Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,667
yeah I know you did not ask!
I have a certain playful streak – well, certain folks say mean streak – that can come out at the oddest times.
Señora had an outpatient surgical procedure this morning. In preparation for this the nurse left us alone in the surgical prep room to remove her street clothing and to put on her the customary paper surgical gown. It was one size fits most, nearly dragging the floor on Señora, containing sufficient fabric to wrap around her a couple times, being the petite thing she is. As we all know, they tie in back. I had the damnedest urge to tie the strings of the gown in quadruple granny knots. Of course the surgical staff would not have messed with my knots for a nano-second, taking scissors to them without pause, but still…
I did pretend to be a grownup for that nano-second, and I managed to squelch the impulse.
Just saying… Or to whom it may concern
Anyone with a vague knowledge of computers has heard of binary numbers (base 2) – the famous 1s and 0s. Those of us who have programmed have used the binary system of numbers in our work. On a few occasions I have used the octal numeral system (base 8). Outside of the ubiquitous decimal system (base 10), count your fingers, the numeric system I am most familiar with is hexadecimal (base 16), sometimes referred to as hex. Before I switched over to Oracle systems, I spent a large portion of my programming career working with mainframes using COBOL, some Assembler, and rarely PL/1 programming languages (there were other languages I used, but I won’t bore you). Working in these languages on a mainframe platform it is mandatory to have an intimate knowledge of hex and hex math.
In case you are not up on your hexadecimal… the digits in this numeral system are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, a, b, c, d, e, f.
Now scribble in a corner of your mind with disappearing ink that I was born in 1952.
In the year 2000 I started giving my age in hexadecimal, i.e. 30. I continued to use hex numbers until 2010. Somehow or another saying I was 3a left even a more perplexed expression on peoples’ faces than when I was saying I was 30 at the start of the new century. In 2016 I was able to switch back to hexadecimal and truthfully assert that I was 40, and I can currently, with a semi-straight face, claim to be 45.
And so it goes.
Schoolhouse Rock! playlist
When my kidrens were little –this was late 70s, early 80s – we used to watch Saturday morning cartoons together. Interspersed with the cartoons on ABC was an educational segment called Schoolhouse Rock! which covered themes of grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. Their forte was creating earwigs such as “conjunction, junction what’s your function” or “I’m just a bill, only a bill”.
Something triggered the memory of the segment this morning, and I decided to create a playlist on my YouTube channel of those I could find .
Enjoy!
Ernest Hemingway on Buddhism
Not really… but the following quote from Ernest Hemingway’s short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place made me wonder. Nada is Spanish for nothing. In my mind I was making a connection with the Buddhist concept of no-self or emptiness and of the concept of suffering. In actuality Hemingway’s character was speaking of the anxiety or the despair of loneliness (suffering?). But it did give me pause. In any event, I just love the pattern and sentiments of this excerpt.
“What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not in to nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”
Om mani padme hum
Joy on a spring day
At Creve Coeur Lake Park where I ride my bicycle occasionally, they rent quadricycles. This Saturday, on the other side of the lake from the rental shack, I encountered one of these 4 wheeled, multi-passenger surreys with the fringe on top .
In the front seat were two 50ish, slightly overweight women, looking somewhat exhausted as they had just come up a steep incline. In the back seat, not pedaling, was another women. She appeared to be in her late 80s, and she was leaning over with her head between the heads of the women in the front seat. The older woman was laughing loudly and joyfully with a look of bliss on her face. Obviously being out on a beautiful spring day with these two women was bringing her much delight, despite the snail pace of their vehicle. She was so totally in the moment that she unknowingly shared her joy with me. What a nice, serendipitous gift on a Saturday morning.
Joy is where you find it.
Be well.
A Lighter Side of Alzheimer’s???
Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease. That one sentence by itself could be a blog article. Alzheimer’s robs a person of the possibility of living life fully, in many cases joyfully, and frequently with dignity. Alzheimer’s robs the family of the person they knew and loved. It is a horrible way to fade out of this existence. It is a horrible disease to watch a loved one go through.
However, Alzheimer’s can have its lighter side, and perhaps something you might very loosely term a “silver lining”. In another blog article, Hanging from the back bumper, I accused Saturday Night Live of modeling their character The Church Lady after my mother. Obviously a bit of hyperbole, Continue reading “A Lighter Side of Alzheimer’s???”
Rallllllffffff….
More often than I would like to own up to, I revert to being a 13 year old boy. One of my less than adult behaviors is enunciating the name Ralph while I eructate (burp). Yes, I know, boys will be boys…
I did so this morning and Señora asked me, “who is Ralph?”
“I don’t know, it is just something I say,” I answered.
She next asked, “Have you ever known any Ralphs?”
“Well”, I said, “Not that I recall, have you?”
“Nope, me neither,” she added.
“It is not a very common name now days,” was my brilliant response.
Señora then proceeded to say Ralph several ways, adding that it was a harsh name when spoken.
Thinking of Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners I said, “An easy name for your wife to yell at you meanly.”
Not missing a beat Señora replied, “David works pretty good too.”
Related??? – At one point my brother Mark could recite the alphabet while burping… I don’t know if he is still in practice.
Quote of the Day – Frederick Douglass
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” — Frederick Douglass
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Word of the Day – Parkour
- Noun: Parkour
- the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing
- Synonyms:
- none found… that were consistent with the definition
- Usage:
- “Runners are the messengers of the future who practice parkour to deliver underground messages to revolutionary factions in the city. Free Running is an exercise/sports game based on the Parkour urban game where athletes use their surroundings to maneuver around areas.”
- Encountered:
- My sadistic spouse, the Mistress Robin, for Christmas gave poor little old OCD me a daily calendar of puzzles, well knowing that I could not let them go unsolved, thus driving me stark raving mad. Fortunately most of the puzzles are reasonably simple. The one for April 6th was a puzzle of word fragments that resulted in 20 words with a sports theme. I was down to par and kour, either order did not make sense to me so I peeked at the answer. I then had to look up the definition of parkour. I have learned something new, I can go home now?
- My sadistic spouse, the Mistress Robin, for Christmas gave poor little old OCD me a daily calendar of puzzles, well knowing that I could not let them go unsolved, thus driving me stark raving mad. Fortunately most of the puzzles are reasonably simple. The one for April 6th was a puzzle of word fragments that resulted in 20 words with a sports theme. I was down to par and kour, either order did not make sense to me so I peeked at the answer. I then had to look up the definition of parkour. I have learned something new, I can go home now?
To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day