Notes From A Bear's Journey

   The way life used to be...ah, remember that?  For some reason, I've been reading three books dealing with just that, authors looking back and reflecting, not only on their lives but on what happened with their lives.  One tried suicide (twice), one became a mammoth best-selling writer, one got married and considered her life "ordinary."  But guess what?  Just like all of us there was much for them to say, much to digest, and much to think about and relate to.  Here's the dust jacket cover to Teresa Jordan's book, The Year of Living Virtuously, Weekends Off : Benjamin Franklin was in his early twenties when he embarked on a “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection,” intending to master the virtues of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.  He soon gave up on perfection but continued to believe that these virtues, coupled with a generous heart

   Quick, what do these things have in common: bees, cocaine, the current Secretary of State, and your steak...here's an extra hint: breast milk and half the world.  If you thought that the M stood for Money, I'll give you partial credit because the answer is indeed one that is worth more money than most billionaires will ever see.  And if you're scratching your head and wondering if I've covered this before, well, more bonus points for you.  The M, of course, stands for glycophosphate (commercially known as RoundUp ) or more appropriately, its maker... Monsanto .  By now, you've likely heard of that $289 million jury award to a groundskeeper in California (Monsanto generally makes close to that in profits per quarter each year); but that lawsuit is just one of thousands in the queue and it proved a bit hit to Monsanto's new German parent, Bayer AG which saw its shares lose $11 billion because of the decision.  But never mind that, the bees are back. Bee s

  There's more to those words listed above, they being just one of the Beatles lyrics which finished with "...when you know I'm down."  And I must admit that after a blitz of reading the news and other depressing tidbits, it's getting to me.  So for the past few days I've been a bit "down."  But shed no tears, my woes are so tiny that for someone who is truly depressed, or suffering from long-term depression, my being "down" would probably prove truly laughable.  On the other hand, I tend to pull through these occasional slumps by lumping it all into a yin/yang moment of balance, my belief that there can only be so much good or bad before the pendulum has to swing back the other way (hmm, sounds very similar to Warren Buffet's indicator of our stock market's antics).  But when you're facing a downturn (real or imagined), it can be difficult to see the sun over the horizon...think of being laid up in a hospital, or being laid of

   Remember that old saying, that sometimes you find good things in the most unexpected places?   That's been happening a lot to us recently.  Call it serendipity or luck of the draw, coincidence or fate; but when it happens it seems to bring about a sense of wonder, or maybe helplessness, as if suddenly having the realization that one is even smaller in a gigantic world (or universe)...the complexity of life and the sorting of it all, the grand chess game once again well beyond our understanding and now being played out.  Here's one tiny example: my wife and I go out to have a quick bite of lunch and afterward decide to visit a newly opened store across the street; we wander through, taking our time, then decide to head back to the restaurant's parking lot to our car, waiting patiently for the light to change in the crosswalk.  It does, and we begin to cross when the lead car nearest us --and waiting-- honks; we glance through the windshield and it's our friend from ac