Sujatin’s Neighborhood

And so to another Friday night, with Chopin doing his level best to soothe my soul, accompanied by a glass of my vintage $1.99/bottle red. And, as usual, they've been successful. For I am sitting here savouring this moment. What's so special about it? Well, I'm alive. That's special, don't you think? And worth taking a few moments out of a busy life to give thanks. But who to thank? Well first, my parents. They did, after all, give birth to me, nurtured me, and did their level best to give me a better life than they had. So thanks, Mum and Dad. I hope I made you proud, and showed my gratitude for the many sacrifices I know you made. I know I could have done better, but you always understood. And I have to learn by your example, and understand when my kids behave exactly as I did.

But who else to thank? I suppose all the selfless teachers, ministers of religion, and others who cared enough about me to try to teach me what they thought was of use to me in this great adventure we call "Life". You tried to instil in me the lessons you had learnt in life; about how to survive in it, and beyond. So, thank you too. I'll be forever grateful. As I venture further in this life I may have come to a different understanding of it than you had, but I know you did your level best. You tried to pass on the knowledge you had accumulated in your lifetime to me. Because that's what we do in this life. We try to make sense of it, and pass that knowledge on to those who follow us.

So now it has come to my turn; time to pass the baton on. I turned 69 recently. The next one is 70. And I do wonder what I have to pass on. Have I anything of worth to pass on to those who follow? I don't know. I guess that is for others to judge. I've tried to understand it all, but it is no easy task. There's just so much knowledge out there, isn't there. It's like a great, ever increasing  orchard of knowledge. We sample a fruit here, another there, and at times wander aimlessly in that orchard, wondering what fruit to sample next.

I've looked to other humans who I think may have sampled better fruits than I, and wonder if I have chosen the right fruits. I now know the answer to that question. There isn't any right combination of fruits. We each have to choose those fruits for ourselves. For there is no perfect life. Just the one we cobble together for ourselves according to the dictates of where fortune may take us. And if we are to have peace of mind, we must gracefully acknowledge the truth of this.

So, for a while, Friday night philosophy will track my search for a consistent philosophy of life. I think I finally got something workable for me. All I can hope is that it is some help to you, for it is no easy task, this journey we travel together. Till next Friday night..

.

I am a farmer who raise ducks and cows. The animals have a total of 9 heads and 26 feet. How many ducks and cows do I have?
Submitted by The BlueTie.

x = number or ducks
y = number of cows

a)   2x + 4y = 26 -----> number of feet
     2(x + 2y) = 2(13)
     2 is common on both sides of the equation thus:
        x + 2y = 13

b)    x + y = 9  -----> number of heads

Substract b from a and we have that:

y = 4

thus

x = 5

Four cows and five ducks.

Life for our family has been crazy of late.  So crazy, that unless I was living it I really wouldn't believe it myself.  There has been so much going on that I haven't even bothered to fill you in on all of the happenings.

The Chezza Bunch!

Anyway enough of the bad stuff, here is a photo of some good stuff.  This was taken at out daughter's engagement party waaaay back on the 29th March, which was also Ben's 15th birthday.

I was very naughty in this photo, I quickly removed my medical treatment enforced compulsory sunglasses and hat

Our Wedding. With our newly united family. Quinn, Kalyn, Hubby, me, Leigh and Ben in front.

2 comments

You might like to compare it to a photo taken 11 years ago of the same bunch.  Obviously now we all look rather older and one of us is barely recognisable, given he is now taller than all of us.

This morning I was walking around and singing one of my favourite road trip songs, "Good Life" by Inner City.  I love this song!  I haven't heard it in awhile so I google'd the lyrics and sang it in every room of the house.  The kitchen, by the way, has awesome acoustics for this tune.

Then I went to a career website and there was a banner at the top: Good Life.

I clicked on a link at another site and went to the WWF, which is the World Wildlife Fund and not the other thing you are thinking of, and that site had a big graphic header that said... yup.  Good Life.

So I'm either online way too much... or the universe is sending me a signal: it's all good, ya dummy.

Probably both.

The latest photo of the babies along with a context photo for gunderson bee.

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Shrapnel

Is there ever a word or phrase that, no matter what you do, you just can't seem to remember?  I have that problem right now...and the word is 'shrapnel.'

Yes, 'shrapnel.'  I seem to have some kind of enduring mental block that keeps me from remembering it.  Not to worry, though!  I'm pretty sure this is not an early sign of Alzheimer's—at least I hope it's not—since the problem seems to be limited to this one word.  And, actually, I can remember having similar problems since childhood.  Sometimes, there'd just be a single word or phrase that repeatedly wouldn't quite come to me.

Of course, I can't remember the details of any of those childhood experiences now!  Hmm, I'm forgetful.

Why am I even trying to remember 'shrapnel' anyway?  Well, if I were actually talking about, or thinking about, something like shell fragments, the word 'shrapnel' would likely come to me with ease.  That's not why I'm trying to think of 'sharpnel,' though.  Nearly every day, I walk by a fountain in Philly—it's near where I work—that's built around a particularly, er, hard-to-like sculpture.  About a dozen years ago, one of my then-coworkers joked that the piece was probably named something like Shrapnel.  And he was so right.  The sculpture has a sort of post-Armageddon, Modernism-gone-horribly-wrong feel that, somehow or other, Shrapnel really captures.

So I'll be walking to or from work, and I'll pass by this sculpture.  I'll think of my coworker, remember how he was vexed by that sculpture, and then I won't be able to remember what he called it.  It'll almost come to me, but then it'll be gone.  In the past several years, I've gone weeks and even months when 'shrapnel' wouldn't come to me as the name of the sculpture.  Arrgh!

One recent morning, for whatever reason, I saw the fountain, and I remembered that the sculpture should be named Shrapnel.  When I got to my desk, I wrote the word down on a post-it note and stuck it on my computer monitor.  Since then, I've had a much easier time remembering.  Now I'm blogging 'Shrapnel,' too.  This is pretty much guaranteed, I'd say, to burn the word into my mind.

Of course, in a few weeks or months, there'll probably be some other word or phrase I can't quite remember.  Sigh.

Usually when I can't remember something, I simply try not to worry about it.  When there's no pressure, and I've allowed my conscious mind to move on to something/everything else, the unremembered will almost always come to me.  If that doesn't work, I sometimes resort to a related technique I've read about.  I imagine that there's an old, old librarian in my attic of my brain.  I climb up the ladder, knock, and ask him to find whatever I'm forgetting.  Then I force myself to forget about it.  Later, the missing piece of information will appear from seemingly nowhere.

But that won't be necessary for 'shrapnel.'  If I manage to forget it again, I'll be able just search the blog.  Ah, relief.

P.S. The fountain-sculpture combo is actually called Voyage of Ulysses.  That's it picture up there, on the cover of a book—a surprisingly good book, I've now discovered—called Fountains of Philadelphia: A  Guide.  (Strangely enough, I don't seem to have ever photographed the, er, piece.)

P.P.S. This post is also proof, I suppose, that I can conjure up a blog post out of thin air.

July 24 2008

This week's organic veggies from the farm...

Some variety of beautifully curly leaf lettuce, flat-leaf parsley this time, two bunches of dill, a huge head of garlic (which we need like a hole in the head - we have hundreds of plants), a nice bunch of big green onions, more zucchini (getting bigger - these ones will be more suitable for zucchini pancakes or zucchini bread, rather than in salads like the little ones), more cukes (I had opted for an extra box of pickling cukes, which I think may be why they included extra dill and garlic, but I couldn't spot the box in the barn, so I'll have to ask about that), more (bigger) beets with lovely greens, another pint of blueberries, and new this week... yellow squash and purple cabbages. Also they threw in a box of windfall apples, but I left them out in the garage - they had a lot of fruit flies already, and they'll need some major paring of bad spots, but then they'll make good apple crumble, or I might dry some for apple chips.