Moments of perfection
There are certain times when, for reasons which remain incomprehensible to mere mortals, the stars align, and moments of sublime idealism are achieved. I had such a moment (which actually lasted for around 5-10 minutes) the other morning. I had just finished my morning swim and was on my way to work. As I approached Ina, the light turned green just at the moment I was getting ready to slow down, so I was able to swing onto Ina with nary a hitch in my giddyap (which is pretty unusual, because I almost always have to wait at that light). Just as I was doing so, "Stairway to Heaven" came on the radio, and so I turned up the radio while cruising on down the road. For whatever reason, traffic was light - almost non-existent as I continued on, and the lights on Mona Lisa, La Cholla, and La Cañada all burned with a steady green glow as I held the speed steady and sang these immortal words along with Robert Plant: "If she gets there, she knows, if the stores are all closed, with her words she can get what she came for." Now occasionally, I'll hit one or two green lights in a row on this stretch, but four is pushing it, so I fully expected to hit the next light when it was red. Expectations gave way to bliss, though, as I continued through the lights at Paseo del Norte ("In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, and the voices of those who stand looking") and turned onto Oracle without the slightest pause (other than to make the turn), then made my way towards Orange Grove. "Surely I'll hit a red light there - or at least have to wait for a gap in traffic to make a left turn," I thought, but once again, the Gods smiled down upon me ("Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know. The piper's calling you to join him") and I was able to turn onto Orange Grove without a problem. By this time, the song was reaching its climactic moment ("And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul, there walks a lady we all know, who shines white light and wants to show…") and with one light to go, I wondered if this was going to be the day, and just as I was getting ready to ease on the brakes and slow down for the red light burning ahead of me on First Avenue, it switched to green, I cruised on through, and made my way along Orange Grove to where I had to turn into school, just as the song reached its ending - "And she's bu-uying a sta-airway… to heav-e-en." What a great way to start the day.
Sacrificial Socks
The other day, I was bopping through my postings looking for comments (there actually were a couple) when I ran across one from several weeks ago - when I told the story of my missing socks. Apparently, somebody who works for a gift company was bopping through the website reading peoples' blogs in an attempt to find what they considered to be witty stories about products that the company sells, and when they ran across this entry, they thought it was mildly amusing, and so they asked if I would contact them about receiving a complimentary pair of what they call "Sacrificial Socks" in return for me writing about the "Sacrificial Socks" in a mildly amusing manner. Of course I e-mailed them a message immediately, but I haven't heard back from them since then, so I'm wondering if it got lost in the shuffle and what I should do about it. Because I really, really want a pair of "Sacrificial Socks" even though I have no idea what they are. Also it's pretty much guaranteed to give me something to fill this space with - kind of like what I'm doing right now, even though I haven't actually received anything yet. So we'll just have to wait and see how this all goes down.
An orange by any other name…
I bought a bag of those little oranges called Clementines the other day because they were on sale. So when I got home, Carrie grabbed one out of the bag, but she couldn't peel it because she'd bitten all her fingernails off, so she asked me if I would peel it for her. Of course, I refused. After all, what kind of father would I be if I peeled my child's orange for her. I figured it was one of those "life-lesson" moments where you teach your child to be self-sufficient. I mean, what's going to happen when she's out in the "real world" living on her own and she has to peel an orange and there's nobody around to help her? Anyway, she didn't particularly appreciate the "life lesson" and would have much preferred if I'd just gone ahead and peeled the orange, so I suggested that she post what happened on her Facebook page and see what kind of response she got from her friends. Sure enough, within sixty minutes, she had four responses, all of them highly supportive of her, and highly critical of her "mean Dad, who wouldn't even peel her orange for her." And then there was one girl who really went over the top and said highly critical (and profane) things about me. All because of an orange. It's a mildly amusing world.
700 Club Update
I have no idea what I did to make this happen (or if it was even something I did) but "The 700 Club" is no longer being recorded by my DVR. Hallelujah!
With that, we'll wrap things up until next time, hoping that the wind remains at your back, your nose remains clean, and your sunrises continue to occur with every breaking day.
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