Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Strange Turns in the Blink of an Eye

Good Morning Smile Warriors, it's Tuesday, October 1, 2013. Go forth and smile. The world will really wonder what you are up to.


Starting one's day in this house is always an adventure. Today I started by noting the cats had something because a tail was peeking out from under their noses and paws. Hoping I was not about to grab a small poisonous snake or a mouse, I grabbed for the creature and found a small dark lizard in my hand. These are Cuban lizards not the native bright green anoles. I got to the front door and hoped the wood fence protected me from exposure to the neighbors, or the other way around, and managed to drop one confused little reptile out the door. I was just in my nightgown. The lizard looked at me over his shoulder after looking around as if to say, “I was sure I was dinner,” and slowly made his way into the plants. Hopefully he will find some food, water and live a long life doing lizard things.
I was so tired last night I think I fell asleep typing to someone. I don't know who or what, because when my computer closes, it tends to sever the internet connection and the page I am on disappears. Now when you add the cats helping before hand by running across the keyboard, you don't stand a chance at ever returning to where you were. Ningee can actually take you to new web pages and activate functions on the computer I didn't even know existed. I think she understands one click ordering so I am careful to sign out of Amazon lest I find 50 pounds of treats on my front door step. Now that she has had her morning treats, she is lying beside me with her little head on my foot. This is the Ningee pose, neatly curled up and purring and feeling at least ten times heavier than she really is. How do cats do that? You know how much they weigh and yet once on your body, it increases dramatically. Then I must scratch the little Ningee chin. I must say one thing for her scuzzy mother cat, she certainly produced a beautiful litter with silky fur and she was neither. She also produced 6 huge cats and Ningee, which I guess will be with me to end of my life and theirs. We are a family with Napoleon running the show.
What's our happy thought for the day? Well, old Mark Twain said that no man was safe when Congress was in session and Congress just closed the government. Are we safe? Depends on what they think are vital services. One thing is certain, there is nothing we can do about it or they would be sitting there, clean and sober, working for us instead of drawing a paycheck and probably three sheets to the wind by now. It's a nice job if you can convince a lot of idiots to vote for you by throwing enough money around. That is my version of the American Political System.
Oddly, nothing would have changed if we hadn't all been put out of work and discovered we had so much time on our hands since you can submit a thousand job applications with one keystroke and no one even bothers to turn you down. So, you sit and stare at the computer screen hoping for a ding and instead get multiple news channels and at some point when Congress comes up, you say, “They did WHAT??” Voila, you have an involved electorate, researching issues in an information age. That my dear friends was the day Congress realized their cushy job was over after the next election because instead of a faithful tiny electorate servicing their ego needs they had an angry mob with tar and feathers screaming for blood. I believe it takes at least two bottles of whiskey now to reach the same level of delusion as it used to and fasten your seat belts because by election day next year, I dare say the liquor truck will be making wholesale quantity deliveries to Congress' back door, if we haven't barricaded it.
Something even odder has happened my Smile Warriors through the wonders of distraction. It is called games, multinational gaming. I have game buddies all over the world. Last night I saw an article on solar shingles and it was in Hungarian. So, I hit translate and the web happily translated it to English. I went out to the site and discovered it had originally been written in English and translated to Hungarian. Those of you who grew up in the information age have no idea how fantastic that is.
I toured a small tomb in Egypt, watched an amateur Egyptologist measure the sarcophagus and use a level to show how perfect the cuts are all from the comfort of my air conditioned and soft bed. I could then have pulled up more videos that you can shake a stick at on the same tiny little thing. The best you could have hoped for when I was young was a few pictures and a grainy roll of film.
Do you remember film that you loaded into a projector which proceeded to project the clickidy clackity grainy black and white image on a screen that was determined to take you arm off or roll you up in it? And then the film broke or if it stopped running, could actually catch on fire...yes, I was the AV person that ran that monster.
You believed what was on that piece of celluloid. Now, you research it instantly in multiple locations and then say hello to your gaming buddy in that country and ask them if it really looks that way. They may give you a completely different and more accurate version. Next thing you know the country your government is planning on going to war with has YOUR friends in it and you need their help to finish the quest and they aren't agreeing with what is on the news and you are using the Welcome To Facebook abbreviation. As they said back in the 40's, the jig is up and governments fall.
Now, do you want to know what will tumble our and everyone elses' entire belief system and government? It will be the day that the people who are handpicked to give politicians' information about every area of government are replaced by some smart guy and Google. You see, when someone runs for office, they get a “staff” with “experts”. Those so called experts are really Spin Doctors hired by the party or financing person to provide the candidate with information and “facts” that now only reflect the religion and philosophy of the person controlling the purse strings of the campaign. They get the best information, their owners can buy. As a result, the candidate not only has no idea of the real issues or facts or the will of their base. They look out the window at the crowd and the expert tells them to look at all the people supporting them when in reality, those people are ready to burn them at the stake. They have no idea as someone pours them a drink and distracts them with what they need to wear to next lunch meeting and a brief history of the other people at the meeting, most of whom they have never met and are just trying to get the names straight.
It's all distraction and slight of hand. Thus my friends, go forth and smile. It's not on the agenda in the information age where your phone keeps you from noticing someone is about to run you down with a shopping cart. Smile and for that single instance, engage the other person, eyeball to eyeball. Yes, they are people just like you, humans. They laugh, they cry, they bleed and they have feelings and needs, just like you. Nod your head and take a look at the person checking you out in the store. Compliment them on something you can see. Engage, my friends, engage. There are a million individual stories out there just waiting for you and they are all free...no roaming charges, no wireless charges, no ebook required. Spread the smiles! They really are free.
Remember that lizard this morning, fighting for his little life under several cat paws when a huge pink thing covered him, lifted him up and the next thing he knew he was sitting on a leaf in the sunlight....life can take some strange turns in a remarkably short time.


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