Surely you know days like this

Daddy Fell into the Pond.
~~Alfred Noyes

Everyone grumbled.
The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And there seemed to be nothing beyond,
THEN Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone's face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
"Give me the camera, quick, oh quick! He's crawling out of the duckweed."
Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft
And is sounded as if the old drake laughed.

O, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond

WHEN Daddy fell into the pond!

What comes next?

A 4 month old chubby baby boy named Alex Lange has been denied health care because he has been declared "too fat". The child was born at 8 1/4 pounds and is on a diet of only breast milk, according to the article.

They are calling it a pre-existing condition --

"Alex's pre-existing condition — "obesity" — makes him a financial risk. Health insurance reform measures are trying to do away with such denials that come from a process called "underwriting."

I am baffled. He's a baby. It's not like he needs to stop going to McDonald's or something.
I never thought I would live to see the day that Baby Fat was actually a preexisting condition.

Never get to full of yourself

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
~English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University

Be obscure clearly. ~E.B. White

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one. ~Baltasar Gracián

When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
~Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.
~Goethe

On this day...What are you saying?

This is a sign posted in a store in Key West. I have no idea how old it is or what it really means other than if you are not Spanish, English or Bahamian, you can talk while reading is in progress.

People talk a lot. People say things when they don't even realize that others may be influenced by what they say. Words are reactionary, arbitrary, but never stationary. They are twisted and folded and hung out to dry, used wrongly, sometimes to sparingly in truth and taken out of context just so a person can admire the way they strung them together.

They are written on subway walls, tenement halls - oh wait that's Simon and Garfunkel - but it's true. Words are written in a lot of places you wouldn't think they would be found.

Some people use words of encouragement as often as they can, looking for ways to uplift someone's spirits. Others might lean toward a black hole of cynicism, for reasons none other than that they can. Some try to express love in words that people just won't take from them, and there are those who spew hateful words into the universe because someone hurt them as a child.

The world is filled up with words in songs of all sorts, books of all kinds, notes on refrigerators and in lunch boxes, blogs, letters, and threats in a past due notice. legal papers, and precious misspelled words from a child to a parent on a crumpled, stained piece of paper that is worth it's weight in gold,

and the world will still hold a trillion zillion more words in places unknown and unnamed before we have exhausted our stay here, and what am I going on about?

I just want to ask:

What are you saying? What are you saying to people when you speak, when you write, when you sing? If anyone listens to you or reads your words, you are taking up space in their brain. That is a responsibility of a sort.

Be smart. Be kind. Don't scare people. Don't be mean to people. Be prayful. Be encouraging. Be good. Be diligent to make this world a better place. And, why not? After all, it's the only place we have for this moment in time. There may be no words in the next world. But what if there are only your words in the next world? Will you enjoy hearing them?


Other than that, it's a Friday on the planet and today

Jackson Browne, classic rock's eternally young poet of choosing badly in relationships and then going forward in your life, is 61.

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And, good grief, we bombed the moon. Google it.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne