Time: shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Yes that lyric from the Pink Floyd song Time, sounds very morbid, but it is as accurate as a clock, not good, not bad, just real. It does make you think about a few things though. Like "how do I want to spend these next 24 hours". Or "what should I accomplish in the next year ?" John Lennon poignantly wrote "life is what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans". Aha the plan !

So you may not realize this, but you are a planner. Many of you will object, and rightfully so, that you are not sufficiently organized to plan, or don't have the proper time or money to plan, or maturity (that's my excuse) to know how to plan. But you are wrong ! Unless you are an infant, or a homeless person, or an addict you definitely plan. And I am sure many homeless people and addicts plan too, but just sayin'....... Your  planning may be what subway you will take next, or what restaurant  you will go to on Saturday, or what laundry you will visit Friday night, or what channel you will next flip to.  But you plan, and when you do, you are paying homage to the gods (lower case, people, Tea Party stay out of this !) of time.

Time is not infinite. Oops I am fibbing, time is infinite. A second is infinite, depending on how many times you want to slice it. YOUR time is not infinite, our planet's time is not infinite, so Earth, use it wisely. Bruce Lee, perhaps our greatest martial artist, and a part-time  scholar and philosopher, described time's impermanence and value perfectly. He said that our lives are like hour-glasses, and when the sands of the hourglass go from the top to the bottom, they can never be reversed. There is a finite amount of sand, and a finite amount of life.

Make sure you use your life wisely.

Does this mean that each moment of our life must be staged, planned, put in a spreadsheet, approved by the Pope, and posted on social media?  Of course not. the greatest moments of life are unplanned, spontaneous, and hopefully don't result in incarceration. There are many philosophies on how to avoid  being  the person who regrets the fact that the sand has run out and you have still not changed out of your pajamas. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we live in a world, country and sensibility where "time is money". "Ya, you sit on zee couch for sirty minutes, und you pay me zee fee, ein hundert dollarz" Money dictates that you have to spend a certain amount of your finite life working, becoming educated, making out your taxes, and maintaining your house. Culture, your ego, and your peers have decreed that you must spend a portion of your hour-glass contents going to the gym, putting on makeup, and getting a tattoo.

So do we create a "Time Budget" ?  I will spend 50 hours a week working, 10 hours running , 7 hours watching TV, 3 hours at the bar/restaurant, 3 hours developing my creative side, and 2 hours per week on spirituality (not spirits, that was the bar time, no double dipping !).

Or do we create the "10 Commandments of time"? (showing only 4 due to short attention span)

1.  I will never plan my life out longer than 6 months because the chaos theories of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park makes those plans too risky.
2.  I will never spend more than 1 hour trying to figure out how to cut my commute by ten minutes.
3.  I will never spend more than 2 hours waiting to play 40 minutes of racquetball.
4. I will spend 10 days or more waiting on line to get front row tickets to see (insert your favorite singer, athlete, origami folder or queen bee for drones)

You get the idea.

Simply put, take heed of  Adam Duritz's advice "You don't want to waste your life".

Basil Update: home depot had very few plants so we did not make any purchases this weekend. The grass is getting greener, literally and figuratively, so we are excited about the planting season.

Keep The Faith (whatever yours is ) !

It's a perfectly rainy day

"OMG another rainy day, what ever shall we do ?" This is the familiar refrain in March/April/May when we might as well presume precipitation in New York. And I understand the possible vitamin D factor (no sun, no fun, where's my gun!), but I still sometimes question what all the fuss is about.

Yes of course rain can be downright dangerous when it reaches biblical proportions like when Irena and Sandy and Noah's ark all occurred. But when it's a shower, or gentle summer rain it can be downright poetic and contemplative. And what of the rain in Hawaii that comes each day for 20 minutes, waters the palm trees, spritzes the odoriferous homeless people, then gives way to sunny blue skies. Now that's the optimum situation, often referred to as "God's sprinkler system" (lie). And, of course, in areas of drought, like current Cali, rain gives life, restores order, saves money and reduces alcohol consumption borne of "nothing else to drink dude ! "

When the whole world reacts in the extreme, where do we look for reasonable, sound, moderate thinking ? To Rock and Roll ! That's why rock and rollers love rain, or at least have learned to coexist with it, writing some amazing songs in tribute to its relevance. Linda's favorite "November Rain" by GNR, the Temptations' "I wish it would rain", and, reverently, the Who's "Rain o'er me" from Quadraphenia. CCR boasts 2 classics, "Have you ever seen the rain" and "Who'll stop the rain". The answers to those questions are "yes more and more" and "nobody", so we better learn to appreciate rain and live with it.

Basil Update: I have a sense that the ground is fertile, especially given the fertility dance that I have been performing of late in full headdress constructed of empty Coors Light cans. Early May we will hold auditions for aspiring basil, parsley, pepper and tomato plants (at Home Depot garden center) and select the most impressive. In this endeavor, the rain is our partner.

This Just In: Keep the Faith y'all !