Remorse

Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir--
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.

It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.

---from the poem by Emily Dickinson

The Real Laws of Nature

Forget Newton and Galileo. Here are the real laws of nature:

1.Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

2. Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

3. Law of Probability- The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

4. Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

5.Supermarket Law - As soon as you get in the smallest line, the cashier will have to call for help.

6. Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.

7.Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

8. Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

9. Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

10. Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

11.. Law of the Theater & Hockey Arena - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the event is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. 

12. The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

13. Murphy's Law of Lockers - If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

14. Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jam sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

15. Law of Logical Argument- Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

16. Brown's Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they're ugly.

17. Oliver's Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet.

18. Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy -As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

19. Doctors' Law- If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better... But don't make an appointment, and you'll stay sick. This has been proven over and over with taking children to the pediatrician. 

--From an anonymous e-mail circular

A Sobering Political Thought

SERENITY PRAYER, November 2012 edition: God grant me the serenity to accept we currently have a 2 party (only) system, the courage to work to change that, and the wisdom to vote the best I can in the meantime.   ---Marie Byars                    

   

This Time of Year

"Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile."   --William Cullen Bryant

Groan-Fest (email puns)

(from an e-mail circular)

• I changed my I-Pod’s name to Titanic. It's syncing now. 
• When chemists die, they barium. 
• Jokes about German sausage are the “wurst.” 
• A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. 
• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time. 
• I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me. 
  
• This girl said she recognized me from the Vegetarian Club, but I'd never met herbivore. 
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down. 
• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words. 
• They told me I had type A blood, but it was a Type-O. 
• PMS jokes aren't funny, period. 
• A class trip to the Coca-Cola factory: I hope there's no pop quiz. 
• Energizer bunny arrested. Charged with battery. 
• I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me. 
• Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils? 
• When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble. 
• I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me! 
• Broken pencils are pointless. 
• England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool. 
• I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx. 
• I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough. 
• Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes. 
• Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.
• Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.
• I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
• Never fall in love with a tennis player because to a tennis player, love means nothing.
• I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.
• All the toilets in New York 's police stations have been stolen. Police have nothing to go on.

Experience

I stepped from plank to plank

So slow and cautiously;

The stars about my head I felt,

About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch,---

This gave me that precarious gait

Some call experience.  ---Emily Dickinson

This poem is about "gaining sea legs" as a metaphor for gaining life experience. There is risk as we gain experience.

Blessed Easter

"For I passed on to you what I received as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; that He was buried; that He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures..." ---St. Paul, (I Corinthians, 15: 3-4)

Centrist Politics

"I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides -- the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be."—Theodore Roosevelt

Mount Rushmore National Park, South Dakota

  "I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them." —George Washington

"I have always sought for the middle ground."—James Madison
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, it to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."—John Adams
"We [must] hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other."—Theodore Roosevelt
"Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground."—Theodore Roosevelt
"Partisanship must end at the waters edge."—Harry S. Truman
"The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters." —Dwight D. Eisenhower

Fortunate, Cookie

"Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."

"Don't wait for success, start ahead without it." ---Chinese fortune cookies

Love Deeply & Loved Deeply

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His One and Only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the payment of our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to also love each other.... If we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is made complete in us.... We love because God first loved us." ---St. John (from I John 4:7-12; 19)

Happy St. Valentine's Day!!!