The Gift and Grace of Laughter

My sister and I remember our mother as one who had a generous sense of humor. Her life had plenty of hurdles, and I occasionally saw frustration, anger, or desperation cross her face, in her muscles, in her eyes. Even when displeased, though, she would pause and then often laughter would well up in her as if from some deep, bubbling spring that she would not allow to dry up. I hope I learned this from Mother.

This morning I sat with coffee and leafed through the Fall preview issue of Signals catalog (Supporting Public Television since 1986; http://www. signals.com). They sell lots of things, of course, many of them works of art. They also sell wit. These sayings, which brought me laughter, are not credited to any author:

Irony. The opposite of wrinkly.

There, Their.
They're not the same.

I love gardening. It helps when you need to hide the bodies.

Statistics mean never having to say you're certain.

Engineering. Like Math, but Louder.

Resistance is not futile. It's voltage divided by current.

I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm always late. My ancestors arrived on the Juneflower.

HYPERBOLE IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!

And two that didn't exactly make me laugh:

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.

I am fairly certain that given a Cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world.

I walked to Deer Creek this morning, for the first time since mid-July, two miles, and I pushed hard to get myself home, but!! success, victory, a pat on the back from me to me (I didn't break an arm) when I arrived home. I rested a bit by the generously-rooted tree where many others also stop. I put my hand in the water; it felt warmish. I considered taking off shoes and socks and wading to the opposite bank where an interesting new pebble bar (compared to sand bar) has developed. I decided the actual experience of it, today, would not fulfill the joy of the imagined experience. So, I exercised my imagination. I even imagined just where I would probably slip and fall, and the happy drippy-ness of it all.

We've had rain on a handful of recent days. The corn in the lowlands grows tall and healthy looking. Some critter-- probably 'coons-- bites off corn stalks and pulls them into the creek where they pile up against protruding rocks. Sounds coonish, doesn't it?

Small White Dog has disappeared, the one the size of our medium-sized cat, the one who had been hanging about at a distance, so frightened, so skinny, that I started putting out food and water for him. The last two times I put out food, though, I didn't see him appear to eat, and then, both times, overnight not only the food disappeared but also the light-weight plastic containers in which I'd placed it. Oh my. Smile through the sad places, too. Poor Small White Dog, so full of fear. He did not know I would have housed him.

One more entry from Signals:

Facing Your Fears Builds Strength
but running from them makes for a great cardio workout.