Latitudes and Attitudes
Gyres and high-pressure vortices are natural features of the earth’s oceans. There are at least five, all centered around the thirtieth parallels north and south, regions known as the horse latitudes, supposedly because the windless conditions there so slowed down Spanish sailors that they had to throw their horses overboard to conserve water.
(Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, by Susan Freinkel)
It's taken a lot of years to find out what Jim Morrison had in mind! The song-poem (always arresting, interesting) makes sense now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4qBYJ00230
Speaking of years Friday marked my sixtieth. Christ, the big SIX-OH! The birthday cards are pouring in (well, my sister, my insurance agent and my financial advisor). Probably better this way. Why make a big deal out of it? It’s all about getting old, and who wants to talk about that? I don’t feel old but I feel I should. They say sixty is the new fifty. Hitting the half-century mark a decade ago was undaunting - fifty was the new forty then and I had no trouble buying that. Sixty, though….
When my brother-in-law, Jim, turned sixty a couple of years ago, he said: “I am now officially in God’s waiting room.” He was trying to be funny but there is a certain point there. Yogi Berra once declared: “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.” Applying the same principle to age, I’ll just be content that I’m 90% fine, and that even that other half is doing alright.
And speaking of latitudes, I spent the last two weeks of April in Leon, Nicaragua. Sort of a reconnaissance mission, I was scouting a place to live and possible business opportunities. Yes, endeavors of the capitalist persuasion appear on the horizon! I’ve got it down to the two “most likely to succeed:” an internet café and/or a line on the city of Leon’s public transit system (it’s run on a public/private cooperative basis).
By the end of the year I’ll be living there and since the cost of living is so low I figure I can risk a part of my “nest egg” on some such enterprise. For some reason I want some sort of an income rather than live just on savings. A lifetime of living paycheck to paycheck will do that to you, I guess.
Oh, and Happy Mothers' Day.
(Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, by Susan Freinkel)
It's taken a lot of years to find out what Jim Morrison had in mind! The song-poem (always arresting, interesting) makes sense now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4qBYJ00230
Speaking of years Friday marked my sixtieth. Christ, the big SIX-OH! The birthday cards are pouring in (well, my sister, my insurance agent and my financial advisor). Probably better this way. Why make a big deal out of it? It’s all about getting old, and who wants to talk about that? I don’t feel old but I feel I should. They say sixty is the new fifty. Hitting the half-century mark a decade ago was undaunting - fifty was the new forty then and I had no trouble buying that. Sixty, though….
When my brother-in-law, Jim, turned sixty a couple of years ago, he said: “I am now officially in God’s waiting room.” He was trying to be funny but there is a certain point there. Yogi Berra once declared: “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.” Applying the same principle to age, I’ll just be content that I’m 90% fine, and that even that other half is doing alright.
And speaking of latitudes, I spent the last two weeks of April in Leon, Nicaragua. Sort of a reconnaissance mission, I was scouting a place to live and possible business opportunities. Yes, endeavors of the capitalist persuasion appear on the horizon! I’ve got it down to the two “most likely to succeed:” an internet café and/or a line on the city of Leon’s public transit system (it’s run on a public/private cooperative basis).
By the end of the year I’ll be living there and since the cost of living is so low I figure I can risk a part of my “nest egg” on some such enterprise. For some reason I want some sort of an income rather than live just on savings. A lifetime of living paycheck to paycheck will do that to you, I guess.
Oh, and Happy Mothers' Day.