A Couple Quick Things!

I was driving home the other day a but later than I usually do. A man just decided to walk out in front of my moving car. He was jay walking. He could have waited ten seconds. It was a young black male. This happens quite a bit regardless of wherever I live.

What is this combination of young, black & male that makes them so stupid? I don't get it. No Asian females. No old male Mexican-Americans. No middle-aged white guys. I even saw a transvestite in Cincinnati wait for traffic to clear before they jay-walked. I just don't get it.

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When I did get home my was cleaning out the refrigerator. There was a half empty, long since opened bag o some frozen peas. She took the rest and threw them out in the yard for the critters. Anything moist and edible in the desert is precious.

I stood by the window to see which animal would be the first to take a pea.

The End Is Near!

The coming week will be my last week where I am currently employed. Earlier, I announced that my job, along with about 300 others, was being eliminated. Since then, the staff has dwindled down to around less than 200. Some have moved on. Some freaked out and have been sacked.

The commission/incentive dynamic has been gone this past month. Whatever behaviors we choose to use this month will not translate into the commission pay-out next month as usual. The only people hanging on now fall into three groups:

1) Those protecting their eligibility for the severance package payout by not getting a premature termination and,
2) Those who are just doing a good job because it is (and has always has been) the right thing to do, and...
3) A combination of the above.

Personally, it has been stressful but I am also have a blast!

The management and support staff has been visibly reeling from the stress over load that comes with this transition. It's brining out the best and the worst in people. Of course, this situation is not creating the good & bad in people, only bringing out what was always there. Still there are those that just are bearing an unusual weight. For those good people (which are the vast majority), it's hard to see them go through it.

Right now it's like walking around in the bowels of a gutted ship. What remains becomes a stark counterpoint to what was but also a startling harbinger of what is to come.

But in a style true to my employer, they have doing everything to keep peoples spirits up. For example, last week they had a fruit and yogurt bar and yesterday they had a caterer bring in an ice cream sundae bar complete with nuts, hot caramel and fudge, bananas and sprinkles and whipped cream.

In many ways, I'm gonna miss this place!

As the REM song goes:

It's the End of the World As We Know It...and I Feel Fine!

Gone Country

Barry Gibb (of Bee Gee's Fame) has purchased Johnny Cash's old house in Hendersonville, KY. He plans to record a country album there with his own sons.

Honestly, this is great news. It'll probably be great much like early Elton John country music was great. Sir Elton has a better country voice than most. If you don't believe me, listen and be ready to be convinced. So, Barry's considerable talents should bring forth come great music.

But I saw him in a recent interview and he commented that he had always wanted to do a country album and felt that country music was where he has always belonged. What?

After decades of being a pop music icon and being one of the kings of disco now he says this? Is that what pop artists (especially British ones) should do when they burn-out or age beyond their previous pop music demographic?

Sheryl Crow was unavailable for comment.

Someone Is To Blame

Someone is to blame. They say that yawning is contagious. If I had a time-machine, I would go back and find the first person that ever yawned and stop them before they did. I think this would make life better for all of us.

War

Battle of Normandy

The Battle of Normandy started on June 6, 1944
and led to the liberation of France on August 25, 1944.

In less than 3 months....

Casualties
53,700 dead,18,000 missing155,000 wounded
200,000 dead, wounded and missing200,000 captured

according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Normandy

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq since it began 3/20/2003...
Min 38,355 Max 42,747

according to:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Growing Up

Sometimes teenagers act like they know everything.

When I was 14 years old everyone said I was, "14 going on 22".

It's ironic that when I was 22 the woman I was dating said I acted like a 14 year old.

So, you see, in the end it evened out just fine.

Morgan

As I was taking some dishes out of the dishwasher this morning, I removed a ceramic pet water bowl and then a plastic food dish. This plastic dish was something that my wife had gotten from Disney World when we were there last year. It has bright pictures of Disney movie cats on it (except That Darn Cat...an odd omission I thought).

Of course, when you take things out of the dishwasher it is traditional to put them away where they belong. I paused and my mind stared at the dish stumped for a brief moment. This dish belonged to our cat Morgan who died a week ago today.

She was an older kitty, around 19 years old, which is about 93 human years, so these last years with her were precious. Expecting an eventual death is one thing but it only eliminates the sudden shock; it doesn't stave off the sense of loss or the mourning.

So, I as looked at this bowl and my mind caught up with me and turned to the rest of the dishes, memories and feelings of her passed through my heart and head and turned into tears.

There was no place to "put it away", so I set it down on the counter.

My wife and I were with her when she passed. It is not proper nor necessary to tell too many details, but suffice it to say that as my wife held Morgan cradled in her arms, the look in Morgan's eyes turned from concern and confusion into surrender, acceptance and Love.

Being late in the day, we left the lights off and raised the window blinds so she could see the dusk rest on the desert one more time.

Still purring, her eyes looked past the desert, beyond the twilight and towards her own journey of Beauty, Silence and Infinity.

God willing, we will find each other again some day.

Rest assured, I'll have her dish with me.