The Single Rider

You have a cold aka "the plague", but you don’t know that you are well on your way to losing your voice until someone calls! I knew I was clearing my throat and coughing a bit, but I was also singing along with something this morning, so not being able to speak clearly by 6PM-ish was something of a shock. If other people lived here, I might have found out sooner. I am not sure of what value finding out sooner would have been.

I have lots of work travel the next three weeks and this is rather inconvenient. I think it might be a Memo From The Universe but that is a different post for a different blog… Pray for me!

Nerdy little fold-up ballet flats – they come with their own little zipper case. I will nevah travel without them ever again. Will tell the story if I can ever get out of Philadelphia….

Martha Beck (in the February 2011 O Magazine) says that to excel you have to do what you are passionate enough to practice. Well, quot;passion" and "make a living" are more often than not mutually exclusive – which illustrates how I got into this mess in the first place! The only thing I have EVER loved to practice was singing. Too bad I couldn’t make a living at it.

Not to worry – income is on the horizon now. It’s a pirate’s life… er, I mean a consultant’s life for me

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Photo Friday: Minimalist

The moon is pretty much a solitary practitioner. Oh, there are the occasional clouds that wander by, enshrouding her in mysterious aura, but for the most part, she drifts alone in the vastness of the sky, outshining her neighbors the stars. We know they are there, but we cannot see them for her brilliance. They only become visible at the time during which she sleeps.

Photo Friday: Sladder On The Floor


Photo Friday this week was “lines”. I haven’t done Photo Friday in a while; when I do, it’s usually on a different blog. I just saw the email reminder and I figure 2 days late is better than never. This photo has been on Flickr for at least a week, as part of a “3 for 30″ challenge. It looks like a good candidate for “lines”.

I looked up from my reading one afternoon and saw these lines on the floor, made by the sunlight slanting in through the plantation shutters. I posted it with this thought: “I think maybe there’s a pretty close relationship between shadows and reflections.”

Metaphorically, one is very dark and the other is full of light, the simplistic interpretation being “evil vs. good”. But light can blind us to what really lurks beneath. Perhaps that puffy cloud, blue skies reflection in the lake conceals an alligator, waiting just under the surface for a snack to happen by.

But light is needed to make a shadow too, and shadows can be protective, providing shade during a hot summer day into which patient cows will crowd. “Protection” sounds all good, right? But “protection” can be good (shade for the cows), or bad (camouflage for the gator).

Everything is everything. Thus speaketh the fevered mind of sinus hell. Apologies to Lauren Hill.

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Single rider references abound at a theme park, but rarely co-exist on the same sign with child-tending references.

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After filling up at the Car Care Center, I drove down the road to EPCOT. The CMs were filling in the rows in the parking lot from the far end to the near end. I missed being at the near end by two vehicles! and had to drive to the far end. This displeased me greatly, but remembering that I get to choose how I react to things, I started walking and I also started looking for lemonade.

This is the canal that separates the DISCOVER lot from the JOURNEY lot at EPCOT. As I passed under the monorail tracks, I realized that if I stood there for a few minutes, lemonade would be forthcoming.

Like the monorail, the Universe is incapable of disappointing. We just ignore it a lot, preferring to be grouchy and blinded to all the lovely, deliciously refreshing lemonade that abounds.

Go forth and pucker

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… and I just might need to make a purchase

There is a lot to be said for feeling free enough to choose, for not feeling trapped by obligation, for not making decisions based upon what some rule book says, but on what your heart says when it speaks to you.

What a conccept!

Speak, heart! Or sit up, roll over, do anything but beg or play dead!

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I followed this van into the parking field at Disney’s Animal Kingdom this morning. You think maybe they’re pro-lifers much?

We parked side by side and as soon as the van’s doors slid open, a pile of kids spilled out. I counted five but there were more strapped into car seats inside. They all appeared to be under the age of ten.

I believe the parents were in their mid-30s. The father was rail thin and prematurely gray. His lips were pressed together as he went about the grim business of unfurling strollers. The mother was bloated and harassed. She started bitching at one kid or another the second her battered Keds hit the pavement. The kids have names like "Noah" and "Miriam" (hint: if a random stranger knows your kids’ names, that means you’re picking at them too loud or too much – possibly both).

Fine. You’ve got beliefs and you’re passionate about them. Are you happy, though? Is your mirthless, mean behavior at all Christ-like? Just askin’…

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