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17
Jun
2022
Thursday May 26, 2022
A rhythm was running through my head when I woke up: “Dah dit dah dit dah dit dah…” No words, just a mesmerizing beat.
Ever had one of those earworms that won’t go away?
During my shower, a word inserted itself to the relentless rhythm: “Patsy.” Then the rest of the words came trickling back: “Patsy Atsy Or-ee-ay… Workin’ on the railroad.”
I cannot imagine where that memory came from. It wasn’t in any of my dreams that night. The last time I remember singing it, I was a teenager, sitting around a campfire, each of us trying to holler louder than everyone else.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Earworms, hymns, interchangeability
20
May
Thursday May 19, 2022
I don’t live alone anymore. For the past few days, I have shared my home with a wasp. A black-and-yellow wasp, that is, not a White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant WASP.
I don’t know how this particular insect got into the house. I keep my doors closed. I have screens on all my windows. Nevertheless, the other day, a wasp came buzzing into my office. It circled around me a few times, settled on my screen, watched the cursor go by, circled me again, peered at my face, and flew off.
It did a similar routine that evening, when I was cooking supper.
Almost as if it was looking for company.
I wonder if it’s lonely.
Tags: prayer, lonely, Wasp
13
Thursday May 12, 2022
We all know about life’s major decisions. You know this decision will affect you for the rest of your life.
I am only realizing, late in my life, that smaller decisions, things I didn’t bother thinking twice about at the time, can also affect the rest of one’s life.
When I was ten, I regularly went to a barbershop a couple of blocks away. The barber kept a stack of comic books for his customers to look at while they waited.
I got hooked on Batman. I loved the way he dispatched his foes with a single mighty uppercut that came all the way up from the floor. Ka-Pow! Blam! Smash!
My family moved away from that barbershop, but I never lost that mental image of Batman’s invincible fists.
Tags: wisdom, Batman, cooperation
Thursday May 5, 2022
The coyotes were howling on the hill above my home, the other night. A. howl echoed through the woods. Then another. And several more. Accompanied by a multitude of something like barks. Punctuated by a whole series of high-pitched yips, which I assumed was coyote pups joining in with their elders.
Not long after, a magnificent full moon rose over the hill.
I’m sure some of you immediately thought, “They were howling at the moon!”
No, they weren’t. They started howling long before the moon appeared.
Tags: logic, moon, Coyotes, reasoning
3
Thursday April 21, 2022
I remember the night like yesterday. Our daughter Sharon called from Edmonton. “It’s over,” she said, and started sobbing.
Sharon was in her mid-thirties at the time. “Finally, one of the in-vitro fertilizations worked in a petri dish. Three cell blobs were implanted and my body registered the appropriate hormonal response. I was pregnant after almost a year of trying.”
She named the three “blobs” – properly, blastocysts – Huey, Dewey, and Louis. Because A, B, and C, or 1, 2, 3 sounded too generic.
Because of her age, hers was considered a “high-risk” pregnancy. She had ultrasound tests almost weekly.
And then one week, there were only two blobs left.
And about a week later, the ultrasound showed no blobs at all.
That’s when Sharon called to say, “It’s over.”
Tags: Pregnancy, childbirth, in-vitro fertilization