(I started writing this post on vacation, back in August, but I just now got around to finishing it.  May it remind you of warmer and younger days.)

 12:47 P.M.-Vacation- Day 6

   I’m in the shower, zoned out.  Memories lead to memories lead to more memories and Bam!  This flood of emotion hits me smack in the face.  I dig deeper into my thoughts and I suddenly realize what vacation really is.  I always thought vacation was just a good time, a chance to do fun things, and go to different, exciting places; and vacation is all of those things, but it can be so much more.

   My mind wandered off, like it always does in the shower, and I remembered a few days back, when I took my daughter out into the ocean for the first time.  We went out into the crystal clear, emerald water until it came up to my chest.  The look on her face was so beautiful.  She was exploring a new frontier with her Daddy, and I with her.  She has no idea that the water is as deep as three of her.  She just knows that her Daddy has her, and she is experiencing a whole new world.  While amazed and in awe of the moment, I am scared at the same time.  What marine life is lurking around us?  We both have on sunscreen which makes her very slippery in my arms, and she’s squirming away, trying to do this her way, what if she slipped?  But, I know, I’ve got her.

   (Back to the shower)   So, the memory of my daughter’s and my amazing ocean experience, triggered deeper memories, from long ago.  My Dad hanging out in the ocean, neck deep, holding onto me, bouncing through the waves.  Or my mother, lying on a float, letting me hang onto the side.  That’s when it hits me, I am them now!  I’m playing with my daughter out in the ocean.  But if I am them, then who have my parents become?  They’re not my grandparents!  My grandparents were always old to me, (sorry Granny, if you happen to be surfing the web and read this, I don’t mean ‘old’ in a bad way.).  I think we have this chronological, mental snapshot of our parents, and they never really age.  Sure we see them age physically, but they are always that ‘person’ that we decided they were, some time long ago.  I think we do the same thing with our perception of ourselves.  I know how old I really am, but that is not the age I think I am.

   This revelation in the shower threw a lot at me at one time.  Any ‘1^st’ moment shared with my daughter is at least a 4.0 on the emotional Richter scale.  Realizing that I have taken my parents’ place and they are taking the place of my grandparents is a 7!   That’s over thirty years!  Think about what has happened in thirty years!  I am in my thirties, (barely on the downhill side, thank you), so that is basically my entire lifetime!  If you look at it from my parent’s point of view, thirty years puts them in a very different place.  My thoughts drift to what these changes mean:  Many of them are not good.

   So, all of these thoughts and emotions swirled together and opened up my eyes, (not to mention dampened them).  This life is ZOOMING by!   In our everyday lives we’re always running back and forth, fighting to keep our heads above water:  Working, paying bills, not paying bills, going to daycare, going to the doctor, buy clothes, use clothes, wash clothes, put away clothes, buy more clothes to replace old clothes…

   You need to take a Vacation.  You have to give your mind the time to pull away from it all and slowly wind down until you finally get to the point where you can see things for what they really are. 

Go out into the water. 

Keep your head above water. 

Keep her head above water.

Help people that are struggling to keep their heads above water. 

But most of all, be glad you get the chance to swim.

Everything is going to be okay.

We’re just going to have to change our perception of what okay is.  What used to seem unthinkable, could now be reality, but we’re still okay.  Okay is just an average.  Halfway between perfect and tragic.  We may be overwhelmed with joy one day and weighed down with grief another, but we always slide back towards the middle…Okay. 

Next time something great happens to someone you know, put your hand on their shoulder, and remind them, “Everything is going to be okay.”

Picture from www.bracestower.co.uk

Dear Talking Monkey,

I am not feeling it today Monkey…how about you?  Also, how about those…(dots) everyone seems to be using these days.  Is it just me or is everyone using more of the ….  lately.  Also, how do we know when to use three dots, four, when does it stop….Anyway, inquiring minds want to know.

Signed,
HOH

Hey HOH,

Great question.  I too have noticed the increased usage of the dot dot dot, and I am a repeat offender myself.  I believe three periods go together to represent a significant pause between thoughts.  Question marks and explanation points can be used in the same fashion to say, “I am questioning this 3x more than normal”, or “I am triple excited!”.   It is also accepted in casual writing to put as many periods as you want, to increase the length of your pause.  I believe Morris and Randy, from Sling Blade, do a great job of explaining the dot dot dot method. 

Peace and Love,

TM

It is not uncommon for me to look down and see the glowing orange, ‘trunk open’ warning light on, in the car I’m currently driving.  I’m always in and out of the trunk, retrieving sales materials, but I can’t imagine that I am not sufficiently closing the lid.  This morning, the ‘trunk open’ light came on right before I hit a speed bump.  I heard a loud thump, in the back of the car, as I bounded over the speed bump, confirming what the warning light said.  I quickly pulled over and jumped out, in the rain, to close the trunk.  Imagine my surprise, when I got to the back of the car to find the trunk was closed.

Hang in there.  I have said those 3 words more in the last year, than I ever have before.  I lost a friend, and some family this past year, and all I could say to their families was, “hang in there”.  I’ve talked to a lot of my friends and family,  going through hard times, and I said, “hang in there”.   I don’t mean to trivialize these 3 words, I’ve just been using them a lot lately…But I meant it, with all my heart, every single time .
  So, if you’re out there, and you’re going through ‘it’ right now, hang in there.  As for me, don’t worry…I’m a monkey.  Hanging in there is what I do!
Peace and love,
TM

Picture from www.bracestower.co.uk/

I just saw a painting of jumping fish, hanging over a urinal in a restaurant restroom.  The painting was numbered 220 out of 250.  I bet the artist was tired by then.  He probably started to cut a few corners.  I wonder if the late numbered pictures are cheaper than the earlier ones.  I bet the last few, maybe 245-250, are better too.  The artist probably catches a second wind, and paints with renewed vigor.  The next time I buy art, I think I’ll shoot for either 1-50, or one of the last few.

Unless this dude actually makes or repairs nets, then he is an A-1 dweeb!!!

Sorry about the picture quality, it’s hard to take pictures, cruising through stop and go traffic in the rain on I85.

The tag says NTWRKR, in case you can’t read it.

    I don’t know if it’s just me, or if it’s these bad economic times, but I’ve been seeing lots of dead possums on the roads lately.  Now I know you Yankees out there are screaming, “It’s Opossum, you silly rube!”.  Honestly though, the only time I’ve ever used that alternative pronunciation is when I took the lid off of  a trash can outside of my Stepbrother Eric’s house and yelled, “OhhhhPossum!!!”, just before I ran 18 miles through the woods. 
     Funny thing is, these passed possums’ faces I’ve been seeing, all looked like they were completely at peace.  It almost looked like they were smiling.  Now, I don’t know how many of you out there have ever had a run in with a possum, but one thing they are not, is ‘at peace’.
     When I was in elementary school, one of my classmates had a pet possum.  This was my first introduction to a marsupial.  Seems his pet possum had relations with a wild possum, (cause there’s a HUGE difference), and had a litter of baby possums. So my classmate asked, “You wanna see some baby possums, in their momma’s stomach?”.  Of course I couldn’t refuse.  So, after being bitten 78 times by his ‘pet’ possum, he stretched open her pouch and showed me her little nursing possumettes.  All redneck jokes aside, this was pretty amazing.  Especially when I responded ‘Yes’ to, “You wanna’ touch ’em?”
     Back before I became a pacifist, and retired from deer huntin’, I had a pretty strange experience in the woods.  It was a cold November morning, and I was in my deer stand about 30 mins. before dawn.  As light slowly worked it’s way into the woods, I saw this white-looking object moving through the woods.  I don’t really believe in ghosts, but at that time, I was pretty close to converting!  The specter kept getting closer and closer until it finally stopped about 50 yards in front of me.  It hovered there for a few minutes before finally taking off and floating up 70-100 feet up in the air in this strange zigzag pattern.  Then it just stopped and stayed in one place the rest of the morning.  I was happy, that whatever it was, hadn’t flown towards me, and I tried to remain as still as possible until the sun was up.  Surely a ghost would disappear in the daylight.  Not this one though.  When there was finally enough light for me to see, I focused in on the white blob, only to see a possum hanging upside down in a tree.  The zigzag flight pattern was the possum climbing the tree cork screw style!
     A buddy of mine told me a story one time,  about a possum he saw in the road.  He and another friend were riding down the road, late at night, when they saw something large in the road up ahead.  As they got closer they saw that it was a possum, sitting up on it’s hind-end, eating road kill.  My friends said when they got up close to the possibly cannibal possum, they couldn’t take their eyes off of him, sitting up and eating with his paws(hands), looking right back at them as they passed by.
Moral of the story, possums are evil, or at least they come across that way.  That hiss that they make when threatened, (which according to a possum, is every time they see man), is enough to scare anyone out of their shoes.  Possums always seem to have a look on their face that says, “I’m ’bout to eat yo ass alive!”.
Like I said though, these dead possums in the roads always seem to be smiling and at peace.  It must be a pretty rough world for a possum when the only relief comes from a tire zooming by at 60 MPH.  I’m not saying possums are purposely running out in front of cars, but I don’t think they are trying that hard to miss them, either.

It was a windy day, when I stopped in at our local Babies R’ Us.  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of powder blue.  I looked up to see a rogue buggy, sneaking past my car.  As I looked around, I noticed they were everywhere!  These buggies were rolling around, trolling for their next victim.  I watched a lady pull into a parking space across from me, and take her time getting out of her new Four-Runner.  One of the buggies quickly pounced and popped the SUV in the front right quarter panel.  I tried to warn her, but it all happened too fast.  Hearing a whistling sound behind me, I spun around to see another light blue vandal, streaking across the lot.  As I panned my eyes to the right, in the direction the possessed buggy was heading, I noticed a brand new, shiny midnight black, special edition Mustang GT.  The owner had parked far enough away from all the other patrons to avoid the slightest ding from a careless driver’s errant door.  The buggies had something else in mind.  The car was way too far away for me to sprint to it’s rescue, so I had to watch, in horror, as the buggy slammed into the passenger’s side door hard.  Hard enough for the back wheels of the buggy to come off the ground and allow the rear end of the buggy to spin around, and give the mustang another scratching blow, adding insult to injury.  There were too many of these buggies and only one of me, so I did the only thing I could think of.  After making sure there weren’t any battering buggies within 100 yards of my car, I headed into the store to report the situation.  I spoke with the first associate I could find and told her of the mayhem taking place, right outside those giant glass doors, she was sitting directly in front of.  Having performed my good Samaritan duties, I went to the back of the store to pick up my daughter’s diapers.  After checking out, I walked back through the doors, to the parking lot.  To my horror, I saw the buggies were still roaming around, wreaking havoc!  The buggies must have gotten to the associates first!

“Tom, I’ve seen your track record and I know what kind of person you are.  Of course I voted for you.  I don’t know what it is, but we just can’t convince the other voters.  Something seems to be holding you back, but I just can’t put my finger on it…”