Passover is just around the corner and it looks like this year I am attending a Seder known as a party of one.
You can attribute that to choice and circumstance or ask if the pharaoh’s cursed me for sending them to collections for their failure to pay rent and or wages for ancestral building efforts.
Cue Steve Martin and his commentary about the King Tut exhibit when I was a wee lad. Ah yes, I remember 1978, in part because the Dodgers won beat the Phillies again to win the pennant and faced those Damn Yankees.
The Yankees beat my beloved Boys in Blue but only because they were helped by horrific umpiring or so goes the memory of nine year-old boy I once was.
My recollection of Reggie Jackson’s interference has been cited as being among the worst non calls umpire have failed to make.
Music Break
Evermore– Beauty & The Beast
Since I’ve Been Loving You Live– Led Zeppelin
Babe I’m Gonna Leave You– Led Zeppelin
Pancho and Lefty – Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard
He Stopped Loving Her Today– George Jones
Story Of My Life– Social Distortion
I Was Wrong– Social Distortion
Bridge Over Troubled Water-Simon and Garfunkel
Vincent– Don McLean
Castles in the Air– Don McLean
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother– The Hollies
Cats in the Cradle– Harry Chapin
Joker’s Wild
Won’t lie, some things have been three times as hard as they should be and it is not uncommon to find my sitting on my patio, drink in hand and headphones on trying to decompress and not overthink things.
Been a lot of moments of frustration punctuated by moments where I get flashes of insight and understanding that remind me we rarely know where that finish line is.
Sometimes I look in the mirror and tell the reflection that he pulled not one, but three Jokers and that it is all going to work out.
Reminded myself I am built to last and constructed to handle whatever comes my way.
Some might say that I am fooling myself with new age clap trap or unadulterated bullshit but it doesn’t matter.
Why?
Because we all find a way to get through the challenges and hard times and if simple words work why shouldn’t I buy into them.
There is no damage or hurt caused by them and that is good enough for me.
****
I have a running tally inside my head that lists things I need to do and costs/resources required to do them.
Funny thing is that if you took the dollar amounts and entered them into a spreadsheet you’d see it is a relatively modest total.
It wouldn’t take a huge amount to make a significant difference and there is a certain comfort and sense of satisfaction that comes with that.
Not so long ago it was a much larger number and it felt like the only way I’d ever figure it out was to win the lottery, inherit a chunk or figure out how to rob Fort Knox.
Have to confess having recently watched Goldfinger that Fort Knox idea sort of tickled my fancy, sadly I lack the resources of supervillains and haven’t found a government to sponsor me.
But you never know, maybe I’l run into some genius who will become my very own Q.
You may think that is crazy, but a guy who can pull three Jokers can do anything.
Moving, Moving, Moving
After I dislocated my finger my daughter asked me to try to take better care of myself.
“Dad, you are getting kind of old. If you really hurt yourself you are going to be in trouble. There is no one there to take care of you.”
I smiled, told her I am not old and said I have been taking care of myself for a long time now.
She rolled her eyes at me and said something that made me think one day some boy is going to get more than he bargained for, assuming I don’t kill him first. 😉
Anyhoo, I have thought about her comment a couple of times this week.
That is ‘cuz it is almost time to start looking for a bigger place to move into and I have been thinking about how much of the work I can do myself.
It irritated me when I moved back to not be able to do simple stuff, but that was post surgery and this isn’t.
I need to sweat more, not just because it is good exercise but because it is a great way to relieve stress and I have to take the edge off a little bit.
Still the thought of having to pack and unpack doesn’t bring a lot of joy. This would be one of those moments where inheritance or lottery winnings would come in handy.
Paying someone to do it all for me or just buying new stuff sounds so good.
Too bad money can’t fix everything, if it did I would probably be a little more excited.
For now I guess I’ll just focus on what needs to be done and try to keep Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride from being too crazy.
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