The Next Blog Zone

Call me the eternal optimist, but I thought I'd click on blogger's "next blog" button and find something entertaining and once again all I could find were an endless series of blogs that hadn't been updated since 2010. And most of them began with either an apology for not posting for awhile or a resolution that they were going to commit to posting at least once a week. What added insult to injury to all of this was that some of the dead blogs had hundreds of followers. I have 27 and I've been posting for ten years consistently.

The only up-to-date blog I found seemed to be an ongoing essay on archetypes that held me riveted for at least a paragraph.

Death of a friend

In August, it would have been 17 years since I adopted my cat Bailey. I first met her in a small pet shop in a strip mall in Shoreline. The local PAWs occasionally would put kittens in the store for adoption. She was this tiny spec of a kitten. They had named her Beta. I changed it to Bailey because she actually seemed to be more of a dark chocolate color than black and reminded me of Bailey's Irish Creme.

I had an older cat at the time named Cuervo. He was an orange tabby who I'd also adopted from PAWs. He took to Bailey quickly and they played together.

Immortal posts

All of the blog experts say that you need to post on a fairly regular basis to boost your blog traffic. I have not found this to be particularly true. My blog traffic stays pretty consistent at 80 to 100 page views a day whether I post or not. This is largely due to people surfing for random things and landing on some of my archive posts from 2006. Or it is due to whatever Internet trick spammers are using that directs people to my blog from Russian and Turkish Web pages.

The beauty of this is that I get the false feeling of security that about a 100 people a day read my blog regardless of whether I post or not. Shoot since I've posted well over a 1000 posts in the almost ten years I've been blogging, I could die today and I'd still be getting hits on my blog for decades to come.

Reading me my writes

No, it's not a typo. "Reading me my writes" is one of the few play on words that I Googled that someone else already hadn't used. The other one was "the last will and writes," but it seemed a bit to morbid to joke about (though "last writes" is the name of a funeral home software package). I tried "writing a wrong," and "two writes don't make a wrong," but many have used them before.

No longer after me lucky charms

I watched Disney's new film Maleficent one and a half times this weekend. The half being that the projector broke down half way through watching it the first time and I had to bring my family back the next day to find out how it ended. Spoiler alert: It had a happy ending, but as in Disney's last few films, it had nothing to do with a prince sweeping in to save the day.

I applaud Disney for finally creating strong female characters who don't need no stinking man to sweep them off their feet and rescue them.  I especially applaud this since I have a daughter and I want her to go to college and have a successful career before getting distracted by any prince (hopefully sometime after I've kicked the bucket).

Connections: the Eight-Foot Bride

I was binge watching TED videos again the other night and watched one talk by musician Amanda Palmer called, "The Art of Asking." Palmer was  the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls.  She later launched her solo career after dumping her record label and using Kickstarter to crowd fund one of her music projects.

That's what Palmer's TED talk was about: artists becoming comfortable with freely sharing their art and asking for help instead of selling it. And what helped Palmer develop her own art of asking was five years as a street busker known as the 8-foot Bride. She used to painter her face white, don an elegant antique wedding gown and stand on a crate in city squares. When a passerby dropped money in her bucket or hat, she would make eye contact and offer them a flower in return.

Happy Daze

How many times have you heard someone say (or heard yourself say), "I just want to be happy." And by wanting to be 'happy,' I am not referring to one of Snow White's seven dwarfs. Even the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our god-given rights. But the key word here is 'pursuit.' Happiness isn't our god-given right. Chasing after it is.

As usual, this train of thought was prompted by a documentary I watched the other night on Netflix about happiness.  People from various places were interviewed about happiness. And sure enough being happy is universally accepted as priority for people no matter what country you stem for. Though what people need to be happy seems to vary greatly. Many of the young people they interviewed in the USA said that happiness was a priority, but they equated getting a good, high paying job with happiness.

Pulling weeds

I spent much of yesterday on the wild slope that makes up much of my backyard, pulling weeds. It is one of those ironic Sisyphean tasks that we humans insist on that is right up there with making my bed and washing dishes. The irony being that determining whether or not a plant is a weed is purely a judgement call. Even desirable plants become weeds if they crop up where you don't want them.

The slope used to be overrun with Ivy until I pulled most of it out to make way for the horsetails that immediately grew up when the Ivy was evicted. And, although I only have anecdotal evidence, I suspect getting rid of the Ivy also contributed to the slope slippage a couple of years ago that threatened my deck and my pocketbook, warranting a new retaining wall.

My battle with my slope is a perfect proof of the theorem that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Once more unto the blog, dear friends...

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;  

Or close the wall up with our English dead!  

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility: 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 

Then imitate the action of the tiger.”  

 ― William Shakespeare, Henry V

 Truth be told, I thought the quote was "once more into the breach" and that it had something to do with the Charge of the Light Brigade. Thank god for Google or I would appear as an ignorant twit. But then again I just admitted I didn't really know what the quote was or where it came from. So now I just appear as an honest ignorant twit.

But I digress much earlier than I normally do in a post. I usually try to make one or two relevant points before chasing squirrels with my synapses.

My experiencing self and remembering self don't talk

My latest binge watching craze on Netflix has been the TED videos.  And no, these are not videos of my brother Ted. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. And the videos are a series of experts on various topics condensing years of study into a 20-minute presentation.

The beauty of the TED videos is that you can binge watch television and delude yourself that you are at least expanding your mind. And I wouldn't be surprised if there were a TED video on that very topic.

A holiday from holidays

Blogger's note: For my British friends, when I say holiday, I am not talking about a vacation. I am referring to days we celebrate special occasions.

It's just the day after Easter and I have to say that all of the holidays we have anymore just blur into each other. It's this hyped up continuum of days we need to celebrate. You go from Halloween to Veteran's Day to Thanksgiving with Christmas nipping at the turkey's tail. Then quickly there is New Years.  Martin Luther King Jr. squeezed himself in there followed by Valentine's Day. President's Day parades by merging Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays. Then St. Patrick's Day staggers by followed closely by Easter. Now they are hyping Mother's Day followed by Memorial Day, then Father's Day and the 4th of July. There's not much in August (other than my son's birthday). Then September is back to school (which is really not a holiday). And finally we're back to Halloween.

Ghost towns

My latest Netflix's binge watching was a Ken Burns series from PBS on the history of the West. Or more specifically, the American West. I'd like to say that it has made me proud to be an American, but unfortunately, the history of our country really doesn't make you feel good about mankind in general.

For one, we as a civilization royally screwed the Native Americans from day one.  So it only seems fitting that they exact revenge by selling us cigarettes, fireworks and geriatric come back bands via Native American casinos.

Old MacDonald had a farm

First, it isn't very politically correct to call Old MacDonald, "Old" MacDonald. But I'm sure generations of children wouldn't have bought singing a song about Senior Citizen MacDonald or Middle-aged MacDonald having a farm. Regardless, it is clear that MacDonald wasn't young. And not being young, it was necessary to remind him what animals he had on his farm and what sounds they made. Because having worked the farm most of his life would mean very little to younger people coming along with new ideas of how a farm should run. And the assumption would logically be that since Old MacDonald didn't follow the latest trends in social media, he was incapable of making sound decisions on running his farm.

Running the green (3.1) mile

Let me get this straight, I don't consider myself a runner. I don't believe I have ever found myself in "the zone" nor have I had an adrenalin rush from running. I am what I would describe a "reluctant runner." So when I say that I ran in the annual St. Patrick's Day Dash in Seattle yesterday, I don't want anyone to get the idea that it is something I do on a regular basis.

This was my second 5K run. I used to think a 5K was a long distance but technically it is only 3.1 miles.Still, when you are running in the pouring rain uphill, 3.1 miles seems like a long distance. It seems like a long distance indeed.

I grill, therefore I am

Some people meditate. Some people pray. Some people sit on the pot and ponder.

I grill.

And I don't just grill in the summer. I grill all year round. Shoot, I'd grill every day if I could. Because to me, the closest thing you come to sitting around the primal fire pondering the magic of fire and charred meat is the modern day gas grill.

It helps that grilling time is also a time I usually enjoy a glass of brandy as well. But it is part of the warming ritual, because I often grill on my deck at night when it is raining, snowing or just plain cold. I flip on the overhead electric heater, fire up the grill, line up the meat and sit back to reflect. Sometimes I'll tune in my starred music list from Spotify (which lately consists of some pretty haunting melodies done in a kind of fusion blue grass style).

Hey mister, throw me some beads

I was in New Orleans last week during the first week of Mardi Gras. It has been one of those things that I always wanted to do. Oh, I've been to New Orleans several times, just never during Mardi Gras. The last time I was there was the March before Katrina. I was pleased to find that pretty much nothing has changed in the French Quarter in the nine years since I was there before.

But enough about the past. I can now say that I have truly experienced not one but at least six Mardi Gras parades. And I've got to admit that, despite the crowds and the waiting and the inclement weather, it was pretty darned fun.

Guess who won the Super Bowl!

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that, after 38 years, the Seahawks have finally won a Super Bowl!  Back in 2006 I had to watch Pittsburgh (aided by some pretty bad officials) pluck that Lombardi trophy out of our grasp. But now it comes to roost in a city most of the country doesn't even know exists.

Light from dead stars

No, this isn't a post about Elvis. We watched a 3-D film at the Pacific Science Center IMAX last Saturday about astronomers who study the far reaches of the universe using super big telescopes. And they made the point that, because the stars they were viewing were so far away, the light they were seeing was from millions of years ago and the stars themselves likely had died long ago.

Far out.

When do new years get old?

I believe new years are like new cars. They lose much of their value once you drive them off the lot. But there doesn't seem to be a definitive moment when it is no longer a new year and just the year. I presume they become the old year once a new year begins.

No one seems to wish you a, "Happy Old Year." I bet Hallmark would make a card for Happy Old Year if they though there was some money in them.

But I digress.

The world finally ended for Harold Camping

If you follow my blog (and I recommend that you leave at least a car's length between us if you do) than you know I have a special place in my heart for Harold Camping, the pompous ass evangelist who wrongly predicted the end of the world in 1994 and twice in 2011.  And though I don't like to speak ill of the dead, I will make an exception for Harold. Because Harold, aged 92, died yesterday and finally met his maker.