Yyyyyyyyyyyyyep!

Really, when ya come right down to it, enjoying good food is one of the two most fun things a human can do.

~ Steve Lacey

Weeds

When I had lived here a year or two, my neighbor asked me when I was going to mow those weeds down in my front yard.  I said,"I'm waiting for those little flowers that came up to stop flowering first."  He said, "Those aren't flowers.  Those are weeds."  I said, "Weeds are flowers you don't want and I like those.  I'm not mowing until they finish blooming."

They are called Star of Bethlehem and they are NC wildflowers.  They are all in my grass and flower beds, managing to bloom even when their leaves have been mown.   Or weedeaten.

Even with plants, it's all a matter of perspective.

This life

I am the wife of a lovely man. He fits me.

I have an almost-adult son. Most of the time (when he's not living at home) I really like him.

I have a great house. It is small enough to be manageable for tending to and I could afford the mortgage even before I found this husband.

I have an incredible yard that we have filled with things that bloom and things to eat and things to delight the eyes.

I live in an area where there are interesting things to do.

I have an old dog and 2 cats. They all adore me and we snuggle a lot.

I have work that suits me. I have a handful of coworkers whose conversations I really enjoy. One is a real friend away from the lab.

I have a good adult relationship with my parents.

Do you see that this life is excellent?

When I read horror stories that are the lives of other dreamers I say "thank you." I am grateful that I get to dance this happy dance. There will be time for pain dances and sorrow dances and angry dances. But this I is getting the happy dance and even when the I is having a not-perfect day, I still recognize that it is a happy dance.

I would not dare to tell an I who is dancing a pain dance that it is a good dance too. S/he might dance a step or two with me. And "good" is a value judgment that doesn't really matter. They are the right dances for the here-and-now of I and I.

Unexpected author

Nothing exists; all is a dream. God—man—the world—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars—a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you!...And you are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought.

 
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Art and Artifice

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/04/11/art-and-artifice

This too shall pass.

Today, joy.

Tomorrow, pain.

Next Thursday, want.

On June 8th, a stubbed toe or a random act of violence or a birthday.

All passing.

All replaced by the next thing.

You will not have this moment again.

Love it.

Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy, umami, astringent.

ROYGBIV

The Dark Side of the Moon

No apologies to Pink Floyd.

Hmmmm

But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it; but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose; it only shews you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind: but it does not shew that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind.

– George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710

Posted on Futility Closet

This is true

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal—every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open—this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

I wonder what the mechanism in human brains is that causes this?