A Walk on the Beach

We took a walk on the beach last evening, Anne and I and our friend Alice. The weather was about as good as it gets; a slight sea breeze and no bugs. I always find the wave action calming and restorative, but it's not just that. I think it also has to do with the sun on the water, the birds swooping after their dinner, feet touching the sand and water, the immensity of the ocean. I was thinking that we have made a decision to move away from this, so I hope that Lake Ontario has some restorative properties. I believe that there is nothing quite like the ocean, though.

I have lived near the ocean all of my life. I started out in Newark, NJ, which isn't quite what would be called "near the ocean," but we spent many weekends at the shore when I was a child, then moving to Sea Girt when I was in my last year of high school. Thereafter, I never considered myself a "Day Benny." I believe that I will be closer to the water at our new house. It is about two miles to the lake straight up Holt Road. It's a pretty big lake. Not big as far as the Great Lakes go, but big, nevertheless. You can't see across to Canada. All you can see is water, so, except for your knowledge of geography, for all you know, it could go on forever. But, I don't know if it will be the same as the ocean. There's something about the beach. There was one sight, however, that somewhat marred the experience and that was the lady in the bikini. An older woman who had no business being in a bikini because a good portion of her hung over the bottom part of it. Shouldn't there be a naturalist or someone to point out to people that they are disturbing the balance of nature, not to mention the view.

Too Many, Too Young

In the past few years I have attended far too may funerals for people who have died before their time, at least in my way of thinking. The latest was yesterday which was a funeral for the thirty-six year old son of a woman, BJ, with whom I used to work. Michael was, for all anyone knew, in great health. He was an avid kayaker, an archer, fisherman and a lover of the outdoors. Apparently he was in good physical shape, but he was felled by what was probably a brain aneurism. It came out of nowhere, suddenly, and, of course, the family was devastated. When someone "old" passes on, you figure that they lived their life and that's what happens eventually. I don't know anymore what the qualification for "old" is, but a number of the people for whom I have found myself offering condolences are younger than I. I don't think of myself as old, except when it leads to a discount, but certainly someone thirty-six or someone in their fifties is not old. All of the people to whom I refer were active, health conscious and did what they were told we are supposed to do in terms of exercise, eating, etc. Does this mean that I shouldn't worry about healthy living because, no matter what I do, something can come out of the sky and get me? I think that it tells me that I should only renew and intensify my efforts at healthy living. Some things you just can't do anything about, but you can at least minimize the risk factors. I feel bad for BJ, her husband Mike and their family, but they will survive. I saw that they had a lot of support and as BJ said, she wanted not to mourn his passing, but to celebrate his life.

Nothing Much New Here

They say that no news is good news, but on the selling of the house front, some news might be better than no news. We had an open house over the weekend and ten sets of people came, including the grandson of the original owner who had the house built in 1912. According to our realtor he was telling stories about the house and enchanting the assembled multitude. We were not at home for the festivities and we haven't heard anything since, except that the country is going to rack and ruin, the economy is in shambles and the stock market tanked. It's interesting that investors abandoned their stock and bought up every US treasury bond they could get their hands on, the very things that were downgraded. By the way, Standard & Poors has made some colossal blunders in the past. Remember Enron? They only have 100 analysts to cover over 100 countries. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it turns out that someone, or some group, has figured out how to manipulate the market. Maybe it's all those tea drinkers. No, they're not smart enough.

The garage sale went well, although we still have a lot of stuff remaining. We got rid of a lot of bulky stuff. Anne took a load of books to Goodwill and we will get the Vets to pick up a lot of the other things. They seem willing to take about anything in good condition.

In anticipation of our move, I have been trying to figure out the best values in TV, internet and phone service. Anne's brother in Rochester uses a good old antenna and gets a nice selection of stations. Time Warner is the cable company there and Verizon apparently doesn't service our street yet. You can't find out on line what it costs for basic TV service, only all about bundled services. We cut back to basic here and I wanted to find out how much that service costs there. I guess I'll have to call them. Here we were paying over $80.00 a month for the TV part of our cable bill. They advertize the basic service for $10.14 a month, so I figured we would save around $70.00. Not so, we only save about $50.00 a month because we lose this discount, that discount and the other discount. That's why I'm thinking about using an antenna at the new house, except now, the geniuses in Congress want to sell off a lot of bandwidth to cell phone companies and make it harder to get anything over an antenna. You just simply can't win.

Got in a swim in the pool today before the rains came. It felt good and we need the rain, so all in all it was a good day, although it's not over yet. Hopefully, the best part is yet to come. I wonder what's for dinner.