"Hungry Bears Don't Dance."

I just realized my last blog entry has A) been up for a while and B) a bit of rant against litter in my email-box. So, to cover up "having an opinion" ( and wanting to be more in touch with cause-and-effects ), here's something else.

Hungry bears don't dance.

Funny, true and topical, at least for me. I've been told that (in the past) some Gypsies used to have traveling side shows though the neighborhoods and villages, including dancing bears. These traveling shows would live off the donations of the audience. If they felt the audience wasn't contributing enough loose coins to the show, they would quote this line.

Lili and recently return to Texas (and parts of northern Oklahoma) for a 2 week visit. We had great time, saw and met a lot of my friends and family. I barely had time to say two or three sentences to each person before I had to move on to the next person, location or event.

I also got to visit my house and makes some plans for some improvements here and there. I spend a few hours trimming a tree in the front yard while Lili racked and created a border around one of the front yard trees. I think I ended up with sunburned lips but at least the tree branches weren't touching the roof tops any more.

We did have some disappointments with the airlines: "lost" ticket reservations (we both had paper tickets and yet, still, our reservations were miss places on more than on occasion), incorrectly quoted luggage policies for international travelers, "bitter dregs" food and drink selections on one international flight and broken gifts in luggage ... coming AND going.


Back to the Dancing Bear...

I learned several things during my brief visit home:

1. I have a lot of really good friends.
2. I love my family and they love me.
3. The distinctions between the group of people in #1 and #2 is really small.
4. Trying to maintain a connect with a lot of people over a long distance and then in person during a very short period of time isn't realistic. (I'm going to try anyway but I know the task's parameters better now.)

I was also proven partial correct on one fear I had moving away from Texas, even for a short period of time: increasing discontentment.

I know that the more friends I make here, the harder it will be when it comes time to decide to return home. Likewise, the longer I am here, the more I know I'm missing (there) more marriages of my friends, more birthday parties for little red-headed girls, holding my nephews up by their ankles and "shaking the meanness out of them" (or until Uncle Mikey gets too tired to pick them up.) I miss being the "go to guy" to help my family and friends with their various tasks and I miss lazy days at my house "contemplating" my own personal tasks around "the estate." I know that most of this discontent will dissipate once I return home but I will again be leaving good friends behind here.

Kinda of cyclic emotional trap and I felt that this could happen even before I left Texas. It will be interesting to see how I manage ("schedule?") this feeling because I have not intentions in giving in to it or just getting by. I'll be looking to solve it, "own it" and conquer.

And, when I do (and maybe even before then), this hungry bear will dance.