Hard Rock

Just thought that was a funny title for this picture. :)

I Am Grateful For Childhood Teachers

I have always been a huge fan of Dr. Seuss. I also love Eckhart Tolle, so you can imagine when you put both of their concepts together you come up with an awesome poem!

I Am Grateful For the Energy of Attraction

I have not yet written out the story (read: epic tale) of how the evil overlords (read: HOA) of our condos plan to poison my building in the (self)interest of ousting a bunch of termites at the cost of everyone's health. To them I say: In case you hadn't noticed, this is SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ladies. Termites are a given (or so I've read/heard/experienced). You may win the battle, but you will never win the war. Best you can do is keep giving them stuff to eat outside, so live cleanly and we can all prosper.

Regardless... The Sheeple are determined to poison my home so I am packing my shit to move out for two to five days. What a colossal waste of time, but grudgingly I admit at the same time it's not a waste at all. It is an opportunity to purge and pass on the outmoded, outdated, OMG-I-didn't-realize-I-still-had-that items in my life and I should be grateful. And I would be, if there were no poison involved. Of course, if there were no poison, I would not be packing, therefore I would be playing the procrastination game just like any other day. Sometimes it sucks to be aware of your own faults.

As there are always reasons to be grateful tho, I can tell you that I am grateful to not have a job at this particular moment because it means I can pack (sort of) at my leisure. In theory, this would mean I started packing two months ago when I was first informed of this potential health hazard. In reality, it means I've once again waited until I'm up against the clock (even after getting it postponed for a month!) and I'm now going through stuff to get the most important or what will be most affected out by next weekend. Thank goodness for the last minute or nothing would ever get done around here.

Today I decided to pack my books because they're easy, which is always appealing to the eternal procrastinator. I have a few antique volumes I've gathered from various places, and this particular one that inspired me to stop and post here was Harper's Fourth Reader, copyright 1888. I've never actually read this book - received it as a gift for helping with an estate sale - but thumbing through it just now I found it is, ironically, a type of textbook published for use in a classroom back in the day when Bonsall's schoolhouse was new and shiny, and women as old as I am were spinsters with little hope of marrying before they dropped dead. I mean seriously... 42 years old and no husband? Holy crap, you must be ugly or a shrew, and aren't you even lucky to still wake up on the top side of the grass at that age?! Good luck with that.

Anyway, I thought it was amusing that after spending all that time working at Pearson putting out today's college textbooks (which contained info I learned in high school - what's up with that? Dumb it down much?), two of the volumes that snuck into my library through no effort of my own were 123-year-old textbooks themselves (I have Harper's Third Reader as well, also copyright 1888). How can people disbelieve the energy of attraction with such glaring examples?

Other things I found amusing about these books... there is a Publisher's Note in the front of each book. For one thing, I consider myself in possession of a pretty decent vocabulary, but I actually had to look up two words because I didn't know their definitions, so apparently the Readers are still good at teaching people to read a century later. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

Also, I love "antique marketing"... in an attempt to convince teachers (or so it seems) that the new Readers are the best ever, they say, "They have been prepared with special reference to the practical work of the school-room. These pages are not encumbered with useless matter." Well thank goodness for that because I'm not so sure today's textbooks can say the same. Seriously.

Another good chuckle: "...It is desirable, rather, to improve the child's intellectual capacity by giving him lessons a little in advance of his present attainments, than to stultify his understanding and insult his intelligence by a strained effort to make every exercise appear child-like and easy."

Sure wish THAT was still the policy in schools these days!

stultify |ˈstəltəˌfī|verb ( stultifies, stultifying, stultified ) [ withobj. ]1 (usu. as adj. stultifying) cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative, esp. as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine

Apparently, "lessons inculcating moral truths are of frequent occurrence. These lessons are such as will appeal at once to the child's better nature and strengthen his love for right-doing. Lessons intended to cultivate an appreciation of the wonderful and the beautiful in nature, and to introduce the pupil to a knowledge of the achievements of science and art, are given due prominence."

Would that today's learning materials inculcated more moral truths, a love for right-doing, and an appreciation for nature! Perhaps we wouldn't be destroying the planet as fast as we are.

inculcate |inˈkəlˌkāt, ˈinkəl-|verb [ with obj. ]instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction
Last, the best part... the publisher actually thanks the editor, a couple instrumental people, and the teachers that contributed for pulling the book together, not the other way around.

My how times have changed.

I Am Grateful For People Like Frank Sinatra

There aren't too many articles I read that pull emotions from that deep place where such things hide, but this one did. I am already a Sinatra fan as it is, but this... wow. Loyalty like that is a rare find anymore.

I couldn't have written the story better myself so you'll just have to read it on CNN. I wish there were more people like Frank and Sal in the world today. Seems they are an endangered species.

What a PERFECT way to put it too...

Frank Sinatra's Lesson in Loyalty
Some people are so big during their lives, even death doesn't seem to entirely take them away.

THAT is the kind of immortal I want to be!

I Am Grateful for Rockin' Awareness

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I was sitting on the patio tonight looking around and thinking (yes, I do that - sit there and think or daydream without moving for hours - been that way since I was a child) when I noticed that my roommate had stacked up a few pieces of rock and debris into a mini cairn under the oleanders. While my philosophical side (Right Brain) was being impressed with his creativity and thinking what a cool idea that was, my logical side (Left Brain) went straight to my Ego to collaborate. They whispered in a remote corner of my mind...

Left Brain: Hey, did you see what Roommate did? How cool of him.

Ego: We can do it bigger and better, but we need Right Brain to make it look all creative. Don't tell Right Brain what we're up to.

Left Brain: Ok.  Wait... what? What are we up to? (Trails after Ego...)

Oh brother.

Left Brain and Ego then go to Right Brain and say, "C'mon... let's build one too! Let's be creative and make it look all zen back here on the patio!" Right Brain was all, "OK!!" and fell right into it.

I have plenty of river rock that lines a small pathway between my patio and the green common area behind my condo (thanks to Boyfriend and same said Roommate). I immediately jumped over there, picked out a few rocks and proceeded to stack them up under the oleanders to the right of Roommate's little pile. Sitting back in my chair, Right Brain was all kinds of happy. "Look what we did! Yay! Rocks are cool! That was fun!" Left Brain and Ego were over in the frontal lobe stirring up trouble tho...

Left Brain: 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6 rocks. (Then in the Count's voice from Sesame Street, "Ahh ahh ahh ahhhhhh...")

Ego: Ha! It's more rocks than Roommate put together! We win! We have a taller cairn! Wait, is it called a cairn?

Left Brain: I dunno. Let's go look it up on the computer. (Which we did. Yes, it is called a cairn, but I could've sworn there was some other zennish Tibetan word for this kind of thing. If there is, I couldn't find it. Oh well.)

Ego (back on the patio admiring our handiwork): Awesome! Geez, when is Roommate gonna be home so we can show him we outdid him? Silly surfers.

Left Brain: Six rocks... hmmm... I'll bet we could get one more on there.

Ego: Yeah! Yeah! Let's put one more! Then it will be EVEN BIGGER!

Right Brain leans in: Six is good, but seven is better because it's a cooler number overall plus then you have one rock for each direction; north, south, east, west, above, below, and within.

Left Brain: Fine. Get one more.

We get one more and manage after a couple attempts to balance it on top.

Ego: WOO HOO! We now have seven! No one can beat us! We are the best rock pilers ever!

Right Brain: Uhh, guys? Does the pile look a little... I dunno... too orderly or something?

Ego: What? NO! It's awesome! Shut your synapse over there!

Left Brain: Of course it's orderly. All the rocks are nice and uniform and most are flat so easily stacked...

Right Brain: Yeah, exactly. It was EASY. Took like ten minutes tops. That means it was just winning a stupid contest (a non-existent one at that)... what did we learn from the experience? Nothing. Aren't we a little more creative than that? Shouldn't this inspire more thought? Reflection? Something? There is more to this than just putting one rock on top of the other.

Ego: Shut up Right Brain! You don't know what you're talking about. This rock pile is an indication of how amazingly spiritual we are and it's BIGGER than Roommate's. That's all that counts. Wait until he sees.

Right Brain: Yeah, I dunno. I just think it's not very CREATIVE. I mean it's really rather BORING and predictable all stacked with the biggest on the bottom and the smallest on the top - is that an indication of who we are? Boring and predictable? Gods, I hope not. Ours looks like a child did it.

Ego: Does NOT!

Right Brain: (Glances over at Roommate's cairn.) Yeah, ours may be bigger, but his is definitely better because it's creative. It was inspired. You know how he is... he sits out here thinking just like we do. He was probably out here looking around and got inspired. Look at it... his has different materials (not just the river rock) and they're all different shapes and sizes and stuff. Definitely better than ours, even if it is smaller. It's more thought-full. More is not always better.

Ego: Yes it is.

Left Brain (looking disdainfully at Ego): True, Right Brain. I hadn't thought of that. I do like that ours is logical and uniform but it's not nearly as creative as Roommate's - ours is definitely boring. Perhaps we should spice it up a bit.

Ego: Gods, you can be a drag Right Brain.

Right Brain goes and picks out other, differently-shaped rocks from the pathway and tries to balance them. It's much harder and takes a lot longer. Right Brain then tries using a twig in the stack, tumbling the whole thing many, many times over.

Ego: This SUCKS now. Thanks Right Brain.

Right Brain: Does not suck! It's supposed to be meditative! Shut up while I keep trying to balance this!

Ego: YOU shut up. I'm off to pout.

Left Brain: Here... try it this way... no that way... crap. Try this... no, that... ok, do this again... crap. An engineer would probably have this figured out in 10 seconds. Gods. Let's give up.

Right Brain: No! I'm having fun here. If it's not seven rocks tall it's not the end of the world.

Left Brain: But you HAVE to use all seven rocks because seven is a cool number and we already HAVE seven rocks!

Right Brain: I don't HAVE to do anything. We'll see what comes out.

Silence for a good 20 minutes.

Ego leans in: Are you all ZEN now, idiot?

Right and Left Brain: SHHHHHH!!!

 Many, many failed attempts later...

Right Brain: Ok, I think there was probably nothing wrong with the original orderly pile. Maybe that IS just who we are deep down. I dunno. I'm okay with it being orderly but maybe we can put the twig on top like some kind of antennae. Yeah, that's it. It's a Snail Control Tower instructing all the snails in the bushes who can go on which slime trail so there are no accidents.

Ego: You are RETARDED.

Left Brain: Okay, we'll do the orderly pile but we still have these other few rocks left over and of course we can't just throw them back because we already picked them up for a purpose.

Right Brain: Ok, we'll build a second cairn next to Roommate's and leave the first orderly Snail Control Tower pile over here. That way they're all used AND we get to show two different sides of us.

Left Brain: I'm good with that.

Right Brain: I don't remember playing like this since we were really little. This is kinda cool. Who knew rocks were so fun! I'll bet if you post this on the blog people will think it might be time to look into a good asylum for us.

Left Brain: Ha! Could be.

We build another cairn next to Roommate's with the remaining rocks, plus we add in a piece of bark that we had tried to use to rebuild the Snail Tower.

Right Brain: That one is awesome too! And it doesn't look nearly as boring as the Snail Control Tower. It's about the same height as Roommate's too. Yay for unity and like minds!

Left Brain: Yeah, that's pretty cool. Can we sit and think again now?

Right Brain: Ok, I'm just going to admire the handiwork close up for one more minute.

Ego (sneaking back in): You know, there's a couple chips of concrete laying there. That would be a third material. Might add something cool.

Right Brain: Don't fix what ain't broke.

Ego: I'm not trying to fix anything! Just think it would be cool on top. They're different sizes and shapes and stuff.

Right Brain: Ok fine.

Ego: (Smug grin)

Right Brain: There. Two concrete chips on top. Now it's done.

We sit back down on the chair.

Ego: HA. The "creative" one is two concrete chips taller than Roommate's.

Right AND Left Brain: SHUT UP EGO.

~~~~~~~ <3 <3 <3 ~~~~~~~

If you want to see a true master of rock stacking, check out Jim Needham from Carmel, CA. :)