Tiger Wins Again

I watched him hit some pretty incredible shots today....and it is true now, just
as it always has been. You drive for show and put for dough!!!Great come back for
Tiger Woods today at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. I had Goosebumps watching that 16 foot putt go in for him to win. I haven't smiled that hard or screamed that loud in a long time. He just makes the game so much fun to watch. I wish my dad were still here to see this. Seems impossible that it was 1996 when Tiger turned pro with those simple words..."Hello World."

The Masters is next...

The Sunday Morning Muse, March 29, 2009

The muse is delayed due to technical problems.

The Tax Man

I'm getting my income taxes done today. I could probably do my own taxes and not pay someone to do them. But I consider it a small luxury, since own job requires me to do paperwork 8 hours a day for other people. The guy who does my taxes rents a small storefront office space during tax season and gets more than enough business to keep him busy. On the weekends he hosts a Polka show on the radio. Occasionally people will call in to the show and request a song by his old band. I till have the 45 RPM record they made years ago. I think there were 500 copies. Probably a collector's item by now.

In the Newspaper

More newspapers are going bust, and I'm sad about it. I read two papers a day. They are as regular as the sun for me. I depend on the morning paper for my horoscope. I also like the editorials because they give a voice to the community. But there is so much more. I like the physical act of skimming a paper. The predictability of it. Seeing something in print that catches my eye. Moving over the page and being drawn in by a headline. Looking to see if my favorite columnist wrote something interesting today. Reading the details of a story I only heard "teased" on the TV News, and "knowing" something that no one else around me knows yet, because I read it first.

My love affair with the paper started early. I can still remember reading the class lists to see what school teacher I would have in homeroom in the fall. It was exciting to actually have a picture IN the paper. That first happened when I was in 4th grade. I still have the photo.

I can think of twice that my face actually graced the front page of a paper. Both times were candid shots that I had no idea were even taken, and didn't know until I saw myself in black and white the next day. A small thrill, but an unexpected pleasure all the same. (and no... it wasn't a "mug shot.")

I recently got to take advantage of a search engine at Ancestry.com that lets you search old newspapers. I spent hours doing searches of family members who had passed on. I looked at decades of old bowling scores, traffic accidents, births, deaths, weddings and even a big house fire right here where I live from 1947. What a strange way to see your hometown newspaper. Sifting quickly through articles from decades ago, long forgotten. The old gas station on the corner was in one advertisement and looked as it did when I was a kid. I saw a picture of my dad in his younger days when he managed a baseball team from the plant where he worked.

Newspapers document our lives. In a tangible way.

You know, this whole Goosepath thing will be gone someday. It's digital. Someday in the future, either the website people will pull the plug, or I'll hit DELETE and this will be gone.

And that makes me sad, too.

The Sunday Morning Muse, March 22, 2009

I can sure use a spa day. Can't we all? Seriously. Your 401k balance, the outrage over the AIG bonuses, your latest gas bill.... all the daily bad news that spews out of the Boob Tube. All those troubles will vanish (at least temporarily) after you take a long steam and get a massage. I'm not a tanner, but if that's your thing, go lay in a tanning bed. Soak in some rays. Lord knows we need to lift the daylight deprivation depression that set in over the winter.

Muse about your summer plans. Take time to act on something... some notion that you have, but put aside. Clean out space.... in your head, and also in your house if you can.

Feeling too poor to dream? Work with what you got. Plant your dreams. Grow something. Give yourself something to look forward to.

Let's just not wallow in all this negativity all the time. Times are tough. Things'll get better.

If all else fails, Hug the Cat.

Spring is Here!

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain
-

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

Good Mews

Chasing Snakes out of Ireland

This is all I knew of St. Patrick. I'm glad I looked it up and got the Straight dope on it. Rubbish.

Oh well...get out some green beer and toast to better times.

YouTube Good News Flower Hour

I tell ya, I'm looking more and more at alternative news sources. New ones spring up all the time. Love the clip right at the very end with Jon Stewart.

The Ides of March

The Sunday Morning Muse, March 15, 2009

I tried the Expresso Fitness bike experience yesterday at the gym. Now, I'll be the first to say that stationary bikes and treadmills bore me to tears, yet I found something compelling about riding this virtual bike and steering it through this imaginary scenic world, all the while watching my calorie count, my milage, my number of miles, my heart rate and I don't know what else ticking away on the screen. I can tell you with certainty that I travelled 3.08 miles in "Fruitdale," I sped away 100 calories during my trip, and kept my heart rate at a decent 137 average for beats per minute.

All and all, I actually sweated, and my ass didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. And I didn't have to pedal back home. All I had to do was stop.

It was....satisfying. Plus, instead of avoiding the "pace" bikers they put on the screen, I made a game of it and crashed into them whenever I could..... making them disappear... Poof! No more staring at THAT ass in front of me. Motivation. Can't do that in the real world.

But it occurs to me the one thing I couldn't do on the bike was..... coast. Isn't that why you pedal real fast in short bursts? So you can coast awhile... pick your hands straight up... feel the breeze...

Hey, next time I'm gonna put a fan somewhere near the bike.

No Meow

It's been six days since Coco was spayed...and still no Meow.

Stewart versus Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Why is it that the news I get on the frigging Comedy Network is actually closer to
reality than anything I see anywhere else?

CoCo Update

Sad to report that CoCo has had a complication from her spaying. She is mute. It's been four days and I am concerned for her. She pitifully looks up at me and moves her mouth like a meow and nothing comes out. At the very end of her vocal attempt is a little "chortle" or tiny retch like sound.

The vet offered no immediate answers. Just wait a few days and see if she gets better. Some animals are more sensitive. Of course that doesn't ease my worries. I've told CoCo's story to everyone within my circle of people and no one has had this happen before.

Also I've done at least 400 google searches and found no other cat in a situation similar to CoCo's. I did manage to scare myself with horrible stories of cats who have had intubations go

wrong on the table. I am also aware now just how small and sensitive that airway is...and how easily it can be damaged.

On the bright side, other than the muteness, she bounced back fine from the actual surgery. It breaks my heart to see her try to meow, though.

The Sunday Morning Muse, March 8, 2009

"Pray for good, look for worse,"
Aunt Millie preached as she
walked to church
in her blue dress,
carrying her pocketbook.

Overweight and bow-legged
down the highway
and over the hill.

--
Her mantra is as applicable today as it was then. In the 1980's Millie was enjoying her retirement. It wasn't a great time economically here. The Steel industry was going bust, and also the pottery where she spent 40 years of her life would soon also go belly up. But Millie spent her days in good spirits. She attended to odd jobs at the house, or puttered in the garden, ending the afternoon on the porch with a few beers. She never had all that much, but it didn't matter to her. The things she DID have are what counted. I came across her old bible recently. In the front, on a blank page, I saw the beginnings of her last will and testament. Her short list of belongings included, of all things..... her roaster. I can't imagine too many wills mention a roaster. It must have meant a lot to her.

Sweet-- Ballroom Blitz

I am embarrassed but I will admit.... I did Karaoke to this song one time. The DJ said no one had ever tried it before then.

"Oh, I see a man at the back
As a matter of fact---his eyes are red as the sun
And a girl in the corner let no one ignore her
'Cause she thinks SHE'S the passionate one....

Ohhhhhh yeah!"

Muppet News Flash

Keeping You Informed... HUGE ASTEROID MISSES EARTH

The week could have started a whole lot differently. You could have went to sleep Sunday night and never woke up. Most people don't even realize what a close call our planet had with a huge asteroid. The same size as the Siberian one in 1908 that everyone still talks about.


I thought it odd that the asteroid story was only about 10 seconds long last night on the evening news, and it was inserted way at the end of the newscast.


I find this especially strange in the age of Hyped News.
Certainly a lead in could have been written to draw people away from reruns of Everbody Loves Raymond....hmmm, let me see. How about HUGE ASTEROID BARELY MISSES EARTH... film at 11.
-
We should have had Bruce Willis on Standby at least, if needed to reprize his role in Armageddon.

Free Advice

"I'm getting rid of a cold," that's the response you should give when someone inquires. It's all about mindset. (man to woman in a restaurant)

-

I loved the simplicity of this when I heard it. Why not give it a try? It can't hurt. Gives the impression you have power over the cold instead of it controlling you. Haven't you heard people who just give up? You know the type. "I am soooo sick," they say as they hack and snort, "I've always had these sinus infections this time of year and it'll probably last 3 weeks....and THAT's if I'm lucky... You'll see.. by Friday it will be in my chest... and I'll need antibiotics....and... one year I had pneumonia..."

A New Earth- Eckhart Tolle

I am re-reading A New Earth, and to my astonishment, I'm really getting it this time. (When the student is ready... the teacher appears...)

Anyhow, the story of the duck resonated with me. Isn't it soooo true? Shaking off the negative (and all those emotions that well up inside) and simply moving on with your life. Not carrying around all that negativity and replaying it over and over again. Making the people around you miserable as well. It's all ego stuff. I am becoming so much aware of Ego centered behaviors and the unhappy consequences of them. It is difficult to beat the ego back at times, but it all starts with awareness. Some people never get past even that stage, the awareness that you, inside, are not these negative thoughts. You are the person who is thinking them again and again. And you can change your thoughts.

Can you look past "being right" (making someone else wrong) and choose something different instead? Like getting on with the next moment in your life?

New Ad from Americans United for Change

The Sunday Morning Muse, March 1, 2009

Sunshine and 18 degrees on this first of March, but it's amazing the optimism that has sprung forth. January and February.... DONE. Next week the clocks change, so the days will get longer. The lawn and garden sections of stores have started opening up...and there, not far from the freshly stocked Easter stuff, sit the gnomes waiting to go home to gardens and patios all over the land.
-
I'm not a gnome owner myself. But if the right one crosses my path, I may get one to replace the two frogs that perished here last year. The Yard Guy who comes to cut the grass whacked the heads off both of them with the weed wacker. I didn't say anything, because they were not big frogs, and were obviously obscured by weeds... so it wasn't a big deal. But a gnome will gain more respect from the Yard Guy, who certainly won't miss a red pointed hat sticking up, even if the weeds around the place do get a bit high.