My Own Bed

Have you ever noticed how good your own bed feels? This is especially true after spending time away from your own bed.

So as not to be understood, there are many very comfortable beds other than my own. In fact, unless I am sleeping directly on concrete, I can make my body find comfort on most surfaces. It is also easy to overcome excessive noise with ear plugs and excessive light with eye patches. Give me a good pillow and I am ready to sleep most anywhere! Since I am overheated most of the time, I seldom become cold at night so room temperature is also not an issue.

What I do hear countless people say is, "It felt so good to get home to my own bed!"

Why is that, do you suppose? I suppose it is because your own bed has its own particular lumps and bumps, even smells. You know exactly where the depressions and indentations are that your body will naturally settle into. You know the feel of your sheets and blankets. You know what your preferences are for color-schemes, going to bed, getting up from bed, thermostat settings, maybe even fragrance choices. Do you like the window cracked open a bit at night? Do you like to go to sleep with a television show or station on? Is there a pet that usually keeps you company at night? So many variables make up a good night's sleep.

There is only one thing I can think of that further enhances the quality of sleep in my own bed..........clean sheets and pillow cases. There is nothing that can compare to the senses' heightened awareness of smell and touch, AND the visual delight that comes with a carefully made and turned-down bed.

One touch of the head to the pillow and it is likely lights out. Hmmm........................................

Good night!

Dinosaur

Last night I knew for sure what I had suspected for some time. I am aging - perish the thought!- and there are times now, when I feel like a square peg in a round hole.

I went with my significant other to watch our daughter perform at the student union of a Big-10 university. It had been years since I had been in a student union - the last time being for a week-long graduate class but it was in the summer, when the student population was greatly diminished.

We walked in at about 4:30, when most classes had concluded for the day and, being a Friday, the students were out in full force, celebrating the end of a class week. The place was full with eighteen, nineteen, twenty-something-year-olds. Their faces were unlined, their voices held the celebratory sounds of party-hearty and they crammed chair after chair around tables to accommodate the arrival of yet another friend. It brought back pleasant memories to the two of us about days of yore, when we were in that same space at another Big-10 university.

We found a table where we had a good line of sight to enjoy our daughter and her quartet's performance, then settled in with beverages, a big bag of popcorn, taking in the sights and sounds of a typical TGIF setting. We teased each other about being old enough to be many of the surrounding students' grandparents, our gray hair, etc. I excused myself to find the rest room and, upon entering, came face-to-face with a full length mirror. Big mistake! What stared back at me was an anthropological dinosaur from the 1970's for sure! Old-fashioned hair style, nylon warm-up suit - colored 1970's green, cloddy running shoes - you get the idea. Nothing hip about this granny. I went back to the table and told my significant other that I was certain I was the square peg in the round hole. We laughed together, an unspoken understanding of what the other felt, and the familiarity felt good. Then our daughter began to sing and we forgot that we were oldsters. We just enjoyed the fabulous music, the high energy around us, and somewhere, deep in our sub-consciousness, traveled back almost forty years. For two hours we were in college once again.

Ah, memories!

The Year Of The Ox

Watching the movie "The Bucket List" gave way to my question - what are the things I haven't done that I would like to do? I don't want to go through the rest of my life regreting not having done this or that. And, I discovered, there is a mental list taking shape - my 'bucket list', if you will.

At the top of my to-do list, for years now, has been to re-unite with some high school friends that I've always considered my true friends in good ol' IHS. Year after year I'd say to myself, "Gee, I wish we could have a reunion." or "I really should try to get in touch with these individuals." And, that would be as far as the thought would go.

Then I saw the movie and the inspiration clicked in my head like a light switch. It took several weeks to search, seek and gather the information but I was able to find sources who could lead me to my former classmates. Just this morning, one of them returned an email that I had sent several weeks ago. I really had not expected to hear from this person and was thrilled to get the correspondence. He said that this is the Chinese Year of the Ox and that a symbol of the Year of the Ox is to reconnect with people from your past. Now that is kismet, I thought.

Will this be the year when we can pull off a reunion among friends who haven't seen each other for almost forty years? Can all the puzzle pieces really fit together to bring together people who live on both American coasts and Asia?

After all, it is the Year of the Ox and, it is on my 'bucket list'!

The Human Touch

Have you noticed that the human element is slipping away from us homo sapiens?

Voice mail instead of phone conversation...........text message in place of a phone conversation........email message instead of a hand-written note. Where did our humanity go? Or, maybe the question should be: Where is it headed?

I must raise my hand as a 'guilty' party to succumbing to the ease of electronics instead of personal contact. There have been times, depending on the situation and person, I will admit to planning on my timing of leaving a message, knowing full-well that I would be leaving a voice-mail instead of reaching the individual. I am not a big 'text-er' but there have been occasions when I've received a text message when I would have really rather had a voice-to-voice contact. There is just something comforting about hearing the voice of someone you love or care for.

That brings me to the fading art of the hand-written note. It is quickly becoming a lost form of communication. I, the lover of the received hand-written note, do find myself sending an email when I know that a personally-penned communication would be more appropriate, but
my perception is that I do not have time to write one. To that I say: Shame on me. As I think through the machinations of writing a note card, there is probably only two to three minutes more involved than drafting and sending an email.

As the King of Siam says in the movie, "The King and I" - "Tis a puzzlement!"

Envious Of Egg Yolk-Folk

Today I went out to lunch with a group of people and was seated at a table of nine. The room we were in was tiny and crowded so it was easy to hear what people ordered and see their food when it was served. I am discovering that I am very envious of folks that eat bacon, sausage, cheese, and, yes, egg yolks. In fact, I had all I could do to keep from displaying some very crude table behavior, which is unlike me. Why, I had to resist the urge to take my fork and steal a sausage link. I had to make my hand stay in my lap instead of snatching the bacon strip from my neighbor's plate. And, worst, of all, I nearly took my toast point and plunged it into the gooey, soft, and warm egg yolk across the table from me. This is all while I am feigning enjoyment of my fake-egg omelet, with spinach and covered with a side-order of salsa.

Now, do not misunderstand me. As a self-cholesterol-reducing crusader, most of the time I would consider my fake-egg or egg-white omelet with spinach, salsa, and, if I'm feeling especially adventuresome, soy-based imitation bacon bits, delicious. Or, at least, that is what I publicly proclaim. But, according to the book that says I should eat what my knuckle-dragging ancestors ate, I am supposed to be able to eat meat and eggs. Where is the fairness in that?

Lastly, while on the topic of forbidden foods, may I say that the soy-based fake ice cream that I am now destined to eat cannot hold a candle to the real, fat-laden ice cream that the others at my lunch table ordered for dessert. You better believe that I bolted out of there before those orders came. The hand holding my spoon was trembling!

Code In The Noze

I have a code in the noze and I am finding that has translated to fuzz in the brain. Now why is that? I usually do not take anything over-the-counter for a code in the noze, preferring for nature to run its course, which typically means that the only thing that runs is my noze.

During the first few dazes of a code in the noze, my brain seemz to freeze up and I feel as if I am floating in a haze, with everything moving in slow motion. Even my fingers act as if they are frozen, moving as sluggishly as my brane. Typing and spelling skillz are not what they shud be, ether. In fakt, the more I think about this, I probably shud not be blogging at all todae.

But, my need to express myself is stronger than mi common senz so I will type on and on and on.

I am pretty shur that I am single-handedly girding the fashul tissu industry, having gone through numerous boxes already. Oh, luk. I cannot spel any more.

And, to think, this is the day that I thought I wood edit my daughter's paper that she will posiblee uze for her doctoral thezise.

Maybe I shud wate until tomorrow?

What, Exactly, Is Fun?

I'm reminded that 'fun' is different for each individual. Of course, the meaning of 'fun' changes with all the different categories of human beings: Age, gender, personality-type, occupation, emotional profile, etc. etc. etc. The definition surely also depends on whether or not a person is healthy, or well-rested.

My significant other and I recently had to decide what our definition of 'fun' is. In the end, we passed up an opportunity to fly, to travel outside the country, soak up a warm sun, and to spend time on the water, which seems a bit odd, since boating figures largely in our stateside lives.

This whole aspect of 'fun' has loomed largely in my life-binoculars today because our 'fun' opportunity would have begun way before the crack of dawn tomorrow. The people we could have traveled with have been discussing this trip for weeks now - planning, packing, laughing together with this invisible bond between them that we voluntarily gave up a share of. I have this sense of guilt because only the tiniest part of me really wants to be there as the adventure begins tomorrow and ends nine days later in the wee hours of the morning.

For some reason, at this time in our lives, the experience we declined does not define itself as 'fun'. Perhaps God will reveal His hand as to why we have elected to 'stay put'. And, I do believe, there is a reason that, tomorrow, we will be here and our friends will be there.

I'm almost hesitant to learn why. Until then, we will generate our own fun, in our own time, in our own way.

Ancora imparo.