Walking The Brain

A cold hard day for both Maria and I, relieved to be in proximity of each other and the boys, we walk downtown. I relax in a demo message chair at Macy's - sure beats the atmosphere at Walgreen's. Settled into the specific chair the security guard insisted I try (it's much better than the other two) , heated rotating spheres work my back and the soles of my feet as Oliver rolls a portable device onto my leg, my mind drifts. It goes to Dexter telling me that this year he's going to get me an expensive Christmas gift and Maria will make me the macaroni necklace. It goes back to wondering if the security guard will want his chair back.

I rambled awhile ago about a crummy deal dealt to my niece and since then, people that could, at my workplace took on the situation and only for doing the right thing (when they too could have looked the other way). It nows seems to be resolving in the right way. For this I am grateful and proud of these folks for their efforts. Gretchen and Dennis, thank you.

I know that when I was younger, I always had crazy ideas of how I was going to live it up, places to travel, reckless modes of behavior (all fine as long as no one gets hurt) sometimes involving running fast. Now I seem to sometimes consider ways of how I might depart. I suppose as your folks and siblings get older, that reality creeps in. Having survived various bad accidents that had a lucky turn (still standing) including big electricity, getting hit by a postal truck, wrong place and wrong time scenarios, the mind builds to something grand and dramatic- but no cancer please; that's never any fun. Old age- that idea I can live with but i'd hate to not be able to run or walk (starting to move slower) and do want to be around definitely. Reality is that it can't be too grand when I've had trouble chewing rice or something similar (although we determined this was when I was managing a cafe and during those rare times when I was preparing to fire someone). Nearly passing out on the streets of Mill Valley while choking on an Indian Burrito is not the way I wanted to go, and fortunately didn't.

Now that the Giants have won a World Series, I just have a couple of things that I want (besides the big picture of years with the family of course!) and that is a jukebox that plays 45 rpm records and seeing a Great White Shark in its element. I'd be more than happy not to be in the water but in a boat, thank you. Now is the time to go whale/shark watching but it's a grueling boat ride to the Farallones. Tried a few times with minimal success (some dolphins, sunfish, whales, more glare bouncing off the water) and one weekend I attempted to book was full- but that tour provided the riders with a rare view of an orca capturing and killing a smaller great white. The boat we went out on the following week was a 15 hour ride with about 15 seconds of seeing 2 dolphins, an almost dead sunfish, and a whale or two. Maybe 14 hours of sea sickness.

Do I pass each subsequent winters opportunity to travel to distant Farallones to save money? To subdue fears of further illness on the sea? Fear of the water? Odd fantasies of being devoured by a great white shark (hey, it's the infection that is as bad as the bite- which is really usually, the big guys way of exploring) keep me rational by staying on land. Seriously, the chances - even in the ocean are much greater that you will be struck by lightning, hit by a car, get a bad jellyfish encounter than even seeing such a fish. People swim in the bay all the time, and these great beauties swim by them constantly= zero great white attacks in SF Bay. Hey, dolphins are back in our bay- it's been over 60 years.

I like to believe I have a point for most of my entries. I have to admit sometimes I do not.
Been eating a lot of ice cream lately.