Just A Thought

  I can’t help thinking about this now and then because I’m a stickler for logic and details.  Our belief about the years that comprise decades, centuries and millenniums is actually inaccurate.  I know, most people would just think, “who cares”.  I never really did either until the change of a millennium took place which, of course, is something that the vast majority of human beings who ever lived, did not experience during their lifetimes.  The thing is, the world celebrated this event a year early.  New Year’s Eve 1999 was not in fact the eve of the beginning of the third common era millennium.  Why?  Because there was no year 0, so years 1-10 were the the first decade, years 1-100 were the first century and years 1-1000 were the first millennium.  The years 1001-2000 were the years of the second millennium.  The third common era millennium did not in fact begin until the first day of 2001.  On New Year’s Eve 1999, the world celebrated something that wasn’t actually happening and n

  I was possessed by the desire to run into the kitchen and make banana bread.  I wish I was inspired in this way a lot more often.  I’m still trying to find my love of cooking.  It must be hiding in me somewhere.   #bananas

 I believe it is always a good approach to attempt not to cast blame and criticism against people, but sometimes this is too tempting when something seems too outrageous and grievous toward another or others.

 Often when I am unsure and guessing about how long I should heat something in a microwave, I will change my original estimate by give or take 2 or 3 seconds.  I am then convinced that any error in my estimate must surely now be fixed and I will be heating my food item for a perfect amount of time. 😲

One of the unsettling things about COVID-19 was that before actually contracting it, no one could be absolutely certain where they might fall on its’ Russian roulette wheel of lethalness.  Healthy people with few risk factors could take comfort in believing that they would be unlikely to become seriously ill, but there were always stories and cases in the news of young and seemingly unlikely victims who had in fact lost their lives to COVID.  When I finally got it myself in summer 2022, I had very brief and mild symptoms.  I might totally have my vaccinations to thank for this because in years gone by before I started getting annual flu shots, I had some flus that did a good job of kicking my but and keeping me down for a full week. I must have written that for the benefit of some future people who know little about COVID-19, because obviously anyone who has recently gone through the pandemic doesn’t need this information. 🫢

 How do actors understand and relate so well with the characters they are playing?  Acting ability is definitely a gift and an art even if some people are perhaps resentful or envious of the large amounts of money that actors can potentially earn for their talent.   Human beings put a lot of worth in entertainment, so people who are blessed with a skill for entertainment get to reap its’ benefits. 

 We all get to have a romantic and fantasy notion of our experience of parenthood before we actually have children.  When we do actually find ourselves with children, of course, our children are going to have a real experience of childhood with us as parents. 🤭😊. Hopefully our adjustment to parenting reality has more to do with having a better understanding of the difficulty involved for us, and less to do with any change in the happiness and positivity of the experience for our children.

 If there were recognized genres for Instagram video content creators, and I was asked what genres I most like watching, I would have to say the adorable precocious child genre. 👶🏻 📚 💕 And also identical twins, triplets, and quadruplets. I should add that I am also impressed with amazing parents.  I guess they would be a genre also. 😄

Spring rolls are just as good when taken out of the refrigerator and eaten cold, IMHO.

 So chat GPT AI can be asked a question or asked to write about something and it will immediately and rapidly generate a relevant and intelligent response with a lot of detail.  But it doesn’t stop there.  You can suddenly resume communicating with it about something that it wrote days ago, and if you ask a question about what it wrote days ago, it can not only respond to the current question but also the request for further information about what was previously written.  And it can still respond instantly and rapidly. (Meaning that it can start its reply almost instantly and finish it very rapidly.). How is this even possible?  This requires “natural language processing” that instantly makes sense of a current communication in conjunction with stored memory in order to generate a meaningful and relevant response.  This involves more than simple “natural language processing” which in itself is mind boggling to begin with.  When a communication between a human and AI builds on a previou

 I have often wondered what it would actually feel like to be a king or queen.  Would one have a sense of insecurity from knowing that they are regarded and revered as being special and unique in a lofty way and yet personally not feeling that there is any real reason for this distinction?  Or would a person feel that it is their birthright as a royal family member and that they are indeed something special and deserving of this distinction?  I suppose it would depend a lot on the individual.  And could it be possible to have a mixture of those feelings?  But which would be predominant?  Would a king or queen have a sense of pride in being the monarch despite any private “Why me?” feelings?  Would feelings of pride and all the other perks compensate for all the lack of freedom and privacy that the job entails?   Would it feel like a fortunate and pride filled privilege to be a monarch or other senior royal family member?  Or is there any possibility that they might personally feel that

 I have always been one to do this because I have always felt that it is my job to finish whatever is on my plate.  My eyes need to get with the program and stop over feeding my stomach.  

I’m sure human beings experience anxiety for a multitude of different reasons.  My source of anxiety is that I’m going to neglect doing things that are important because I’m not aware of and don’t know what they are.  It is a predicament if you can’t put your effort into something because you don’t know what that something is.

 How is it that people can be smart and clever and yet still have things about which they fail to apply and use their brains.  Maybe that isn’t the best way of putting it.  How about this.  How or why is it that smart and clever people have things that their intelligence will not allow them to gain any kind of mastery or solid understanding of? Spelling is one of my mental blocks.  No matter how many times I check on the spelling of and write certain words, I am unsure of the spelling once again the next time I need to write the word.

 Procrastination is probably not just a thing in and of itself but a thing with reasons behind it. One of those reasons of course might just be failing to make something a priority.  Procrastination has lots of other reasons though.

 There is much that I could say about the case of Natalia Grace and the Barnetts, and I have in fact given it a lot of thought.  Right now though, I will start with a couple of things about Michael Barnett. So Michael Barnett goes to court for his trial and he sees Natalia in person for what may have been the first time in a long time.  You would think that clearly he would be seeing that over the years Natalia has grown to be a young adult that she previously hadn’t been.  How could he not see and know the difference?  And yet after his verdict arrives, he walks out of the courtroom not only relieved about the verdict, but also convinced of his innocence.  He truly believed that the jury clearly knew that he was innocent and he believed that he had been exonerated and vindicated of any guilt.  Did he really believe that he had no personal responsibility for what took place? Had he mentally blocked out the fact that Natalia had clearly grown from a child into an actual young adult?  Di

 I just had a ridiculous revelation.  It’s quite possible (I hope) that I have previously thought about and understood this in my life, but just now it was like it was dawning on me for the first time.   So in our kitchens we have cabinets a.k.a. cupboards in which we store dishes, food etc.  When we think about cupboards, we are saying or hearing in our minds, “cubbards”.  Thinking about the actual spelling, though, gave me a little revelation.  Sometime in the past before enclosed cabinets were the standard thing, it was probably common place for people to just have boards attached to their kitchen walls upon which to store things such as cups. 💡A cup board.  I’m sure I must have previously comprehended this (maybe), so I guess my older brain is sometimes forgetful. 😲  Maybe this is why when people become really elderly they are cared for and treated (in best case scenarios) a lot like children.  When our brains start forgetting and having to relearn things, our minds in a certain

 It seems so often in life that thoughts, events and experiences are connected in seemingly completely random and yet meaningful ways.  One particular example:  You think about something or something happens in your life, and then you remember that you recently saw someone’s instagram video that mentioned or had something to do with that same topic.  Random or not, I notice lots of coincidences or connections in things in life.  I will have to add some examples when I experience them again.

  Run, don’t walk from doomsayers.  Wow, wasn’t this advice ever needed in recent American History.  And I am not referencing people having been wisely cautious about COVID.  I am referencing all the misinformation and craziness run wild, thanks to modern digital communication and data technology.  It was quite a storm to weather.  Two difficult situations (both starting with the letter p) worked together to cause quite the national hurricane. 

Brains are problem solvers.  They are always attempting to work on solutions to old problems and to find better ways to understand and express previously less clear or incomplete ideas.

 Sometimes I think I have a clever idea and then my next thought is, “Oh wait a minute.  If I knew how to spell properly, that idea wouldn’t make any sense.”  Damn.  Who knew that proper spelling could mess up some otherwise interesting ideas?  How is this possible one might ask?  When thinking about words and their meanings.  This brings me to another thought.  I wonder if there are ideas that could be dependent on a specific language to be conceived of.  The words of a language, after all, are needed to express ideas.  I’m not talking about ideas that require the understanding of a culture.  I’m talking about ideas that require specific words of a particular language.  Is there a difference?  Is this possible?  I guess maybe this is something that would be better understood by people who are bilingual and part of two different cultures.  Border kids maybe.  Maybe it could even be true that speaking 2 or more languages could aid a person in conceiving of completely new ideas that requ

 I think of Steve Urkel from the show, Family Matters, when I hear myself thinking, “Did I do that?”.  I watched very little TV as a high school and college student, but I watched Family Matters after graduating from college.  I actually started spending my evenings watching television. 😮 That ended when I became a mother.   Steve Urkel was classic. 😄 #familymatters

 I think language and math are related because they are both used to describe and understand reality.

 We all came to know in the late 20th and 21st centuries that spam is unwanted and unsolicited digital mail delivered to our email accounts.  Back in the day, unsolicited and unwanted mail used to be called junk mail.  Yes, spam is also called junk mail, but I am referring to the kind of junk mail that had physical form and had to be delivered to a physical mailbox.  This kind of junk mail does, of course, still exist but it used to be the only form of junk mail that existed.  This kind of junk mail was not also called spam.  If anyone actually needs this information, it would mean that they are very young. 😂 Sometimes when I think about it, I can’t imagine what it would be like to never have existed in a pre internet and pre World Wide Web world.  This, after all, was the story and existence of humanity for thousands and thousands of years prior to 1994.   On a side not, spam is a semordnilap of maps.  I never would have been able to easily discover and find that word without the int

 I very much appreciate knowledge and learning but I am not interested in any college level and most definitely not graduate level work.  Give me easy baby stuff.  Isn’t this the goal of growing old?  To revert back to being able to live more like a child but as a more knowledgeable and intelligent child.  Not everyone gets to live long enough to have elder years.   And thank goodness that Mother Nature has it planned so that women cannot continue to bear children into old age.  

 The funny thing about them is that no matter how unique and self centered ours may seem to us, there are thousands upon thousands of other human beings who are thinking about the same things.

 “Yo Soy Estupido”.   I just realized that despite my pathetic lack of knowledge of the Spanish language, there are a minuscule amount of words and short phrases that I still recall from my high school Spanish classes.  It would figure that this is a phrase that I mastered and retained. 🤪

 I have always felt blessed to have natural aversions to things that are bad for me.  Sugar is an exception to this rule though.   I should feel an aversion to something that really isn’t in the best interest of my health.  But instead I crave it.  What is wrong with my aversion mechanism when it comes to sugar?

 If I repeat myself, it is because I want to and I can.  I will also reuse my thought titles if they are fitting again.

 Could there be such a thing as a sincere lie?  Sounds impossible.  But what about when a person tells a lie that is not meant to be a joke but is a sincere attempt to persuade someone to believe the lie.  Wouldn’t that then be a sincere lie as opposed to an insincere (not meant to be taken seriously) lie?  Silly me. Yes, oxymorons exist. This is not a new concept.

 Wisdom will unceasingly create cracks in the armor of ignorance.

 Books are where the heart and soul of humanity is found.  

Some brief thoughts about patriarchy.  I don’t think it could ever work at this point in time to push women back into a more patriarchally controlled existence.  Women on the whole are too enlightened.  Anything that tries to move itself into the realm of patriarchy will ultimately fail.  And if men attempt to push women into it through channels of power and control, they won’t truly be loved.  Is this what men who know better would ever really want?  I think men on the whole are also more enlightened at this point in time.  They understand.   It is the men who respect their partners as equals who will be the most cherished and loved and it is also the most loving and right thing to do. I personally don’t think that attempts to push our society backwards in time, in this regard, could stand much chance of making any lasting progress.  Progress is a force that moves forward.  You can’t really make progress in moving backward.  You will inevitably just get swept back in the direction of

 Sometimes people make statements that can sound like something totally different from what they actually meant.  What may actually be something positive, for example, in one context, can sound like something much more negative in a different context.  Words can be interpreted to have alternate meanings that were never intended. 💡This is what is meant when we say and understand that things can be taken in the wrong way.  So this is a language week spot where two or more different types of experiences,  emotions or meanings can be described with virtually the same words.  How odd and interesting.  This is definitely something worthy of some deeper thought.  I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular just now.  I’m just familiar with the experience.

  Memories that last.  Magic Garden and the Chuckle Patch.  Maybe this is how I first learned to have a lame sense of humor. 😄   https://youtu.be/Q51Nki1PldA #themagicgarden

 People in the distant future will have a fun time trying to understand the meanings of memes based on the events and cultural periods surrounding them.  Imagine doing a PhD dissertation on historical memes. 😎

Imagine if that was a subject in school.  A whole part of history education devoted to learning about history through laughter and historically understood humor.  Of course with the understanding that it is just one piece of the whole story of history.  What better way to learn something about history and the light hearted moments of human experience.  All stories and humor would have to be child appropriate of course.  I’ll bet it would be a kids favorite subject. 🏫 😂

 The following is completely for my own entertainment purposes and is not an actual statement ever made by the former queen of England. 😂 Queen Elizabeth:  “Actually ‘I owe you one’ Russia!  I also give my deepest respect to all Americans for weathering their storm.  But Russia, you inadvertently gave me an amazing gift through your meddling in American democracy.  The Americans have made me feel much better about the job that I have done of giving of myself in service to my people.  For that I am grateful!” “And I’m sorry, all things considered, but he makes me chuckle. 🤭  Or rather he did.”

 I just had the thought that if any of us could actually know the life stories of all of the 8 billion people currently living on the planet, it would be really shocking and really put things into a more proper perspective.  We would all still want to have our own well being and security in life, but it would most likely leave us with a much greater need to reach out in any way that we can to help others.  Lack of true awareness is what hinders human beings from doing everything in their power to be of assistance to others.  Human beings actually have a natural desire to help one another.  Look what happens in the case of natural disasters.  When there is true awareness of need all around, people rush to help each other.  It enlightens them. I honestly think that human beings are in fact moving forward as fast as a species as we can.  I disagree with naysayers.  Just as human beings mature throughout the course of our lifetimes, so do human beings continue to gain in our evolving aware

 I don’t think I look so bad when I look at myself close up in my own bathroom mirror.  When I catch a glimpse of myself from a distance in some store mirror, though, it is a different story.  I think “Yikes, who is that sorry looking old lady?!”  I don’t feel that part.  My inner 10 year old has just become aged.   This reminds me of something I first read on the web.  It was one of those conspiracy stories that claimed that our history of the past may have been altered and we may have actually lived a different past than what history now tells us about the past.  They gave different examples to illustrate this.  One was about the evil queen in the Snow White fairytale and movie.  We all remember her looking into her mirror and saying, “Mirror, mirror on the wall.  Who’s the fairest of them all?”  I clearly remember those lines and even recited them myself at times.  The actual line though was, “Magic mirror on the wall.”  This seemed quite strange and hard to believe but I looked it

 Sometimes I share a lot of both of these when in reality I am the only one who is interested in any of it. 😲  Fortunately, I am very good at talking to myself. 😂

 We are all deserving of personal happiness that isn’t hampered by the weight of all that is not right in the world and all that we cannot control.  Happy people are in fact needed for the well being of the world.  Happiness is encouraged in my book of life as a goal for myself and others.

We have self peace when we don’t worry excessively about the judgements of others because we love and support our own self truth and our ability to be true to ourselves.  This gives us faith in ourselves that we can always count on and find strength in.  We are at peace with ourselves.

 Why are some topics loaded?  Because sometimes differing viewpoints need to both be allowed to exist.  The trick is that both sides need to be tolerant and not critical of the other for seeing different things.  Sometimes realities actually overlap and both sides have valid points that are applicable to them.  The catch is that mutual tolerance must be granted for there to be peace. I am not of course referring to victimization.  The is rarely any valid or excusable reason for willfully and knowingly victimizing another person or people.  (An exception would include having been drafted to fight in a war because willfulness cannot in fact exist when there is no freedom of choice.)  No victim owes any tolerance to an abuser for having victimized them.  Forgiving and releasing hurt and resentment is something that can only be done if a victim is ready for this and if it is the right thing for them.  A victim owes nothing to their abuser. We all have a need and right to disagree and argue

 I just had a thought come to my mind about Native Americans.  In Colonial days, Native Americans were thought of as savages because they didn’t have or live in any disease ridden cesspool cities where many people lived in poverty, filth and were starving.  Knowing how not to live in such a way was so savage and primitive.   

 I comprehend what complete sentences are.  I know what does and doesn’t comprise a complete sentences.  The thing, though, is that when writing about my own thoughts and ideas, I often want to use separate phrases that are not complete sentences.  I don’t want to follow the grammatical rules about sentences.  I feel that sometimes one can express themself better without being constrained by a requirement to only use complete sentences.  I do, of course, believe that it is important to at least understand what does and doesn’t make a complete sentence and to at least be grammatically correct most of the time.  

 I started off really liking sudoku puzzles.  Then I of course had to try tackling the expert level puzzles.  This lead to the frustration of making mistakes, almost every time,  no matter how careful I thought I was being.  The other day I picked up a new sudoku book at Dollar Tree and wanted to try again.  For some stupid reason I opened the book today and without thinking started doing a medium difficulty puzzle instead of starting at the beginning.  Either I’m growing stupider or this book is more challenging.  I ended up just being stuck and don’t know how to proceed.  I tried reading about some techniques online and they weren’t very helpful. 🙁  I think I will stick with words from now on and maybe just the easy level sudoku. 🫤

 I have frozen so many over ripe bananas but far far less banana bread has actually materialized.  They usually end up being thrown away on me.  I guess I’m only allowed to hoard so many over ripe bananas in the freezer. 😂  I’ve actually thrown plenty away myself when adding new ones. 🍌🍌🍌🍌 And speaking of bananas, what is the deal with bananas (or their peels) always having been the butt of jokes about causing people to slip and fall?  How did bananas get this reputation?  If I was a banana I’m not sure if I would be proud or offended by this distinction. 😂❓

  A retro microwave in a style that never existed.  I could not remember there ever having been any colored microwaves that looked like this nor could I find any images of any.  These microwaves have a cool romantic 1950s look to them but this style never actually existed, unless I am completely mistaken. 😲 🤔  From what I could gather, the first (very pricey ) counter top microwaves became available in 1967.  I never used one until I was a freshman in college and my family acquired their first microwave around the same time in the mid 1980s. I think the retro market is definitely taking some creative license.  “Inspired by the past.”  There is the clue.

 I am lucky that my roomba doesn’t tell me, “Screw this, I have way too many obstacles to continually go around!”.  No, instead it handles the task in stride and does a good job too. No, I really don’t anthropomorphize my roomba (Oops, I just had to correct myself when I accidentally capitalized roomba) but I’m sure that if it had a face and talked to me, I would. 😄 #roomba

 Is it really that important to keep food that we cook or heat out of the oven until the full desired temperature is reached?  I get that the cooking time couldn’t be started during pre heating, but does it really make any difference if food is in the oven during preheating?  I can certainly believe that there are certain dishes for which a rapid onset of cooking at the desired temperature would be important, but wouldn’t these be the exceptions?  Does waiting to put something in the oven even matter at all for a typical dish being cooked or heated? It would just require a little adjustment in the cooking time I would think.  

Saturday morning cartoons are something that I’m pretty sure children haven’t understood for a very long time now.  Those were the days, before cable television even existed and television viewing was free of charge.  We had to have rabbit ears antennas on top of our televisions or preferably on our roofs.  We were limited to viewing whatever was being aired on the network stations at any time.  We also had to get up and walk to the television to change the channel.  If you happened to be home sick from school, the choices were sorry indeed.  Daytime week day viewing left much to be desired.  There were preschool programs in the morning.  After that you might be able to catch a game show that you didn’t mind watching like “The Price Is Right”.  But the early afternoons were a sorry mix of soap operas and maybe some very unappealing series.  I never did care for the Beverly Hillbillies or Green Acres.  Frank always liked those types of shows, so maybe one needed to at least be a late bo

I have anthropomorphized things since I was a small child.  Even as a preschooler, I tried to be very careful to not accidentally poke or touch my stuffed animal’s and doll’s eyes because I didn’t want to hurt their eyes.   Now the admission. 😂 To this day, I still feel concerned when stuffing certain holiday decorations away in a cedar chest or storage containers.  I have to tell myself, “You know that they do not have any physical/living realness and they cannot be harmed by being packed away.” So then I continue to pack them away with other decorations and then close the lid.  Before doing so though, I try to place them in positions that I think would be the most comfortable. 🤭 And then all seems perfectly fine. 😄  But, I also kind of think that mugs and cups and glasses might have feelings. 😲😄 #foreveranthropomorphic

 Nobody can ever think about or understand everything on their own.  I don’t mind finding out that there are things about which I was ignorant or that I didn’t think about.  Information and knowledge received from others adds to a person’s ability to think well and be intelligent.  It’s unfortunate that people ever have to have a mindset of feeling defensive about having their ideas challenged or being given information that they didn’t have before.  I don’t ever want to have that mindset.  We all need to learn from others.  If someone else thinks about or knows about something that I have missed, then please lay it on me (respectfully of course).  I will quickly use it to strengthen my own ideas, thinking and intelligence.

 I often have the experience of thinking about something and then having a particular song pop into my head and stick around in my memory.  I have also, on occasion, had the experience of then going to a grocery store shortly thereafter and hearing the song that had been in my head being played at the store.  I’m not talking about current hits that you would expect to hear.  I never listen to actual radio stations and I’m not even familiar with current hits.  It’s always something older that I coincidentally hear after it had previously been in my head, and there are plethoras of older songs.  #lifeisinteresting

 The internet and World Wide Web are truly amazing when it comes to all its’ useful and helpful capabilities, but it can also exact a huge toll on people’s time and attention.  😄/🥺

 The worst part about online commenting is reading comments written by ignorant and insensitive assholes.  I don’t need that garbage in my head.  There have been times that I have come across old stuff and if the comment thread wasn’t from like 7 years ago, I would so give said person a serious piece of my mind! 😡

 No one ever really knows what experiences are like until they have had them.  There are experiences and then there are each person’s personal reaction to them.  Each person’s imagination (in the case of pre-anticipated experiences) has to be reconciled with reality and that is where experience lies.  We have to have them to gain real knowledge about them.

I did something and accidentally made my emojis disappear from my iPhone keyboard.  What a calamity!  How can we human beings of the the 21st century ever express ourselves properly without emojis?? I had to find my lost emojis!  Uhm, is this normal for GenX people of my age? 🤭

 Why do houses always have to have spiders that leave us cobweb gifts?  Are there any buildings or houses or apartments or any type of homes that don’t ever have spiders whose cobwebs need to be removed?  What about high rise skyscrapers?  Do their top floors get many spiders and cobwebs? Years ago I saw some program that might have been on one of the Discovery channels.  I don’t remember what channel or show I was watching.  Anyway, this program claimed that people, on average, eat 5 spiders per year when they crawl into their mouths while they are sleeping.  I don’t know how anyone can claim to have figured this out, but I always really hoped that it was something that rarely ever actually happens!  They say our planet would be totally overpopulated with insects, though, if it wasn’t for spiders, so I like them but I hope that most of them stay outside!

 Yes, I love animals but this is not what this thought is about.  I was just thinking about what happens when you are a sucker or rather just nice to dogs and you give them little snacks at certain times of the day.  You end up with dogs who are very often watching and following you and thinking that every time you move you are surely heading to the kitchen to fetch them a snack, so they start heading in that direction.  I’m learning to ignore them when they act like this.  I only have one dog myself at this time, but we currently have a boarder.  They feed off of each other’s behavior which amplifies it.  🐕‍🦺🐕