One Liners #78

Morning Friend,

It being too hot and beautiful this morning for anything mind-sappingly deep or energetically earth-shattering, I thought I’d simply share some simple truths that I may one day expound upon but for today will simply throw out like pebbles rippling the serene surface of your Monday mind.

You don’t live to be 5 ( years sober) without picking up a nugget of knowledge, a thought worth remembering or some smarts or two along the way.

In no particular order of triviality and neither sobering nor drunk-inducing, I have come to realize the following:

- When you tell the truth, you have less to remember.

- Cheap Dollar Store batteries and lighters do not last and are virtually worthless at any price.

- Productivity in “Union shops” suffers due to a lack of incentive.

- You never truly know someone until you live with them.

- A sense of humor trumps good looks in the game of romance.

- Sometimes it is better to remain silent and be thought ignorant, than to speak up and remove all doubt.

- Prolonged negative emotional energy can be physiologically self-destructive.

- An hour’s cat nap can be more restful than an 8 hour toss-o-rama.

- It’s far easier to stay in shape than to get in shape.

- A sprinkle of salt with the grounds makes better tasting drip coffee.

- Cake recipes are not chemical formulas; a 1/4 teaspoon of this or that either way is unnoticeable.

- Just about every smoker wishes they weren’t.

- Most plans, promises and vows made while drunk are never kept.

- Music adds productivity to any workplace.

- If your Mother wouldn’t approve of it, it’s probably not the best idea you ever had.

- God watches over drunks and small children.

- Trust is like a credit rating; once lost, extremely difficult to regain.

- You are as young as your dreams and as old as your fears.

- The girls do not look “prettier at closing time”; the pretty ones have in fact left by then.

- Hearing and listening are two different things.

- Sliced green tomatoes fried in butter, salt and pepper until nearly black are delicious.

- Follow the “Serenity Prayer” and you will not only have more energy than you realized, you will likely live longer.

- It is better to have loved a short woman than never to have loved a tall.

- Measure thrice, cut once.

- One “look at what I am doing” is worth a thousand “look at what I’m going to do’s”.

- Violence is the last resort of the ignorant.

- Learn to play the accordion and you will never go hungry.

- True love, is bigger than a shoe.

- Good poetry doesn’t have to rhyme; Great poetry often does.

- If nothing else, sobriety is cheaper.

- You cannot over-water tomato plants in well drained pots.

- The 1,463’rd “I’m sorry” is a meaningless part of a drunk’s vocabulary.

- Kindness will slay a grump every time.

- As distasteful and/or incomprehensible the concept of God might be to some, there are those like myself who whose lives are owed to it.

- One of the greatest distinguishing features of the human brain is the ability to filter out negativity while creating an impenetrably healing aura and comforting mind-state of our own choosing...out of thin air.

- Air is free.

love tImMy:/

Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live ( exemplarily )

Musical Ride #77

Morning Friend,

All aboard the “ban-wagon” everyone.
Now that some truly sensible laws are in place banning the slow asphyxiation of children in cars and the hand-held hamstringing of drivers, let’s roll the wagon on toward another “proven” menace; deranged music-listening cyclists.
The latest “proof” linking music listening and cycling tragedy appeared in a small story in last week’s paper.
A young cyclist was killed when he rolled through a red light and into the path of a large truck.
The fact that the young man had a personal listening device in use at the time was considered a “contributing factor” in the tragedy.
As a cyclist myself, this story obviously touched me, but not just in the obvious way.
“What in heaven’s name”, I asked myself, “was the poor soul listening to, that it was a “contributing factor” in his demise?....Perry Como?...self-hypnosis?....self hypnosis voiced by Perry Como??”
May the Good Lord rest and comfort the poor departed lad and his family, but for goodness sakes, let us for a moment gild his memory with a shred more respect than by suggesting he was so distracted by the music he was listening to that he failed to notice a red light!?
Contrary to the ignorant conclusion inferred by the newspaper, I would beg to differ on behalf of those who know...and the young fellow who I think knew too.
Lo these many years I have cycled the year around and having traversed none of the many miles unaccompanied by some form of music, I can think of zero times when I went suddenly color-blind or lost my mind in some casualty-causing fashion or another.
I would in fact have to strongly argue that if anything, music enhances my skills and critical awareness on the road.
The relaxing soundtrack of my ride nicely compliments the steely sensory process and physiological rigors of a safe journey.
In tunes I am in tune.
Obviously the volume is not so loud as to obliterate the ambient and potentially emergent siren-sounds of the street.
For me the idea is not self-induced deafness ( or blindness?), but a safe spiritual compliment and imaginative enhancement to a bicycle ride.
I might appear to be ambling along on a rusting green Norco, but with an energizing jolt of some blistering southern rock as a backdrop I may well be high in the saddle of some trusty coal-black trail horse named “Storm” or “Lightening”; something biblically titanic.
The badlands of the mean streets lie ahead on the trail with bad drivers lurking like black-hatted rustlers in the sage.
The reins of my handlebars are gripped as tightly as the cast of my baleful Lone Ranger stare, scanning warily for pothole snakes and traffic control devices; relentless as an AC/DC backbeat.
Or it could be the notes of an etude trailing behind me on a gallop through a fine Austrian meadow.
Or perhaps with my “motor running” I could be heading out on the highway, looking for adventure....and whatever comes our way?...my “horse” is now a “hawg” of course.
In any event, the magical world I create for my ride through the use of energizing and inspiring music is not some “bizzaro-realm” of science fiction where up is down and left is right and red means “go”.
The same basic rules of physics, chemistry, biology, and the road are distinctly applicable.
As are the rules of good common sense.
It makes sense to ban things and practices that are bad for children and hazardous to the public’s safety.
A car filled with cigarette smoke is not a “contributing factor” to a child having trouble breathing, it’s the cause.
By all means my friend, ban it.
Listening to music does not cause insanity in cyclists nor does it contribute factors rendering them as drones haphazardly meandering through intersections like suicidal twits.
Let’s ban bad luck, bad brakes, bad mornings or the darned bug or whatever bad thing which got in that poor kid’s distracted eye that day.
If such an absurdity as a ban on music while cycling were to come to pass I can definitely foresee traffic light problems of my own...I’d be seeing nothing but red.
love tImMy:/
Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live (saddled up)

Monday Musing #76

Morning Friend,



As if I weren’t challenged enough, I chose Monday as my weekly day of “writing practice” in spite of the inherent difficulties of the work week’s most daunting day.



There is an adage which recommends not buying a car which was manufactured on a Monday (or a Friday), because of the less than ideal mindset of autoworkers on such a transitional day.



Understandably so...for all manner of assembly and sets of mind I’d venture to say.



In an ideal world ( or in China?), where everyone treated and cherished every day like it could be their last, we wouldn’t differentiate the days of the week so dramatically.



We’d be happy to be alive, joyful to be healthy, and thrilled to have a job to go to in furtherance of our quest for personal fulfillment and spiritual enlightenment no matter what day of the week it was.



There’d be no...

“Whew, we’re in a groove now” Tuesday

“Hump Day!” Wednesday

“I can see the light” Thursday

“T.G.I.” Friday

and certainly none of the expletives - too colorful for this “family” forum - associated with Monday.



Alas this isn’t a utopian society – and thank Goodness it’s not some third world regime– so the majority of us who like but don’t love our jobs above all else, deal with the week as it comes, hopefully on the heels of a satisfyingly relaxing weekend.



Satisfied or not however, we grab Monday by the scruff of its’ scrawny neck and give it a good “going over”.



Because the longest journeys begin with a single step and the reward for dealing with Monday’s “frozen mukluk to the head” reality is a date with Tuesday’s “groove”.



And once you’re in the groove it’s a minor hump to the “hump”, a slide to where the light will have begun to be seen and before you know it you’re thanking the Good Lord again for his strength and his guidance and for a day beginning with “F”.



In this "un-ideal" democracy of nine-to-five weekend warriors, the big picture of mortality and frailty often takes a back seat to getting through the week as painlessly as possible.



And if it takes a bit of imaginative folly – and Monday Grumbling- to do so, ( and production doesn’t suffer too greatly), then pitter patter it’s time to get at ‘er.



The ethereal mantras cleverly affixed to the sliced-up pie of the work week make it a palatably manageable meal; each bite growing tastier.



The bough-filtered whispers silenced on Sunday evening, begin to speak in hushed tones by Wednesday; the feathery caress of Nature’s lips drawing ever-nearer. ( THIS sounds like a day when the best cars are made!?)



Barring circumstances unforeseen, you will traverse the stepping-stone days of the wide week’s creek into the warm pine-scented embrace of the weekend, (and I will have completed another week’s literary “exercise”)....after today.



“Do not pray for easy tasks, equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks, especially on Mondays” AB LINCOLN



love tImMy:/



Laugh as much as you breathe...

Love as long as you live (today)

Cool Canadian #75

Morning Friend,



I hope the enjoyment of your Canada Day weekend included a moment or two of reflection and gratitude.



The Old Gal turned 143 last Thursday and by all the reckoning and comparisons that I can make, she remains unquestionably the very best country in the world in which to live.



One need only look at alternative places – drought-ridden, war-torn, disaster-ravaged Hells-on-earth – that other folks call home and the superlatives relating to Canada are pretty well amongst facts of life on this planet.



I asked several people in recent days to pick a country they would rather live in, and many respondents seemed pleasantly surprised when they couldn’t name one.



And that was pleasing to me because it confirmed what I suspect about a lot of folks....they don’t realize how good they have it – what a truly wonderful, prosperous and blessed country they are blessed to be a part of.



I’m always pleased to be able to help others see the Big Picture, especially when it is one so captivatingly picturesque and vividly vivacious as this vast land of endless opportunity and unequalled tranquility.



Once reminded of their oft-overlooked wealth, I don’t expect people to suddenly transform into flag-waving patriot-zealots or ambassadorial demons.



I would hope anyone with an enhanced sense of their own good fortune might exude a more refined air of humility and drape themselves in a flag of graciousness.



What!?, I ask, do you have to complain about today?

My sincerest apologies if serious health or family issues are at play in your life today my friend.



I’m speaking about the trivial, minute and inconsequential fluff that many people will actually fret and physically whine about on this most perfect summer day in this most poignantly pretty land.



Does the south African woman carrying a five gallon bucket of clean water on her head for five miles every day bitch about a two cent rise in the price of a liter of gasoline?



Is the Afghani child stepping lightly around land mines on her way to school p.o.’d because she wasn’t able to get tickets to the Miley Cyrus show?



Do we hear the Haitian man cursing the traffic on the way to work, from his home which was washed into the sea?



This is not like Christmas where I’ve suggested we try to be “nicer” all year round.



It’s about extending the spirit of Canada Day and what most of us do on that day.....chill the heck, out!



Count your blessings today and every day that you live free.



Free of pestilence, disease, vermin, snipers, bombs, tsunamis, cutthroats, horror, disaster etc.....terror tempered by constant fear.



A little perspective goes a long way.



Unless you can think of someplace better? Hey, I’ll drive you to the airport myself. ( Write when you find work eh!? )



love tImMy:/



Laugh as much as you breathe...

Love as long as you live ( White Canucklng:)