I am just me.

I’m a little like other cats

but mostly, I am just

Me.

]]> http://janebretl.com/2011/09/22/a-little-like-other-cats/feed/ 4 janebretl cowboy yawn sleepyhead http://janebretl.com/2011/01/18/time/ http://janebretl.com/2011/01/18/time/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:03:45 +0000 Jane Bretl http://janebretl.com/?p=2472 ]]>

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.
Henry Austin Dobson

Oh, Henry — I think time does go.  I don’t understand where it goes, but it definitely goes.  I spend an ironic amount of time thinking about time, and all the while its passage carries tasks and jobs and notes and deadlines and memories right down the river with it, and nothing I do will stop it.  The things floating just out of my grasp are the things that are important to me, and they still float away.  This is confounding.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Henry David Thoreau

OK, this seems like a good idea… calming, centered.  The speed feels right.  But oh (another) Henry, this idea vastly underestimates the current’s ability to carry chunks of my life away, the things I try to accomplish.

I submerge myself into one aspect of my life to try to complete something, anything, and in the blink of an eye, months have gone by.  I spend time — no wait, I invest time — in being healthy and happy with my life, my present.  Being present.  And before I know it, I discover something utterly discombobulating, such as my friend is quite pregnant and I did not even know it because even though her blog is on my short list of ones to read regularly, somehow until yesterday I had not read it since the end of August, which is unfathomable.  Where did five months go? She finds time to keep blogging and grow a brand new human.  At the same time.  With four other kids.  I don’t understand it.

Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz

OK, now this one is flippin’ frightening.  It makes me want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head.  For a long time.

NEXT, please.

Time is money.
Benjamin Franklin

I suspect that Mr. Franklin would not get along well with Mr. Thoreau.  Surely they would waste time squabbling; the philosophies are at odds.  My head hurts when I try to think about both of their ideas at once.

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

Leonard Bernstein

OK, maybe we are on to something here.  Not-quite-enough-time makes the minutes grow three sizes, plus two; somehow the hours can balloon open to hold a week’s worth of effort.

Of course, the theory only applies to the One Thing for which there was not-quite-enough-time, and meanwhile everything else goes to hell-in-a-handbasket and I wake up five weeks later to find the Christmas cards still on the dining room table, complete with 100 stamps and address labels and the address book.  On January 15th.  I don’t understand it.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
Abraham Lincoln

And with that in mind, I’ll keep riding the tide.  Please catch me if I float by you on my way to somewhere.

But before that slide down the slippery slope, the Romans built a spectacle on par with today’s new Dallas Cowboys stadium, using the technological equivalent of some chisels and the wheel.  The accomplishment prompts deep thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The day we visited the Colosseum, it was sunny.  We did not see much more sun that week, but considering it had snowed in Rome for the first time in 25 years just the week before our visit?  A little drizzle and clouds posed no significant problem.

Plus, we had not seen the sun in our hometown for many moons.  So, in a way, it felt more like home to have it be a bit dreary.  The sky remained cloudy here for the two weeks following our return.  Then, last week, something happened — the sun came out and remained out for the next seven days.  Someone Somewhere flipped the Spring switch.  And it has been glorious:  that long drink of cold water when you are thirsty, a warm hug from above, insert other soaring metaphors here…  because there is nothing quite like Spring to follow a long winter, including a February that by a bizarre mega-leap year phenomenon ended up being 87 days long.

And along with the sun, finally, came the first blooms of the season for my crocus.

~~~~~~~~~~

OK, spellcheck, I see your point — colossal has nothing to do with size.

It’s only been a little over thirty years, and I have not gotten around to that little romance language project yet, but no worries.  I still have the podcast Italian language course on my ipod, and if I get right on that, I’ll be caught up in no time.

But, back to Latin.  Sure, it was considered a “dead language”.  It did not have any applicability to what would turn out to be a career in marketing management and the food industry, which made Latin a nonsensical curriculum choice in the 1980′s.  But at the time, it represented endless possibilities.

Here we are decades later, and the trip to Rome brought me back to those Latin classes over and over.  Not that I could read most of the Latin inscriptions on the monuments and the art.  My conversational Latin had been limited to phrases such as “The girl is standing by the aqueduct”, which does not come up much.  Because we did not go see the aqueduct.  Otherwise I would have been set.

We did see the Tiber River, and that always figured prominently in the lessons:  “Romulus and Remus sat by the Tiber River…”, that kind of thing.  The Tiber looked just as I had pictured.  A no-nonsense kind of river.  That’s why I took a picture of a bridge instead of the brown water.

And this little guy has been watching over the river since before high school Latin classes were invented.

Romulus and Remus are popular figures in the art and lore of Rome.  Their likenesses grace many postcards and are sold at most souvenir stands, along with their “mother”.  According to Roman mythology, they are the traditional founders of Rome.  In addition, they hold the distinction of being “pre-eminent among the famous feral children in mythology and fiction”, or so says wikipedia.  And that is saying something, because those feral children can get quite famous.  Which all just serves to remind me that when they say truth is stranger than fiction?  Sometimes it is true, but not always.

And the Latin?  It turns out it is not dead yet.  More on that later.

Wait, that is just a picture of my in-box, along with a reminder to remember the important things in life.  Here is what I really want to share — a video that reminds me of someone special.

Now, there are harmonica players, and then there are harmonica players.  I have my favorite harmonica musician, but this guy isn’t bad either.  Enjoy the music! (Doesn’t it make you want to take a deep breath?)

Kids — you can try this at home.  Grandpas — make sure you have an oxygen tank handy first.

That made me smile, because it worked.

I tested a version of this “fun theory” years ago, after reading one of those helpful articles about How To Have A Happy Household.  In this case, the suggestion was to make chores *fun* so the kids would be, if not begging to do the chores, at least not complaining about the tasks.

I was dubious, but gave it an enthusiastic try.

“Hey kids, let’s play Laundry Fold-A-Thon!  It will be fun!”

{… insert sound of crickets here …}

I read this helpful hint in a parenting magazine, back when I used to subscribe to them.  I am pretty sure this particular article was written by someone who did not have any Actual Children.

Now, this new Fun Theory?  This one has potential.  It’s not just the technology, although boy does that help.  It is the cleverness, the innate sense of exploration and wonder that my Chore Cheerleading act did not provide.  In retrospect, I now know that if I had simply constructed a Rube Goldberg-type machine to hand each boy a piece of laundry?  We could have finished our fold-a-thon in record time*

(*NOTE:  chore completion time does not include 187 hour construction time of said machine)

Only two months to go.  I have a team of doctors working ’round the clock on this effort, and have enlisted the help of my dog, who is also a helpful sort of gal.

First of all, she has been working on exorcising my inner grinch, which is symbolized by this stuffed grinchy toy.  In his June photo, he still had a mischievous look on his face:

Kenzie has been working him over, and showing him who is boss.  This must be helpful to me in some subconscious way.  I like how he appears to be waving his little grinchy hand to say “uncle, already!”:

After many months, he lost his santa hat (but, sure, not his head), and has sustained a small rip in his leg, which he claims is just a flesh wound…

I think he is a goner, and I am going to be just fine.

“Jane Killborn”    (hard-core gore thriller author Jack Kilborn‘s eccentric aunt?)

“how to get dogs and cats to get along”    (remains a mystery to all of us….)

“daily mirror cartoon jane”   (can I speak in word bubbles?  That would be fun.)

“guinea hen cooked in pig bladder“   (Cool! I actually talked about that one…)

“something important“   (isn’t that a rather vague search phrase?)

“candid tween“  (I get a lot of visitors with that one)

“find my head“  (if you lose your head, can you find it online?)

“zebra sounds“  (being a fan of blogger/author Judy Clement Wall is lucrative)

And, what remains the most popular random link that googlers follow to reach jane, candid??

“pre-wash cycle“

Yes, where upstanding citizens looking for real advice on how to operate the pre-wash cycle on their dishwasher instead find pictures of my dog licking the plates…

As a writer, one likes to think that people visit said blog on purpose — but if I get a candid tween obsessed, guinea hen cookin’ pet whisperer who lost her head because the dishwasher pre-wash was broken?  I’ll take it.  All are welcome.

But shortly after Judy’s post, I was visiting my family in Wisconsin and made my annual pilgrimage to my favorite coffee shop in WI, Mud Creek Coffee.  Mud Creek opened a couple years ago, and I was delighted but dubious that the concept could make it in a small town in today’s economy.  Every time I drive up there and Mud Creek is still open, I always stop and frankly just want to throw buckets of money through the drive-through window and say “Please make it!” because it is such a cool little coffee shop and I would be sad if it was gone.

Which is exactly the idea behind 3/50.

On this last trip, my Dear Sister and I went to Mud Creek for a relaxing afternoon break and what did I find on the counter but a flyer for the 3/50 Project.  So I figure, if the concept made it there already, it is time for my town to get on board!

So, here is the premise of the 3/50 Project:

1.  Pick three independently owned (brick and mortar) local businesses you’d miss most if they were gone.

2.  Commit to spending $50 a month at these three businesses (that’s $50 total, NOT $50 each…)

3.  Help save your town’s independent stores, one person at a time.

Now don’t get me wrong — I enjoy the immediacy and ease of on-line shopping, big box store bargain-hunting (I am a Costco addict), and all the other many chains that make shopping and eating out so convenient.  I know that at this point there is no way that the majority of my family’s expenditures can be sourced through local independent vendors.  But $50 a month of money I was going to spend somewhere else anyway?  That I can do.  It’s easy and just feels right.

So, here is my list to start on September 1st:

1.  Tazza Mia Coffee (which I do think is the freshest and best tasting coffee in town.)

2.  Troy’s Cafe (a gem of a restaurant with innovative, fun, affordable food in a relaxed atmosphere.)

3.  Ace Hardware (I know Ace is a chain, but this is the [last?] little, local hardware store around here, one with every little doohickey and thingamabob for fixing things, and a cute Grandpa-guy clerk who knows where everything is on the tightly packed shelves.)

There.  I had to try hard to keep all three choices from being food-related.

So that’s my plan.  I would love to hear what three businesses you would pick, and, dear readers, if you are willing to give it a try…