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Thread: Daily Bread

  1. #211
    Moderator Float On's Avatar
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    Since we were glassblowers our house and gardens are full of glass. I love looking outside right now and around the little pond in the front yard we have glass orbs on copper stakes at various levels. Each colored orb is wearing a hat of snow. So pretty!
    Float On: My "Happy Place" is on my little kayak in the coves of Table Rock Lake.

  2. #212
    Williamsmith
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    Some things are so prolific in our lives that you never think about them but they have profound meaning. Numbers, for instance. Say the word and look at it long enough and it even looks foreign and strange. But take numbers out of your life and well....you have no life. You’re saying, “Really, you are going to write about numbers?” Yep.

    This thought came to me as I was driving to the gym this morning at 6am. My first run in with a number was the bathroom scale. That number had the power to depress me.....190.5. Then the thermometer outside...29? Not bad. On my way out the drive I stuck to the 15 mph speed zone and on my dash there were numbers all over. The gasoline was selling at 289.9 this morning. It annoys me they don’t just display 2.90.

    I set my exercise bike at 11 and started pumping. Every day I do 35 minutes, 7.50 miles and expend 280 calories. I do crank up the resistance twice to 12 and 13. I don’t like to overdo anything so my leg presses go from 70 to 80 to 90 to 100. The hip and thigh machine....60.

    By the time I leave it’s 7:20am. Back home I put exactly 2.5 cups of water in the coffee pot and 3 scoops of coffee. Thus far, on any normal day, I have not given 1 thought to numbers. But today for some reason it doesn’t escape me that they are not simply Hindu- Arabic numerals from AD 700......they are language ...communication.

    My daughter is a bank auditor. She lives her life around numbers and it’s not a coincidence that she is the most frugal person I know. It’s obvious she thinks about numbers more than I do. Literally everything we do is defined by numbers. Checking out at Walmart....that bottom number was over 100 last time. Ordering on Amazon....my credit card number is memorized. The obituaries, wow....she died young? How much is in my retirement account? With all these numbers it’s not at all clear why I don’t count numbers jumping over the fence at night in my dreams.

    THe powerball is 78 million, I baked my pumpkin pies at 425 for 15 minutes and then reduced the oven temperature to 350 for 45 minutes. It’s the 19th of January, 2018.

    I remember as a child figuring out how old my parents would be when I was say, 60....65... And then thinking they probably won’t be around. I tried to imagine being able to hit a homerun 350 ft. Or drive the Mustang 95 mph.

    Sometimes numbers are just plain torture. How many times had I seen this in the eyes of motorists? “I stopped you for going 85 mph. The speed limit is 65 on the Interstate.”

    Wednesday I was looking at a spreadsheet that had all the pertinent numbers for the budget of the HOA while sitting at the meeting listening to the treasure drone on about the numbers. There was the snow removal, the reserve fund, the clubhouse utilities. Mercifully, my phone rang and I stepped out.

    “Hello.... Yeah Sweetheart........stage 2...........what’s that mean?”

  3. #213
    Williamsmith
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    It’s been awhile and frankly I wasn’t sure how long I’d take to make another post here. Cryptic as the last post was ....I’ll be direct today. My wife has had the time to notify everyone important that she has been diagnosed with melanoma. She is currently sporting a five inch incision where they excised cancerous skin cells.

    I can’t tell you how I am processing this because I tend to compartmentalize and archive nasty bits of life I don’t want to deal with. So this simple post is an effort to acknowledge the existence of this threat to our charmed life and then move on. I understand that at its early stages this is usually quite curable. The thing is obviously......we don’t know just how early ......early is.

    That out of the way, I intend to move on.

    Coincidentally, today on my way out of the gym walking to my truck I noticed a playing card on the sidewalk. I hadn’t seen it going in but the condition it was in tells me it has been out in the weather for a while. I stared at it as I walked by. I kept walking but still thinking about that card. It bugged me so much I turned around, walked back and picked it up. It was the three of diamonds.

    Now this isn’t anything unusual for me. As a kid I walked a lot and I walked with my head down scanning the immediate area. My best find was an empty pack of cigarettes with a twenty dollar bill tucked into the side between the inner liner and the plastic wrap. That was a lot of money for a kid.

    I am always picking up pennies or small coins, some folding money every once in awhile and odds and ends of junk. It would not surprise me that if I lost my mind I might be one of those roaming derelicts that picks up random items off the highway and stashes them in plastic bags. Let’s hope I don’t lose my mind.

    So I figured, this card has a meaning to some people who are into that....what’s it mean? Well it turns out the study of the meaning of playing cards is called cartomancy. The three of diamonds is a good card. It has to do with success and satisfaction, and interesting enough the “realization of a project.”

    It portends the ability to solve practical problems and the potential to be rewarded. And this is the interesting part. It says that I will have a very positive outcome when collaborating with a relative. Well, I seized on that gem because I am planning a trip with my wife and I need the help of my nephew to make it a success.

    Dont get me wrong here. I place little validity on coincidental occurrences and talismans such as playing cards. But then again.......it’s a good card!

  4. #214
    Moderator Float On's Avatar
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    Williamsmith, I'm sorry for your wife's diagnosis.
    Float On: My "Happy Place" is on my little kayak in the coves of Table Rock Lake.

  5. #215
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    WS: I sure hope they caught it early. Both my Mom and Grandpa had every type of skin cancer imaginable including melanoma for 40 years each. They both lived to be very old. Needless to say I am very anal about checking my body and the dermatologist does a full body check once in a while. Your trip for your wife sounds wonderful)

  6. #216
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    I too am hoping that this card is a sign. I believe in signs and dreams....so the 3 of diamonds and your research seem to be giving hope!

  7. #217
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I was wondering about that cryptic last sentence in the previous post...

    I'm so sorry you're going though this. I get the compartmentalizing thing. But you'll process what you need to when you need to. It's great that she's got it early and is already in treatment.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

  8. #218
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Williamsmith, I, too, am sorry to hear that your wife has melanoma. It is eminently treatable so let's hope the timing and the cards are right.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  9. #219
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    Well wishes on the wife front.
    On the card, all my brain went to, was there was some kid on a bicycle, disappointed his bike, didn't sound like a motorcycle anymore and did you find the clothespin?
    Showing my age.

  10. #220
    Williamsmith
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    Quote Originally Posted by ToomuchStuff View Post
    Well wishes on the wife front.
    On the card, all my brain went to, was there was some kid on a bicycle, disappointed his bike, didn't sound like a motorcycle anymore and did you find the clothespin?
    Showing my age.
    I used to use baseball cards.

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