Free Beer Tomorrow

A short walk today trumps the promise of a long walk tomorrow.

It's fitting, I suppose, given that I've written about unfulfilled promises of tomorrow, that Beau gets that promised walk on the last day of the August NaBloPoMo challenge.

I won't be coming back to these pages tomorrow. I will, however, show up with a modicum of regularity at some of the blogs, websites, you see in the box to the right. It would make my day to run into you at one of them from time to time. If any of them strike your fancy, I hope you'll subscribe - that way you'll know when a new post goes up.

See you tomorrow, somewhere.

Working the Inbox

One of the most important things I want to get done is to dig out all the paper I can find with my writing on it and either scan or type it up for preservation online with a backup on a hard drive. Additionally, I want to get as much of my life and history as I can recorded somewhere. I have a daughter and grandchildren who may one day want to know what life was like back in the olden day.

What can I say, it's a compulsion I have - my family will benefit. It's a win - win.

Short on Tomorrows

Running out of tomorrows to write about tomorrow. There are only two days left in August and National Blog Posting Month.

That's assuming I'll still be around to write them - a reasonable assumption. But that little TIA (transient ischemic attack -- mini-stroke) I had a while back made it clear that getting from my morning coffee safely to dinner is never a given.

And that is just so unsatisfactory -- the nagging possibility of being cut down mid stride with an inbox full of unfinished business. But it has me thinking: Which items in my inbox should I dig out and try to finish first before the lights go out?

More on that tomorrow...

From a Remote Location

In Austin tonight with GB. We picked out rings today and had dinner at La Traviata. Got to run now. Sorry to bail on you. Will do better tomorrow....

Abandoned Prayer Beads

Zehra is in Turkey now. She left the Ph.D. program. She went home and she's not coming back. What do I do with the orange sajada - prayer rug - and the beads for praying, her subhah she left behind? And this Qur'an? -that has softened with wear, where here she underlined a passage...and here. The words are Turkish. And I wonder how these sacred, well-worn objects missed the plane. What do I do with abandoned prayer beads?

Not Today

Not much to say today...

Working on a little project for this adorable granddaughter who is a senior this year.

See you tomorrow.

Why? you ask...

Any sentence that begins with why triggers my prepare to defend/justify/explain nerve faster that you can say synapse -- alert to the expected judgment, criticism. Sometimes the other person is innocently gathering information, or is sincerely interested in getting to know me and the way my complex and endlessly fascinating mind works. That I will happily sit and discuss – long after your eyes glaze over and start darting desperately toward the door.

But if I’m asked:

Why did you do that?

Why do you do it that way?

The implication is (it's all in the tone of voice) that the questioner thinks that no rational, decent human would do that. And why did I do it that way instead of this way, which makes so much more sense. The short snappy answer is Because I want(ed) to.

After the primitive this bozo must die part of my brain is calmed by the rational frontal lobe, it creeps sheepishly to the back of my cranial cavity, and I am then able to explain. Maybe not to the satisfaction of the questioner -- that's where the defend/justify part comes in, but at least I've put down the knife. Fully composed, with a hint of maniacal glint in my eyes, I turn: Why do you ask?