Esoteric Bowl

Signs George W. Bush is Depressed:

* Pretend play and dressup has lost all meaning.

* Recently told Ann Coulter that he wanted to be the “Piece” President.

* No longer smirks with that twinkle in his eye.

* Phone calls from God are now put on hold.

* Photos from Abu Gharib prison no longer make him laugh.

* Wrote dark poem entitled, The Red States Are Mine, But I’m Oh So Blue.

* Recently inquired about the expiration date on Dick Cheney’s pacemaker.

* Shows little interest when Condoleezza Rice reads him bedtime stories.

* Has lost all creativity for making things up.

* Increasingly just wants to eat a bag of pretzels and get it over with.

Sometimes…when I first wake up, I’m unsure if it’s AM or PM.

Sometimes…in the time it takes for me to click my bulk mail away, more bulk mail appears.

Sometimes…when I say sometimes, I actually mean most times.

Sometimes…I think that somewhere in the corporate world, a team of businessmen are thinking of ways to charge us for air.

Sometimes…when eating a cheeseburger, I never taste the cheese.

Sometimes…I contemplate never shaving again, just to see how long my beard could grow.

Sometimes…when I hear the drunk neighbor yelling at his kids, I play the song “What’s the Matter Here” as loud possible.

Sometimes…I’ll go into the health food store and pretend that I’m one of them.

Sometimes…I wonder why there are no statues of Buddha when he was thin.

Sometimes…I’ll talk to myself with a foreign accent just for kicks.

Sometimes…I’ll visit the kiddie book section at the library and rediscover my childhood favorites.

Sometimes…I write myself a note to remind myself that I wrote myself a note.

The Democratic Convention gets underway today. In one way, it seems like the convention season got here so quickly, and yet in other ways it seems like the process hasn’t happened quickly enough. The media points out that there won’t be any surprises at the conventions this year. That’s okay by me, I’ve had enough political surprises these past few years to last me a lifetime.

Personally, I’m all ready to cast my vote so that we can move on with it. But not so fast. Political conventions often show in which direction the country is moving in. They address some of the problems that we face and provide a glimpse into the possible solutions. And on occasion, there are some stirring speeches that inspire.

I like John Kerry and John Edwards. The more I hear each of them discuss their plans for America, the more optimistic I become about our future. I realize full well that they’re not going to solve all the problems that we face, but I do believe that they are going to make a sincere and honest effort.

Yesterday I took a random walk. I had no purpose in mind or specific direction planned, just a spontaneous trek in whatever direction my feet carried me. I like to take such walks now and then, where thoughts can easily be lost in the surroundings, and no attention is given to time or destination. Such random walks have a spiritual way, almost like a meditative state where the senses become reawakened.

The sun was shining in my face and sweat dripping from my pores, but it felt good. The occasional soft breeze was cool and refreshing. I found myself looking at trees, seeing images within the branches. Watching palm trees dance and sway to their own beat. Hearing hollow creaks of music from bamboo, with baby birds chirping overhead. I marveled at the radiant colors of the flowers and the blue of the sky. I admired the intricate details in the fallen leaves, and rubbed my hands against the various textures of trees.

I picked a tangerine and sat in the shade of a large banyan. The juice from the fruit was sweet, and my tastebuds reacted as if it was the first tangerine I had eaten. In each direction that I turned, I was reminded of all the beauty that surrounds me. Random walks have a pleasing and gentle way of reminding.

I suppose by now you’ve heard about the guy that ceremoniously ate his 20,000th Big Mac. His family must be so very proud.

In his autobiography, Wilt Chamberlain made a claim to the number 20,000 as well, but it was a different kind of golden arches that Wilt had conquered.

I’ll never be a threat to either record, nor would I want to be. I’ll never break the Big Mac dude’s record because I rarely go to McDonald’s. Besides, I’ve always been more of a Filet-O-Fish kind of person anyway. I’ll never get close to Wilt’s number either. I started out slow in that department, then spent a couple of years making up for lost time and then kind of fizzled out altogether.

Still, I do get a craving every now and then for that special sauce.

As a youngster, my family moved around a lot so we never really had a home of our own. We lived in nice houses, but we always knew that the house wasn’t ours and in time we would move once again. Such is life for a military family.

When I was around eleven years old, my parents began searching for a home to buy. They looked at several places at different locations on Oahu, but they waited to find the house that would be right for us. Eventually they did find the house that would be our home in Kaneohe.

Located upon a hill at the end of a dead-end road, it was a big white two-story house with a panoramic view that spread from Kaneohe Bay to the Koolau Mountain Range. The house was encircled with tropical plants and trees, with a Japanese-style garden in the back.

The whole family was so excited about the thought of having this house as our very own home. On the first day that the house would officially be ours, my parents and I drove out to the house. The three of us walked up the steps to the front door, only for my father to remember that the keys were in the car. He turned to me and told me to run through the garage and into the laundry room and come up the stairs to open the front door, which I did.

As I opened the door, I saw both my parents smiling at each other and enjoying their moment. They were happy, which made me happy. Suddenly my father picked my mother up effortlessly into his arms to carry her through the threshold. He then took his first step into our new home by tripping on the stoop. Both of them came crashing onto the living room carpet, where they laid laughing and laughing.

Dr. Watson is like the fun-loving aunt that is always everyone’s favorite. She’ll say something totally off-the-wall while performing an uncomfortable physical examination, yet she will go out of her way to help in any way she can. Although her heavy workload has grayed her prematurely, she is always upbeat, quick to smile, and more than willing to listen. Even though she has lived in Hawaii for many years, her faint English accent reminds me that she originates from the UK.

This past week I had an appointment with Dr. Watson. In more than twenty years of being her patient, I don’t recall ever discussing politics with her, but I decided that I would mention the presidential election. During the appointment, I asked if she was planning on voting in November. Her eyes rolled upward towards her brow with a look that is all too familiar with many democrats.

“That f**k,” she said in whispered tone.
“Why? What?” Although I had never heard her swear before, I was much more interested in what she had to share than how she expressed it.
“Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11?” she asked.
“No, not yet. Have you?”
“I’m already mad as hell, but my husband and son went to see it and now they’re mad.”
“What were they expecting?”
“Well, they were expecting to see what they saw. But to actually see the president sit in that classroom for all that time after knowing the planes had hit.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, don’t get me started on this man,” she said while turning her attention to my file.
“Okay.”
“Leader of the free world,” she mumbled in contempt.