Random Thoughts 10-22-26

I saw someone knitting something at the airport.  It got me to thinking, I have heard that knitters can ‘drop a stitch.’  Can the really professional knitters, also, bunt, catch, throw, toss, miss, fumble, and/or bobble one? Where does a ‘stitch in time’ fit in here?  Can a stitch be out of time, like a car engine? Or on? Off?

As I was clipping my fingernails the other day, I was wondering if anyone can do that without contorting their face as they clip.

I was listening to crickets doing their thing the other night, and wondered if they ever needed to rest?  And why do they tend to start that up at dusk rather than two hours earlier or later?

I wonder why people, men anyway, are prone to write on public bathroom walls?  Did cavemen?  I learned some of my earliest ‘dirty’ jokes there, when I was 7 or 8, when I went to the bathroom at the county fair.  One I remember is “here I sit broken hearted, paid a nickel to S#$T, but only farted.”  I am wondering if I have some kind of mental disorder, because I remember it, as well as the setting (Sitting?) - so to speak.

How did ‘things going South’ come to mean, bad? Remnants of “The War of Northern Aggression,” or “The Great Inconvenience?” (As the Civil War is referred to in some southern enclaves.)  There is not an equivalent - things going North (or East or West.)  What’s up with that?  

I am not quite sure what this means, but I noticed the other day that everything I own that has glass (my watch, my phone, windshield) all have cracks in them.  This must represent some deep truth about me.

I was thinking the other day that a good metaphor for what it means to live the human life would be the waves at sea.

I ran into four different people, at four different times, who were doing four different things.  One person was bagging groceries, another, serving food, a mother was mothering, and a teacher, teaching.  What they all had in common was they LOVE what they do.  How do I know?  When I mentioned to each of them how good they were at what they were doing (I was on the receiving end of what they do) each one of them broke into a big grin, and said, “I LOVE WHAT I DO”.

I am aware of what “Tidily-Winks” are.  In college I was once part of a ‘team’ that tidily winked up and down a hallway for fifty miles. (That was a ‘thing’ in the early 60’s.  Doing something – anything - for fifty miles. Part of a presidential fitness campaign).  But how’d it come about its name?  Same with its distant cousin - Twiddling. As in Twiddling my thumbs.

Why can’t I Twiddle my big toes?  Lack of practice?

The cloud formations out here in Colorado are epic.  I was looking at a collection of them and wondering why the border of a cloud is where it is.  Why not 50 feet higher or lower, or closer, further to the east, west, south, north…….

Riding through Germany I was delighted to learn that the German word that signifies an exit from the roadway is “Ausfahrt.”  It is just a fun sounding word.   “Hey Ted, take this Ausfahrt.”  Or “You just missed your Ausfart.” Try saying it out loud to someone else without smiling.

I was in Vail, Colorado recently and was reading the “calendar of events” section of the local newspaper and ran across the notice of a daily “Goat Yoga” class.  I have participated in a yoga class that took place in a butterfly pavilion.  That was really cool. But goats? After asking a yoga wise friend about it, I learned that it is a regular yoga class. Goats walking around and sometimes on top of the practitioners.

I wanted to ask if the goats wore diapers, but the person telling me about it seemed so serious that I thought it would have been impolite and insensitive to ask.  In the category of asking a papal representative who describing the sanctity of a ceremony if they ever smelled a papal fart during the event.                                                                                                                         

I also learned that there are “duck” and “puppy” yoga options, though I would imagine not at the same time.  Knowing what ducks and puppies tend to produce in copious amounts, I am wondering what people wear?  Raincoats? Gloves? Rubber boots?   How about using ants, or flies, or mosquitoes, or hummingbirds, or…….

I have the best of friends.  I was recently visiting with one of them.  There was a local parade, and we passed out over 1,000 art kits and could have passed out 3,000.  She drives all over the county where she lives, helping kids and families have inspiring experiences and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Research suggests that taking care of our neighbors is the most effective ‘medicine’ for a certain type of depression.  She tells me her father’s admonition was that with wealth comes the responsibility to do good with it.   

She isn’t religious in any traditional sense, but she lives the principles of the ones I know best.  Something like “suffer the little children” and something about helping the stranger and caring for the neighbor.

We (including my daughter) with a handful of others, did a lot of good ‘social work.’ Planning and implementing initiatives to help those with relatively few resources. I respect wealth that serves like that.                                                                                                

I grew up poor, and I know how it impacted my thinking and behaviors around money.  One of the first thoughts I remember having was why those who had, didn’t seem to notice or care about those of us who didn’t.  I am not sure if it is innate or not, for a person who has little to wonder why those who have a lot don’t seem to notice, or care, or do something to help, on a personal level. How does one answer that question if a child asks? 

Caution: Political Content to Follow

The only and final remaining recourse to change things these days, on a national level, seems to be the ballot box.  That being true, what I am worried about these days is:

-Forty million dollars set aside by Congress to provide security (cyber and otherwise) for the 2026 national elections has been withheld by the current administration.

 -The mess with the mail-in ballots, that may make it impossible for masses of people to vote.

-The effect on in-person voter turnout with everyone being aware that ICE (The American version of the German Gestapo) folks will be there waiting and watching. 

If I didn’t already know, I might wonder what the folks who are so intent on suppressing the vote are so worried about. 

I worry about the normalization of the US military patrolling city streets.

I was thinking about Rome. She had her Nero, who, as the story goes, enjoyed fiddling, and did so as she burned.  That is happening now in the form of reflecting pools, arches, driveways, helicopter pads, sidewalks, gold-leafing, private jets, dance halls, gold coins with his picture as legal tender, did I mention arches………

I still wonder how people feel ok about voting for a convicted rapist.  An unrepentant one.  

Do you ever wonder if those people who voted this person and regime in, are proud of themselves? Are they embarrassed? Regretful?  I wonder.  You know, the ones that pronounced, “Oh, he’d never do that…..”  One of them told me back then, “He will never mess with social security or healthcare, because that would affect me,” then laughed.  I wonder if he is still laughing?