more normal than not

I remember watching “Breaking Away” a long time ago.

I’m going to have to watch it again sometime soon.

Anyway, I watched the movie….and it helped me imagine that I was a “racer” on my old Schwinn Varsity.

Goofy.

Nobody’s a racer on an old Schwinn.

I guess that it really doesn’t matter what the vehicle is, though. The vehicle only carries.

I’m a racer if no one else is in the race….I’m a racer if it’s only inside my head.

Bikes are beautiful.

Check out these guys in the videos….travelling slower than in a car….seeing what they pass by along the way….the wind blowing against their cheeks….

Two-wheeled free.

(This is an aside….but I’m listening to the new Josh Garrels album “Home” on Spotify while I’m typing this. Check him out….excellent….)

There is something so appealing about bicycle touring.

Here’s a picture of an old bike that I used to want….that was designed for touring….way back when….

I’ve been thinking about getting somewhere on a bicycle for a long time.

I have a friend on Facebook who talks about his bikes a lot.

I think that he rides everywhere.

Smart.

It doesn’t get much better than it does on a bike.

I need to start riding more….hook Nate up to the back of my bike on his little one-wheeled tag along bike….and just go….maybe get a flag so people can see us….and just go.

“Just go” will get you through a lot of things that demand that you “just stay”.

A little bit of “just go” covers a lot of ground when you’re feeling kind of stuck.

It’s a good reason to carry around a “secret smile” inside yourself.

A bicycle can carry you in more ways than one.

My eye is drawn to the big can with the low price.

We buy our coffee at Costco….and we get a big can for a low price.

We ran out of the coffee from Costco yesterday….so on the way back up to Asheville, we stopped off at Walmart to buy some supplies….and replenish our coffee stash.

I was in charge of buying the coffee.

I was in charge….so when I saw a big can for an even lower price, I jumped on it.

I should have literally jumped on it.

I should have smashed it with my feet.

People tell me that you get what you pay for….sometimes it’s less.

Maybe the phrase is “you get to take what you pay for”?

My eyes are drawn to the label that says things like “NOW….50% MORE FREE!!!”

I get fooled a lot.

I don’t know why I’d think that anything that they we willing to give away for free would be good.

Even the free stuff that I pay for.

Anyway….long story short….I’m drinking this coffee now and it tastes like something I could brew with pan roasted shredded cardboard.

It’s not good coffee.

But I have a giant, cheap can of it.

Maybe I can return it at Walmart?

I rode out to the land in Idaho one summer when I was visiting my relatives in Spokane….rode out with my Uncle Gordon.

His old truck starting running kind of rough so he stopped to take the fuel filter off and blow the crud out of it.

He told me that he’d bought all this fuel treatment stuff for a cheap price and that he thought it was messing the car up.

I told him it’ll be good when he uses it all up….and doesn’t have to put any in the truck anymore.

It made him laugh.

I’ll be glad when this giant can of crappy, cheap coffee is gone.

There are lessons out there in the world that I never seem to learn.

Why is that?

Does my cheapness blind me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB5HOYdlGE8

Money.

Who needs more money?

The guy without any money?

The guy with a bunch of money?

Who needs to watch another video about money?

I never really cared all that much about money.

It’s probably a good indicator that, growing up, my “needs” were always met….as needed.

You don’t get to the point where you can take money for granted if you grow up needing it.

I never really worried about money all that much.

I never really cared all that much about money….ever.

Except for that one time on the Hocus Pocus show, when I had 4 pennies and I needed a nickel to buy a chicken, the lack of money didn’t really affect me all that much.

My game was figuring out how to avoid spending it.

If I didn’t spend much….I didn’t need much.

When you have a family, your attitudes about money change.

My attitudes change.

The weird thing about money is that now it’s even more of a “ghost” than it ever was.

It’s all out there in the “cloud”….floating around somewhere in the air….on a hard drive somewhere.

It’s a ghost that someone will chase you down to get a firm grip on.

If you owe someone else a piece of the ghost, they’ll badger you until you give up your chunk of the cloud.

Crazy.

The funny thing about it all is that if I could figure out how to put this:

001001100110111110001010101000011101011101111111000000100101110011110111110111011110111111110110111101101000111101010111101101110101010101101110110000111101101110111010111011101011101110110111000011100001111000011101111011100001111101101110110001101010101110111011111111100000……….

in the right order….in the right context….at the right time…..we could be rolling in the soft and welcoming cloud of the ghost.

That’s some wacky stuff, that….

That’s kooky.

Now….a match and a little pile of tinder on a freezing day is worth a whole lot more than a bunch of “1’s” and “0’s” to me.

That makes sense.

I’d rather have a good pair of work boots than a pile of money.

But….a pile of money….or a bunch of pieces of the cloud….could buy us all a pair of work boots.

It could buy me a pair of boots….or some magic beans.

Anyway….money’s not the wheel….it’s just the grease.

I’m not going to figure out money in less than 500 words.

It’s Spring here….green and new….coming back again after a short winter.

You can’t buy that.

You can’t buy a fresh start that’s given away for free every year.

Most of the really good stuff can’t be purchased.

So why do we chase the cloud?

What’s that about?

Kooky.

We got the process started a couple of days ago to get a passport for Sparrow.

When you’re little, your passport is good for 5 years.

Your passport is good for 5 years, but they charge you for 10 years.

I think that it’s because the passports they give to babies are twice as good….so they last half as long.

That must be the reason.

I work for the Post Office…..so I’m always curious how things are going for the other clerks or carriers.

When I asked the clerk who was helping us process the application for the passport how long he’d been with the PO, he told me “24 years…..”

“I’ve got 6 more years to go….and then I can do what I want to do….“

Oh, man.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, mannnnnnnnnn.

“Then….I can do what I want to do….”

Maybe I’m thinking the same thing….but it’s rough to hear it.

How many of us are on that same schedule…..spending the bulk of our lives doing something mildly distasteful so that, when we’re older and less able to really run in the sunshine, we can finally do “what we want to do”?

There’s the “quiet desperation” that I hear so much about.

That’s the thing that we think we can “wait out”…that if we just suck it all up and go on with our lives….and do the thing that we picked to support ourselves and our families (or that “picked us” if we really didn’t plan very well) for as long as it takes to get to the marker that says, “you can go now…” ….well….then we “can go now”….and do something that we want to do with our lives.

I guess that you do what you do….and figure out the way to enjoy it and the people around you….no matter what you’re spending your life on.

I know that’s the way I handle any of it.

I work with great people.

I have FUN where I can find it.

But…I settle for things that maybe are less than ideal.

Ahhhhh, what the heck? You’ve gotta do somethin’.

It’s that expectation that gets me, though.

It’s the waiting for the right time….or the right place…or the right person, even (if you’re single….single)…or any of the right conditions that would allow you to “do the thing that you want to do”….that bugs me to think about.

The dress rehearsal parts of our life….the wade through dress rehearsal parts…..those parts KILL.

And what if you waste your whole life thinking that if you just stick it out and wait for the good stuff to come….that if you just have enough endurance to stand some more of that job that pays well enough to keep you hanging around….that someday, you’ll get to GO…..if you waste your life….that would really stink.

Waiting for the good times is no way to live a life.

Man….all these questions made the “passport getting” process take about 5 times as long as it should have.

I’M ONLY KIDDING….I DIDN’T ASK THAT DUDE ANY OF THIS STUFF.

That would have been crazy.

No crazier,though, than the building excitement of only having 6 more years of your life to go before you get to do the good stuff.

Why do we do that to ourselves?

(It’s the MONEY, isn’t it? We needs the MONEY…..)

“been on the job too long” Lonely Eagles, Wilmer Watts

Something about the light…..overcast and perfect.

It’s hard to tell how a photograph is going to turn out until you stop to look at it later.

A grey day can be magic in the right light.

Sometimes you just need a little distance….or something…to realize that.

A picture is never the “thing” anyway….it’s just a marker for your memory.

We went to look at the goats and to hike around a while back….must have been in the Fall….the weather turning cool enough warm enough for sweatshirts, so it must have been the Fall. (PS….or….not.)

“The Fall”….with a capital “F”.

( a post script….Jenny told me that it was February. Dang. Talk about paying attention….or not. It was February….February with a capital “F”.)

Jenny said I took too many pictures of the goats walking away….that goat rear ends weren’t really photogenic.

I couldn’t help it….no, that sounds wrong….I don’t have any weird compulsion to take pictures of goat’s rear ends.

I mean that I couldn’t get them to pose right.

That’s what I mean.

There’s so much that I take for granted.

Goat’s rears Lots of things….for example, how easy it is to forget to take a picture.

I don’t miss photo opportunities because I’m paying such close attention that I can’t be bothered with a camera.

I don’t pay such close attention.

I don’t know what I’m usually thinking about…..but I don’t always pay attention.

Jenny’s good about taking pictures…but I forget to get the camera.

I guess that if you have enough experience with taking pictures, you’re going to know what the light will bring.

You’ll know what it means to stand under a sky that might let the rain come down.

Most of the time….for me, at least…it’s all just a mystery.

When I see the picture, I understand how it all turned out.

“home (cover)” the Gardiner Sisters