Just a little more than usual
If I had the urge to make such a commitment, it might be a coffee shop with a small consignment section for local artisans.
Or maybe an online woodworking business– lots of wood-turned items and various styles of cribbage boards, etc.
Next to no processed foods, lots of oatmeal, nuts, some fresh fruit, low sodium for the most part. I have eggs on avocado toast for breakfast pretty much every other day. I do somewhat fall off the wagon at lunchtime, with a sliced turkey sandwich or deli ham salad and baked– not fried– potato chips, with a Chobani yogurt with granola for… dessert, I guess.
When we’re at home, my wife keeps us eating healthy most of the time, though I still eat what tastes good sometimes, especially when we head up to our son and daughter-in-law’s for a meal, usually supper. There will be lasagna, or chicken broccoli braid, or burgers on the grill, and on occasion a slice of grilled banana bread, with butter.
So, it’s not all twigs and berries.
I don’t know. I do know that I sometimes root for people to get payback for their assholery and it’s pretty sweet when it happens. I don’t know what forces are at work in the universe, or if karma is just wishful thinking among us who prefer there be some sort of equilibrium and fairness– okay, retribution– for anyone who behaves badly.
What goes around comes around? Maybe.
Never been very good at it. I exercise a little, take walks, read a book on occasion, and work on another diamond art project. I hope some of that counts.
Often when we head back to PA from mid-coast Maine, one of us will comment about how we wish we could stay. Maine feels like home. There’s family there, we’re back in New England again, there are woods and hills and ocean in close proximity to one another, and the pace of things feels somewhat slower. Where we stay has a bit of a ’60s flower child vibe to it, but that’s OK– it’s a whole lot better than what often emanates from D.C. and what’s on the prevailing political winds where we currently live.
The first thing to come to mind is developing discipline regarding diet and exercise. A close second would be developing a sense for generating and managing income, which might have made this current chapter of earthly life a bit less stressful and somehow more enjoyable.
A close third would be some level of self-awareness or something that might have helped me break free of being such a creature of habit and so inhospitable to sudden changes in plans.
Probably Hedwig. I’ve always been intrigued by owls, and she seems to have it all together- a silent sentinel, vigilant, there when you need her. And, well, wise.
Maybe Indiana Jones, maybe Big Bird. Not sure they’d be terribly enamored with the switch, though. To be honest, I looked at one list of someone’s take on the top 100 fictional characters, and I wasn’t really keen on switching lives with any of them, the above two included.
The only matchup coming to mind is Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner. I feel like there might have been moments when the roadrunner came across as an annoying creature aching for comeuppance. Most of the time, I was rooting for him, but not all of the time. There was a bit of sympathy for the coyote, maybe because he was so hapless.
I’m having a difficult time coming up with an example for live action movies. I couldn’t stand Heath Ledger’s Joker, couldn’t bite on his arguments that had Bruce Wayne so conflicted; not at all sympathetic to me.
I started War and Peace a number of years ago but only got half-way through it, so I think it might be close between Barack Obama’s first autobiographical offering and a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Jon Meacham– And There Was Light.
The more I think about it, it was probably President Obama’s book. It was nice to have a couple of multi-page spreads of pictures to break things up. 🙂
