"Checking In"

Sometimes I come to the keyboard or pen and paper already having an idea or thought or emotion that needs fleshing out or something that is pissing me off or making me sad. Other times, like now, I come with jumbles of thoughts bouncing around like a bunch of kids in a bouncy bounce house... jetting off at odd angles - arms and legs flailing. I know there's something under there waiting to express, it just doesn't have a form yet. So I ramble until it comes. Here we go...

Bouncy #1: The snow is here, finally! First snow of the season. LOVE IT! It's a funky crusty layered stuff. I walked on top of the crisp mounds this morning to start the car. My favorite way to "clean off" the car is to plan ahead enough to start it early and let it run until it's warm and toasty on the inside and wet and slushy on the outside. So right here I could clamber off on the many and varied implements to clean snow off cars, how they work, what I used to do as a kid in that regard. I could digress about the fairness of parking my car outside while the man cars get dry, warm garage space (no resentment there, just kidding!). Bouncy #14 (I skipped about 13 that flew by faster than I could possibly type them out here. Note there are 8-9 separate bouncy thoughts/topics in the previous sentences... count them! Crazy, right!?) so #14-ish... Climate change given the late, late start of the cold weather in our area while the Midwest, South and other areas of the country get slammed.  Images of highway pile ups and jackknifed semis, media's' twisted focus on tragedy and chaos (and our contorted hunger for the same)...OMG (NID) that leads into presidential election conversations... STOP, how many months to go? Just shoot me!!  

Bouncy #32-ish: I heard somewhere that Eskimos or Inuits have over 50 words to describe snow. I googled it and apparently that's a myth or hoax, according to Wiki and Laura Martin (1986), or at least in question or misunderstood. Franz Boas, 1911, was the author of the original analysis that spawned the first exaggeration that later became our commonly known myth. Damn I loved that mythical, folklore thingy... it somehow allowed me to acknowledge how limited our English language is. Or how shallow we are and imprecise in our conversations and apparently others have it figured out at least when it comes to the white stuff (the SNOW white stuff). Interesting how I cling to some things without regard to actual verifiability (NID stands for Not In Dictionary... underlined in RED as misspelled and it is the word I intended just a little side, side commentary and personal study, if you're new to reading this and wondered WTF NID stands for...Curious that verifiability is not in the standard misspelling dictionary, just saying) and use it to extrapolate a whole host of equally inconclusive beliefs and stereotypes. Whether I made all that up or someone taught me, doesn't matter much at this point in time, there it is. What there is to do is NOTICE... THINK... pay attention.

Wow, so that lead to a search for a saying that I heard from a friend yesterday... "Before you speak ask yourself is it true? is it ?? is it kind?"  I had to look it up. Wow! I found so many awesome images and the acronym THINK before you speak...True? Helpful? Inspiring? Necessary? Kind? LOVE that! I've never come across that before. I also love the simple saying "Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary DOES IT IMPROVE UPON THE SILENCE?"  LOVE IT! Fits in well with my original title for this post "Checking In." A nice, elegant full circle.  I do know enough to shut up now!

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