positively, absolutely, sure… one thing I am NOT…. is a tree, plant, and flower aficionado. Not even close.

I marvel at the people who know it, and know it well.

But for me… every walk around our property becomes an exploration and naming adventure. It is quite exciting, really.  However, while it is a truly joyous occasion on a personal level, I suspect that those people I am walking with…. may become….  annoyed from time to time.    Yet… I press on.

Why, just tonight, nature abounded.   I saw a batch of…. what I call…. The Midwestern Shiny Berry Bushes. We passed some Queen June’s Bobbins. The back prairie was filled with Yellow Fleece Stalks. And of course, one of my favorites are the Whacky-Doodle Balls on a Stick.

Nature. The Final Frontier. Don’t leave home without it.

“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
– Albert Einstein

The eleven o’ clock news is on. The headlines reveal one devastating report after another. Yes.  Many bad things happening.

Robberies. Scams. Murder. Car wrecks. Illness. Destruction. Loss.

Not only that…. but it seems there is an awful lot of hate in the world.  A lot.

And just when you start to feel a sense of despair and despondency sinking in…. a little dog comes along… … …. rests a scruffy chin on your hand, and a paw on your arm… then looks you right square in the eye. She offers her comforting best.  There is a tremendous moment of connection. This remarkable display of communication takes place in a golden silence….

And then, she leaps down, chases her tail a few times…. careens across the room,  grabs her squeaky duck… shakes it relentlessly….and bites the beak and wings off.

Life is beautiful.  Just beautiful.