Bucket list or picnic basket?

There are two things about getting older that seem to keep in balance.

On the one hand is that you have probably done a few more things on your bucket list. The things that you add as you get older starting to be part of the ridiculous range. I have for example added owning and living on a lavender/wine farm in France.

I know I don't speak French but Mon Dieu  I currently live in a country where I can't understand 95% of the population and at least in France I would understand the gesticulations and sneering.

A long time item in my bucket list has always been a pink Lear jet, now this item first appeared about thirty years ago or when my eldest would

sprout forth "I want" and I would always answer her with a "Well I want a pink Lear Jet". My eldest actually did get almost everything she wanted as she was such a sweetie pie that I found it difficult to say no to her, or I was buying her affection, one or the other. So surely I should one day obtain the much quoted Lear Jet.

I find it difficult to think of a bucket list as surely you should be happy with who you are and where you are is merely a matter of geography; and that interestingly enough not that important.

It is the same as wanting a new job; even if you think it would be the world shatteringly most amazing thing, if you did get your dream job, it would only be a while until the same stuff that annoyed you at your previous job would miraculously appear at your new job. The thing that is the same is you and your brain and the brain will not suddenly become something else due to finding itself in a new environment.

I have always wondered about people who win huge amounts of money and suddenly don't have to work, how long before they too would become disenchanted with what they did each day. Though I must say it would be a challenge that I would not mind participating in.

Travel is always supposed to be in bucket lists and there are quite a few places I would like to visit and experience their unique geography and strange people, but then the second half on the balancing act would kick in and we would have the mysterious picnic basket.

I think the bucket list has a partner and that is the disappearing picnic basket. The actual basket does not disappear but rather the content in it. If you think of the picnic basket of life, we start off with milk and porridge and slowly but surely add to this with the myriad of flavours that come from around the world and astound us with their uniqueness and variety. Then as we get older, slowly but surely, we take things out of the basket. We take out the items that we no longer can participate in as they will actually do us harm. Not in the stupid way that all the ponsy people whine that they are allergic to chocolate as it makes them fat, but, rather in a way that should you eat it, you will get very sick. I think that eventually you get back to the blandness of milk and porridge and then that part of the life lesson is over. I suppose that is also the same for all the senses that everything slows down and stops working with the same accuracy as when you are a teenager.

See everything in life is balanced, I like my life. I would not swop it for the torture of being a teenager, or angst of being in my twenties. So in conclusion, add to you bucket list, take out of your picnic basket, it all is unimportant as it all is part of the journey of life.

Whilst looking for pickies for this post I came across the Mad magazines version of what life is all about so lets all say Namaste to the authors of Mad; They seem to understand the silliness of a bucket list. 

Have a cup of tea

Have you noticed how any television show that you can watch there will be at least one scene that starts with a bottle of wine being poured into a glass, or someone rushing into a space where they have to have alcohol or they will just die? If it is earlier in the day, people greet each other with a cup of coffee, in fact if there is no coffee there is no implied friendship. Every day I troll face book to see my fill of beautiful and amusing things and what do I see instead, either plugs for booze or funny pictures of how this or that person would not have made it this morning but for the aid of coffee.

Enough already drink tea! It is far nicer and has not gained the whiney following that the above have. I gave up coffee so I know it is possible. I read somewhere that giving up coffee is as difficult as giving up cocaine. I know when I gave it up the withdrawal systems were so bad that I needed to sip Coke (the cola drink) to get therapeutic amounts of caffeine. The pain in my head was incredible and the ability to have cognitive thought processes slowed for at least a month. I now have not had coffee for 10 years and still I do breathe in a bit deeper when I walk past a pot brewing, but as I was saying, for Pete sake people stop being little sheep and following what popular culture want you do and just have a cup of tea.

As for booze, well enough of popularising alcoholism,

when did we as a society turn the corner of needing a drink every night. Has everyone bought into the belief that life is a party and so cheers lets have another one. When people come to visit, I really do not feel it is necessary to being out drinks, I am way funny enough without needing to dull people’s pain of having a conversation with me. What a waste of time of being pissed is. All that happens is that you plug into oblivion earlier than necessary. Life should not be that painful, that you need to anesthetise yourself. The other thing is do people actually think that they need to sparkle, with alcohol you may think that you are amazing, but that dear people is only in your head and the reality would probably depress you and send you scurrying for another glass of wine.

The best is to just have a darn cup of Tea. I like it so it must be good; but if we are talking numbers then the most ancient and largest world populations all drink tea. So that proves it, the only way to become civilized is to have a cuppa.

Namaste

Scrapped!

Have you every thought that eventually we will do to humans what we do to cars.

After once again having a body part not working correctly and actually going to the doctor, I always have the fear  that the Medical insurance will get hold of me and say sorry you are no longer worth fixing and my spouse will now be issued with a voucher which he can use to either buy something fun or use as a down payment on a new spouse, obviously one with less mileage and I need to find a nice dustbin to climb into.

In this throw away society it is interesting to think of what make a human valuable. If you think about it the elements value is about $1985.77 and should you sell off the parts and not the whole you should be able to fetch at least a few million, so now think to yourself are you more valuable than that?

Is it our past accomplishments or what we still have to do in this life? Do we have to be altruistic and give to the world of the down trodden? Is it still having a desire to live this life and experience its weird ups and downs? Is it important to have a bucket list of things you still want to do? Is it an attitude which makes life worth living?

I think hope is the one thing we need to have to make this world bearable and a tiny spark needs to be found in the centre of each of our lives so they can get up in the morning and have a glimmer of something amazing. Maybe as you get older, once again it is the simple things can be your reward. Sometimes just seeing sunshine through grass is enough, or hearing birds squabbling over peanuts. Having people love you and you love them is always grounding, and this is what most people rely on to keep them here.   

So go out there and find something that can make your heart swell with amazement. Look for beauty, it is out there.

Live this life it really is worth the millions.
This is a whole bunch of people being thrown away.

Google earth spotted the thrown away people

Computers are fun!

What a wonderful privilege it is to live in the computer age. I really find it annoying when I get emails with people who are nostalgic about the 50's and 60's. All I can think is they have forgotten or they have not embraced this amazing and wonderful era in which we live. It is interesting that computer literacy is now being measured as a literacy and people who can't use computers are deemed to be challenged. 

Last night our connection to the outside world went down and it was interesting to see each member of our family being affected by it. My husband was the hero and reconnected us to the world. It was not only the computers that had to be attached, but also the printers, tablets, cell phones, televisions, satellite link and set top boxes.

Once we were connected I quickly attached to work to see how the afternoon run went and then fluttered around face book and was exposed to all the pretty things that I see there every day. My daughter who is on holiday in Mauritius let us know how here vacation was going, describing swimming with dolphins and eating interesting things. I then saw it was Earth day so obviously I had to steal a picture and post about it on face book and do a blog entry about it. How much fun is that.

I started writing computer programs in 1978 and if you had told me then that computers would one day be fun I would not have believed you, but see,  something that was one of the inner rings of hell has turned out to be pretty darn fine.

I don't think that everything is sunshine and roses on places like face book where you get groups that are normally run by the most psychotic of women who do a mixture of simpering, prayer and downright bullying, but like everything else it is easy to solved by a quick click of an  unfriend button. In fact this is why I have created this blog page, so that I can vent on, in an area where people really do not need to read my prose. In fact you can just look at the pictures and click the next blog button and see who else has given an opinion on almost anything that the human mind can think of.

I will also end with a cat meme, as what is the internet without cats.

Have a good one!

Peace out

I have a new high horse that I have just mounted and that is to all the parents who acted like sheep and were scared into not giving their children their MMR shots. I was terrorised about this when my youngest was a baby and went despite being subjected to severe harassment.

Well there are parents of 600 children in Wales who should have done some thinking of their own and protected their children instead of accepting the popular opinion. I hope that all of the children recover and don't have any of the horrid side effects.

To all the people who had loud mouths on the subject I hope you learn sign language and go help out as this is squarely on your shoulders.

See sometimes it does take 15 years to win an argument!



Have a good one!
Peace out.

People

This last week has shown the worst in human beings and that is not the stupid radical stuff, but rather the ugliness of human nature shining through. I have been watching Sky news in the mornings and have caught such horrid sights as adults whooping and cheering when teenage children were killed. I watched adult people throwing block parties when 2 childrens' mother died and then had to say goodbye to her.
I saw parent rushing to the London marathon in a huge fit of excitement as they too may have been blown up and received their 15 minutes of glory. The one women interviewed was all a twitter as she had brought her children to watch the marathon, she even

admitted that the only reason she was there was due to the Boston bombing, how stupid, how many of her children would she have been willing to have hurt. Having spent many years protecting my children from things like bombs and riots, I am horrified that people think of it as an opportunity for fun.

The other thing is that the world has been rocked by many natural disasters this week and yet it seems that no-one wants to think of the suffering of these people. There is no glory so why worry about it.

So if you are a thinking person, please think before you rejoice in the death and suffering of others and if you are a parent, please look after your children and put their needs before an opportunity to have your 15 minutes of fame.

Have a good one.