Perversities of Life

Typical. Vexing. Perverse. As so often happens, astronomical events like meteor showers with top billing turn out to be total busts for me. Clouds move in during the night, daylight brings clear skies and unbelievable heat. I should be studying sun spots and solar flares. Unless, of course, an important solar event should crop up. Then the weather situation would be reversed. Clouds during daylight hours, beautiful clear skies at night…etc.

It makes me wonder why I bought a telescope a few years back. The only real object of astronomical proportions was blocked when Fred built a new garage and blocked the view to the patio where Rita liked to sunbathe. These memories come slower at my age.

Believe me when I say I’d rather be writing scintillating descriptions of  ecstatic experiences. As it is, I’m still trying to grab one of those splinters I got from brushing off the cedar plank last week as I prepared to cook my slab of salmon. Just as I think I have the sliver in the grasp of the tweezers, my loupe falls out of my eye. Too bad I forgot I was cutting up hot Poblano peppers for the salad when I rubbed the sweat out of my eyes.

And there is the trip to Corpus Christi coming up. I keep asking around for good places to eat and coming up with conflicting information. One place was highly recommended by my sister-in-law who also predicted that I would die soon. She said it was a spiritual assessment of my character that led her to this conclusion.

Comparing events in one’s life is like trying to find parallels between apples and oranges. Perhaps pears and prunes would be a better analogy. There are the crisp, sweet memories of a first kiss or passionately embracing under an elm tree and trying not to scratch chiggers. And then there are those prunish moments when you hear a dry rattle on the path immediately behind you.

If there’s a morale to these remarks, I think it would go something like this: try to avoid dying young and foolish or old and miserable. For some reason, it’s more romantic to die young and miserable or old and foolish.