Making It Up As I Go Along #702

Back on schedule.

Winter may be here… or knocking on the door anyway.  Walked today with gloves and hat needed and a windchill below freezing.  Autumn goes by the fastest of all the seasons.

Baseball is my favourite sport but even I’d say it’s becoming pretty unwatchable.  3.5 to 4 hour games with not enough fielding… too many strike outs… too many pitching changes and too many batters stepping out and calling time.  My two greatest baseball wishes… a limit on the number of pitchers on a roster… and restrictions on the shift.  I’d love to see no more than eleven pitchers on a 25 man roster.  Do away with the one batter specialist.  Make it so relievers need to be able to go multiple innings and, with a reduced pitcher roster, a team can’t afford to use three pitchers in order to get three outs in a late inning.  And I wouldn’t outlaw the shift entirely, but I think the shortstop and 3rd baseman need to both stay on the left field side of 2nd base while the 2nd baseman and 1st baseman stay on the right field side.

Anyway, I still pay attention to the World Series but I’m generally not starting to watch until the 3rd inning or so… and that still gives me a good 2.5 hours of game to watch.

Memory foam mattresses promote hibernation.  Last night I was in bed for eleven hours (slept about nine of that).  It’s just too comfortable!  There’s no desire to get out of bed!

I found the Beachcombers coming on my TV each week.  Started PVRing it and now that show is part of my pre nap routine.  Watch an episode… then off to bed for my afternoon nap before night shift.  It’s a kind of corny show to look back on but is a nice memory of simpler times.  I’d much rather go to bed thinking about Nick and Relic boating around for logs than thinking about the stupidity coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

They’re Leaving
They’re leaving.
Once plowed fields
Black speckled
With hoards
Southbound travellers
Passing through
Pausing here
Preparing for the journey
As bordering trees
Bronze the horizon

But as bronze fades to bare
Wooden skeletal fingers
Reaching for that vanishing sun
They leave.

The leaving is gradual.
One flock departs
Replaced by a new wave
One family stopping
For leftovers of airborne cousins

But it nears its end.
A departure now leaves empty fields
We’ve reached that point
With small V’s of stragglers
Honking through the cold evening sky
Too late to land
They flap towards the southern glow.
Afraid to be overtaken
By the black northern cold

Making It Up As I Go Along #701

Haven’t posted in ages.  Haven’t had much interest to post in ages actually.  Got to post #700 and then just set it aside.

I think part of the lack of interest is in rebellion of social media.  We live in an age where it is so easy to share ourselves to the world.  We can exclaim our uniqueness to the world like no time ever before.  Yet, more and more, I see more of the same.

It got me to wondering.  Perhaps we don’t really want to show our individuality after all.  It’s in our brain that that’s what we’re doing.  You keep hearing celebrities urging us all to “just be you”.  But I wonder if really, we’re hard wired to simply try to fit in?  Find a “club” and become a “member”.  Maybe that’s why we see so many posts of gselfies.  To proclaim “this is the club I belong to.” And gain of sense of satisfaction when others click the “like” of acceptance.

I mean it’s a world of social media clubs now.  The middle aged wine guzzling lady.  The dyed black bearded muscle guy.  The look what my kid is doing now parent.  The 5k runner.  The traveler.  The drama hounds.  The right wing political junkies.  The left wing political junkies.  The Praise Be religious people.  The Science is everything people.  There are so many different categories out there but social media seems to lure us in to one of them.  And once we’re there, pictures and posts are largely geared towards acceptance from that group you’ve joined.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these clubs.  Anyone not identifying with some club or another are likely societies outcasts.  But we’re likely fooling ourselves to think we’re showing our uniqueness or individuality.

All this said, I find that, in my social media world, I don’t identify very much with those I’m connected to.  And rather than try to post selfies of myself sitting at a ball game, I just watch the ball game.  I have no hair style left to change and show off.  I mean, really… “Behold! Still bald!”  I’ve no dog to boast about.  No child to show off.  Running kills my knees and politics simply turns to shouting matches.

So I don’t post.  Perhaps my silence is my club.  The social media invisible.  I still exist… but am now easily forgotten.  A memory of a News Feed.

Anyway.  That’s that.

A few thoughts over the last little while…

News anchors need to stop telling us they have reporters on the ground.  We’re all on the ground.  99% of the world’s population is on the ground at any one time.  Just say “There in Israel” or “We now go to Bob, in Cleveland.”  We don’t need to know that Bob is on the ground, in Cleveland.

News people and politicians all need to stop calling everybody “folks”.  “Folks in New York are voting Democrat.”  “Folks are asking what’s next?”  “I tell folks I meet that I believe in free health care.”

Seriously, what is wrong with calling people “people”?

Speaking of people and the news… I wish natural disasters were covered simply as a natural disaster.  Every hurricane aftermath leaves a town “like a war zone.”  A tornado goes through a neighbourhood and it was “like a bomb went off.”  Can’t we just say it looks like a tornado went through the neighbourhood?

With that,

A Squirrel Morning

Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la tree la la
Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la in the morning

Snatch a seed and grab a nut
Tree la la tree la la
Chew chew chew and down in my gut
Tree la la in the morning

Scream out loud and a flurry of chatter
Tree la la tree la la
Cause bunny and bird to tuck tail and scatter
Tree la la in the morning

Curl my tail and have a sit
Tree la la tree la la
Built a leaf nest and snooze for a bit
Tree la la in the morning.