Reports From My Nanocosm

We all need a little inspiration some time or another. Hump day seems as good a day as any to share some…

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1000 Marbles
author unknown (to me at least)

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday morning. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the backyard patio with a steaming cup of green tea in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned in to one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time.

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap meet.

Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind–he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles”.

I was intrigued and stopped to listen. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well, but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet.

“Too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital.”

He continued, “Let me tell you something, Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities.”

And that’s when he began to explain his marble theory. “You see, I sat down one day and did a little math. The average person lives about 75  years. I know, some a little more and some a little less, but the average is about 75 years.

“Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I’m getting to the important part.

“It took me until I was 55 years old to think about all this in clear detail. By that time I had lived through over 2800 Saturdays. I got to thinking about it, and if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.

“So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up going to three different stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.

Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.

“I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the  really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help you get your priorities straight.

“Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out to breakfast. This morning, I took the very last  marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.

“It was nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again.”

You could have heard a pin drop on the radio when this fellow signed off.

I guess he gave us all something to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife with a kiss. “C’mon, honey, I’m taking you and the grandkids to breakfast.”

“What brought this on?” she asked with a smile. “Oh, nothing special.  It’s just been a while since we spent a Saturday together with the grandkids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.”

This shockwave is very neat. It reminds me of Stomp and other physical music art during the 1990’s.

http://uploads.ungrounded.net/221000/221483_Play.swf

I use my Avatar for Messenger, why not for 360? It was rejected today as one of my four profile photos by the 360 Gods. Blah!

Sure, it doesn’t meet the guidelines, taken literally, but it looks
like me. I swear it does, down to the frog at my feet  Seriously, that’s the picture I want to use. I guess I should
upload it again in case the ‘reject’ button was hit bymistake or until
they feel sorry for me. 

Is there a better use for blogs than to vent? In this case, a blogger documents how bad drivers can be.
http://www.iriggs.com/blog/comment.php?ref_entry=1149

I hope she got a ticket for reckless driving. I can’t recount the
number of times I wish a cop caught idiot drivers like this. Even then,
karma will one day catch up to them.

I’m fascinated by the varied reactions people have to this site: http://www.savetoby.com/

Some faceless person has decided it would be fun to tease the portion
of American society that thinks of rabbits only as cute and cuddly
bunnies and can’t stand the thought of one being eaten. He’s chosen to
put up a web site saying that he’ll eat his bunny if people don’t fork
over $50,000 by June.

It reminds me of 4 things:
(1) A scene from Roger and Me when Michael Moore interviews a woman
running a rabbit farm in her back yard where she raised, sold and
slaughtered them. Incidentally, Roger and Me doesn’t show up on Michael
Moore’s Y! Movies filmography. Wonder who to tell?
(2) My Polish and other European cookbooks with Rabbit sections alongside sections for poultry, pork, beef and fish.
(3) Eating rabbit as a child while visiting an aunt and uncle. They
raised rabbits for food, to supplement their normal diet. Few groceries
in Michigan sold rabbit meat affordably.
(4) A dog eating site posted to GeoCities in 1998/1999. It advocated
lifting bans against eating canines and felines as a cure to world
hunger, included recipes and other information. I was managing our
abuse group at the time so I was in the thick of the action. We were
bombarded with email demanding we delete the site, threats against
life, limb and criminal complaints,  and eventually press coverage. It
didn’t violate our guidelines so we left it up for a few months. It was
finally removed when the executives decided it didn’t fit within the
spirit of the community.

In the end, I think people should just shrug this off and ignore this
guy. Why reward actions done solely for shock value? If he wants to eat
a rabbit he will, even if it isn’t this one. Eating rabbit is common in
parts world where they are only considered for their potential as a
meal, so in those places this site and the threats it makes would
elicit only blank stares and shrugs. I’d agree with them. Why bother?

We made potato and cheese pierogi today. Mrs. T’s and the lone
Polish restaurant in LA just didn’t cut it

Proof is in the photos:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/geodanny/album?.dir=fbfc&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http://photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Not the same as grandma’s but they weren’t half bad. Brett had the hard job making
the dough. I had the easy job making the filling and stuffing the pierogi. The recipe is
from a polish cookbook I recently bought. Next time, I need to recruit a small army to
help. whew! Then again, it really only took 3 hours and our recipe made 50.

As I think of corned beef sandwiches and green beer, I’m left to think
of how hollow the Irish side of me feels. Though I’m derived from as
much Irish blood as Polish, I know so much less about that culture. My
Polish ancestors arrived 20 years before my Irish side and still more
culture lives in their descendents than the Irish side’s.

My Irish ancestors seem to have stepped off the boat and immediately
forgotten their origin and uniqueness. The only thing cultural they
kept was the term ‘Erin go braugh’, roughly translated to ‘Ireland
forever.’ And if it weren’t for our insatiable American appetite for
holidays of all sorts, St. Patrick’s Day would be just another saint’s
day hidden in obscurity on the Catholic calendar. Who celebrates the
feast day of St. Anthony? Gaelic wasn’t spoken at home or taught in
schools, jigs were vanquished as a far off memory, and folklore left
behind in the ancestral homeland. And I’ll bet my family weren’t the
only Irish who hid from themselves.

On the contrary, my Polish family spoke Polish at home, taught their
children the joys of eating and cooking polish cuisine, romanticized
about Poland, and brought us all the Polka. It was strong enough that
Polish language classes were offerred by schools in Polish enclaves
through the 1980’s. Not sure about that today. It’s no wonder why 4
generations removed I own 2 Polish cookbooks and I’ve recently been
asking around for grandma’s pierogi and golabki recipes.

It was obvious at yeterday’s local
farmers’ market that the seasons are changing. Summer is
almost here. Gone are the tables of beets and broccoli. Instead we were
greeted by early season strawberries and tomatoes mixed in with the
remnants of our winter staples.  Just walking around, my mouth was
watering because of the sweet tangy fragrances of the ripe strawberries
at what seemed to be every other booth. No wonder the three baskets we
bought didn’t make it 24 hours.

I can barely wait for artichokes and peaches to show up.

Don’t know where your local farmers’ market is. In California, you can
find it here: http://www.cafarmersmarkets.com/.
They only sell California produce, much of it organic.

 

Nothing like warm weather to improve the spirits.