Well two weeks ago I was very sick.  During the Easter weekend.  

My wife had just left with my youngest daughter on an extended spring vacation to a big "tourist" city on that Saturday after good Friday.  

As soon as they left I got sick.  This was

Easter weekend.  My store was open but luckily I could get a helper to work two days and then we were closed Two days.   I was so out of it I just slept, but very badly for two days straight. I guess I had some sort of stomach flu even though I didnt throw up, I couldnt eat.  One roll and some bubbly water in two days.  

I kind of felt bad because my older daughter was studying hard for some important tests she had to take on Thursday and Friday and I couldnt do anything for her.  She isnt quite old enough that she can make meals, although she has made a couple of the noodle meals.  Otherwise I was upset that she had to order McDonalds and a noodle restaurant food and I couldnt make her healthy hot food for her studying and brain.  But I was useless.  

That is why it made me so happy when she took over a couple of my small worries.  Before I go to bed everynight I check the stove and oven to make sure they are turned off.  Then I make sure the front door is locked and maybe the chain is on it.  

So there I was so sick on Saturday night and I still had to check the oven and stove.  My daughter called from her room and said, "dad why are you up?".  Without me answering, she said, "Dad, I checked the burners and stove and they are off and I made sure the door was locked".   

I was already up so I checked anyway, but it made me so happy that she had taken the responsibility over from me when I couldnt do it and SHE HAD taken care of it.  That had to be a little epiphany for me and I said to myself, "Yes.  She can take responsibility.  And she can be kind and take my worry over for one day when I am very sick.".   That is/was so nice when I came to that conclusion.  Not a big thing, but big enough. It just made me happy.  Kind of as if she had finally started making her bed after I had been doing it since she was small.  You know, sometimes we parents feel we have to nag our kids to get anything and everything done, so you see, it was nice that it was taken care of, and she knew exactly what was my routine, what I was up about and she had taken care of it.  

I didnt get a good night sleep, that came the next night, but at least there was this small glimmer of happiness within me.  

Thanks daughter.  

Great ambient classic.  Good for relaxed listening...... sort of. 

A Single Parent

 For some reason or another I have taken over many more duties of being a parent.  In fact for the last several weeks I have almost felt like a single parent.  

I have always been negative on being a single parent.  A. It is definitely  not good for the kids and B.  it is tough on the single parent too.  

Kids need both parents.  At different times they may need one parent more than the other. But two is always better than one.  That has been my philosophy.  The weak points in one parent might be the strong in the other.   

Anyway, several weeks ago, my wife got sick and was in bed for a week.  I had to take care of pretty much everything all week. And the whole time I was still working.  It meant doing the shopping on my free mornings Monday and Thursday.  Then preparing the meals in the evening to put in the refrigerator for the preparation quickly when I came home at 7.30 pm.  Then getting people in bed by a decent hour (these days it is getting a bit later 10.30 pm) and then cleaning up in the kitchen or making more meals from that time after they went to bed till about mid night.  

Not me

It worked. It s just that I was too tired after that to do anything else like get on my computer and write, although it seems I still did as I have some posts here. 

Now as I write this, the end of March, I have been again single parenting.  

The workload is strenuous and stressful, but I have managed . In another post I talk about how many evening meals I needed to have in order to "survive" the summer.  This single parent time has helped me increase my repertoire to about ten meals.  Some of them dont work for my younger daughter as she doesnt like peas or curry, but all the same I think I have added three more meals and I have about ten meals I can do.  Unfortunately, if I did this single parenting for an extended period I would need twenty meals ... which I dont have.   

I should mention that luckily both my girls are old enough so that they dont need a parent to go with them to appointments such as doctors or dentists and afernoon activities, so they can take care of themselves in that department. And we live in the city so everything is close enough so that they dont need a car to get someplace.   But I think that other single parents could not take the workload that I have.  It used to be six days, but now I have mostly gotten it to five days a week in retail.   Or single parents would need a relative like a grandmother or close friend to take care of the kids if it were much more, which I dont have here.  

While I have been getting through it, I wonder if I would go crazy after a while or just get used to the workload.  That said, I still maintain that two parents is much better and saner for everyone involved.  But maybe that was the problem that has caused this situation, that I wasnt keeping my end up in the parenting?  Maybe.  

Thank you for reading, send me your prayers.     

Could Life be so Simple?

 Hi... I wanted to write a post today about how much work my wife does. Not to belittle all the work she does, but I wanted to listen to a jazz album while I was writing. I dont like listening to singers while I write, they distract me.  I like jazz without vocals. 

I have been wanting to listen to more Avishai Cohen, an Isreali bass player who has been playing for some decades now and I have several of his albums in the store. He has played in my town a couple times, but I never saw him.  So I put on Arvoles LP, which I have.  And Arvoles, the title track, played.  It struck me.  It struck me as so simple, yet so beautiful.  It doesnt sound like jazz completely. It could be a simple Mozart composition without the improvving.  The melody.  I have read somewhere that it is a "neo baroque" melody. 

I have read several times that John Lennon used the nursery rhyme Three Blind

Mice in several of his songs.  Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run, see how they run.  A simple little ditty.  The melody of the Arvoles by Cohen is a simple little tune.  In some places it sounds like Happy Birthday to me.  Quarter notes in most of the melody.  It is happy throughout, but lightly, not overly.  Just happy like a stroll in the park.  

The cover of the album Arvoles is green and blues.  Trees.  That is what Arvoles means in the language (disappeared?) of Landino.   So it says.  Trees.  That is the cover.  And a couple walking by the trees... in the park.  Couples used to take strolls in the park.  It was common. It was a nice, easy thing to do which was enjoyable.   

The cover of Arvoles is simple and beautiful.  It is very beautiful.  Arvoles, the composition, is simple and beautiful. I dont normally care for Mozart, but if this was taken from Mozart, I would like to hear the original.  Then again it says it is an original composition from Mr. Cohen.  Then again, all of Lennon s compositions (most) were original, but he used Three Blind Mice a lot.  I like Three Blind mice if not so much the lyrics.  

I wonder what the world would be like if a great proportion of the people could live their lives like this picture and composition.  Rather simply, but enjoying the simplicity and not  getting more intricate, intimate or complicated.  I am talking about an even simpler version of John Lennons

"imagine".  Let there be Religions and countries and several of those things he wants you to imagine dont have to exist.  Let them exist, but let us be satisfied with the small things which are beautiful and be happy with those.  Happy Birthday is a nice song.  Trees are vey nice.  This melody of Arvoles is simple and nice.  That is enough.  If that is enough then the boundaries will naturally not exist.  Because no one will be bothered when and if you cross them.  After all we are just out for a stroll.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I am not going to throw a rock, I am not going to preach to you, I am not going to spy on you or your factories or your economy. I am not going to do anything if I cross the border into your country besides turn around when I have had enough and walk back to my abode where I am staying.  Then eat or sleep.  

Should I go on and connect it to being a Father?  

I often think I would have lived best in the 1800s when we could walk outside in the evening for a stroll and we didnt have to do grand things, like take huge trips, think about very deep intelligent, intellectual ideas.  Those were left for a few philosophers and scientists, a very few.  I could do my job, make enough money for my family, come home, eat dinner and take a stroll in the park.  Weekends were closed.  Shops were closed.   I think this would have been my time period. 

(Still no connection with being a father, wait for it)

But even with the simple answer, "NO", that time period doesnt exist. We live in a smaller world and we do fly around and we are more curious and so many of us are thinking and acting deeply and we have to be even more careful, dilligent about our neighbors, and our neighbors are now neighboring countries because we can kill everyone if someone or something gets out of hand.  Constant vigilance and diplomacy.  That is the simple answer, that it is impossible now these days. 

But if I think about it even more, the subtle answer is "no" also.  In fact "no, I dont want to".  Why? Well, you see, even in that time period children went through this trying time called puberty.  While perhaps back then unfortunately they were kept in line through the whip (yes, they were) or even worse, abuse, they still went through this time when their brain is a mess while it is developing and putting on its biggest growth spurt.   Maybe they were quickly married off at this time, or were ushered into a job or apprenticeship and their "mess" was muted, depressed.  

Pictures of a teen brain

Today, I dont want that to happen to my teenagers.  In fact I want them to join the thinking community, not just get a job and join the working masses. I want them to be a mess and think and scorn and be curious about this and that.  BUT to understand also that there are still parameters and boundaries and how they can push them and bend but not break them.   Maybe change them.  In a sense I want them not to just see greens and soft blues but violent blues and every shade of red and there are many of them, and to experience many shades of black.  And to believe that although blues and greens with trees are nice, underneath there may be a plethora of "others".   And ultimately to put in order this vast array of "others" away from chaos, while still showing great respect and responsibility for the "others".   Respect and responsibility for all, not just the light blues and greens.  

So, I have trouble with this.  This nice melody and album cover, is well, nice.  But even though I like it, in a way I have to reject it and tell my teenagers, "wait a sec, look under the trees, look under the rocks, there is so much more to discover. And so much more which is a mess, but you have to learn about and put it in an order.  Woe and sorrow to those who shy away and only want the stroll among the trees among the blues and greens.  Now, you must discover the whole palette and make peace with AND UNDERSTAND ALL OF IT. 

You understand what I am saying?   

If John Lennon had only written melodies based on three blind mice, well, we would certainly have a much different musical landscape today than we do.  My job as a father and yours too, is to tell your teenagers, "hey it is a big big mess and there is so much of it, BUT, do not be scared of it. In fact embrace it, make it yours and be friends with it. Order, but respect too."  Then, your kids will really progress.  Otherwise, they wont know much more than Three Blind mice, and will be kind of bland, ornery... dumb people (of which, unfortunately, there are many).

The picture is nice.  The melody is nice in its simplicity, but Avishai Cohen has several several albums out with many tunes and colors.  He didnt stick to Arvoles, John Lennon did not stick to Three Blind Mice and you have to stick your teen agers nose in so many directions.  In other words, encourage them to find out more.  

I hope, in not too preachy a manner I have MADE MY POINT CLEAR!

Have a nice day.    

Slave to no one..... except my kids...... happily

 As I get older I become more aware of and more angry of being the chump to someone.  I find myself telling people, "I dont want to be your bagholder anymore".  Namely the one who is left holding the crap after everyone else has taken the good stuff.  And losing.

Being in the music industry, specifically,I am the one who is doing the buying of artists and TRYING to sell them.  We purchasers are prone to that disease called "FOMO" Fear of Missing Out.  I always wanted to try different artists and stock up on stuff.  I was supportive of artists and I am a person who wants to check out new scenes and go out on a limb.  

Unitil recently.

Well, not exactly true, I still listen to a lot of really interesting, new artists and bands

Caribou Interesting band

doing interesting things.  It is a challenge I like.   But monetarily,  THE BOTTOM LINE is sinking lower and lower.   

I tell my distributor these days, "I cant be the bag holder. You give me this stuff on consignment.  Let someone else go out on a limb. I am not going to lose  anymore."  Besides he is making a decent paycheck. I.... am not.  So why should I support him living in London?  And did any of these artists go down to any of their records stores and say, "Hey, thanks for buying, thanks for supporting". In thirty years in the business I have never gotten a letter of thanks. "Hey man, thanks for going out on a limb and believing in what I was doing".  Nope.  

So, now, you take the chance buddy.  You put your money on the line.  You send me the music and I will pay you when I sell.  I dont want to be your slave anymore!!!!

OK, what the hell am I  ranting about and what the hell does it have to do with a post "Dad 40per cent or more at home" ?  

Here now I will make the connection. 

I dont want to be your bagholder anymore. Not to you mister artist. Not to you mister distributor. Not to you mister renter.  I want even dues. I want payback. Dont offer me the cigar.  I wont smoke it.   

But ON THE OTHER HAND. ....

Last week my wife was sick and I had to cook dinner every night. I did it.  Hah, I have progressed since the last time she was sick in 2014 and I couldnt even do 4 days.  I did it. I cleaned, and bought and cooked and still did my day job 6 days that week.  I helped my daughters with their homework and flute and did it all.  I was more than, as Grace Jones says, Slave to the rhythm, I was slave to my kids.  

And you know what?   

I would do it all again

I really dont mind being a slave for my kids. I really am. I dont get paid. That is slavery, innit?  I dont care. I dont mind.  

I ve got to work 6 days a week and still have another job and still it doesnt pay all the bills, but I want to do it for my kids. So we have food in the fridge and heat in the heater to keep us warm.   I dont mind. 

I guess maybe I do take it a bit far when I clean up too much after them. I spoil them.  My wife says, "dont put away the dishes, that is one of the girls jobs."  But I do it anyway because a) I enjoy cleaning up and b) they have enough to do before bed and then in the morning before school.  They have to get to sleep and get to school and then it would be sitting there.  But... I do really clean up after them too much.  I guess I love my overlords, that victim loving his captors theory if you know what I am talking about. I am the slave.  

Not only that , but my kids are not always nice to me.  Geez, the things they say to me, I could never think of saying to my father.  That would have been unheard of.  They make fun of my music. I would never make fun of my parents music.  To top it off my daughter practically said I was boring tonight. I dont go parachuting or do anything "way out". In other words I am not very exciting.  It hurt, but it is from my daughter, so as a slave, I have to grin and bear it.  Happily in fact.  And for the most part, I do (although this comment from my daughter did really hurt).  

The point being DADS, is that we have to be the tough Trump bullies and deal makers at work.  We have to put our foot down and say, "no,  I wont do that".  No, I am not going to do that anymore.  I will not subsidize you when I dont get a good deal on it. 

But when we come home, we have to play Metal monsters tag for our kids (toddlers) and when they ask you to read that book that you have read 83 times already, YES, you have to read it the 84 th time.  And then drive your older son over to hockey practice or pick him up from his bass lesson.  You have to be the slave and enjoy it too.  In fact when you are 70, 80, 90, passed on, you will still be remembering with fondness how you used to play football catch in the lake, run to your kids school to give them money you forgot to give in the morning for some book they had to buy that day, or how you caught their throwup in the car or public transport, in your hand and got them out before they threw up all over in the public.  Yes, those were great times. I remember being a slave with fondness.  

I Was watching the Cream farewell concert on Youtube.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_gC2V_nbK8&ab_channel=MikeLefton

From 1968

It made me think how Cream were the predecessors of Led Zeppelin.  Cream was great and they were huge in the short time they existed, but Zeppelin ... Robert Plant was a better singer, Jimmy Page was a better guitarist and John Bonham.. well was just as good as Ginger Baker, but pulled it off better.  Led Zeppelin took the baton from Cream and ran ran ran with it a long long time.  From the ashes of Cream, rose Led Zeppelin.   Though as the white boys blues thing, Cream probably put out more albums.  LZ put out I and II and then after that they re invented themselves and were something else.   Anyway.... My Impressions.  And I have been listening to both of them on and off for more than a couple decades.  

Dads, dont be afraid of banality

BANAL

 I went out with my friend last night for tea.  I seem to have this perpetual cough going on since November.  So I try to stay off the alcohol, even coffee and stick with tea. But a first tea turns into a second beer.  

Anyway, I was out with a friend who is quite wise and usually creates a beautiful epithet, or a major thinking point in our discussions.  But this time I pat myself on the shoulder because I think I came up with a doozer of a thought.  

I am going to have to do some explaining on this first and that wont relate to dadding.  But it will end up connecting to being a dad once I get the background down.  

Here. 

I think I have said someplace in some other blog that really your whole day is rather downtempo, ritual except maybe 15 minutes when the adrenalin really gets going and something high tension or really exciting happens.  But that is just for such a little part of the day. I dont care if you are a priest or the president of the United States.  Most of your day is not "on the move".   Even though nobody reads this blog besides me and maybe two others (I dont know them) you are probably saying, "he doesnt have my job".  But sorry I dont care if you are stationed in a military zone or a drug addict, most of your day is low tempo. AND if you do have an event which is high adrenaline for longer, then after the low "nothing happening" is even longer.  You party friday night till Saturday morning and then you sleep for twenty four hours.  A drug addict takes some speed and is speeding for the whole day.  Then he sleeps for 36 or more.  Or if he does keep taking more drugs, then he eventually burns out and goes crazy or dies or sleeps for weeeks on end.  If you are in the army and there is a battle, its crazy for several hours.  Then you sit in your fox hole and nothing happens for a week or you get up your stuff and sludge on.  You get the idea.  The high tension is followed by 4x as much low tempo.  That is my theory.  Like it or laugh at it, but think of any other example.  

And look, if that were not true, I dont think you would live very long.  The adrenaline is not meant to go and go and go. It is used for a spike and then it dies down.  You get passed the battlion and you run run run for a little while then you pass it to someone else and stop.  Or else your boss yells at you or you have a high powered meeting and then you get back to your desk and start writing or look at the computer or get a glass of water and your body... decompresses.  

Anyway. 

MEDIOCRE

The other point is one side of the coin, there is Sheryl Sandberg, writing a book

Im Sheryl, I can do anything

saying "if you would just be like me, you would be a millionaire, or break the glass ceiling, or be a big magnate etc.... "   No no no.  Listen sweetie Sheryl, that is the point, most of us are not you.  Yeah, pat yourself now on the back, you are special, but most of us are not and will not be you or even be like you.  On the other side, there are a lot of weird people it seems who are written about regularly in the bulvar magazines all across the country (in actually any country you live in) who are cutting up their kids and putting them in the freezer. Or trying to shoot mistletoe from a tree with their guns so they can sell it at the christmas market, or have a meth lab in their basement. You would think there is a thousand meth labs in all the small towns. 

 mummified' baby in a box

Although there are a plethora of these stories, the truth is, the grand, great majority of us are neither meth lab baby killers nor Sheryl Sandbergs or even Elon Musk Zuckerbergs, thank god for that.  We are in the middle, mediocre regular people. And that is not a bad thing. And maybe for about 15 minutes, maybe half an hour a day we have a really exciting adrenaline ripping event.  But then we settle back down into our rituals, whatever that may be.  

So, the point being future dads:  If you think that being a dad and staying home from some other job is going to be boring, stunt your career, or deaden your mind. I have news for you.  No it wont, and your regular job is just as mind numbing, boring and even worse maybe than being a dad at home.   In other words, being a dad at home is JUST THE SAME as any other job. It has its 15 minutes of pure adrenaline pumping excitement but most of it is ritual, standard. I can see that you still dont believe me, that your other job is just the same as being a dad, or very close to it.  Think about all the jobs out there and being a parent, probably for a small baby or toddler and if you look at it long enough and put all the jobs in front of you, you will see what I am talking about.  

Really the only difference is, and if more dads stayed at home, I think this would change too, we dont get paid for being a parent.  Males would suddenly wake up and see that the shoe is on the other foot and think that maybe this child raising job wasnt as easy as they thought it was (when only women did it) and that it should be somehow compensated.  But I digress. 

I want to make the announcement.  Dads, dont be afraid of banality.  The truth is, your other paying job wasnt so high powered and being an at home father is just as much if not more high powered.  Look, what were you doing at your other job?  You were organizing marketing campaigns and in meetings but most of the time sitting at your desk thinking and planning and executing. And now what are you doing at home?  You are racing around trying to get things done to keep things from falling apart.  You got to keep the meals coming, which means you have to have the food ready, which means you have to plan it and organize the supplies, all before the tummies start making a lot of noise and people start throwing stuff at you. 

You have to keep the clothes clean, the kids clean (if they are young) and the house clean and the kitchen clean all in a timely manner.  Look, if any one of these areas starts to slip or you let it slide, it will get out of hand and it will be just double the work the next morning.  If you dont do the dishes in the night. They are still there in the morning and more are added to them.  And if you stop getting to them,  the problem is not going to go away, it will just get worse.  Same with having food around.  And unlike the office where you can work on one area to decrease the pile, if you work just on one thing at home, the other areas are just going to pile up and up too. If you suddenly say I am going to get to these dishes, then you realize it is getting later and dinner takes so long to prepare and its going to be terribly late if you dont stop this and start that. 

You have to understand what I am getting at.  And to top it off, there is always a few points in the day which are just truly relaxing, kind of like lunchtime at work, or truly adrenaline pumping.  Ie, if you have a baby it is my opinion that changing the diaper is in a strange way a "go getter" 10 minutes in the day.  It can be a real harrowing activity if you have a hyper baby.  Or for me, getting up at 5 am or sometime in the middle of the night to make a milk was a little like a fireman fighting a fire, yes in a way.  That is my opinion.  Maybe there are other events which get the adrenaline going.  

So can i put this together now? 

The first point is that the great majority of us live our lives in the mediocre middle, which is not a bad thing. We are not high nor low, we are good solid middle people, who dont kill, but are not living on the planet of the billionaires.  Billionaires are really a weird other worldly type of person.  It aint me. You aint one either. 

The second point is, our jobs as dads are going to be just the same as any other job we might have , or we did have or we are not doing because we are a dad.  There are mostly middle mediocre times in which we do our job and try to get it done because we have to and if we didnt, it would only get worse.  

In fact, as the kids get older, there are a lot of nice times like playing monopoly on Sunday or even watching a movie on Saturday night.  In fact that can be nicer than your other job.  Swimmng in the lake every afternoon and tossing the football during vacation.  Come to think of it, unless you really love your job, you might even have more high exciting nice points in your day as dad to your kids than being in some other job which you are just doing your market campaign.

  Dads, dont be afraid,... dont be afraid of being dads.  A) You can do it B)it is really similar to any other job.  

Go for it dads.  

 

2023 Recap 2022. Can I Overcome?

Maybe WE shall overcome.  It is easier to do it together.  But the question is whether I shall overcome by myself for 2023.  In thnking about three problems that were mentioned a lot in 2022, I think I will be lucky on only one of them.  

Lets start out easy with number 1:Food. 

One of the problems I mentioned the most from 2022 is my repertoire of dinners.  In one post I calculate how many dinners I need to know how to make for a three and four week vacation.  I think I can overcome this problem, in other words, I think I can have enough new selections for my summer 2023 repertoire.  

A problem, I notice though, is that many of these potential new meals are thought of as finger food.  Kids meals.  Easy, but not so healthy meals.  Things kids like to eat when they are... well kids, but maybe dont have such great nutritional value for them.  Meals like pizza, hamburgers, submarines, even spaghetti are not high on the nutritional value ladder.  Which sometimes puzzles me. It seems like many Mexican and Italian foods are in this category.  Maybe a level up because it is home cooking from junk food, but again, not of great value.  

This makes me sad and frustrated as I thought I could add some more meals to my repertoire, but admittedly, they might be from this category.   I wanted to learn how to make homemade bread and then pizza is an easy step after that.  My Mother did that.  Then chili con carne, or tacos or enchiladas, but all of these would probably fall in the little better than junk food category.  

So, I think I can increase my repertoire, the question is if I can climb to a higher level of nutritional value in doing so.   ????? That is the real challenge.

The second problem: overcoming the generation gap. 

I was thinking about this more as I rode the train with my teenage daughter to our new years eve cottage location.   Teen agers spend endless time, if you let them, on their gadgets, doing in my opinion valueless stupid things.  Mostly looking at tik tok.  Sorry, but I just have an axe to grind against that app. I watch people looking at it and I cant see any worth in it.  Zero, nada.  People look at small films for 1 to 10 seconds. If a good one catches their eye they may watch it several times or to the end.  But most of the stuff on there is pure crap, and people slide through those films

easier than soft butter.  Ok, I dont get it even though there are hundreds of millions of people watching those videos.  I dont care to get it, I dont want to waste my precious time, even if it means choosing to look out a train window when it is dark outside.  Get it?   Zero value.  Anything else is better.

So stuff like this I cant get over my generation gap.  It wont happen.  It is not so much a generation gap as a technology gap.   Granted there were always these type of gaps in the generations.  From the invention and take off of TV in the 50s to stereo music rock n roll and then computers and now other technologies, I am sure parents have often felt the entertainment was just plain stupid and ... valueless compared to what they grew up with .  Who can argue with this?  Its probably true.  My Father wasnt a TV man because he didnt grow up with it himself.  He must have thought it was mind numbing, and in fact a lot of it is/was that I was watching.  So.... it is just the inherent moving forward of inventions that creates a ge neration    gap.   I experience it with my kids too. So what? Should I learn to love tik tok?  I probably wont, but no big deal really. Its a gap.These will always exist between parents and kids

3.  Getting back to actually being 40 percent daddy at home.   

As I said on a post back in August, I went from 100 percent daddy to 5 to 10 per cent daddy.  Although that was normal as my wife took my kids on vacation after I got back with them, it didnt get much better over the following months.  It was the backwash of the covid times.  During covid I was home A LOT and was doing a lot with/for my kids.  Now, I am in the store A LOT and it has balanced out the time I am not home with my kids with covid times.  

The question is if in the new year and the coming months I can recalibrate and swing the pendulum back a bit so I can be at 25-35 per cent with my kids during the week.  If I could have half the Saturdays off and every Tuesday off that would be great. That would be an improvement.   The thing is, I have to make a lot more money in my business to do that.  That is the crisis, sad truth, of having your own business.  You really have to put the time in your self.  If you are an employee of somebody, you have your hours, thats it.  But having your own small business... you are the one and only lonely who has to take care of everything.   Its possible I could get up to the 6 days (Sunday is always off, so 10 a month), but I cant predict now.  And... time is running out.  My daughters are getting older and bigger and soon when they are both teenagers, probably wont want me messing in on anything they do besides giving them money and buying them stuff and maybe taking them someplace.  Who knows.  But... time doesnt wait for anyone. Time does not stand still.   But sometimes I do.    

I hope, and I think 2023 will be much better than 2022.  Then again, that just might be the euforia of a new year speaking through me, and it will be more or less the same as 2022.  But I have to be optimistic, especially at the beginning of the new year.  

Much success to all, including me, for the coming year.  

Max 

Listening to sone old stuff while writing.  I have the whole fugazi collection. I want to get this Bob Dylan Cd.  

Why do parents still teach fear?

Recently I have been coming into conflict with people on line mostly about movies that are being made and shown in theatres.   In the past year people on an economic blog have  become very upset with several movies made by Disney corp.  Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, and to a lesser extent Thor and Black Panther.  

People on an economic blog accuse Disney of being "woke" and shoving a political agenda down all of our faces.  I guess I have to interrupt at this time and say that actually the woke movement is from the tens of 2000s, so my daughter tells me and may be finished now or died down or gone. I dont know. It seems to be another word for "politically correct"  I am not sure, I missed the details.  And since I missed the details I cannot say for sure, but to me, it just seemed like  progressiveness.  Forging ahead in trying to get respect for all members of society and earth and INCLUDE rather than EXCLUDE.  

But I suppose these people see it as a leftist movement or liberal, whether it be "save the planet", "anti racism" "anti homophobic"  "anti colonialism"  or any other such topic.  They seem to put it in terms of a political agenda.  I dont get that.  Does the right strive to be exclusionaries?  Maybe so?  I always thought showing respect wasnt a right or left thing, it was just a human value we strive for whether coming from Ward Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver or the coming movie (which should be opening up this weekend as I write) Avatar 2, respect for the planet and environment.  

At any rate, the point being is that I just cant understand parents teaching their kids to hate or even to watch out.  Dont trust those people.  Stay away from them.  Dont make friends with them.  But that said, I guess I can understand.  Is it really because in our hearts we are afraid and want to teach our children either to also be afraid or to be secure by watching out for those other people.  Because they will get you.  They are dangerous.  In other words, outwardly society these days wants us to be accepting but in our hearts, we cannot be, and we are still afraid and we actually pass that on.  

But then I come back to the question, how or why do we still teach our children fear? I would think teaching fear is anti thetical (if that is the right word) to teaching strength.  If you are afraid, then arent you a weaker person?  If you are afraid to do things, or have experiences, you will be a lesser person with fewer experiences.  The stronger individual is one that has gone out to the frontiers and not been afraid.  In the same way, how is it good to teach our children fear of other people?  That only makes them weaker and more afraid to interact and experinece.  Right?  Or does that  come down to DNA anyway?  

So, the point being that doesnt it make our children stronger to go out and learn about other people without fear?  If my children can live in the world and know that other people exist who are different from them and it is not a bad thing, it probably is very good, then dont they become stronger individuals?  So why do parents continue to teach their children to be afraid of others?   To teach fear?  

Exclusive: Disney/Pixar's 'Lightyear,' with same-sex couple, will not play in 14 countries; China in question

 You can not imagine the extreme outrage that was written about Toy Story with Buzz lightyear when he kissed another guy. They were just so angry.   I didnt even see the movie though would still like to, but I cant understand why that so did bother many parents.  And get a load of this.  Not only do parents teach fear, but governments teach fear.  The Chinese government banned that film from being shown in China.  Saudia Arabia, (well of course) banned it from being shown.   That just tells me that these governments are so weak they are so afraid of their citizens seeing a differnet type of person that exists in the world and personally does no harm to you in Saudia Arabia, or China, but for some reason should be feared and banned.  

Well, I guess 1.3 billion chinese people are going to be the weaker for it.   And they will continue to be "afraid".  Where as the superior unafraid individual will be stronger by forging ahead and learning more about everybody and being inclusive rather than exclusive.  The people who can understand and not be afraid of other people, will definitely be a stronger, superior even smarter person.  Sorry Chinese, your government, though not the first time, is really weakening you.  

But what about these Americans who are afraid also and still teach their children fear?  I guess I can understand it, but I cant?  Why should I pass on a fear of mine to my kids?  I want them to be strong individuals.  Every generation must become better and move away from fear.  So thinks me at any rate. 

Lets have a wonderful Merry Christmas and happy holidays for all.   

If I had it in my power, I would bless you all.