"Which of us that is thirty years old has not had its Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth--the careless sport, the pleasure and the passion, the darling joy."
-William Makepeace Thackeray
A late start after a little unexpected hiccup in the morning agenda.
I made it to the gym and to the grocery store first thing, arriving home by eight. At that point I had other thoughts about what I'd write here. Would I recount the last three drizzly days riding all over this part of New York with Peg and my sister, aggressively taking in the sights during Katie's brief visit here? If it's Tuesday then this must be Canandaigua.
Or maybe the theme would center upon the importance of positive thinking, particularly as we age. Last night we finished watching the Willie Nelson documentary on Paramount +, with the Red Headed Stranger looking back at his life from the vantage point of age 90, the four marriages and boozing and losing everything to the IRS. Again and again, he emphasized the importance of always looking forward and being positive, even when things looked very bad to the objective outsider.
This morning's Atlantic online featured an essay by Arthur Brooks, discussing how developing positive thinking patterns affects how we approach old age, statistically the happiest part of most people's lives, as counterintuitive as that seems.
Or maybe I'd write about something related to my sports addiction. While at the gym I caught a piece on ESPN about the surprising Cleveland Browns, being led into the playoffs for the first time in years by the most unlikely of heroes, quarterback Joe Flacco.
You've gotta love Joe. He played his college ball at Delaware of all places, was the MVP of the 2012 Super Bowl while playing for the Ravens, then gradually slid into backup quarterback obscurity for over a decade, finally landing a job with the Browns' practice squad a little over a month ago. After an injury to Deshaun Watson, Flacco moved from third team to starter, and hasn't lost a game since. Now a little under three weeks shy of his 39th birthday, he's on his way to the playoffs leading a squad hollowed out by injuries and seemingly out of the hunt only a few weeks ago.
There's hope for us old guys.
But instead I'll talk about this morning's diversion, which began with me wrapping up my chores by pulling out the shop vac to empty the ashes from the fire box of our living room fireplace. Things started okay, but after a time I looked up and noticed that the room was filling with a fog of ash, covering everything including your author.
Upon inspection, it seems that during one of the multiple times the shop vac's been employed recently to deal with the consequences of the Great Christmas Sewage Debacle, the filter basket was removed and discarded. This, in turn, caused all of the ash I was sucking out of the fire box to be discharged under pressure from the vent on the back of the machine. I and everything in the room was coated with ash in a matter of a minute or two.
So instead of writing this post and moving on to billable stuff, I spent most of the last hour vacuuming and sweeping and wiping down furniture that looked like it had accumulated several years of dust. It's all better now, I think, but I'd love to have that hour back. And I've developed a hacking cough as my poor respiratory system tries to expel the insult.
But the drizzle has stopped, P will be home in a little while, and life is pretty good all the same. Gotta work on that positive thinking, after all.
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