May 9, 2018 – Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

LAUGHING TO SURVIVE: IT’S A PAIR! – Marilyn Armstrong

Voltaire: “God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

Too afraid to laugh? That’s how I feel about the world right now. Although, come to think about it, maybe that’s the way to go out of the world. Laughing my ass off at the sheer lunacy of the human race.

Woody Allen: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

My mother used to say this one. I always thought it was one of those old Jewish saying: “Man plans, God laughs.” He may indeed have a plan, but he hasn’t given us a script or even a hint of the outcome. Isn’t that cheating?

Jonathan Davis: “You laugh at me because I’m different, I laugh at you because you’re all the same.”

We are a species that deserves to be laughed at. And we take ourselves so seriously. I think if aliens — the outer space variety — dropped by — they might die laughing before they could start a war.

Species Human are ridiculous.

QUESTION FOR THE SHARING WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World – May 7, 2018

If you were given $22 million tax-free dollars (any currency), what is the first thing you would do?

Same as last time. Pay off the house. Possibly knock it down and build one more suitable to our needs.

Help out my friends and family who need it. Take a really lovely vacation for which someone other than me makes ALL the arrangements.

Hire a cook and people to clean the house. Get my hair cut by someone who won’t scalp me. Get more Bomba socks!

In what do you find the simplest of joys?

Pretty much all my joys are simple. I’m not sure what a complicated joy would be.

I’m just happy when all the bills are paid and nothing is broken or breaking down.

What would be your ideal birthday present, and why?

I want that vacation, but I want someone else to take care of it. ALL of it. Reservations. Tickets.

Literally everything from leaving home to returning. I don’t want to worry about money or travel connections or whether or not they will let me have a bottle of shampoo on my flight.

Usually, when all is said and done, this means staying home.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?

This was not a very smiley week. I was grateful to finally have normal weather and some sunshine.

A flower or two would have been grand, but the leaves are coming out, so if we aren’t bright with color, at least we are green. Each time I look out the window, I see the leaves have gotten bigger. Spring is happening in a huge hurry, trying I think to make up for all that lost time!

Happy birthday, Owen!

SO MANY PEDESTRIANS – SO LITTLE TIME – Marilyn Armstrong

Garry had a bumper sticker on his old red Mustang convertible that said: “So many pedestrians, so little time.”

Cruel? Only if you weren’t trying to drive cross-town in Boston where pedestrians pay no attention to signs, crosswalks, or even oncoming trucks and cars. If they feel like crossing the street, they step into the road and ramble casually across.

If you get too close, they pound on your car because traffic regulations don’t have anything to do with them.

I do not know if all cities are as bad as Boston, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover they are. In New York, it took them years to figure out ways to control both cars and walkers without fatalities.

Out here, in the country, people are surprisingly polite about people crossing the road. I suppose because there aren’t so many of us helps. The roads aren’t as packed with traffic. It’s safe to slow down.

Nonetheless, traffic will stop and wait for you to cross. After which, they wave to you. Using all five fingers.

ANY KIND OF CAMERA: CEE’S FUN FOTO CHALLENGE – Marilyn Armstrong

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Any kind of camera or photographer

Well, any kind of camera or photographer is, for someone like me, pretty easy. I love taking pictures of cameras. Sometimes, I love taking pictures of cameras taking pictures. Garry and I take pictures of each other taking pictures of each other.