What Do You Do When You're Sick of the Whole World?

I watched the news yesterday morning after my sleep apnea study and it was downright depressing. Admittedly, it had been a bad night without my CPAP while they were collecting data, so I wasn't really bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while sitting in the waiting room eating my oatmeal. But in the half hour I sat there, the local media gleefully trotted out pundits and film clips aplenty to justify the rioting that's been going on in Baltimore the past few days because white people support cops and thus are abusing black people. Then they spent the last half of the newscast explaining how religious people like me were causing health problems for gay and lesbian people because of our belief that homosexual behavior is a sin. I had to leave and get out for a walk in the fresh air to try and get my sense of perspective back.

A friend posted a note on Facebook saying she was "really disgruntled with mankind & need a reminder there's still lots of good out there."  I know how she feels. Here is my suggestion for anyone who is kind of feeling fed up with it all.  At least it's what works for me.

Look around your kitchen. Find something that doesn't work well, a pan that sticks, a can opener that's dull, knives that won't hold an edge, a mixer that is inadequate. Go out and buy a replacement - new and better. Get yourself a Kitchen-Aid with a dough hook, a set of eversharp knives or one of those $10 deluxe can openers. Get yourself a set of glass tupperware containers. I love those. The other day I found that buying a small $11 Paula Deen frying pan made me rejoice in the ingenuity of human beings. I needed a little pan that I could do an egg in without having to wrestle the big old monster stainless steel one I use for big jobs. I replaced my sticky Wok with one that the Chinese veggies slide right out of and only requires a light application of olive oil.

For guys who don't cook, look around your garage or shop. Go get yourself that tool that missing from your toolkit or replace something that doesn't work well. Get something for yourself that will make your work easier and more fun.

It's silly how happy stuff like that makes me. I can go out and buy a pair of thick warm socks in winter and walk around the house in them all day long grinning stupidly. Last week I bought myself a model sailing ship and every time I think about working on it, it makes me smile, even though book deadlines have kept me from doing anything on it yet.

Take the dog for a walk in the early morning with the sun slanting through the trees. I take a deep breath and just listen to the breeze murmering in the tops of the Douglas firs. I can feel my heart relax. I can feel my soul smiling.

Turns out it's not the big things we think we need - fancy vacations, new cars, the fanciest houses or cocktail parties with the best people. It's sharing a joke with an old friend on Facebook. It's calling your kids to find out how they're doing and to tell them you love them without any strings attached. It's the last page of that chapter you've been working on. It's plunging into a lake in the summer and swimming out a ways just to put yourself in a quiet spot, away from the shore with the arch of blue sky overhead and the cool water wrapped around you like a hug. I like paddling a canoe out on the river or a lake. It's pretty cheap to do and immensely satisfying if you know how to paddle well.

Any day I spend sitting on a porch with someone I love watching the sun go down; maybe playing my guitar with my feet propped up on the porch rail....that's a good day.

If you're sick of human beings, go to a website called Godvine. The videos there will make you smile and will at the same time make you feel a lot better about people. It's the upside of the Youtube phenomenon that we not only capture the bad things that happen, but we also capture the good side of the human race - the side that blesses, not curses; that sings; not complains; that loves, not hates.

Life is too good to let the people who are miserable drag you down with them.

© 2015 by Tom King

The "Participation Trophy" for Weather

by Tom King (c) 2012

Okay, I'm probably being ungrateful.  The temperature here in Puyallup stays pretty steadily in the comfortable range. We only get a couple of decent snowstorms in the winter. Their idea of a heat wave is a blistering 79 degrees.  It hit 85 last summer and the natives were passing out on the streets. All in all, so long as Wal-Mart doesn't run out of anti-depressants (which happens sometimes), the weather is pretty mild.

Warm Pacific currents pump warm tropical air up through the western half of the state keeping the temperatures even. Haven't heard of them having many hurricanes or typhoon or whatever they call them  rolling in off the Pacific. Just clouds mostly. They have a special name for when the sun comes out because they see it so infrequently up here. Along the coast at Forks and LaPush, vampires can safely come out and run down to the Dairy Queen to hang out with their friends in the middle of the day. The overcast is that reliable. And that's pretty much my complaint.

I grew up in North Central Texas where we have real weather. When it's hot, it's in the hundreds for a month or so at a time. When it's cold, we're covered in ice and the electricity has been knocked out for days.  I've seen the temperature drop 20 degrees in 10 minutes. I've worn Bermuda shorts one day and long underwear and a parka the next. During the summer, we spend at least one or two evenings a month sitting in the bathtub with a mattress over our heads listening to the weather guy track funnel clouds passing through the neighborhood.

I suppose my problem is that there's no weather related excitement up here. I think I'm bored weather-wise. A few minutes ago we had what passes for a hailstorm up here. The hail reached the size of BBs or bicycle wheel bearings and lasted for a full 45 seconds. Some folk, obvious visitors to the state, even opened umbrellas. The native Washingtonians never noticed. Me, I had my nose pressed against the window hoping for something at least the size of a decent golf-ball.

The only real chance at Washington weather excitement during a "sun break"

The weather up here reminds me of the kid in school who always wins the "participation" trophy.  It's like when a storm system passed through in December. The weather guys had this marathon weather alert going on TV describing 25 mile an hour wind gusts knocking down dead limbs and pup tents.

I kept expecting one of them to clap his hands and say, "Way to go, Mr. Weather. Good try!"

Of course, we can always drive up into the mountains and take the risk of being buried in an avalanche. That might at least get the old adrenaline going.

And there's always the volcano.....and the odd earthquake...........oh, and tsunamis. Other than that, it's pretty boring hear weather-wise.