like Oil and Water

Two brothers.
Not quite Cain and Abel,
but definitely like oil and water.
How can two bros so close be so far?

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Is it their birth months - Aquarius and Capricorn?

Perhaps partially, but not entirely.
There is rivalry and chivalry and brotherly love.
There is tease and taunt and looking up and looking down.

But then again, like peanut butter and jelly make a delicious sandwich - oil and water, essentially, make up a delicious salad - yum...

and the more the merrier for a big bad bear hug (perhaps at this juncture we'll have to include the third as well).

Oh all right mom, you can join in too.

Roar.

February is like...

• an overstuffed pillow?
• an underrated basketball team?
• the shadow to the Groundhog's narcissism?
• an obtuse growth on January's back?
• the cool smooth icing on A Baker's Wife cake?
• the shortened version of this...?
• a mullet - all business in the front, but party in the back?
• a winter respite with Dr. Zhivago?
• taking aspirin to an Advil fight?
• a crazy little thing called love?
• a muted ping to August's pong?
• a breeding ground for self-satisfying microorganisms?
• an excellent excuse to be a bear?
• an opportunity to remember and respect all things black?
• a faint whisper from Persephone?
• winter hitting it's stride just in time to start thinking about baseball.

Rugburn

Sometimes the pain doesn’t come until after the incident. 

The weight gets carried, moving along at some pace, adrenalin pumping, blinders working and avoiding the pitfalls, obstacles and sidetracks.
The end line gets crossed and it’s all over. 

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Then a realization that something is amiss. The nerve endings are still working… doing their job, it’s just that their pulse was dampered by a more substantial power – and it hurts. 

The pain comes around in a slight, continuous rush, reminiscent of a hot southerly breeze. It’s there, and it’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable. Perhaps the lack of immediate effect is cause for an elongated slur that may take time to heal. 

To act as if to avoid the reality – is to open the potential for a head-on wreck. 

Face it and deal; the void, though hollow, is temporary, and fills with sediment eventually; and the callous becomes embedded as part of something that is bigger than us alone. 

From real to surreal to ethereal - we move on, our memories more advanced than before.

Coffee - the Anti-Stimulant

Mistaking taking coffee in for working my body out...

Am I hooked on caffeine? Am I satisfying some morning and afternoon void with coffee? When I feel that lack of energy coming on, like a rush of anti-movement crushing through my inner... filling, is coffee the answer? When it's cold outside and I want to warm up a bit, should I be doing jumping-jacks (with my boys) rather than sipping this hot concoction?

I noticed something, for about a month, late last summer, before it got too dark and cold. When I woke up and hopped on my bike and rode to the YMCA - for a brief, sweaty, romantic interlude with the rowing machine - when I got back home, what I craved was water, not coffee.

I had just gotten through shaking and moving my body (aka "working out") and about the last thing it wanted to do was sit and sip coffee. After the workout, it was almost like my body found the very thought of a hot stimulant to be the most repugnant thing. Geez, makes me wonder who or what is in control of this fine physical structure...

And in the morning when I awoke... before I took off for the Y, what I craved was a glass of water, because if I downed a cup of coffee before taking off, my throat seemed to dry out as I was worked out... like the ounces of hydration were vacuumed to some lost cause, probably my bladder.

It's probably all in my head. The whole anti-movement feeling, the dry throat from coffee, stopping the biking to the Y at 6 in the morning because it was dark, getting frigid, and by the time I arrived at the Y, some dynamic duo was already using the two rowing machines thing...

Ah, how momentum affects me....

I'm also finding that sometimes when I could be drinking a glass of water, I find myself drinking coffee instead - which probably doesn't assist the overall hydration issue.

Perhaps I should give up coffee for Lent? (if this happens, I may need a weekend in a dark room with aspirin, and three wise men: Obi Wan (oops Jedi) - Frodo (oops hobit) and Jack Sparrow (oops... pirate?).

Doubt the wife would allow that, though the kids may think it's kinda cool.

Does anyone else have this problem?

White Castle Valentine

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Yes, it is Valentine's Day.
Yes, we are going to White Castle.
And after ten years of doing so -
you know that won't change from this time forth.

Beyond the ill-effects of salt and grease...
lies an intersection of place and time -
reflected through image of how we once were, how we are,
and how we will continue to be.

And though the view outside may change,
shall we stay the same, bonded by memory?
- yes, I think so.

Eventually, as we duplicate, we may have company.
And at some point company's company.
But near the end, we will have us -
Just you, me (us) and White Castle on Valentine's Day.

Honey, about our kids' science fiction affliction...

I recently realized how much our kids enjoy science fiction, and...

Spock bo

It has nothing to do with your Wonder Woman looks nor my Captain America style.

It's not about the Star Wars underoos or Star Trek "Spock" bobble head.

So what if they prefer Lost In Space over Dennis the Menace, or The Iron Giant over Ratatouille?

Can't help that their Star Wars collection already surpasses mine... or that they make "Creature Power Suits" out of View-Master disks?

What's the big deal that they:

• use chunks of firewood as blasters
• have a Grandma who made elaborate protective shields out of giant pieces of cardboard
• became Optimus Prime and Bumblebee for Halloween
• convert their ice-age Viking swords to some Power Ranger.. thing
• pretend the pillows are Tron light cycles...
• prefer stickers with "Anakin" over those with "Manny" or "Dora"
• make flying ships out of their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• hold their breath like a space vacuum every time they enter a tunnel
• understand what the phrase "Han shot first" means

Or...

• that their mom secretly saves all women superheroes from the discount bin at garage sales and comic book shops...
• or that their dad has a cardboard cutout of Boba Fett...
• or that you secretly enjoy cuddling up to me on the couch and watching Battlestar Galactica reruns...

Now... wouldn't L. Ron Hubbard or Gene Roddenbery be proud?

pretend pretend pretend pretend pretend pretend pretend pretend

The Ultimate Diet

At this moment I am considering dieting... which is far different from starting a diet, or maintaining a diet, or permanently altering my personal routine.

Be it from carbs or carbon...

Late last week I picked up my eldest from school. We walked outside along the sidewalk noticing there wasn't any snow to cross through, just mud and wet leaves, which is a bit odd for early February in Minnesota (at least for the past 30+ years I've lived here).

We hopped in the car and before I started the ignition process he asked me a question - "Dad, how come there isn't any snow anymore?"

This is a tough question to answer to a younger kid. So I thought for a second, and tried to relate it to chemistry and elements via some description of tiny particles called carbon that make up much of what we deal with here on Earth. Ultimately, I tried to explain that there was more carbon in the air, then in the ground... because of manmade technology and that it was warming the air, which doesn't bode well for snow...

Do you think he got it?


How many people have tried to diet from food, let alone from carbon? Or tried to alter their diet to become slimmer or "more healthy?" Its a difficult thing to do - to alter their daily habits - into some different format.

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But some people are dieting from food, carbon, consumption. Does "the market" push them to do so? Does "their government" force this change? Does their religion theologically call for it? They're fighting the grain, swimming upstream and thinking outside the box - for themselves - and probably finding that dealing with slower people like me is a vast waste of their time.

I guess I am not ready for the ultimate diet - yet. I can't afford to install solar panels on my roof. I'm not convinced that an electric/battery powered car is the solution for my family's transportation needs. Realistically, if its hot and humid outside in August, I am going to turn on the air conditioning (or my wife will throw me out of the house.) I hope I don't have to have a heart attack to seriously cut back foodwise.

Though I can say... my dietary tastes are changing. I'm finding I don't need the sweetest of the sweet, or the saltiest of the salty, nor as much of "the stuff", and I am trying to walk more often - which has been easier this winter. And I have to wonder where the breaking point will be... and how will it affect my status quo?

For me, the primary incentive, the dangling carrot - is thinking of  the world, this Earth, in a future tense. For the most part, how will changes and choices I make now, affect the the future lives of my three boys? For some reason, it seems to be a complicated calculation. Should it be?

What would it take for one person or family to take that ultimate diet challenge - to change and be the difference and to pay it forward?

Bittersweet Symphony

It's a wonderful life.... and then we pass. On to the next life, the next place. With an awestruck audience left behind and an expectorant audience awaiting with open arms.

The problem is getting over our reliance or expectations in this life, this here and now. It seems the faster our life accelerates the more reliant we become on foreign things. Some people don't succumb to those complex matters - and can practically see the light beyond, without effort, to the point that it becomes ingrained in their inner makeup.

Is this the life we are expected to lead? Chasing some distant dragon with exclusive purpose to control, manipulate and mold into some feigned form. The perfect wedding (complete with infinite price-tag and indebtedness) , a perfect baby (that eats, sleeps and poops *repeat*), a fabulous house with depreciated value.

Our "great expectations" take us down a road that is paved in asphalt which cracks after a couple cold winters, or concrete which heaves after a simmering week, or gravel which shifts with each passing step...

Nothing is perfect - no one is perfect, we strive to become better people, but shouldn't be expected to be perfect.

Seek the comfort food. Make your way through the line for some hotdish, macaroni and cheese, cake, a bit of coffee to warm us. Then each day we arise for more, hoping to leave some imprint on society or some one as one season moves into another.

Its a bittersweet symphony this life. A complex mix of highs and lows stretched across time and space. Hopefully in the end we find love and are loved and look back satisfied with all we've accomplished been through.