Simultaneous

   As luck would have it,  we've reached the end
   of the year at exactly the same time I've come to
   the end of my thoughts.











  Good-luck in 2019
  Z. Corwin

I just don't see it.

I'm sorry, but I've never understood it and I don't get it.

All the art loving world has always made such a fuss  over the Mona Lisa.

To me, it seems more a smirk than a smile.







  Z. Corwin
 My 2 cents

The Sound of Music

            I came down here in search of something but now I am preoccupied with finding adequate lighting.  I can hardly see where to step let alone grope around for whatever it was I was looking for. 

I came upon the above sentence just moments ago.  I don’t remember when I wrote it or where I was headed with it, but for whatever reason I chose to not delete it, so here I am, now facing it again.  The light is better here which is maybe why I came upon it.  Could it have been that sentence that I was looking for all along?  I can see why it was difficult to locate it the first time.  It is a relatively short sentence, written in black ink - no wonder I couldn’t find it in such dim light.

OK, so with that mystery solved, let’s get onto something a little more substantial.

Not long ago I had to reconfigure my entertainment system.  One component, a receiver, had given up the ghost, which is to say – it died.  After a few trips back and forth to several stores I finally located a receiver.  While it was still on the dining room table I connected all the speaker wires, making sure left connected to left and right went to right.  According to the owners manual I had done everything correctly.

Now, when it came to actually connecting everything to everything else I had to scrunch myself into a small corner and with a flashlight between my teeth and my knees up to my chin, I made the connections to the television, the speakers and the DVD player.

The next step, of course, was to learn how to use the remote control that came with the receiver.  (Some day when I have more time, I’ll write a piece about the companies that make remote controls out of black plastic and then use tiny black letters to identify which buttons do what).

Once we got everything working smoothly, and I could again straighten myself out from my scrunched up position, I began feeling good about myself.  I had successfully performed major surgery on vital organs and the patient was doing well.

Things not found under: Frequently Asked Questions

When we did discover an issue with the system it turned out to be so unique that nowhere could I find such an issue listed.  It seemed that we were the only ones on the planet to ever experience such a problem. 

Here’s the thing; we’re playing a movie, a dance scene comes on, we see people dancing, we hear them talking to each other but there’s no music.  At first we think – well maybe they intended the music to be implied.   We try a different movie.  Again there is no music.  We try a TV program, and again a sound track seems to be missing.

Is it me?  Did I miss a wire someplace?  Is it the receiver itself?  Did I purchase a faulty unit?  How would I know?  How do I track something like that?  I consult that manual’s trouble shooting guide.  Nothing listed under missing soundtracks.  I go on line and look up the company that made the receiver.  Again, there is nothing that mentions this issue.

The only option left to me is to once again scrunch myself up and squeeze into the small corner behind the television and retrace each wire.   OK, I came down here in search of something but now I am preoccupied with finding adequate lighting.  I can hardly see where to step let alone grope around for whatever it was I was looking for. 

I never found a wiring problem but as you

can see, I did find a place for that sentence.

Nature doesn't understand exceptions

It is with my imagination that I can recreate mental images of wild turkeys running about the snow-covered woods.  I can envision deer wandering between the trees searching for tidbits, just as I see them from my chair in the den. 

I need not imagine the cold, as I can feel it seeping in between tiny cracks and crevices, I know it penetrates the flimsy glass windows and it easily gets in around the big sliding glass door.

What I want to know is why?  Why does the cold try so hard to come inside?  What’s the point?  Warmth and cold are not like magnets, attracting each other.  One isn’t rubber and one glue…

So just what does warmth have that cold wants so badly that it keeps trying to get in?

OK, after some very technical thought, that is, the thoughts were not technical, but rather the technical aspects of warm and cold, I’ve come up with a hypothesis.

I believe shade is the link.  In other words, light and shadow affect cold and warm.  Warm seems to prosper in the bright sunlight, while I always seem to find cold huddled in dark basements, and under big oak trees, where the sun isn’t.

So, because I’m here inside, under the roof of my house where there is an abundance of shade, the cold thinks it’s supposed to be in here with me.

Little does it know, houses are the exception to the rule.

   

All Dropped Calls

get tossed into the bin.

Thank you

The Old Man's Chair

It was a rare occasion someone else sat in his chair and whenever they did it appeared as though they were wearing an oversize sports-coat.  

It wasn't too many years back when his chair would go for days without even catching a glimpse of the old man; summertime weather kept him surrounded by fresh air, adventures on the lake, bar-b-q's and neighbors.  Life was taking place all around him and within him.  There was no time for things like television or news broadcasts, not for him, not in summer.

He hadn't noticed the almost imperceptible changes in his chair over the years, but they were there.  It would creak and groan just a little more each year as the weight of the man pushed it's springs to their limit and it had a slight tendency to want to hold onto him once he was settled in, making it just a little more difficult for the man to once again get up - near impossible in winter.

Over time the warmth, comfort and familiar sounds of the chair seemed a part of the old man himself.  They became best friends, inseparable throughout the long winter months, drifting off to sleep in the flicker of the big screen  advertising that was now falling on deaf ears.

Of course, by the time I saw the chair it was spring and it was airing itself in a driveway, the sun highlighting the worn threads along it's arms, the seat cushion resembling more a tractor seat than an easy chair.  The years had taken it's youth and faded it's complexion.

The estate agent didn't even try to talk it up.  To her, there was no history, no relationship,  no bad Reader's Digest jokes or humorous antidote about the popcorn stains.  No, to her it was simply an old chair.  Value: $20.00


Z. Corwin

Dignified

OK, maybe not.