The Big Freeze

It's cold. No. Not in Alexandria or Washington really. But in our office. The heat is out of service. It's normally chilly where I sit anyway. That's with the heat working. When the heat's off it's downright cold. I think it's in the 20s outside and maybe in the 50s in here. Practically balmy!

I won't complain though. It's much colder up north. And getting colder. By mid-week it will be one of those "highs in the single-digits" kinds of freezes up in the Great Lakes.

Keep warm everyone!

Blah

Okay. It's been awhile. Since I wrote in the blog. But a lot has gone on. I won the office football pool in an office I was at two offices ago. Actually that happened well before my last blog. But I'm looking for something to write here so cut me a break. Oh! And Barack Obama won the Presidential election. Yeah, I know. That's old news, too.

It's just that the midwinter blahs have set in now that the rush of the election and the end of the football pool season are over. Now that I've reached level 80 in World of Warcraft. Oh I know there's still the post-season football fantasy league that I'm in. but I'm dead last in that after the first week. At least I have room for improvement. And then there's the hope of the upcoming baseball season. It's only about a month until spring training. I hope the lowly Yankees can improve over last year. Like me in fantasy football, at least they have room for improvement. Speaking of room - they will have a new playroom this season. A new Yankee Stadium.

The flow through of visitors has ebbed. it was fun while it lasted. We are down to the standard two cats, one dog and two humans again. In an oversized, overpriced house. Supersized. Like the Big Mac and Whopper.

Off meat now too. Prompted by a viewing of the movie "Fast Food Nation." I'm totally meatless. Not vegan. Still eating and drinking dairy and eggs (eating, not drinking). Hopefully the hens and dairy cows are humanely treated. Maybe. Depends. Kate's eating fish flesh (the fish industrial complex wasn't featured in the movie, so . . .). Gasp!

January Thaw

It should soon be upon us. Time for the January Thaw. That warm-up time that lets you get through the cold and snow of winter and allows you to take a breath, pause, build up your energy, and plow through the rest of the season toward the hoped-for spring.

Except we here in the DC area really can't thaw so much as milden up a bit. It' a mild winter to begin with. Few freezes. No snow. Nothing to thaw from. No need to pause. Breaths of warm air - or at least temperate - are plentiful. So, like Pennsylvania, we've left January Thaws behind, as well.

Maybe it will be replaced by July Chills.

We happily have more guests this week. Pat is staying here while Jen attends a conference across the River in DC. And a friend from Massachusetts, Allison, stops by tonight on her way south to Florida. It's good to have a house filled with people. That's what houses are good for. Holding people. Being the places of food, friendship and connection.

Ordinary

Today begins the ordinary days. Those between the beginning of winter set of holidays and the beginning of spring set of holidays. Today normality sets in. Whatever that is.

The trips are over. It seems that between late November and this weekend that we added a few thousand miles on the car. Maybe it seems that way because we did. If I recall correctly there were about four round trips to northwestern Pennsylvania during that period. At about 300 miles one way that's . . . let's see . . . yes that's almost a few thousand.

The tree is up still. But that will make its way into mulch during the week. And the ornaments on the tree will be packaged away. As well as those spread around the house and the lights and candles there to remind us to be of good cheer during this time of darkness and long nights.

The weekdays will be full of working hours instead of broken up by days off. At least for the next two weeks. Then we celebrate the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the hope of Barrack Obama with two consecutive days off. Back to work means the roads and mass transit system will be full again.

Ordinary is good. Too much out-of-the-ordinary would be too chaotic for most people. Change is constant. Ordinary in a strange kind of way. But chaos - change gone amok - would be a bit stressful if it were constant too. The chaos will come eventually. It always does. But I'll take the ordinary for now.

Clinging and Clawing

I read today that our role in life is to bring an open heart to a clinging and clawing world. That's a graphic image. But one that rings true. The clinging and clawing. Especially at the end of life when most people want to hold on to that sense of aliveness for a few more minutes or seconds. Or maybe days or years. It doesn't matter. It's the clinging to our frozen life-form that is the image here.
I heard once that living things are like ice cubes in a sea of liquid water that is the Universe or God or Whatever you want to call it. Life is water just like the rest of the universe, but solid. And life tends to think of that solid form as the ideal. Something to fight for. To cling to. To claw at. But in the end life just melts into the liquid form that it's swimming in despite the clinging. The clawing can't reverse that inevitability.

Maybe what the open heart does is to warm up our frozen existence as solid, living ice forms. Making real the understanding that we are really water after all. Like God. Like the Universe. And that in dying we become like that which we were searching for all along.

So. My New Year's resolution. Relax. Don't grasp at the ice form. Allow warmth to melt the solid into the liquid.

I hate new year's resolutions by the way.

Are We There Yet?

It seems as if the time to the Inauguration and new administration is moving verrryyyy slowly. It may be that time is moving slower than normal anyway (see yesterday's blog about the extra second as one example). But it seems to be an inordinately long time since election night. And a long time yet to go until January 20.

It may be the waiting. Waiting (for a Christmas morning for example) lengthens the time until the big event. It's a well established scientific fact that a watched pot never boils. That's because we are there waiting for it to boil. But turn away for a second - let your mind drift to one, microsecond's worth of an alternative thought - then the water will boil away. With or without you.

I saw proof of this once on Star Trek: The Next Generation when the android, Data, was watching the same amount of water boil time and time again only to find that it boiled in the same amount of time each event. Seemingly disproving the watched pot never boiling maxim. But Data was an android. His mind was an errorless, perfect computer. No mind-drifting to vary the time it takes. No random thoughts to allow the experiment to alter.

In quantum physics, there's a theory called Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. It more or less says that you can't observe something without changing it. Maybe the Inauguration won't come if we keep waiting for it anxiously: observing time's passage as we await the change. Maybe the change won't happen at all unless we stop anticipating it. Like the pot of water. Time will just go on infinitely more and more slowly. Adding not only seconds each day. But minutes. Hours. Years. Eons.

And we'll never make it to January 20. George W. Bush will be President for eternity!

Tick

We gained a second yesterday. At 6:59:59 PM EST the clock at the U.S. Naval Observatory stopped for a second. A leap second. To align the orbit of the earth with the clocks of the world.

I thought yesterday seemed long.

Now today will go by that much faster!

Happy New Years Day to all (and don't forget to adjust your clocks)!