Things To Ponder in Everyday Ramblings

I am posting more often here lately for a combination of reasons… I have a little more time than usual, I have a strong urge to communicate and my usual sources of companionship have been otherwise engaged.

Bonnie Raitt apparently has a new album out with a song on it that has a line… “Something to say and no one to talk to”, I am paraphrasing from hearing it in passing.

I do wonder sometimes if my yearning to write prose and post pictures might be more effectively done elsewhere online but I don’t have the energy or the time to maintain a daily blog with Twitter and Facebook feeds and all the work that has to be done to have a bigger footprint. And besides… I like you guys. :)

Bill Gates is doing a publicity tour for his new clean affordable energy initiatives and is trying to encourage young people to take up the clarion call to become engaged and help solve some of our world’s bigger problems with technology.

He said something in passing on Charlie Rose last week that I thought was interesting…about this idea of us having more and better quality leisure and what we could do with that and he said that people (if they didn’t have to work so hard) could spend more time with lonely older people.

I wonder if I could find someone to visit regularly that would be beneficial in terms of that kind of communication exchange for both of us. Right now it would need to be an arrangement where I wasn’t just giving but also getting too.

Last night I only had two students for my new class and they got lots of attention and I know they benefitted from coming and I enjoyed it. But what they got from me I need to get from someone else…if that makes sense?

There is such disparity in the world in terms of availability of affordable energy, as well as the other obvious things like, food, sanitation, appropriate housing and potable water, oh and access to decent health care… this book on the refuge camp in Kenya is such an eye opener. Basically we really are all the same… we have the same basic needs and desires for safety and comfort and the wellbeing of our loved ones…

I read a profile last weekend about the publicist in New York, Peggy Siegal, who is now 68 but does not look anywhere close to what we would normally assume that age to look like. On her 60th birthday she handed out a pamphlet to her guests with a listing of the 23 professionals that help keep her looking young.

I wondered if there was a yoga teacher in there.

It said at the end of the article that she was sitting down at midnight in a high-end restaurant after an event she arranged to a small bowl of sautéed spinach for dinner.

All that effort and money spent and you are fine as long as you basically don’t eat.

On a more cheerful note it is not raining here. And for the first time in weeks, really, weeks, the ground is dry. I was actually able to sweep my patio this morning without acquiring a compliment of worms and slugs.

It looks like my ability to work at home is going to be curtailed somewhere in the near future. Even more motivation to think about finding something else…it is possible, miracles do happen on occasion or figuring out some way, some practical way to retire early and teach more…

I heard some things today that underscored the fact that my distress and paranoia about my job a few years back were based on fact. There were people actively trying to both terminate my position and make me miserable enough so I would leave.

Eek. Much to ponder here on this beautiful almost kind of sort of warmish afternoon.

Last updated February 25, 2016