I was reading a local blog written by the wife of soldier deployed in Iraq. Today she was talking about sharing with your spouse the little things that happen each day. The conversations that are filled with the mundane daily events that fill our days. It reminded me of an old post I wrote about the same concept, of sharing those events, and how for someone who is widowed that is one of the things that you grieve the loss of. When I went back and read my post and then re-read Jan Wesner's post I wondered if the wives and husbands of the soldiers aren't in some way grieving the loss of their spouses from their daily lives. Over the past four years of the war I've listened to many wives being interviewed on the radio and TV and was surprised and how familiar their experiences sounded to me. And I think that I now realize that what many of them are doing is very much like grieving. And it explains why I am always drawn to those stories, and why they always have an emotional affect on me.

I take some comfort reading Todd's blog over at Rhymes With Drowning. His recent post briefly mentions an idea that I've always believed but didn't really have any validation for. It is the idea that when widows and widowers tell their stories they are healing themselves. I remember in the early days it certainly was something that was an emotional release of some sort that always left me feeling cleansed.

I want to know what the term is for this.

Every time I eat a pear I think of Seth Plate in City of Angels. Seth asks Maggie what a Pear tastes like. He wants to know what it tastes like to her. She describes the way it feels to eat a Pear. Now whenever I eat a pear I think of City of Angels.

In the movie The Birdcage there is a scene where Robin Williams is trying to look not gay and uses the old show an interest in sports routine and throws out the line "How bout them Dolphins?" A friend uses that line at interesting points in typical dinner parties. Now whenever I see The Birdcage when scanning the cable channels, which is pretty much every week it seems, I think about that friend.

I love reading Heather's blog. She has some interesting thoughts about parents perceptions when seeing other people's children. Reminds me of the times when I traveled for work and would see kids and thought about my kids at home without me. And even now when I see children and their parents I think about all the joys and sorrows that they have experienced and will experience.

I try to imagine what couples who don't have children react to these experiences. Among my siblings I am the only one that has childen.

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Originally uploaded by rkrato.

Golf with the wide angle.

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IMGP0114.JPG Originally uploaded by rkrato.

I had a dream this morning.

I was at some kind of high school event. I don't remember there being any details of the event in my dream and the location is only vaguely clear to me now. Actually I don't remember many of the details at all. What I do remember is Cindy and her friend S. were in the dream. Nothing too exciting is happening just regular daily life. At some point something happens that reminds me of something in the past. I mention it to Cindy and I am trying to remember if she was there when it happened. At that point my mind starts to flip flop between the past and present, dream and reality. In the dream I can't seem to figure out if Cindy was there when this thing happened in the past. Then while still in the dream I am trying to figure out if it happened before or after she died. It seems to me in the dream that is was after she died.

At this point my dreams usually take a turn and I start to realize how amazing it is that Cindy is there talking to us, afte having been dead for all these years, and I wake up.

This time the dream is different. S. is sitting next to me on some bleachers and I turn to her and say "I wonder what will make us realize she is dead this time". The dream continues on for a little while and I start to wake up before anyone in the dream realizes that Cindy is dead and really isn't there talking to us.

I found this interesting exercise over at Kottke.org.

"Go here and look through random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."

It took a while but I came up with these:

• Hold no man responsible for what he says in his grief. (The Talmud)
• If you can't do what you want, do what you can. (Lois McMaster Bujold)
• Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• Every once in a while, take the scenic route. (H. Jackson Brown Jr.)
• It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. (Agnes Repplier)

Performancing test

This is a test of Performancing.

I'm trying out Halley's new StyleFeeder. So far it seems easy to use. I'll have to play a while and see how it all works.

I listened to one of the Theme Time Radio Hour shows Bob Dylan is doing over on XM radio. It's pretty cool. Made me remember the days of listening to WJKL radio in Elgin IL. In searching for information about WJKL I ran across this great listing of Chicago radio station call signs.

Halley over at Top Ten Sources blogs about being a Single Mom CEO and it made me think about the flip side of being a "Single Dad Homemaker". I wonder how many dads go off to work planning summertime activities for the kids and thinking about running to the grocery store at lunch time to pick up something to make for dinner, scheduling school physicals, the clogged kitchen sink, the laundry, and ...