Bound, Bound and Rebound

“Pink, Pink? What’s wrong with pink? I think you’ve got a pink kink in your think.

'Doesn’t matter what color. That’s a nope,


“Whether it’s pink, purple or heliotrope.

“Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. When you’re down just look around,

“You’ve got a body, good legs and fine feet. Get your head in the right place and then you’re complete.

“As for the dancing, just slap your foot down and bound and rebound…”

From Bounding, a Pixar short film. (A little sheep—all fluffy and self-righteous, gets dragged out of his desert home, sheered and dumped back into the drenching rain, all naked and pink. Along comes a Jack-a-lope with sage advice. "Bound, bound and rebound.")


Back home—rebounding. Had a thought while traveling up the I -5 roadway on the way home from our Thanksgiving trip to Oregon. Imagine this: “We’re having split pea soup for dinner,” says Mom.

“Yea,” says the kids.

“That’s wonderful,” says the Papa.

You think?

Or would they say, “Pea soup? Yuck.”

Actually the pea soup was pretty good, especially when accompanied by a glass of wine and followed by a chocolate éclair.

Anderson’s Split Pea Soup. I have seen that advertised for the last 40 years. We stopped this time, happened to stop at the Anderson’s motel, and there it was—next door, the restaurant. Had to have pea soup. The power of advertising.

Back home. Time for DD and I to pour positive affirmations into our heads. Do you do that? Is it hard to stay positive sometimes?

Saw daughter number one and family in Oregon—that was good. Feeling sad now, a sister-in law passed away as we were driving home. It was a shock, she didn’t tell people she had cancer. I didn’t know her well. She was Korean and our language differences was a barrier—a shame. I wish I had known her better.

While in Oregon we  loaded up the rest of the house belongings, HD loaded up some machinery he wanted from his place of business, he dragged a U-haul trailer back to our house here, and now we have another full garage. While parked at the lab, someone took a hammer to the truck windshield and Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, we begged and HD waited until a nice company replaced our windshield.

Humm…what was it with that???

Right now the sun is shining. I’m happy to be back in California. “Bound, bound, bound and rebound.”

Out of Common into Extraordinary

In Isak Dinesen’s exquisite book, Out of Africa, she wrote this of the natives: “For of the Lord they knew from the great years of drought, from the lions on the plains at night, and the leopards near the houses when the children were alone there, and from the swarms of grasshoppers that would come on to the land, nobody knew where-from, and leave not a leaf of grass where they had passed. They knew Him, too, from the unbelievable hours of happiness when the swarm passed over the maize field and did not settle, or when in spring the rains would come early and plentiful, and make all the fields and plains flower and give rich crops.”



Last Sunday I experienced an old friend in a new way. He shared his explanation of “truth” of which there is no absolute, of time of which it is only a measurement, of us being eternal beings. (Even using the word eternal signifies time—we can’t avoid it.) He spoke of that level of clarity in which whatever you are doing appears to come from a higher power. He said that when he wrote his doctorial thesis it appeared to him that he just held a pen over the paper and it wrote itself.

I asked him if he was happy and he said “Yes.” He is in his 80’s, has one leg amputated, the other foot partially gone, has had cancer, a heart attack, diabetes, and is on dialysis three times every week. Last Sunday I met a happy man.