I just looked at the calendar

 and saw that it is a little more than two weeks until the days start getting longer.

The last time that happened seems like it was about ten minutes ago because that seems to be the way that time flies. I was out here a year ago and made the same observation about a year ago and I swear it was about ten mintes ago and no, I do not have anything wrong with me.

I am simply observing how fast time flies.

I am looking at a few of the things I want to get done before Father time takes me down for the final count and one of them is that I want to see my nephew get married off.

In the course of my entire career I have not ever taken off so much as a single day for personal reasons but you can bet your ass I am going to take a few days off for that one.

There are a few other things I'd like to see get done before I cash my chips in.

I just had the best Thanksgiving that I have had in as long as I can remember with my niece and nephew. While they made a wonderful dinner and were fun to be around, it was my niece's two children that proved to be the icing on the cake.

As I rapidly reach the end of my life, the two of them are beginning their lives and I get to see things come full circle. It isn't a bad or morbid feeling, simply an observation of the way things are.

Every life has a beginning, a middle and an end and one thing I am sharing with the little ones is that we are both in the middle parts of our lives. While the beginning and the ends do not take a whole lot of time, it is the middle portion of life that takes up almost all of it.

It was only a brief time ago that I was much like those six and eight year old children that I enjoyed being around so much, and it won't be too long until I'm gone. I guess the comfort I took being around them over Thanksgiving is that I got to see and reaffirm that life just goes on.

Thanksgiving is an important day to me and is a special time. Although I have spent a number of them at sea, I have to say I really enjoy it ashore.

Christmas is the holiday that I find most depressing and it looks like I am possibly going to spend the one coming up on the road which really is a good place for it. At sea is an even better place to spend Christmas.

I do not fare well over Christmas for reasons I will not get into here other than to say that the pressures and expectations accompanying it are inhumane.

I am looking ahead to another spring and will likely spend a lot of my off time this spring doing what I do a lot of and that is watch the sun go down while sitting in my garage overlooking the driveway and watching the endless parade of people walking by and exercising thair dogs.

I think that this spring and summer I will get out a little more often in the Miata and enjoy a few more rides through the Pennsylvania countryside than I did last spring and summer.

Anyway, I just happened to realize that it will not be very long before the days start getting longer.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/