Sunday, February 15, 2009

What a Wonderful World

I was e-mailed this video. Everybody needs some cuteness once in a while.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rooyt3ptNco
This song reminds me of the night after Katrina. I was sleeping outside on the pool deck at my friend's house because it was cooler, and all the mosquitoes had been blown away. The day before, I nearly died when a large oak tree fell on me. I was stupid for being outside in a hurricane, but I must be here for a reason because the tree fell around me. Three feet in front of me was a crotch where the branches split. About a foot and a half to either side of where I was standing were branches as thick around as my body. I got a knock on the head and a bruise on my leg, but I was almost a grease stain on the driveway.
So there I was, laying on the pool deck, looking at the stars. They were AMAZING. Between the haze and the light pollution, we rarely see the stars here, but the power was out for hundreds of miles around.
I thought about how thankful I was to be alive. I gave thanks for the stars, I gave thanks for my family and loved ones. I gave thanks to that 300 year old live oak for not killing me, even as it died. I realized then what really mattered in life was life itself.
Whenever I hear that song, I think about those brilliant stars that night on the pool deck. And I remember to give thanks for all that I have.

4 comments:

  1. Good post, my friend. Guess it's true what they say about great minds thing the same...I posted this on my blog yesterday!

    Glad the tree missed you!

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  2. Thanks for visiting HermitJim, A friend in CA e-mailed that to me, but I decided to post it after seeing it on your blog. I have some lurkers I think will appreciate it...
    Somewhere there is video of me getting hit by the tree. I'll post it if I can ever get my friend to send it to me. It's pretty wild. I'm glad it missed too. Nothing like almost dying to change your perspective on things...

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  3. a video?!?!?! that's insane! yeah, there really is no perspective-changer quite like that. i too am thankful to that tree for sparing you.

    hey, when you were talking about working with fiberglass before, my thoughts on your van converged with the special features i had just watched on the tremors III dvd (haha, yeah...), and i'm thinking that, though it might not make you look less suspicious, people would surely leave you alone if you fabricated & mounted one of these to the front of your rig (i hear all it takes is some fiberglass and paint to make your very own graboid).

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  4. Hi Rube, Yeah, that wouldn't make it conspicuous at all...
    You can make anything out of fiberglass...
    But I'm thinking of a big steel brush guard bumper up front; you never know when I might need to blast through a roadblock or push disabled vehicles out of the way.... My ex was joking whaen he said I should paint leopard spots on it, but I just might do it...
    Take care, and keep the sand worms away.

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