Quote For The Day

“Underground nuclear testing, defoliation of the rain forests, toxic waste… 
Let’s put it this way: if the world were a big apartment, we wouldn’t get our deposit back.” 
John Ross

“E.T. Phone Home”

It’s one of those days today.
Fuzzy brained and feeling covered with a big blanket of velour, I know I’m awake yet half of me is asleep somewhere in the cosmos..
What is in retrograde today?
No matter how well I’ve worded or worked, whatever is done winds up having to be redone.
A red sock finds it’s way into a load of carefully sorted whites; buttons pushed to answer phones disconnect instead; in the best of intentions of recycling, checks wind up in the shredder with the envelopes in which they came and books with intriguing titles are begun which seem to have a familiar ring as you delve into the second or third chapter only to find yourself realizing, “My God. I’ve read this one already!”
Yes. Today was one of those days.
An email sent to me by my friend, Carol, made me think enough to want to share with others. 
So, I cut, pasted, eliminated the naggy part at the bottom which usually attempts to guilt you into sending to ‘10 of your best friends’ and threatens with some kind of negative reprisals from the Gods of Bad Luck if you don’t. Then I added a personal note, a quote of my own and, after making sure it was all in order, sent with Light & Love.
Minutes later, I get a reply from my friend, Ben, thanking me for the lovely thoughts and discreetly pointing out a small error in my own quote. “I think you meant to type it differently… not sure,” writes he ever so lovingly giving me a heads up. He knows I’ll go crazy over the mistake if left uncorrected.
I’m a stickler for spelling and live in fear of looking like an uneducated schmuck for ‘putting i before e after c,’ leaving out any of what should be double letters or writing ‘there’ when i mean ‘their.’ 
You get the picture. 
Perfectionism is one of my challenges in many things and the rules in English class still ring in my head.
Yet, as diligent as I may try to be, electronic components of energy zip in and zap my best efforts, sending out half words crunched together, missing first letters of words and a nice word picture of me as either lunatic, space cadet or unintelligent.
“A writer?” I can hear people whisper in my head full of critiques. “Is she delusional?” 
‘Tsk tsks’ slip across the ethernet and I cringe thinking, “I can’t believe I just sent that out! Yeah, great. Nice to be quoted as the poet who can’t spell…or spellcheck!”
I can’t believe that my perfectly worded AND SPELLED missive wound up with a glaring word crunch- in red no less-size 20 type!
What is left to do?
Of course. Out goes the follow up e in which I edit the quote, spell the offending word correctly and fix the wordbotch glitch.
And then thank AOL once again for an oops which gave me yet another opportunity to grow in humility, let go of perfection and practice of patience with the wonderfully flawed process of being human…in an electronic age.

Quote For The Day

“We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.”

– Will Rogers

Quote For The Day & The Gratitude Pool

“There are some days (or some moments in the day) when I’m not feeling grateful for either what i have or what I have escaped.
So sorry to say it -yet it’s the truth.
I’m reminded that there’s gratitude deep down inside me somewhere and it will appear again.
I have the funny feeling it’s going to pop out in feeling funny.”
Florence Ondré

Insult To Injury

Why is it that, when you go to the doctor’s office, you are asked to wait while they take calls.
“We’ll be right with you. Excuse me but I must take this call. This is an important call, just give me a minute here.”
Any of the above statements are generally made while you are standing in some degree of discomfort or doubled over in pain with your head slumped on their desk or counter, which may be the only thing holding you upright.
Well, you think to yourself, it’s probably a really important phone call and after all, you are already there. They certainly wouldn’t keep you waiting if it weren’t important.
And then you think, really this is a good thing, because when you call, you most certainly will want them to take your call and deal with your needs right away too.
You go home feeling safe in the knowledge that you will be treated as well with that kind of attention when you need to call in.
A smile eases across your face and a sigh escapes your lips.
Then the day comes when you are the one calling in.
And what do you get?
“Dr Gotchacovered3waysfromsunday’s office. Hold please?”
You get out, “Hi this is…” before
Bang. They’re off the phone and you are left listening to muzak at loud decibels or advertisements touting the praises of the doc’s many swell services.
Bing! They’re back on the line, “Hi, Can you hold please.”
Wham! Gone again before you can say yea or nay.
You find yourself fighting the urge to reach through the phone to commit a bit of mayhem while la la la la’s run through your brain trying to drown out the tunes you never wanted to hear shrilling out of the earpiece.
They’re back, “Who is this? Hold on. I have to finish the patient in front of me.”
Click.
WTF?
And here you are in the quagmire of thoughtlessness at the intersection “Rudeness and Whine.”
You sit stunned, wondering if is it just you, did your deodorant fail or was your breath offensive.
Ultimately arriving at the corners of “Conclusion and Don’ttakethispersonally.”
It is them. 
Their system of multitasking doesn’t work. Trying to be all things to al people does not work. It makes them cluttered, incapable and non efficient when thinking they’re perfectly so. 
A thought physicians and your office people: 
“Put one person at the desk and one on the phones, puleeeez.”
They just don’t get that finishing with one person at a time and giving your full attention to that patient will get things done more efficiently and effectively with everyone feeling cared for.
And isn’t that why we go to the doctor in the first place?
Nu?.

A Little Goes A Long Way

This attribute; this commodity; this vaporous substance; ever seeming in short supply could go for big bucks and have a street value higher than pain pills.

This illusive energy flits away like a firefly in July.  Now you see it; now you don’t.

Just think of the daily commute; hours in traffic and, no matter how much you know that this is a process and it’s going to take some time to get to your destination, you’re tired; worn thin from the day.  You’re looking forward to getting in your domicile, closing the door on the world, taking a nice long shower or tub, eating and dropping into bed.  All without other people and their energies crashing in on you like uninvited party guests.

Ahhh, would that all your kindness, compassion and understanding could stay present all the time to keep your basest. grubby, forgetfulness of niceties at bay.  

You are, after all really a very nice person.  You know it; others have said so and doggone it, people like you.

Having stated the obvious, you might just begin to discern a smidge of foam at the side of your mouth and notice that your jaws are clenched tighter than a noose around a prisoner’s neck at the lynching.  Your shoulders have pinned your ears up about an inch and a half at the very least and there are already itsy bitsy trenches between your eyebrows, which are closer than you remember from the morning mirror look-see.

It’s official.  You are at the very least…cranky; verging on an slippy slidey path to agitated and irate.  

Reasonable has left the building and willingly follows you like a growing shadow that Peter Pan could not possibly fit to your shoe no matter how much fairy dust Tinker Bell sprinkles on.

You’re exhausted and overloaded with whatever giant economy (ha) size big gulp of fear you bought on sale today.  

The mere thought of having to wait cheerfully while the world goes to hell in its horrible little handbasket -or ,at the very least, wait without shrieking or seizing someone by the throat as they slow up traffic, make dumb mistakes, cut you off, walk in front of you like you didn’t exist or have the right to take up room on the pavement or give you the finger or a less than kind word is beyond ability.  

You, dear soul, have reached your wits end.  

And wasn’t that a shorter trip than you ever dreamed it would be?

You have run out of that preciousness called patience.

What could you have been thinking?  How did you lose it and where did it disapear along the way?  

It’s a stunner, isn’t it, when you think back on the train wrecks which follow the slip this energy gives you?

Even a kind word can send you over the edge into a tantrum.

“What could that dimwit been thinking when she said, ‘Have a nice day’?  Did she forget that payroll was short, we didn’t get lunch and now it’s traffic snarls to match my mood in the stretched to over 3 hour commute home!  What is she?  Some kind of vicious hobgoblin?  Nice day, my ass!”

This about one of your favorite colleagues, friends or neighbors.

Well, you might just want to take in a breath, release those shoulders from their perch as fleshy earirngs and remember that everything is gonna take as long as it takes and there’s a divine timing in flow that is bringing things about in ways better than you can imagine.

Might as well, put on some music, notice one good thing, feel the release and a smoother heart rate as you settle into change and, once again, practice patience.  

Even one small moment when you have patience counts and when you have it for yourself, you can have it with others and situations over which you probably have minute (if any) control.

Then you could just think on how you didn’t throttle anyone today-even if you thought about it.

That’s gratitude following patience… and self restraint.

As Martin Luther King Jr said, “I may not get there with you……”

Just for today, it’s possible I’m right behind you, flying my crankyflag high until the process brings me that little bit which goes a long way home.

Day In Haiku

 

Haiku sharing joy

View in sparsity of words

Crystalized exchange

 

this haiku was written for those who haiku and exchange thoughts & experiences in this word form expression.

thanks for sharing the joy.

Florence Ondré

Day In Haiku

 

“Oh, The Irony Of Spring”

 

New York  Spring has sprung

Ahhh, sun.  Fly blue skies and find

Snow in Seattle!

WTF Next?

by Florence Ondré

First it was Pluto not being a planet any more and now it’s screwing with time.

Are these the latest stupid human tricks or can we not find something larger to do with our shpielkes?

Can’t that overactive energy be channeled into something more beneficial like creating a better education system which truly motivates organic skills and talents beyond rote and is available for all children in this country?

Can man be still for one moment and appreciate what is without having to jiggle their legs up and down like a plugged in electrical dandling machine going no where fast?

We’ve all seen people sitting down; one leg still moving up and down like a racing engine idling in neutral. Why not go further with that available energy? Better than windmills, what about recycling the idea of people standing at their desks on treadmills? Why hasn’t our government or think tanks thought about hooking them up to power generators? That alone could have corporations making their own power and helping us out with our energy crunches. Of course there’d have to be a little something-something extra in the paycheck or as corporations often do in lieu, a new title might have to be bestowed. Now, that is green usage of alternative energy sources.
But then there would be the tangles of how to market, outsource, monitor and manage the whole ferschlugginer thing. After all waste is a terrible thing to mind.

Is it just me or could our energy and time be put to better use?

Wouldn’t you rather see a cure for cancer, AIDS or a multitude of other diseases which have had people waiting years and lifetimes for a glimpse of help from science and scientists?

Bending time to suit a few humans; downgrading age old planets, yeah, that’s where I want my tax dollars to go for research and lawmaking. Yup. That’s where I want my representatives in government to focus.

Forget trivial things like top quality healthcare, and housing for everyone. Let’s get Congress to declare more paid holidays so we can enjoy that extra daylight they’ve just rearranged for us. War? Well, hey, there’s more daylight to see your enemy in. Oil gouging? Wait a sec. There’ll be less energy usage because you won’t have to put the lights on in your house as much, even though the same amount of SUV’s and trucks will be guzzling gas, lining pockets of oil robber barons and fuming up the atmosphere. Safety on those highways and byways? Material for plugging up the potholes in our roads? Sorry. No new research or materials there. We’re busy with the business of tinkering with time.

Don’t get me wrong. I can certainly smile at humans shifting the light to give everyone more of that commodity. Who of us couldn’t use more light in our lives? I can hear Angels laughing as we “lighten up.”

I do have concerns though.

Halloween is gonna be all messed up. There won’t be enough dark for the trick or treaters now that Congress has put this massive effort and funding into moving minutes around like tiles on a game board. You know how woosie it is to dress up like a vampire with the sun still shining.

I’d just like to see all that energy, science and funding go toward creating peace on this planet one day soon…that is IF Earth still is a planet.

You never do know…..tick tick tick.

“Out On A Limb”

by Florence Ondré

Awakening to another day of wild winds, bitter cold and sunshine instead of snow, this March day also brings me sweet chirping in the symphony of branches dancing on my window screens.

Mother Birdsong amps up notch to octave notch, letting the world know that someone has interrupted her lullaby for her little ones.  “Tweety tweet tweet,” warble back the Greek chorus of feathered cherubs, as they practice for their own symphonies to come.  Rehearsal is necessary for all life’s performances.

I lay in my warm bed, covers keeping me toasty warm as I stretch and lean to peek at the show outside my shade, finding nothing unusual or interesting in the high branches of a yet-to-bud cherry blossom tree but a dark nest looking object which turns out to be, upon closer inspection, a deep, navy blue ball which has lodged in the outstretched limbs between my neighbor’s house and mine.  A weird gift from the next door daily children’s chorus of laughter and shreiks; game playing and ball tossing; “Chatter, chatter, chatter.”

Kids- whether in trees, bushes or on the ground; feathered, furred  or skinned are practicing something or other that will stand them in good stead as they grow.

I’m just up here on the second floor noticing…and smiling.

The Price Of Winter Fun

by Florence Ondré

Extra pain meds per day for those aches which tell you some precipitation is coming- and soon: Pennies

Fines for those overdue library books that couldn’t be returned because of the latest snowstorm which took a surprising new approach from the forecaster’s prediction: Nickels

Gas use incurred for forgetting half of what was on shopping list and having to go back out in sleet- one more time: Dimes

Parking in the city- if you can find an available one without mountains of black snow in it: Quarters

Running out of toilet tissue- in the middle of a blizzard: A few dollars —for paper and gas.

Extra food bought and wasted because the weatherperson said there was a blizzard coming and only rain showed up: $20 to $30 plus

Toilet repair needed because the innards kept secretly pumping water into the tank nonstop for months: $300

Sewer bill for the unnoticed extra water flow: $100 -per month

Leaking roof over one room of house: $980

Repair two months after for same leaking roof in the middle of a Nor’easter, plus windows and storm door damages: Thousands

Going outside barefoot in subzero temps, tripping and fracturing one’s own foot – on top of years of medical bills for spinal injury and still going strong: Hundreds of thousands

A mountain of Arrgghh! to go with: Pricless!

Quote For The Day

“It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.”
James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)