Wednesday, 30 June 2010

• From one 'Featured Grownups' to another...

  While scanning through my regular Xanga mail, I happened across a friend's blog, and started writing a regular reply. As I was writing my comment on Mike's blog, Featured Grownups: July Topics ,  I decided that I'd be taking up too much valuable real estate on his site, so I moved things over here, rather than monopolizing his blog.
  
  Here ya go...
  
  It's sad when you just get comfortable with online friends, only to find 'em fading away from the scene [link here is also courtesy of Mike - a different entry. Both are worth a read. Back to Mike:] I do hope you don't fade out altogether, Mike - yours is one of the few sites that not only have something worth saying, but also manage to find a bit of silver lining in even the worst of storm clouds. I'm not as eloquent in writing as you, but I kind of put together my take on the Featured Grownups topics [http://featured-grownups.xanga.com/729338528/july-topic---vote-now/]over here, too...if you have the chance, come by for a visit?
  
  Well, that's a nice segue to my blog, isn't it? I kept all original links intact, for convenience sake. Cheers. Oh, and Mike: try not to fade away? Like I said, you're one of just a handful of people who manage to keep Xanga still interesting.
  
  1. On BP: I live Gulf side in Florida, in the Tampa Bay area...when the oil first started its rushes, the group and I went out to Honeymoon Island for a "while it's still here" party [leave it to us, I swear...] and took pictures of the area [still clear and clean, so far] - analog pictures that are as yet not scanned. The recent turn of storm season has got many of us concerned, as the silvery streaks in NASA's photos just keep growing.
  
  2. On new music: youngest has got me listening to Skillet, Anberlin, and Switchfoot lately. Eldest has me listening to Nightwish's take on Phantom of the Opera, Metallica's take on Whiskey in a Jar, and other modern takes on classics - rather interesting lineup, I'd say.
  
  3. On writing a letter to a younger me: I already know that the younger version of me wouldn't have listened to anyone - up to and including myself - so I'd have to skip that one. I wish I weren't kidding...
  
  4. I hold a Christian take on Mike's  Universal Mind theory. Christian - "Christ Like" - to base my walking world as closely to what Christ was trying to teach as humanly possible. Yes, I've frequented the page he's linked to - and found myself fascinated by it. I'd recommend a click when you're done here, in fact.
  
  Later edit: I knew that Universal Mind incorporates Baptist belief...but wanted, too, to draw people's eyes to Mike's  sites -he's got a great way of putting things that I somewhat lack. It's all good.
  
  On item 5.: I'm not motivated to reply adequately to that one at this time 
  
  6. My favorite summer memories involve being surrounded by good friends, bad jokes, terrible kitchen experiments in cooking, and great fun. In my younger day, yes, there was the inclusion of copious amounts of alcohol - but now, I can't use that as an excuse for the "it's supposed to be cake but we'll call it brownies" baking experiment gone awry - I don't drink. Note: chocolate milk is great for introducing a softer texture and for masquerading as flavor in such catastrophes.
  
  7. Write a paradox...okay...one of my closest friends in middle school was born with a hole in her heart. When she was little, a quack doctor had put a sort of valve on her main aorta. By her teen years, it was determined that any loosening of this aorta would result in high probability of her hemorrhaging internally. She was excused from most P.E. exercises, and other things. She was living, scared.
  
  Then she met me, smart@$$tic to the nth degree. We fought, we made up, we were best of buddies. At one point, I picked a fight with her, and she nearly mopped the driveway with me, and demanded of me, "What do you have to say for yourself!!!"
  
  I replied, "You're still alive, aren't you?"
  
  Startled, she dropped me [ow!] and reconsidered.
  
  From that point, forward, she lived - not afraid of her heart.
  
  Paradox: while riding in a car, after having made up for so long of living cautiously, she and a few friends were driving, slightly inebriated, through town. A car crash occurred. Of the four occupants in the vehicle, my friend, Flash, was the only one who had passed on - her heart gave out under the stress. R.I.P. 
  
  It was only recently that I had forgiven myself for that.
  
  WOW! Okay, that was heavy...but worth telling, nonetheless.
  
  8. What am I reading this summer? News feeds, blogs, 'zines, and letters - both analog and digital. I never have/make time for books, anymore...figures, right?
  
  9. I've not made any special achievements that I can really think of. My sons, however, have. Eldest, who has ADHD, and Youngest, who is high-functioning, moderately autistic - they both have proven to their teachers that not only do special-needs kids specifically NOT need to be zoned out on Ritalin, etc. - but can attain and maintain a 3.0 or better GPA, even in honors classes, with no need of psychotropic medications whatsoever. Youngest heard an education specialist state to me that he, "...might be late in talking, or may never talk..." at age four. In his then-childish scrawl, he wrote, "BOy sMArt" on a piece of paper and threw it at the specialist. 12 years later, he's doing fine, was in two honors classes, and still retains high scores. Make no mistake: these are their achievements, not mine - I am still simultaneously amazed and proud of my boys [although I'm not one to tell 'em enough.]
  
  On item 10. , I rather like baldmike2004's commentary on it, as posted on his blog, Featured Grownups: July Topics. I think I'll just tack it here.
  
  10.How does your nation fit into the global community?
  My nation, the U.S., has always wanted to be the world's police force, but most of the world doesn't like this attitude one bit. And now after over 200 years of inviting the tired and poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free to our shores we seem to want to barricade all our borders and begin asking everyone for their "papers". However I'd really like to think that I belong to the "nation of man" instead of to any one ideology or government. I pledge allegiance to the United States, but I also pledge allegiance to the diversity of humankind, and forever hope that someday humankind will will be able to at least agree to disagree in a more pleasant manner.
  
  Well said, Mike, well said.
  
  Well, lads and ladies, and those in-between: that's all I've got for you today. Cheers.
  
  
  
  

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