Rounding Third

The US should take the month of August off.

Just do nothing.

Laze around.
Take a breath and relax.

Stop the outrageous business cycle.

Hit pause on the economic machine.

Alter the cycle back to being humans on earth, rather than guinea pigs in a ratrace experiment.

Enjoy some ice tea or lemonade.

Go to the basement and meditate.

Get calmly creative, gather those thoughts and then come out swinging in September.

Of course, then a black market would start and folks would act like a kool-aid stand at a Twins game: making $8 for a 6 oz glass.

These dog daze may eventually be too much to keep up with…

Is it time to find that hallowed ground again?

My Wife's Life/More Than I Can Stand

My wife’s life is like a run-on sentence. I am her punctuation.

Start, slow, fast, pause, ponder, restart, reframe, intro, middle, outro, prioritize, accentuate, decelerate, stop.

Stop.

Not an easy thing to do, when the world is on your shoulders. Sounds like a Bond movie “The World On Your Shoulders” starring… (or is it a soap opera?)

She excels at things. And people are drawn to her. I have said before that it is my job to fend them off, but it is tough when she compiles it on herself. You can not have it all, especially in this American world. There is just too much to capture and it is impossible to have it all – that is where the run-on sentence comes in.

With a run-on sentence, everything blends together. There is no distinction. All the words become mumbled and jumbled and bleed together. As in laundry, when all the bright, vibrant colors become grey when combined without separation. Nothing is special, nothing is sacred, nothing is relevant. The culture becomes gobbledygook.

So, (I tell my wife), do slow down, do figure out those things that really matter and focus on them. Get your rest, eat good food, allow a framework to dictate your day and don’t allow it to get altered, not even by me (gulp).

Also, in regards to three four boys, be sure to get your girl time on, but don’t count on us to provide it for you… overall it isn’t in our/my nature (let me explain)...

- I hope your friends find you as you find them in those margins – allow your friends to help you enhance your groove, just don't be searchin' to get your groove back.

Just because:

• we boys are an overwhelming toxin that doesn’t really go away
• we boys are the reinforcements - even when they aren't called in
• we boys are locusts that swarm and override your drive, bending your will like a wind weathered tree

and one of us boys ate that last piece of cake - it doesn't mean we don't love ya. (In the cake case, it just means we were hungry... for cake).

The best bones we may be able to throw may be occasional flowers, odd shaped jewelry and Christmas gift certificates to the spa. You deserve better and we mean well, sometimes our thought/action process doesn't function properly. So, do make room for yourself and your toes.

Hopefully, someday, one of the boys will mature and relate this better.

What I am saying, is that we can add various punctuation (and color) into your life and it may not always be what you expect. I can easily add the periods, the questions, the commas, the quotation marks, colons, overall structure – but it takes time to do so and as I proof your paper...

you move on to the next paragraph.

Find Your Own Underground

This past weekend our family and aunt went to the largest free Irish Fair in the world! Quite the hype... The Irish Fair of Minnesota located at Harriet Island, St. Paul, Minnesota. We had been there a few years back with one child and had enjoyed the experience – the predictable food, the brazen kilts, the drunken dancing to amplified folky music. This year we enjoyed it again and noticed that like our family, the Irish Fair has advanced to another level, or two – though it was surely a folk underground then and is still today.

Image courtesy via CC

Something we noticed this time around is that the festival has grown in many ways. There are more tents overall, and these range in activity from kids stuff to Pub sponsored beer gardens to small stage events. Then of course the knick-knacks and cultural-wares tent, which was huge – and tightly packed. I could not bring the stroller through there. From this space, the boys came away with wooden swords - blue, red and green. They managed to avoid hitting anyone else at the fair with these things and so far at home have not damaged each other to any great extent, yet.

The food offerings seemed somewhat limited, but did pretty much offer the food you could expect – many things salty: cabbage rolls, a Jameson burger, fish n chips, bangers and mash - all offered in a cheap cardboard container. All of which of course tends to make one thirsty… This sentence sponsored by Finnegans - a charitable beer ;)

The Irish Fair is an underground, a subculture. Complete with kilts and swords and bagpipes and flags adorned with shamrocks and medieval dragons. There is the proud feeling of being safe to share and express yourself, your history, your culture (even when a bit tipsy). And it invites you to participate or just observe.

I am part Irish (Kelly clan), and obviously my boys are now as well. They should be proud! And though my wife isn't Irish, she still had fun and there surely has to be some neat Swedish thing goin' on... perhaps involving meatballs and lingonberries....

We are in a tough era... it seems important that we keep our heads and find our underground, our circles that we can rely upon to bring smiles and comradery and allow us to delve into something different than the day to day grind (and politics). We are all still individual ingredients that make up the American melting pot.

St. Paul is a fairly Irish place so it has a good strong backbone to start out with and plenty of undergrounds to delve into. Surely there are other niche groups and happenings, this was one small pebble in the ocean.

Find your own funderground.