Thanks for the Birthday Greetings

This is just a simple thank you to everyone who took a moment from their day to wish me Happy Birthday. I really appreciate it and was humbled by your greeting.

thanks.


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Monday Musings - September 26, 2011

1. I went to a fabulous house concert Saturday evening to see a piano prodigy play jazz and blues music for which I gained a new appreciation. I'm working on a review for tomorrow.

2. Sometimes I need to take a decorating risk--and I talked Chris into that with our crown moulding. All in all it looks really good.

3. Fantasy Football is fickle.

4. We watched Ben, Jeremy's Keeshond, for the past week and it always made me smile to be greeted at the door by my pair-o-kees.

5. Today is my birthday. There is something special about a day that you can call your own. I am not a huge fan of my own birthday, but I would love to know more people who share this day with me. That written, I am honored to share my birthday with Johnny Appleseed (1774), Pope Paul VI (1897), Carlene Carter (1955), and Serena Williams (1981).

6. Alternatively, some famous people have died on my birthday, too. These include Daniel Boone (who knew? 1820), John Byron (1763), and Paul Newman (2008).

7. One of the hardest decisions it seems that I am asked to make is deciding what I want to do for my birthday evening. There are so many options that I want to do them all.



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Football-- The Opiate of the Masses

I remember from my school days that an infamous man, Karl Marx, once wrote that "Religion is the opiate of the people." His meaning was very sinister and he devoted himself to eradicating religion through his writings that say that true happiness cannot be found until religion is eradicated. He wrote, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

As I sit here in front of my TV this Sunday afternoon with the DirecTV Red Zone channel keeping me informed of the progress of every NFL game happening at the moment, I realize that football may have replaced religion as the illusion we use to make us happy, at least during the NFL season which runs from the draft until the Super Bowl.

Now I know this may be an unpopular thought--but when compared against organized religion, I would believe that the NFL has a larger following. Even I have rushed from my church pew on a Sunday morning to my home to partake of the NFL Sunday. And while church may only last just over an hour, the NFL lasts nine hours on Sunday and an additional three on Monday nights, before the Thursday night football games even kick into gear.

Does football make me happy? Sure. It makes me forget the mess that our country is in with a dysfunctional leadership. And that the economy is not getting better. And that while my expenses are rising, my income is static.

Yet football makes it all better. And I prefer baseball, but with the Orioles tanking so bad, I don't get as excited about the game as I used to. Fourteen consecutive losing seasons will do that for you.

And so, at least for Americans--NFL Football has replaced religion as the opiate for the masses--or as Marx wrote, the people.



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Saddest Day of the Year

While for some people summer ends on Labor Day and for others summer ends on the first day of autumn; for me, summer ends with the annual closing of my pool--which I have just completed.


Pool closing day marks, for me, the official beginning of the dark, cold seasons. I am being held hostage by the forces of cold and dark until April when I can reopen my pool and begin to enjoy summertime in earnest.

The pool seemed to resist my efforts to close it this year and numerous small annoyances cropped up as I completed the now well practiced closing operation. But, sadly, I prevailed recognizing that the leaves are beginning to fall and the time was only growing shorter if I had decided to procrastinate and postpone the closing.

For me there are only two seasons--summer and not-summer. Summer is marked by the opening and closing of my pool.

Do I enjoy not-summer? Not really. I enjoy some things and some holidays, but they are really small points of light in an otherwise dismal season.




It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks we have transitioned from family gatherings around the pool, such as the one above--to the picture taken a few minutes ago of the covered pool, hibernating like a bear waiting for the renewal of the year.

Soon, I will again hear the squeals of the grandsons chasing each other around the pool in heat of a nice summer day. And the non-summer season will be forgotten.

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And the rains finally stop

Friday evening and the rain has abated for a short while. Enjoy the blue in the sky.

Rainy Friday and Doctors

The day started off well. I was on the racquetball court at 0530 for a rare Friday match. But then, the day turned and I needed to head off to the doctor to for some stupid thing that keeps popping up on my face.

Then I found out the appointment was for Monday!

Ugh!

But they squeezed me in.

And it is raining. Again! The skies are as gray as my mood.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who suggested we should move to Florida.

I'm in!

But it is Friday.

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