Ponderings and Musings

So I’m sitting in the parking lot near Dunkin’ Donuts during my lunch hour. I’m looking across the lot at the various cars parked in a reasonable order and I can’t help but notice that the color selection of the majority vehicles is, for lack of a better word, muted. There are no oranges or lime greens or yellows like you’d find in the days gone by. Everything is a subtle color, if the color falls outside of a monochromatic selection at all.

I wonder why this is.

People often buy the vehicle that expresses their personality. This isn’t always the case, but people will most likely buy the color vehicle that they are attracted to, and judging by this completely unscientific survey I’m doing here, people are feeling rather subtle these days. They don’t want to stray far from a gray area. There are very few who make the bold choice.

I find this intriguing.

I just popped a Vitamin D capsule from my husband’s stash. For some reason I have not been taking Vitamin D this winter. This is something that I usually do because it does help with the winter blahs I feel from time to time. I like to think of Vitamin D as a little capsule of sunshine. It helps boost my spirits a bit. Or, at least I think that it’s helping me boost my spirits a bit.

Even though I don’t like being out in the sun, I still really enjoy sunshine. Lots and lots of sunshine. I like to sit in the shade and look out over a sunlit landscape and just feel the warm breezes on my face. That doesn’t happen a lot in January in Central New York. We get a steady diet of gray skies and snow covered landscapes. While it can be quite pretty, it’s kind of monochromatic and that contributes to a ‘blah’ feeling.

I have a couple of natural LED lightbulbs in my office that are suppose to help me feel all cheery by simulating sunlight. I definitely prefer the LED lightbulbs over fluorescent lights, and the light is kind of cheery, but it’s not warm and cheery. This zaps my energy levels a little bit. Perhaps the warmth and the energy levels will come in the Vitamin D tablet I just pilfered from my husband’s stash of vitamins.

Now I remember why we sneak off to Virginia Beach around the last week of February. We might have to do that again this year.

In the meantime I’ll look at the LED lamp and hope there’s warmth in the Vitamin D.

I must be doing something wrong. There must be something that I’m missing in this grand scheme called life. I look around. I see people in real life having dinner with friends, enjoying drinks, spending hours at the gym. They laugh, they have fun. And they have all the time in the world to do so.

I read blog posts. I see tweets. Same deal. People out having fun, having a grand time with all the time in the world. They seem relaxed. At ease. Ready to par-tay. Woo woo!

I must have signed up for a shortened timeline or something. I feel like my life is frenetic. Packed to the seams with events and activities. And we’re not even that sociable. Sleep, eat, work, eat, gym, repeat. It doesn’t feel treadmill-like, it just feels like I don’t have enough time.

I’m organized. That’s all working and has made things better, but after dinner, working out at the gym and then trying to fold a load of laundry, it’s time for bed. Time to rinse and repeat.

Maybe this is part of some two-decade long mid-life crisis. There’s so many things, both big and little that I still want to do. So many little projects that I want to escape into. So many people I want to meet, so many places I want to see. But who has the time? Something is consuming all of my time.

And I don’t have the time to figure out what it is.

So yesterday it was bitter cold, which made taking a morning and afternoon walk at work less than as enjoyable as it could have been. It’s important to get exercise, plus walking at work has the amazing benefit of clearing my head and making me more productive when I return to my desk, so one must do what they must do, even if Mother Nature doesn’t want us to do it. Still, it was quite cold.

This morning when I got up for work I noticed that it was 9F. It was another chilly morning in these parts, just like it’s suppose to be in January. It’s what’s expected. Except now it’s over 40. And now only is it over 40, it’s over 45. The weather folks are saying that it could hit 50 by the weekend but I rarely believe what they say so only time will tell.

I feel like we are on some sort of weather roller-coaster this winter. I’m not complaining about it, mind you, as this appears to be the new norm, where the winters are more mild than they were when I was a kid. Earl tells me that it’s all cyclic and it probably is, we are just in a part of the cycle that I’m not familiar with.

But I have to admit that I do miss having that “really big storm” of the season where we get dumped on with several feet of snow within a 24 hour period. Sure, it’s inconvenient and I’d probably complain about it myself as it’s happening, but it’s a good way to get the adrenaline pumping and nature knows I love the pumping of adrenaline. Maybe after our spring in January we’ll get something wacky like a sno-nado or something.

Good times.

It is the last day of 2012.  I’m still here, the blog is still here and the world is still here. There’s a part of me that wants to ramble on about the things I learned, the people I met and the fun we had in 2012 but I’m not feeling overly rambly today. Even though it’s a workday for me, and I find it quite amusing that I am being somewhat productive, my head is already in 2013 mode and I’m looking forward to the challenges of the new year.

During a ride home from the in-laws yesterday, Earl made a comment: “which are the better years for us – the even ones or the odd ones?”  To be quite honest, I can’t remember which is which these days, partly because I have middle-age senility but also because I’m going to make 2013 a good year no matter what. Determination, coupled with a sense of relaxation (in the spirit of “what will be, will be”) is what is going to get 2013 off to a good start in my little head.

If I had to summarize 2012, I’d say that it was a learning experience. I learned a lot about people, I learned a lot about what money does to people, I learned a lot about big corporations and I learned a lot about our country. More importantly I learned a lot about myself and I like to think that I am starting 2013 a little smarter and more aware of my surroundings than where I was a year ago.

So tonight I’m going to raise my selected bottle of beer up in a toast to 2013 and welcome it with open arms. It’s going to be a hoot!

I have started watching “The Event” on Netflix while working out. I watched this show earlier in the year. Unfortunately, it lasted only one season on NBC and it doesn’t look like any other network is going to tidy up the loose ends. I reconcile the abrupt and unfinished ending by reading the comments of other fans on message boards and the like. A particular comment I read today struck a chord with me:

Are we living in a new dark age? Life is no longer about aspiring to learn more, to be better at science, to encourage diversity, to welcome challenges to our beliefs — but rather to gravitate toward the lowest common denominator. If you want an intellectual show about science fiction (as opposed to catechism) perhaps such content will eventually thrive via streaming. At present it seems the clowns are running the circus — meaning the networks are more concerned about selling a better laxative while dumbing down an already intellectually challenged audience. (How long can thinking people be entertained by reality TV? How many episodes of Cops can one watch before slipping into a coma?)

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I sometimes wonder what the world is going to be like in ten or twenty years, especially if current trends continue. The other night I watched a woman at the mall slip on some ice and fall on her backside, simply because it was 7:30 p.m. at night, she was wearing (apparently very stylish) sunglasses and heels and she couldn’t navigate the icy, darkened parking lot because she was more concerned with looking good in her sunglasses. While she looked good, she apparently had little to no common sense. I hope she wasn’t hurt.

People don’t think anymore. Technology does a lot of thinking for them, like cars that flash a warning that it’s dark out and you have to turn on your lights. This sets up an expectation and we end up with cups that let us know that the hot coffee was just ordered is hot.

I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I’ll be the first one to admit that, but I still aspire to shine brighter and brighter each day, even as I grow older and grow more forgetful. I hope that others will continue to do the same, but thinking seems to be too hard.

It’s a lucky man that gets to wake up next to his best friend every morning. This morning I got to do just that and then the inevitable happened; I fell in love again. It happens every morning, I see the bear in bed with me and I fall in love. People think I’m crazy when I say I still see fireworks after all these years, but I do. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic.

Sixteen years ago today, Earl and I celebrated our commitment with a ceremony on Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. Witnessed by Rick and Helen (brother and sister-in-law), Earl and I exchanged vows and rings. While New York State granted us the right to make it all legal in 2011, Earl and I consider ourselves married as of 12/26/96. It was nice of the state to catch up to fact.

Many said it wouldn’t last, but you can’t interrupt fate, especially when you marry your bestest friend. I’m a lucky guy. I’m a happy guy.

So, like most people in the United States, Earl and I have been very busy during this holiday season. In fact, this somewhat frenetic pace has kept me from blogging on a regular basis for the past three days. This runs contrary to one of my goals for 2013, where I hope to be blogging more. Let’s see if I can reverse this trend.

Saturday we took our annual mall road trip and found ourselves in Danbury, Connecticut. This decision was influenced by wanting to meet a fellow blogger/tweeter/Facebooker and his husband, and we had a lovely lunch with Kevin (FearTheDrumMajor/drummajorkev) and Brian. Having lunch with them was liking have lunch with old friends. We are looking forward to seeing them again in 2013. Online friends that become new friends are a beautiful thing (and quite frankly, they are two very handsome men)!

After lunch and milling about Danbury Fair (where I officially completed my shopping chores), we completely lost our mind and headed downstate a bit to the Palisades Center, where the accent was thick (and somewhat grating on my nerves), parking was at a premium and so we had to scale a wall, climb over a fence and around a guide rail to get to the last available spot.

This activity earned me this…

… which was Phin and Matt’s Extraordinary Ale from the Southern Tier Brewing Company in my own stomping grounds of Lakewood, New York. Having tried some wines and such during our vacation at the beginning of the month, I’m more of a beer drinker if I’m going to drink alcohol at all and quite frankly I like a good beer. I’m developing an interest in craft beer and this beer, which was enjoyed at the Yard House in the chaos of the Palisades Center. This particular Yard House had 180 beers on tap, but I only had one. We did have a long drive home, after all.

Sunday was wrapping and cookie creation day!

Jamie and Earl did the baking, I did the inspection and taste testing. After getting through the stress of wrapping presents (which I am very bad at), it was good to relax with a cookie treat or two.

I worked yesterday. I think I was the only one working yesterday, but I was able to get things done from my home office, which is always a good thing.

Last night we had my mom, sister and nephew over for a Christmas Eve gathering. Mom and I snapped a photo with my iPhone while sitting on the couch reminiscing about Christmases of the past and present.

This morning Earl, Jamie and I woke up and did the traditional family Christmas morning thing.  It looks like Santa Bear and his Cub Elves were very busy about The Manor last night. Today we are trying on clothes, playing with some new gadgets (I am an Apple boy through and through, though sometimes I won’t admit it) and checking out our presents.

Oh! Last night Mom told us that she gave me the one gift that I really wanted and she made a donation to the Ali Forney Center. She’s a cool mom and even more so for doing that.

Family. New friends. Old Friends. All in the spirit of the holiday. It is a great way to spend Christmas. Life is good.