After noon. Carol is on the phone with her
sister and you have been checking email. Arthritic problems stayed around
during the morning but a hot bath cured most of the aches and pains. Facial
nerves are sensitive and have been since when you cut the one inch or so limb
on a bush that it snapped down hitting part of the left eye socket but not the
eye itself.
1221 hours. I think that was two days ago. It is just sore and the
fingers on my right hand continue into numbness several times a day (like now
for instance). It doesn't interfere with typing (thank goodness) but it is a
strange spongy-like feeling in my fingers when I hit the keys, especially the
first three fingers, the middle finger is affected worst (from the tip down to
the first knuckle).-- I have the fan on but the windows are closed and the heat
on slightly. Ellie is lying on the footstool along with my feet. Earlier we
found Jadah curled up under the top cover in the middle of one of the single
beds in Kim's old room. She was really toasty. The sun is finally coming out
but it is still windy. The Boy Scouts brought us 20 bags of mulch today and
stacked it neatly at the top of the driveway. More outside work to be done.
Carol wants to put some of it (maybe all) on the path in the woods to the table
by the run near the bottom of the wooded gully in back. I assume we are to
lunch within the hour. Usually it is Smashburgers, but who knows.
Post and take a break orndorff. - Amorella
None of this is probably worthy of the blog.
Then why is it written? - Amorella
What I mean is that it means nothing, it has no significance in my
life.
Not true, orndorff. When people are dead
these little things gather their meaning (at least in here that is the case). -
Amorella
Shades of "Our Town". (1236)
Mid-afternoon.
You had a late lunch at Smashburgers and the sides and burger and chicken
sandwiches were the best you've ever had there. You took the time to tell the
manager and discovered Brian had done the cooking. Carol is at Target at VOA
Shopping, then to Kroger's on Tylersville and perhaps some time at the park
afterwards. It is a lot more like summer now that some of the clouds have
dissipated. - Amorella
1455 hours. Lots of people shopping. The local economy has
weathered these last few years very well. We live in a very diverse area; we
have a huge Jewish Senior Community as well as a huge Christian Senior
Community in Mason. We have many Muslims
also as they have a relatively new Masque less than a mile from where I sit in
eastern Butler County and within a couple miles west is a newly built Indian
Temple. Many families are also from India and Asia -- a very family oriented, industrious
and better-educated greater community north of Cincinnati. And to think, when
we first moved to the Village of Mason in 1975 most all of this area was rural.
Where I sit was part of Voice of America Bethany Station broadcasting. Most
farms had cattle and/or horses as well as corn, soybeans, and winter wheat. This
turnover has been interesting to live in and where Kim and Paul are moving, a
little south of Delaware, Ohio, it is the same. When we were young it was
rural, lots of grain farms with cattle and/or horses. Now the population of
Columbus (nurtured by Ohio State, Capital and Otterbein and other smaller
colleges and universities) has grown more diverse with similar population and
cultural growth. When I graduated from high school who would have thought (it
would become as it has). Not many I would imagine.
You
would dream this situation for the entire world, boy, but you are embarrassed
to admit it. - Amorella
I am. It makes me to be a fool to myself. I know better. I am
cynical for good reason, still the dream squeaks out. (1517)
You have moved to the Kroger lot. To be such
a dreamer is a part of everyone's humanity, boy; but you also have good reason
to be cynical and dark humored, so let's let it go at that. Time to work on
Brothers 17, let's get to it. - Amorella
1722 hours. We are at Pine Hill and I have done some work.
Place what you have here. Take a break,
orndorff, and when home, post. - Amorella
***
Brothers 17 (incomplete, draft 2)
Robert and
Richard sat on a bench with a back with their eyes towards the Park Lake Major;
Lake Minor is just out of sight to the west. The large roofed picnic table area
sits to the northeast between the two lakes in Riverton's favorite park with
two lakes, a stream and surrounding woods. Flowers, mowed grass, a Kid's Play
Area and meadowland for birds and other critters. They focused on the great
blue heron fishing near the west bank. He stood solidly patient with a closed
wingspan, more than six feet open winged. Yellow beaked with black plumes
running the neckline.
A
wingspan of more than six feet, thought Robert, that's about my height; it is a
magnificently solid feathered bird standing in its natural habitat.
"We
used to come here as kids; almost more fun than the cemetery," commented
Richard.
"I
remember coming here with the girls our senior year -- old Riverton High, Class of 1960." He thought, now
it's a refurbished honors elementary school.
"I
was dating Connie," said Richard.
"And,
I, Cyndi." Robert smiled in the pause. "Here we are seventy; a long
road since seventeen." Both laughed.
"How
did it come to this? You a retired surgeon and me a retired professor, who
would have thought."
"We
were both in Air Force ROTC at John Knox. We were going to make it a career,”
said Robert.
Richard
added, "And the girls were both at Case Western Reserve for nursing
degrees our sophomore year.
Robert
continued to focus on the heron, quiet and patient, like myself he thought.
Suddenly
the great blue let out a discordant screeching.
"He
sounds like a dinosaur in an old movie."
"Unmerciful,"
said Rob. "Why the squawk?" They watched the wings rise as if they
were going to pull his five-pound body out of the water with a single flap.
"It
is an intentional acts of will. He stands wings down in place."
It
is an existential act. We raised our wings once and it kept the girls and us
together," declared Richard.
"We
four were always attracted to one another," injected Robert. "Look,
the heron is back stalking a fish."
"You
failed the ROTC physical in the Spring and in the Fall the Cuban Missile Crises
loomed."
"It
was our junior year. We thought we going to die in a nuclear holocaust brought
on by arrogance and accident."
"That
was an existential world drama if there ever was one," expressed Robert.
"We thought we were going to die. If the Russian ship did not stop a news
report said we would see the beginning of a war few would survive."
"I
remember that if the missiles were fired from Cuba we would have about twenty
minutes. We both wanted to call the girls but the frat house phone was
busy," said Richard. He chuckled dark humouredly. "I was taking World
Drama from Dr. C that semester. It was either Ionesco’s "The Chairs" or Beckett's Waiting
for Godot. In any case the focus was on the Theatre of the Absurd. Both
were written during the Cold War."
521 words
completed
***
You
are stopped at Kroger's on Kings Mill Road as Carol forgot pickles and yogurt.
You have left over Papa John's pizza for supper. - Amorella
I like Richard's "Theatre of the Absurd" point. Talk
about the dreamer 'being cynical" earlier this fits right at the top of my
mind. I am right in character with this portion of Brothers 17. And, what did
it take in real life to bring the Ivory Tower perspective to life, as it is,
the Cuban Missile Crisis. Beckett's Godot may not be God but we wait for
something, for somebody to come along the road while we perform acts of comedy
and tragedy in our life-moment under the yellow sun. Maybe the time we take
with us is the 'moment' of consciousness in life. If so, then still we wait
only along another road. Ionesco's metaphorical "The Chairs" sits on
top or below Godot's road map to anywhere in particular.
Your recent reading from Wikipedia suggests:
** **
In idealistic models of reality, the material world is
either non-existent or is a secondary artifact of the "true" world of
ideas. In such worlds, it can be said that everything is an act of will.
Kant's Transcendental Idealism claimed, "all
objects are mere appearances [phenomena]." He asserted, "nothing
whatsoever can ever be said about the thing in itself that may be the basis of
these appearances." Kant's critics responded by saying that Kant had no
right, therefore, to assume the existence of a thing in itself.
Schopenhauer proposed that we cannot know the thing in
itself as though it is a cause of phenomena. Instead, he said that we can know
it by knowing our own body, which is the only thing that we can know at the
same time as both a phenomenon and a thing in itself.
When we become conscious of ourselves, we realize that
our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and
desiring. These are characteristics of that which we call our will.
From Wikipedia
** **
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