Almost-zen-koan totally stolen from an episode ofReba

Brock, realizing his younger daughter is considering colleges: "Where does the time go?"
Barbara Jean: "More importantly, where does it come from?"

Or, to quote Chicago, "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?"

I slept until a quarter of nine this morning. What's that all about?

Possible schlock answer to the question, "What time is it?": "It's a good time."
Possible Dickensian answer: "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times."
Possible marathoner answer: "It's a long time."
Possible politically conservative answer: "It's the Right time."
Possible artist's answer: "It's the time frame."
Possible mathematical answer: "It's half-time."
Possible Mayan answer: "It's time out."

Back to volunteering

After writing for a couple of hours this morning, doing some banking and mail and so on, I went to the library to start my volunteering again.

Before I worked at the Kilbourn Public Library, I was a volunteer, and that contributed in no small way to my getting a job there eventually.  Now that I am retired, I decided to go back as a volunteer, putting in a couple of hours every week. The time went fast, it was great to see and visit with people and I came home feeling good. The Wo-Zha-Wa  Weekend Book Sale is Friday and Saturday of next week, and I signed us up to help with the setup on Thursday. Tom has been doing that for a few years. I used to help with it, but once I was working at the library, I was not involved. The book sale is a fund-raiser run by the Friends of the Library. That is not to say that the employees don't contribute to the project, but they are mainly busy keeping the library going before and during the sale itself.

Anyway, thought I'd put in another plug for volunteering wherever your interests lie. Our library is understaffed as it is, but the volunteers put in enough hours to make up for one full time employee. I am sure there are opportunities out there where you are, and one of them will make you feel great while you provide a service that might otherwise go by the wayside. And if, like I was back in the day, you are looking for an actual paying job -- becoming a volunteer is a good way to get your foot in the door.

I am not bragging about myself, BTW. Tom often puts in probably 40 hours a week or more for the various volunteer projects that engage him. My efforts are small potatoes in comparison, but fortunately it is not a contest. (Fortunate for me, that is!)

Teeth falling out dream

Did you know that dreaming about teeth falling out is a common experience? I have had such dreams any number of times over the years, and I had one last night. Dream interpretation being what it is -- an inexact science, art or craft -- it is impossible to say exactly what those dreams are about. I note, however, that the literature tends to focus on such dreams being about transitions in life.

This makes a certain sense, if I realize that it is only one possible meaning of the symbol. But think about your teeth -- you have BABY teeth, and they fall out as you are growing up. As adults, we probably associate losing teeth with BEING BEAT UP IN A FIGHT and later with AGING.

In my most recent dream, losing my teeth took place in the context of being at a workshop that I did not want to give. (A fight? At least there was internal conflict.)  When my teeth started falling out, which was painless, by the way, it gave me an excuse to leave the workshop. (Leave work and retire? Certainly a part of my recent past.)  I am still in the middle of the retirement-transition. Experienced folk tell me it can take a year to adjust.

And, of course, there are those things associated with retirement that might be part of what is going on with my dreaming self -- aging and all that stuff: loss of power due to loss of  income, loss of youth and physical attractiveness (as if!) and energy, etc. (Is it significant that I chose an image of a young boy to illustrate this post? Well, duh!)

Of course, as Sigmund Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. This is Labor Day weekend and that is a major cultural transition in the United States: the end of summer, the end of vacation, the beginning of school and the beginning of autumn. We spent yesterday at a circus museum and an 1840s-era re-enactment, both things that hark back to a past that is now gone. The house is full of pending transitions: Michael A will be returning to Chicago -- a part of my own past -- and Peter is moving towards moving on. Tom is purchasing some land adjacent to ours, which makes "home" a bigger place. It is land that he once co-owned with his only brother, who died last fall. A major transition for Tom. But by taking the whole parcel now, it returns a part of his past in a way, because the "new" land is part of the original land grant of the farm his ancestors got when they came to Wisconsin in the 1840s. Hmm. Just at the  era represented in that re-enactment on the river.  Talk about a transition --that part of Tom's family came from a German village to the Wisconsin wilds.Not exactly the same as coming up here from Chicago-Hyde Park, but even so ...

So is there some major message in my dream, something I am not aware of in my waking life? Not really. But pondering the falling teeth and the nearness of falling leaves makes me more aware of things in my life that are starting to fall/fail. Falling teeth are kind of icky; falling leaves are beautiful.

Which shall  I see?

A treat we passed up ...

Yesterday at the Wisconsin State Cowchip etc, Tom and Michael A had the traditional pork-chop-on-a-stick for lunch. These are actually quite good, grilled and all, and grilled pork is hard to beat, IMHO. I went with the Girl Scouts' fresh fruit basket instead, a nice mixture of watermelon, cantaloupe, blueberries, grapes, raspberries and pineapple. Afterwards Tom got a hot fudge sundae and Michael A got a root beer float. Next to that booth, a group of young Catholic girls were selling deep fried Oreos. I was fascinated. Of course, part of any state/county/local fair lore is deep frying improbable comestibles to make them ... less digestible? (The top of the line has to be deep fried butter. And, no, I am not making that up.)

Anyway, a middle school student and his grandmother were sharing deep fried Oreos and I waited for their evaluation. The boy liked them, but his grandmother was less impressed. "I can't get any Oreo taste," she complained.  From the look on her face, I think she was trying not to say, "Yuck!" So we decided to give that fried treat a pass.

FYI, this is a picture of a deep-fried-stick-of-butter-on-a-stick. This is the ultimate fair food because it combines deep-fried-something with food-on-a-stick. Deep fried butter debuted at the Texas State Fair -- where else? -- but this stick-of-butter-on-a-stick was supposedly invented in Iowa. There was a reason, but no one believes it. I think this just falls into the "We have the technology to do this!" category. While I do not recommend you try this at home -- eating or making them -- it is a stick of butter, dipped in a cinnamon honey batter and then deep fried. To add to its healthful nature, you then put on a sugar glaze.