FOUR SIBLINGS, FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE

Four siblings, four different people.  All sitting together sharing experiences that touched them differently although they originated from the same source.  Same mother, same father, same extended family, same house.  Parents shared same cultural background, same language, same religion and same socio-economic status.  Range in age from 63 years to nearly 75.  See one another around the same table approximately 1 time per year, all together in the same general geographic area of their upbringing.  They have a great time exchanging stories.  The same stories that siblings all around the world recount when they get together.  Those of you who have siblings and get together with them know what that means.  Most of the time we get together, do what we like to do, eat, drink and be merry, get up, leave and don't reflect on the change that may or may not have occurred during the gathering.  This evening was a little different for me.  When my brothers left and returned to their homes, I was left with my spouse, the lead cook for the affair, my sister, the host of the gathering and my brother-in-law, the long time spouse of my sister who, of course, also hosted the gathering.  Three of us were still sitting around the table, relaxing and participating in some post - postprandial reflections.  My brother-in-law who was working the automatic dish-washing machine said "You four are so different from one another."  Our reaction was "We are?"  His come back was, "You are.  My sister and I are were the only two children in the house.  We are really quite similar in our ways.  You however are outstanding in your differences."
That was an interesting thought.  I never really thought about it.  But I did then.  So we passed it around a bit and decided that there was some truth to the observation.  We did not come to any earth-shattering conclusions, but we will not soon forget the observation nor the meditative conversation that followed.  We also walked away from the table convinced that Brother-in-law was right.  The #1 and the #2 are really quite different in many ways, though they are alike in many ways.  However there is no denying that they have many points of differentiation.  #3 is different from #1 and #2 in that there is a great difference in her personal approach to life.  She communicates more through artistic expression than any of the others.  She also joined the family a little later.  She followed a child who required special needs from our parents.  (This child was #3 in birth order but is no longer with us.)  She was also the "baby of the family" for nearly 5 years.  Then came #4.  He is the gentle giant of us all.  Our father died when #4 was 12 years old.  He also grew up outside of the prolonged, direct influence of the eldest son, #1.  He is gentle and generous and loving.  He is also our token "lefty."  #1 and #2 made him that way.  Give him credit, he has enough gentle love in him to laugh about it with us, even though he says that it made him crazy.
I close this thought with the assurance to you all that these four people are in love with one another.  We wouldn't know what to do without one another.  Well, for a little while anyway.  We all have different life experiences.  Many of these experiences are intense enough to write a book about.  No wonder we are different.  Each one has been honed by life on a different stone.  The reason why we are still comfortable with one another within our souls is that we are comfortable with the life-stone that has honed us and we don't begrudge the other the stone that honed him/her.  In fact, we thank God for giving us the Grace to be comfortable with what we have, including the Grace to be comfortable with our differences.

ONE HANDED CABINET MAKER ... NON DOMINANT HAND

It looks to me like this fellow has two hands.  It does look as though he has but one.  This is a little bit of an unintended follow-up from last night's "Why me?" thought.  It came to me when I was at the church preparing for my presentation on the subject of prayer.  As it turned out, I was stopped by one of our major collaborators for the week-long Adult Faith Formation Week Mini Congress.  This man has one hand, his left.  He was driving his pick-up and met me on the campus of the church where I was setting up my presentation for the evening.  He stopped and I walked up to the window and what do I see but finger food on the passenger's seat.  I didn't  say anything but I could not help but think that this friend of mind drives with one hand, eats and shifts and does a lots of things with just one hand.  Amazing.  Reminds me of a man I knew in my younger days.
There was a young man, a cabinet maker who lost his dominant hand in an industrial accident.  He was plunged into a deep depression by this turn of events and was having a hard time getting out of it.  He had six children to support and didn't have an idea of how to do it with his dominant hand gone.  The priest used to come to his house every Friday evening to play Parcheesi, a board game.  One night the priest told those man that the milk company down the street was in need of a night watchman to watch the horses in the barn over night.  The young man, being a city dweller knew nothing about horses, but because he needed the work decided to try it out.  It was not long after the first night that the fear of the horses themselves (dray horses are not small) and the discomfort of being disabled were too much for the young many to overcome and he had to tell his employer that he had to quit.  This was a hard thing to do because the job had come from a once removed family member and the priest.  About one month later, one Friday night after the Parcheesi game the priest told the man, "On Monday, you come to the rectory (parsonage) with your tools and you will start to work for me."  The young many protested, hemmed and hawed but to no avail.  The priest was adamant.   Monday cam and the young man did not want to go.  He wife gathered up hi tools, put therm in the tool box, closed it, took her husband by the good hand and started to tug him down to the street level where she could begin to conduct him to the priest's residence.
She got him to the job.  He was weeping with so many mixed emotions that it took him  long time before entering to report for work.  When he stopped asking himself "Why me?" he entered into the residence, too his first orders and never stopped working for the priest who saved his life and presumable even that of his family.  That man, Joseph Thibault, my maternal Grandfather re - learned the trade that the accident had taken away from him temporarily and worked tn to the highest professional degree for fifty [50] years from that day until the day he died at the age of 75.

Why me?  Hey, just do something.  You'll know "why me" when you finish.

WHY ME?

I know how to get the answer to that question.  It's not that hard, really.  Here's how I do it.
a.  Stop trying to find the source of the reason.  Like, trying to make it a kind of punishment.  Get off the guilt thingy.  OR, make it an injustice because there might be someone out there in the universe better qualified than you.  OR, anything else that might tend to make you feel uncomfortable.
b.  Stop trying to prove yourself incapable of fulfilling the demands of the situation.  Like having to settle the estate of your deceased parent who died intestate.
c.  Stop worrying about what others will think or will judge about your performance.
d.  Stop locking yourself into a sound-proof box about the position in which you find yourself.  You'd be surprised what you can learn from echos.
E!  Finally, stop asking yourself that silly question.
I personally learned early on that the answer to that question is nowhere to be found other than within myself.  Like, "Why me?"  Let me show you.  Yeah, even You, God.  When I find myself in a "Why me" situation, I get to work so that in as short a time as possible I start to feel comfortable with the path to take.  Once I have decided that I'm going that way, unless you have a bodaciously powerful reason, not an argument, a reason, to dissuade me, then just stand back, because this is now my gig.  Once I have made that step I am sure of at least two things:
1.  50% of those around me will think that I am OK.  The other 50% will think that I am the biggest, invincibly ignorant, incompetent dunce who could have ever been put in the given situation.  Once I have identified those in said camps, I help myself to the assistance of the positives and lift the middle digit to the negatives.
2.  Once the situation has been resolved [This too will end.  Right?] I will have the answer to the question that has only been asked by me once, at the beginning.  Now that it is the end, I know the answer.  
In my life about 85% 0f the time the answer is "I did all right.  There are others who could have done better.  There are others who could have done as well.  There are still others who could have done slightly less well.  There are others who could have failed."  So the reality of the outcome is that I now know a truth about myself that I did not know before I started.  Among those who thought that I would fail there will be some who will have to  admit that I did OK.  Among those who stood behind me at the beginning there will be those who will think that they got snookered.  So, what else is new?  The split will still be about 50 / 50, because some will have changed places.  And me?  I'll be happy that I got through it alive. 
This, my friends is truly my rule of life.  Now, I ask you, why would anyone cry at my funeral?

17,200,000 results (0.29 seconds), BUT NO ME!

Blue is the day.  I put in "365 Thoughts" in the box at Google and out of 17,200,000 hits not a single one about me.  I fished this cheesy little calendar out of there (I think it is a calendar) out of spite, just to show you how jaundiced Mr. Google is against short, fat, ugly, old wrinkled guys who are left to their own writing devices to fool Mother Nature into thinking that what they are doing is feeding the emaciated intellects of the proletariat. I also chose to put this silly little calendar here because it was right up top on Sergei's first page in its significantly oximoronish come-on about "365 thoughts to jump start your day."  Really, now?  WHICH DAY?  Mine, I've got that figured out, maybe.  But are you giving me 365 thoughts for my today?  Isn't that what the cover says?  Looks that way to me.  The other things that got me about this little number is the direction of the 365 thoughts.  Are the thoughts inside the spiraled book and just shivering and begging to be let out to splashily start off my day?  But then again I get the idea that somehow the pages inside, assuming that there are pages inside this sly little contraption, are there for me to write my 365 thoughts inside there to start my day of in a good, productive, happily swishy mood.  365 thoughts per day x 365 days = 133,225 in one year!  17,200,000 possibilities and Google comes up with this?  My "365 Thoughts Emanating from Paul Dion, STL" has got to be at least 5,000 times better that the little thingy in the corner.  Donchas think?  Over 6,000 times people have opened my pages and started their day with a spring to their mental health and a jounce to their good humor cerebral hemisphere.  I tell ya, I gotta stay away from that Google fella. He's a bummer.  Tell you what, let me try again before I hang up.  Now that he knows that I am unhappy [Oh, he knows all right!]he'll probably throw me a bone.  Just a sec' here and I'll be right back.
Yuk!  I put the whole title in the box.  1st page, not too bad. Page 6, a picture of Satchel Paige.  Hmmm.  Page 8, busty woman in a skimpy white bikini.  Well, at least she had something on. Actually, I checked to see if my parent guide was on.  It's not.  So I got lucky.  Typically, I don't go down lower than page 5 because that's about the cut-off for the GP rated stuff.


Did you ever wonder what you would find if you had the time and the patience to get to page 15, 785, 274?


I find that such a sweetly frightening thought that I'm going to leave this right here.  I'll bet that my crystal meth impregnated follower will be able to tell me what's on that page when I open my comment section in the morning.  Heeee!
Bring it on, Lad.  


BTW, I like this one.  I hope you did too.

ARE YOU LOOKING TO LOOK, OR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR WORK?

I had some fun the other day.  It rang a bell the timber of which I had not heard in a long time.  So I figured that I would enjoy myself and lent an ear to the person who was ringing it.  It was shiveringly gratifying. I live in a ""Senior citizen" Mobile Home Park. I did say senior, not senile.  On numerous occasions, maybe 14 or 15 times per year I get telephone calls from representatives of construction companies who want to inspect our home for free.  Until last week, I said "no" every time.  Sometimes I would get sassy and retort "Nice of you to tell me that your here in the park a lot.  I never charge for people to look at the home and no one ever asks me to pay for the privilege."  One or two of them actually laughed.  One of them was enough of a dunce to say, "Is that a "No?"  I was brash enough to say, "Listen closely, the next sound you hear will be the clicking confirmation of my 'no'."  Anyway, I told the representative who called that I would consent to a free home inspection.  We set up an appointment and he came.  Nice lad, actually.  I was working at my desk, and he could see that.  I was polite but short.  He wasn't getting the hint.  In trying to sell me, he was managing to increase my blood pressure to dangerous levels.  So I simply said, "Isn't your purpose to do an inspection?  Go do it, I am busy."  When he left to go outside I gathered myself and reminded myself that it was my fault that he was here, ONE.  TWO, I  said "yes" because I wanted to have some fun.  So, I gathered myself and prepared for his re-entry.  The fun started when he asked that the Voice from the Kitchen be present.  I told him that I knew why he was here and that the conversation would be short.  I sweetly asked if he wanted a glass of cold water.  He politely refused. I asked if he wanted to sit down.  He suggested that he show me what he had found. There was more fluff than substance except for one factual defect.  He gallantly said that they could help me out of this "jam" for the paltry sum of $750.00.I said that I would willingly smoke one with him if he would share it, but not for that price.  What happened next was really great.  He called his manager, called him sir and everything, gave him a flowery description of the penurious state of our living situation and came back to me with a bottom line of $525.00. 
I agreed with him that the problem had to be repaired.  I figured I'd try to stretch  the game out into extra innings, so I said that I would consider it over the weekend [this being Friday and all] and give him a call on Monday.  He said that the company had a policy that I had to pay $55.00 to hold my place in line.  "So," says I, "you don't want me to call you on Monday?"  He wasn't having any part of that.  He could see his commission disappearing around that bend in a big, bad cloud of dust. So he calls Mr. "Sir" again and says that I am hanging on to my etchings of Hiram Ulysses Grant with fist clenched so tightly that he's going to have to slay me to get one of them.  Now, this is fun.  He keeps his composure and tells me that it is OK to make my decision known on Monday.  We shook hands and smiled at one another, wished one another well and parted ways.
The moral of the story is, if you don't want me to enjoy myself at your expense, tell me what you want straight as an arrow. I'll tell you back where I stand with your statement and then we'll both know that neither I nor you is tinkering with me.  When I look for work, I tell the prospective employer, "I'm looking for work."  I don't ask. I always get a reaction.  Sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, sometimes inviting.  It doesn't take long.  
The warning in the story is twofold.  To "Juniors:  Don't mess with us Seniors.  Believe it or not we know more than you do.
Seniors: Never give the upper hand to Juniors.  Remember, you know more than they do.  
Salespeople:  If you're having a good day, drop on by my place.  I can cure that for you.
The end of the story is that on Monday, the company called me and I said that I was not buying the service.  The person on the telephone just said, "Thank you for considering us."  
Nice touch.

STAND ON ONE FOOT, THEN ON THE OTHER...

First I stood on one foot and then on the other. 

I never did find out on which one I felt the better. 

So, then I tried to lean with my right side on the wall. 

I shifted to the left side of my body and that was all. 

How can a person who is sitting on a writer's block

Go inside of his head and pull an idea out of stock? 

Ideas are always teeming, streaming and flowing. 

It is the breath of Spirit that just isn't blowing. 

So here I sit, first on one cheek then on the other 

Never really comfy neither on the one nor on the other. 

It is never easy to sit and invent tergiversations 

And it is sinful to manufacture and weave prevarications. 

Rather than stress my cerebral synapses into bifurcation 

I turn to the jubilation, exhilaration and satisfaction 

 Of turning to celebrating relaxication through horizontalization
While praying for the tantalization 
Of matutinal revivification.

SOUVENIR -- ISN'T THAT FRENCH?

Souvenir is a rather complex word in the French language.  It is a noun with many meanings, some of which are rather philosophical and some which have fallen into complete desuetude.  It is also a verb that is what is called, "essentially reflexive."  It's like calling our crazy-bone the same thing.  Another interesting thing about this word is that it looks like it comes from the marriage of two Latin words, the first of which means "under" and the other "come." So, whatever that means when you talk about remembering is too far beyond me at this late hour to get into.  Besides, I do know that in English "Souvenir" means money spent for some mysterious reason that I have still to fathom.  It is one of those things that has become so automatic in our culture that not too many people think about the meaning of their actions.  Every time someone comes back from the far corners of the world and gives me a token "souvenir" I invariably ask myself, "Now what am I supposed to be remembering?"  Not being a person who very easily drags the past along with him into the present, and even less into the future, souvenirs are quite a challenge.  Now, if I have that attitude about my past, I want to know what that says about my attitude about your past visit to the land where whale teeth make jewelry.  I can't help it.  If I bring something home for you from the moon, let's say, what am I asking you to remember (souvenir)?  You weren't on the moon, so that's a blank.  Maybe I hope you'll remember that I went to the moon and was lucky enough to get back?  Maybe I want you to remember that the moon is not really made of green cheese?  I just told you my age with that last one, right?  I don't have any souvenirs of that, except the one at the top right of the page.  1978 that was!  Don't forget it.  Maybe if I give you a souvenir I want you to remember that I remembered that I would tickle you into remembering that I remembered to bring you something from the moon that would help you to remember that I remembered to make you remember by taking up more space on your nick-knack shelf?  
The kicker to this thing is this.  Our memories are deteriorating so fast that when we travel we forget some rather important stuff and it is lost forever.   But we don't forget to remember to make your remember that we remembered to make you remember that we remembered.  What?
Last part of the thought is this:  I know that the Voice from the kitchen doesn't agree with this.  So just don't tell her that I said this.  Besides she has already bought you all a French Fry from La Salette so that you can ...  you got the picture.  
PS:  We have 3,000 photos that you just HAVE to see.  The golden age of digital cameras with rechargeable batteries that NEVER die.  

COMPUTERS DON'T COMPUTE

Computers do not computer.  Computers do not "ordinate."  Computers are not feminine.  Computers are not masculine.  Computers, as smart as we may think they are, are not epistemological.  [I made that one up.]  For all I know, they may be מחשב. 
Whatever they are, the one I am using now just refused to recognize the font with which I started this composition.  I am telling you, I did not make any changes to the font setting.  The מחשב decided to do its own thing, without my permission.  Worse yet, it is not even taking the easy way out and begging for forgiveness.  So what started out to be a cute little story about the idiosyncrasies of computers just went off on its own tangent and I am left here trying to figure out how to get back to the starting line  because of an idiosyncratic מחשב.  In the name of peace and harmony I am going to let it [notice I did not switch to feminine] do its own thing while I catch my breath and tell you what I started to tell you from the moment I wrote the title.  
The first paragraph is all truth.  Each little sentence about what computers are not, is a comment on the name by which computers are known in several other languages.  We call them computers, because we put the emphasis on the mathematical prowess of the invention.  The French call them "organizers" thereby eschewing the mathematical prowess and emphasizing the logical magic of the invention.  Some languages call them "computers" but with a word that is sometimes feminine and sometimes masculine.  {Yeah, don't forget that "feminine" and "masculine" are grammatical realities, not human ones.}  No matter, they can sometimes be rather baffling.  Now, here's the root of the story.
Yesterday, a laptop in our household stopped typing.  No provocation.  No altercation.  Nothing.  Just that all of a sudden the keyboard and the trackpad stopped functioning.  Yep.  Just laid there and dared us to bring them back to life.  Hoo Boy!  What a nerve wracking 30 minutes that brought about.  Long story short, I called my son, he told me to Google it.  I Googled it and it worked.  The directions I found actually were a solution to the problem.  But I must say that going in I was rather dubious about the validity of the process.  But, rather than thinking of $$$$$, I figured I would pass the time trying out the proposed process of bringing the laptop back to full revivicence.  [I made  that one up too.]  It was written in Google to, 1. Remove the battery.  2. disconnect the external power source.  Now comes the killer, 3. Push the on/off switch down for one minute (be sure that it is ONE minute.).  Now you see why I was dubious.  Carry the thing across town away from all electrical sources and press the on/off switch for one minute.  Hunh?  I call my mind back to the picture of the $$$$$.  I don't like the ugliness of the picture, so...
I get out my stop watch.  I poise my finger over the switch, I start the clock, I press the switch.  I'm so far gone that at the 50 second point I decide to go for 64 seconds, just for good measure.  64 ... scrreeech.  Phew.  Made it.  Now let's see.  Battery reinserted.   Power plug reinserted.  I check Google to see if it is OK to press the power switch again.  No instructions.  I figure I'll give it a shot.  Press. Stare at the monitor.  Glare at the trackpad.  Cross my fingers.  Hold my breath.  Control the curses that are bubbling up in the esophagus.  Now, look at that.  It's all lit up.  I put my finger gently on the "J", yep, I remember it was the "J".  It worked!  I'll be damned, it worked!  Besides, It is now 30 hours later and it is still working.  
Now, do you doubt that computers don't compute?  To fix the idiots, you deprive them of power and them depress the power switch to "ON" for one minute so that they can resurrect.  You explain that to me and I will then know that you too are a מחשב.

OFF-THE-WALL THOUGHTS, CONTINUED

Do you know why I have this picture here today?  Hmmm, I didn't think so.  Actually, it is not really symbolic of an off-the-wall thought, I don't think.  Off-the-wall thoughts are random, spontaneously generated electro chemical phenomena that invade our private mental space with no introduction, and just simply refuse to go away.  They're like ear-worms, only more insidious.  I say that because their source remains a mystery no matter how much you try to fathom what happened.  So, I chose this picture just because it is bright and doesn't seem to have much logic, if any to it.  This particular season is rife and ripe for all kinds of spontaneous memory activity for me.  It is about this time that I get closer to going to Massachusetts and that always brings me closer to all kinds of crazy mental gyrations.  But not always having to do with the East Coast.  The other day, for instance, I was thinking about Cape Cod when out of the blue ( I think ) came this picture of a lady who was a passenger of mine when I was driving the van for the medical transportation company.  It happened so fast that I immediately thought that she had died and was telling me goodbye.  I decided to check it out.  Sure enough, I was spot on.  Believe it or not, this happens to me often.  I think of people at the oddest times.  Rarely at night.  I don't have time for thinking at night.  That's the time I save for sleeping.  So don't you try invading my grey matter after such and such an hour, sweetie pie!  It's not always the dead ones who knock on my door.  Lots of you live people do it to.  I never have a way of knowing whether it's a good thing or a bad one.  So, out of fear of the truth, I just go take a cold shower and hope that you'll leave me alone.
For me, it's a telepathic phenomenon.  I believe in that kind of communication.  I believe that we are all connected spiritually and that we have the duty to care for one another by keeping ourselves at peace with ourselves so that we can be at peace with the human community.  It is also for me a deep religious conviction that we have to keep ourselves as righteous as possible for the good of one another.  This makes so much sense to me religiously, that I have come to understand the value of such a conviction for everyone, religious or not.  One of the big questions I have is this: "I am so friendly to the free spirits all around the place, why do I have to stare at my computer screen for so long before I can even decide to touch the keys?  Can't they pitch in and help me out?  Luckily I don't have that problem very often.  Besides, ya know what?  The idea for tomorrow has just now flitted across my mind.  It's a story that will surprise most of you, I think.  It has to do with a computer problem that is so mysterious that I have to talk about it.  You'll see, it's an interesting one.
So until then, "Sweetheart, Aloha, from the bottom of my heart."

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR OFF-THE-WALL THOUGHTS?

This resembles an off-the-wall-thought that I had the other day.  It was really something that I had not expected, thence, off-the-wall.  I could carry on quite a bit about the expression itself, but that is not my mood tonight.  Tonight I am in a spiritual mood, without being too Catholic.  That will come tomorrow and the depth of my spiritual side will spill over.  But for now, it's just electro-chemical impulses and synapses.  I had a project to do that was not really connected to anything because the person(s) to whom it should have been connected were not in the mood for this type of effort.  So, because I had the thought, I went and fished it out.    This design is what I found somewhere and it fit the 

vagaries of my pinging mind perfectly at the 

moment.  In fact, I still like it.  Before too long I

had it under control and I was on my way, making 

a nice Power Point Presentation of some aesthetic value and serious subliminal symbolism as well.   I leave it to you to figure out what you would do with this design.  At the time this was all happening, I could not help but think that think that this was someone else's off-the-wall thought at some time in the past.  This poor "thought" was out there wandering about in desperation wondering if another random, off-the-wall companion would meander by and "hook-up" [21st century speak] and make something happen. It happened.  Let me fish out the beginning of the end for our friend the lost random thought here.

So, not bad, eh?  The deeper you go, the better it get because the upper left quadrant gets to serve a marvelously utilitarian and aesthetic role.  Maybe you'll see it someday.  Now you're saying, OK, so he discovered something from out of the fourth lateral dimension.  Pretty interesting but what does he do with people.  You know, living beings?  You wanna know?  In 24 hours or so go check this out and you'll know what i do with living beings.  In some ways it is not so far fetched as this one where inanimate realities took front an center.  

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES --- 86,400 SECONDS

Why wait a day?  What's with the "day" business?  What if Google had to wait a day before a difference happened?  Why hasn't "difference" been described?  Has anybody got the courage to say what a "difference" is?  Oh, OK smarty pants, I mean other than the answer to a subtraction calculation.  Besides, has it ever taken you a day to make a difference in subtraction?   I'd be willing to take a bet that if it did, you'd still be in second grade trying to figure out how to make a difference a lot fast than in a day.  Let me tell you how fast it takes Google to make a difference.  I'm going to put this question to Google right now: "Number of cities that have a "Hartford Street" in them".  DONE  --> I want you all to go outside right now and shout that Google is a fraud.  After five minutes of  search and switch and all that kind of stuff, it became clear that Google doesn't know the answer to my query.  It's got to be the Russian influence.  I'll bet that there isn't a single Hartford Street in all of Russia.  But I digress...
The real reason why I was asking the question about difference is that this thought sliced through the carapace of my coconut today.  I have taken about 1,100 photos over the last 15 days.  Besides, I have been given another 700+ from the technician who worked with and for us in France.  So, nearly 2,000 photos.  Many of them taken seconds apart.  All of them so similar, yet each one distinct and ineffable in its own existence.  Like the two featuring the Voice from the Kitchen, taken not five seconds apart.  Those of you who may know a thing or two about photography know that 5 seconds is like waiting the proverbial 24 hours.   (A day, right?)  In those two pictures, some of the discrepancies are gross, others are quite fine and almost subtle, but discernible just the same.  It turns out that mother nature has her quick turns just like her children.  I am mentioning this because as we go through life, we rarely stop to think about this phenomenon.  We rarely stop to think that from one fraction of a second to the next there are millions of distinct changes that have taken place.  In the past there were deep thinkers who accepted this as being the truth.  Intellectually they had come to know that there is almost no measurable time between one state of being and the following one, in the same entity.  (The phenomenon of flowing water was the basis for their comparison.  Like "Pantha Rhe) In this day and age we grow up with "instantaneous" change.  We don't even act surprised when Google tells us that it collected 752,376 responses to our query in .0003 seconds.  The only time we would be affected is if the measure increased to .0006 seconds.  Then we would get nervous and start doing all kinds of loopy things to make our computer go faster.  
I therefore have decided to just live with it.  If things really ever slow down, I'll be glad.  It will give me the opportunity to not be late for my funeral.  That will be good.  You can't cry at a guy's funeral if he gets there on time, right?

WHO ARE THE 5 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE?

Do you dare to name them in public?  Of course, I'm not afraid of that.  It's naming them in front of family that scares the daylights out of me.  Ok, how about the top ten?  Oh, well, that's a little more comfortable, especially in front of family.  Uh, is it OK to ask if you want them in descending or ascending order of influential impact?  Sure, it is OK to ask.  You can ask all you want.  Is it OK for me to answer?  
You know, there are some difficulties in the details of this question...no I take that back, they are not in the question, they are in the minds and hearts of the people who carry this information around in their minds and hearts all the way to the grave.  We all do it.  I've been thinking about how daring I should be about this topic.  I've been lying in bed wondering how you all would feel when I declared that one of the top five was one [actually 2, tied for 4th] of our baby-sitters.  I still wonder if I should actually publish this.  I suppose I should have expected to have to cross the freeway on stuff like this when I got this crazy 365 Thoughts bug in the first place.  Stuff gets hairy.  
So, anyway, now you know that I have the thought.  I have told you.  If I declare my top five, I will not lie [actually because of the tie, there are 6].  I am also telling you that I want to respect your feelings and I just want to have you respect the fact that sometimes there are some thoughts that can cause discomfort.  I guess it is important for me to tell you that it is a mind-set that I have had for many, many years, but that I only now put it on the table. 
I finally decided to take the first step.  I figure that I had better publish something about this before one of the remaining beings is still around...and he's 86 and having physical troubles.  He is also within my reach these days, so I decided that I may as well go public about him, without getting mushy and weak-kneed about the whole thing.  Besides, he isn't the # 1.  I don't have to name the # 1 because those of you who know me already know who it is.  Those of you who follow this blog should also know by now.  So now I have stepped off the first step.  So you've got EFR Dion.  If you didn't, you haven't been listening.  The Baby sitter in # 4 position is Shirley Dame.   She was not only beautiful, he was loving and kind.  I have since come to know that it is perhaps more that she was beautiful because of her loving-kindness and not loving and kind as the after-thought. You know what I mean.  How many of you know "Beautiful" people who are never going to take home the blue ribbon for being among the top ten best looking results to come out of God's oven?  So Shirley is tied for 4th.  The # 2 slot goes hands down to Joseph Thibault.  The most efficient iron-hand in a velvet glove that I have ever known.  The wonder about him is that the velvet glove was not woven from "political" sweet-talk.  Nope.  It was all truth.  It was the warm part of the cold, hard truth inside. Joseph was my maternal grandfather.  
The # 5 on the list is the 86 year old guy I'm talking about.  His name is Maurice Cardinal, La Salette Missionary Priest.  The best.  
So that leaves # 3 and # 4.  I'll just say that there are no surprises there.  Just insert the names and you'll be right.  
Finally, if anyone knows where Shirley is, maybe I should tell her what she accomplished some 65 years or more ago.  That would make her somewhere in the 80 or 90 range.  Despite that, I ain't scratching her off the list. :-)-- Ha, and you thought you could negotiate something, eh?! Heee!
Take it easy, boys and girls.  
I have to confess.  It is now time for me to throw myself into the cuddly arms of Morpheus who happens to be in the # 1 spot at this very moment.
I put the Japanese Kangi symbols for man and woman up there for this presentation for anonymity's sake.  It took me a long time to figure out how the Japanese and the Chinese got around to making these stick figures mean what they mean.  You care to take a whack at it without Googling it?  Have some fun, give it a try and tell me.  I won't jack you around.  I'll tell you the truth.

48 HOUR WORKWEEK -- GOOGLE-IZED SERMONS -- FREE MEALS, AND...???

BOYCOTT ST. MIDAS OF THE GOLDEN TOUCH...
So, you think this is funny?  Try this on for size.
Yep.  That's next.  The National Brother Hood of Basket Passers.  Location of brick and mortar headquarters as yet undetermined.  Location of website presently under construction.  There is some hope that it will be a .org but the determination of whether or not the union dues will qualify for benevolent contributions to an eleemosynary institution has not yet been defined by the prominent secretary of the Treasury, descendant of King Solomon, Geitner.  It has been determined that since the publication and celebration of the august and infallible monitions about organized labor promulgated by His Highest Reverence Pope Leo XIII, of inestimable memory in his quasi divinely inspired encyclical "Rerum Novarum", the time has been signaled by the behavior patterns (The "Signs of the Times") of the members of the Episcopal College domiciled in the United States as being ripe for the oppressed and repressed sacerdotal class of the Kingdom located in these contiguous legal entities denominated "dioceses" to exercise their Ecclesiastically given right to organize.  We, the enslaved members of this downtrodden class of servants of God do protest and confess that the brotherhood that we are presently forming is for the very best interests of the Catholic Church and its ever faithful adherents.  This brotherhood will be strong in defining the requirements that all candidates for ordination will of necessity possess before going on to the anointing of their palms.  We will also install a process for the careful choosing of pastors, beginning, of course, with the non-negotiable practice of strict railroad line seniority rules for the promotion to the "plum" parishes.  It is also determined that four weeks of vacation and a five year wait between sabbatical years need to be revised.  Eight weeks of vacation are required to maintain a fair balance between mental stability and the demands of the celibate state.  Three years between sabbatical time is required to assure the updating of the current world exchange rates of prime currencies and the true values to be found in the world pool of tourist sites.  Since job security is important to all the humble vassals of the bishop, no outside visitors will be allowed to perform any sacraments, at any time except vacation, in any of the churches that fall under the aegis of the most reverend pastor in charge.  Actions of this sort will be deemed to be Unfair Labor Practices and will be reported "Quam Primum" to the "Officium Laboris Defendendi" for "Late Sententiae" redress and "Multae Punitivae, graviore grado" will be levied against the bishop and redound to the offended parish.  Omnia Haec opera, et quidquid alterum, will be described in detailed and minutely edited and revised (without page illuminations by the pious monks of Saint Bernard) without possibility of redaction for a fixed period of 18 months.  
Ergo, quid dixi, dixi...and if you don't agree, after my friends Richard "Razor Blade" Ricardo, Larry "Lead Pipe" Laryngheahl and Sean "Shiver my Shiv" Shaughnessy visit you, you may change your mind.  So bishops, you might want to start thinking about the future of that funny hat you parade around in...and don't go thinking that you can beat us with hollow crosiers.   Our umbrellas are shorter and quicker.  
Hey, Dion, What's yer beef?  If the cops and the teachers can do it, so can we.  

SUNDOWN ON CAPE COD -- HUH?

Yes, it's real

Funny how two weeks in the high Alps can make you think of screwy things.  Like for instance, if I told stories about watching sunsets on Cape Cod, would anyone believe me?  I have to admit that I myself was rather surprised to have to believe that there are, in fact, sundowns that can be viewed and enjoyed on Cape Cod.  As a matter of record, I can attest to seeing many Cape Cod sundowns at least as beautiful as the one pictured here.  The earth is a rather challenging place to inhabit, I must say.  Sometimes East is East and West is West, but there are times when you wonder.  Like sundowns on Cape Cod.  Or, and you've heard me say this before, turning toward the Pacific Ocean because that's where the water is in Massachusetts.  That's when it's "U-Turn time" in California.  You have all heard about the sundowns on Manila Bay and on Moana Loa Beach in Honolulu.  I don't want to spoil your life, but the map does very interesting things to your mind when you look these places up.  So don't look them up for sundowns.  Just go and enjoy them.  Like Cape Cod.  Don't sit there trying to figure it out.  Just go and thank God and Mother Nature that they are treating you to something special.

FIRST ONE UP AND LAST TO SLEEP, AND DANGEROUS EVEN THEN

Sunrises and sundowns in the high Alps are something else to Ooohh and Ahhhh about, but in a different way.  There are many aspects to the phenomena there, but the most common one, I think, is the slow unveiling and veiling that takes place every day right before your very eyes.  In the morning the majestic needles of the sky-scraping monsters shed their grey veils first.  Sometimes it is with the arrogance of a femme fatale before a brilliant, fiery, golden orange klieg-light.  Never does the arrogance last long.  Slowly, the demure grey returns and the only driving force of the day takes over to make everything the different shades of ashen grey to which we are all accustomed.  That too is not a permanent state.  Slowly the curvaceous ladies-in-waiting from the early AM begin to get their turn on the ramp.  Their points of beauty start to take on the shimmering and gleam of the departing sun for a swan-song while the morning princesses try vainly to expose what little bit of finery they have in a last-ditch effort to make an impression.  One has to wonder if they will ever learn.
Whether it is over water or over a fluffy bed of lazily wafting fog, the sun pats the crown of the proudest of the proud, the vigilant, ever staunch guardians of the territory that lays at their flank.  It matters not whether the inhabitants on either side are friendly to one another or just downright indifferent.  The Massif is always there.  Dauntless.  Non-negotiating.  Sometimes, like this one, claiming innocent lives for who knows what God.  But the majesty only gets better and the relationship with the lesser creatures takes on an aura of great respect.  That is perhaps why paeans like this one are produced in homage to the creator who gave them their purpose and who maintains them on the job.  Mother Earth and her children need them.  Even if only to appreciate the majesty, the grandeur and the beauty that they bring to our lives.  Last week one of them teamed up with the fog-bank to give us this sign of hope.  Enjoy it.

GET UP EARLY AND GO RAINBOW SURFING IN THE ALPS

FRENCH FRIES -- FRENCH CHEESE, WINE, BREAD AND RAY WINGS FOR LUNCH

I have just spent 13 full days in France.  When you're poor,                                  

that's all you can spend.  When you are spending nothing but time, like everything else, you have to devise ways to make it interesting.  I don't have to tell you that spending for stuff that you already have or for stuff that you NEED is no pleasure whatsoever.  So, what I do to alleviate my penurious status is to enjoy the creation about me.  We all have some of that.  No matter where we are.  The easy part about creation watching is that you don't have to travel to get there.  Of course if you have traveled already to get where you are to begin your random spending, then a slice of the interesting part  has already been spent.  Nevertheless, not really too much has been lost.  In fact, if you traveled in any direction at all, you are bound to find something to spend your time on.  

It used to be that spending your time on an airplane was rather satisfying.  The working crew was all female of a certain age, minus a few years.  So the spending spree started quite early in those days.  Now, with the degradation of our national values regarding the inherent beauty of the lithe, young female, spending time on an airplane is best invested in a good book (paper or electronic will do) and or sleep.  Either way, you come out ahead.  It also makes you ready to start spending wisely and with more enjoyment once you remove your now nearly pretzel shaped body from the tight interior of the sleek titanium tube.

Before we got to France we landed in Detroit and in Amsterdam.  I'll spare you the details of the first two since I didn't spend much of anything there.  What I did spend in Amsterdam was interesting from the point of view that all the "Dutch Uncles" I saw were not yet old enough to grow a beard, let alone smoke a fancy S shaped Meerschaum pipe.  I wonder what it takes to reach 30 in Holland?  So, I saved myself for a little more spending in France.  This is the land of my forebears, if not my teddy bears.  So I happily boarded the plane headed for France, despite the stewardesses of a "certain age" being in the majority.  I planned on investing in some sleep rather than spending foolishly.  Good move actually.  When I left the tightly circumscribed interior of the shiny tube, I started spending right away.  It was so different.  Good looking people all around.  Men and women. Hey, this was neat.  Different hair styles.  Different manner of dress.  Men, young and old actually had their trousers tied around their waist.  Women had dresses or skirts on.  Now I was spending big time.  Every chance I had I would stop to ask for directions.  I didn't really have to, but hey, when your spending and you're in the mood, you fall into a state of profligacy and the inebriation that it brings is what makes this kind of spending worth it.  It keeps you awake and it keeps you flying high.  

I did some of my most intense spending on the observation that there were so few obese French people around.  I was really drawn into the spending whirlpool then.  I walked all around, looking for the rare fat French person.  I didn't know what I was going to do if I found one.  But at least, if "getting there is half the fun" I was in to it, having fun.  The problem with spending time is that you don't get a discount and you don't get a lower price for "seeking time."  It's all the same price.  That's a bad feeling, but only when it comes upon you.  Usually it hits you when you started out going to the iced yogurt counter to make your sweetheart happy while she decides to hoard her spending time and spend money instead to keep her innards (you know, those things) happy.  It's not too cool to make her spend time waiting for the "Yahourt Glace" while you're spending time "people watching."  Like this time.  Man, I got the old dressing down for spending too much time in non-sweetheart ways and not enough time spending those dastardly expensive EUROS.  Time is a lot cheaper, and the exchange rate is 1 to 1.  "Merci, Monsieur. 2.00 Euros s'il-vous-plait?" Sounds cool, right? Not when you come to your senses and realize that you just spend $2.75 instead of just 2.00

Maybe that's what keeps the French skinny.  They don't spend 2.00 Euros for frozen yogurt.  By the way, I looked it up.  it is visible and observable that the French are skinnier than we are.  In fact here is a statistic that you can look up.

Percentage of obese people in the USA >>>>> 30.6      ranked   1 in the world

Percentage of obese people in France >>>>>>   9.4      ranked 23 in the world

Here's where I got this information :  http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity

Well, we're number 1 at something, anyway.

40 STRANGERS HAVE BECOME 38 BROTHERS AND SISTERS

NO, IT DIDN'T RAIN, NOT THIS TIME

I don't know about you, but when I go somewhere to a convention or some such event, it takes me a while to warm up and get myself going in the new environment.  The Voice from the Kitchen doesn't believe that.  She keeps insisting that from the moment that I arrive in a field of new "flowers" I am an instant social butterfly.  Not really true.  It does take me a while before I warm up.  Like, you know, thirty minutes or so.  

As you know we have been in France now for some ten days and it has been rather comfortable.  It is really strange how well these people speak French.  Boy, there good at it.   Problem is, in this group of 40 there are only about three French people.  The rest are are English, Polish, Angolan, Brazilian...you get the picture.  So anyway we actually have been getting along rather well, thank you.  It's interesting to me how quickly people get used to one another.  I can't figure out if it is because we all know that anybody can stand anything for a short period of time, or if it is really human dedication and attraction.  I know that there are a couple of these 40 people that are in that category as far as I am concerned.  I wonder if they can feel it.  I say that because there are already two or three, I think it is three, whom, I feel, feel that way about me.  In one case it has been so from the very first four or five hours of proximate presence.  As it turns out, after about two days it became mutual.  I am sure that neither one of us is going to cry at the other's funeral.  For the others, like I said, the jury is out.  That's what makes the whole experience  all the more interesting.  On the other hand, I confess to you that there have been some three turn-arounds, from cool to warm and that is quite a wonderful feeling.  It leaves me thinking how that happens.  That's the reason for the wonderful arc-en-ciel picture at the top.  This was taken early this morning.  We were perched on a rise overlooking a deep gulch/valley between the mountains.  It was clear that this was going to be a turn-around day.  We knew that the fog cloud filling the valley would be gone in a short while.  We were absolutely certain that our friendship with the entire environment would be cleared up as soon as brother Sun got his act together clearing this wispy white stuff out of the way.  At a given moment, looking over the sharp decline of our perch we noticed the sun hitting the cloud-fill at just the right angle to cause a rainbow to appear in the valley.  Now, our sure-shot hope turned into sure-shot certainty because the promise of clearing was in the act of nature itself.  Good stuff, this act of Mother Nature and her Sun.  They started out bashful, but in a short time, warmed up and the social butterflies swarmed and swirled and fluttered their wings at one another and had a great day.  No one was excluded from having a comfortable day.  When forty people are in a group that provides them with a common purpose, there is always plenty of comfortable company available.  In my case, if I don't feel comfortable with someone I conform my behavior to fit the situation.  It works.  Sometimes in my life I have discovered one of those turn-around experiences that I have never forgotten.  Perhaps because it's hard to forget all of ONE.  I am learning a lot.  Some of you will get to pick up on some of it.  You'll see, you will come to know that it was worth the experience of finding 38 good ones and only two grey area specimens.  I'll take that ratio any time.  You should too.

EARLY MORNING ALPINE CRISPIES

This is what it looks like at 8:30 AM on a clear, crisp, 40 degree F morning in the French Alps.  All that cloud is, is the breath of the people.  I hadn't seen the condensation of my breath vapor in so long I was straining my cerebellic queevates for a milepost date, all to no avail.  The massive peak in the upper center of the picture is Obiou, famous for taking the lives of some fifty Canadians back in 1950.  It takes a long time before the sun get up high enough to make itself felt in this part of the world.  We Southern California folks don't usually gt to see this kind of beauty at any time.  Not unless we go to the Rockies looking for it.  To experience this is to have a spiritual experience.  There is something about knowing that the sun is warming a large part of the surrounding world territory and leaving me in the cold that is not totally comfortable.  It was cold this morning, believe me.  The spirituality of it all was not lost on me.  In fact it made me want to go to some warmer corner of the world for my spiritual experiences.  Someplace like the Sea of Galilee.  Now that is noce and warm and the sun gets up fiery and ready to go to work.  Now isn't that something to wish for?
You go out at about 4:30 AM in your T-shirt, have a cup of coffee an a croissant or some such foolishly fattening confection and wait for Brother Sun.  I will guarantee that you will not get to see your breath. I so warn you that you may lose your breath at some point during this adventure, but it won't be my fault.  After all, I warned you, didn't I?
I have seen a bunch of nice sun rises, but for sentimental reasons the spiritual ones are the best.  The one at the top of this page ranks among the top ones I've seen.  Beware, though, I have been sheltered from decent sunrises for over about 7 years now.  That happens to you when you inhabit Southern California.  You know what grates on me?  It's that I live in a house from which I can see the eastern extreme of the Pacific ocean out the west-facing kitchen window.  Over the years it has proven to be a great vantage point for watching the evening fog slink in over the lazy land that has already gone to bed.  So that's it for the sundown stuff.  Isn't that why people have west-facing kitchen windows?  I think I'll wrestle with the mortgage company for a refund.  I would do it except that I fear that those bumblers would say something like, "Well, you're not eligible for that since you have an off-setting benefit by the fact that you have an east-facing bay window.  What good it that?  All you get to see out of that window is the slowly awakening fog that slinked past the West-facing window last night that hasn't slinked back into China yet.  Come to think about it, why did I ever buy this house?  There ain't nothin' but fog and low flying evening and morning clouds out there.
Anyway, I'm going to leave you with this for now.  I've been terribly busy running away from my crispy, frost breath for the last week or so.  When I stop that nonsense I'll get back to you.

BONJOUR, MONSIEUR -- UH, UHM, BONJour!

I have been having fun with cultural things ever since I got to France.  I have always prided myself as being comfortable in France and Italy because I speak the language.  So this is France.  Am I comfortable?  Oh, yes.  Also making a lot of funny observations, no, I take that back, they aren't funny observations.  They are factual observations of perfectly correct behavior that triggers a reflex in my funny bone.  The hands-down winner in the category is the little guy who is in the urinal stall next to the one that I chose.  I pull up, get in position, unzip,and before I get 1/8 of an inch down on the zipper, the little guy looks over the partition and says, "Bonjour, Monsieur."  [Hello,Sir.]  So I respond to his smiling face with a chirpy "Bonjour."  Then I turn to business and file it away as being caused by an excess in politeness and respect.  As I stood there I remembered the fact that when we were traveling from Corps to La Salette, everyone who boarded the bus greeted the driver and the driver dutifully greeted them back.  Come on, passengers and bus drivers exchanging greetings?
Then there was the couple of times that I had to stand in line for bus tickets.  I had forgotten how adept the french are in insinuating themselves between you and the shared target destination.  It's really quite humorous.  They know that is is considered rude to cut a line.  They also know that if they do that they will be called out by the person who was cut and be publicly humiliated.  So they slip and slide and every so gently carve out their space right before your unsuspecting eyes.  But not your body.  Your body can feel every single move.  Slightly daring sometimes, smooth and comforting at all times.  They are absolutely ingenious at this kind of behavior.  If they don't succeed in outmaneuvering you, [this is, remember, a "contact" sport] they will, from their frustrated three quarters angle shot sweetly look at you and say something really brilliant, like, "Please permit me to ask a question that will require only 5 seconds."  How are you going to say "No?"
Oh, yeah?  I dare you.
So, not you're going to hear the whole 300 word question, including footnotes and watch the ensuing ticket purchase transaction take place right by your side.  You'll be so flim-flam-bamboozled that some one else from the opposite side will have taken advantage of your hapless situation and proceeded to enter into a transaction ahead of you.  I guarantee that you will be so impressed by the whole sensuous tango of the whole thing that you will not even be angry.  You'll buy your ticket and move on, full of wonder at what had just happened to you.
Therefore, beware of strange things that can happen to you if you ever get to France.  I suggest you come.  The people are more fun to watch than the scenery.