February 7, 2009 - The Plaza Branch Library - 4801 Main St - Kansas City Missouri

Back in Kansas City again and already I'm itching to be traveling again. I said adieus to Iggy and left. Wrigley had hopped into the car and curled up the night before. She was already at the lake with her buddy Colby (or maybe it was Kobe - dogs and cats and even gerbils are named by people who don't know nor care to know their real names are - these names that we give them are merely place holders. I once name my cats - Cat One and Cat Two and was always forgetting which was one was One and which one was Two - the vet has horrified that they did not have proper names. They know who they are, I explained but it did not satisfy these self-styled animal lovers).

Only Iggy remains now in the house. And when they return from the lake Iggy will demand attention - meow, meow, meow (Cats need two hours of social interaction a day and Iggy will have a deficit of six hours by then) - and Jerry will hollower at Iggy and Iggy will get neurotic and Jerry pissed and Iggy will eat the green foliage of the flowers and vomit on the carpet. And so on it will go. But I am gone. It is wonderful to walk out in the morning without a coat and to roll down the window of the car.

He who has the final answers can no longer speak to the other, breaking off genuine communication for the sake of what he believes in – Karl Jaspers

When that snow melts someone is going to have to spend a lot of time out there [right in front of the Caribou] cleaning off that plethora of cigarette butts

I think it is January. January
         It is
Another day this day, today
        A January day
The sun rises as it does in the
        Morning today
This is the morning that the sun
        Is rising
The January morning of
        This day
Today, today – to market
         We go
This little piggy crying wee
         All the way

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clear. Everything that can be said at all can said clearly. But not everything that can be thought can be said – Ludwig Wittgenstein

FACTOIDS:

· In 2007 Americans spent $58b on diet foods, weight loss and fitness programs.
· People on average consume 28% more calories when eating snacks labeled ‘low fat’ than they do than when they eat snacks not so labeled
· Food production accounts for 17% of the fossil fuel used in the US
· The average American over consumes or wastes 80% more food than is needed for a healthy diet

· 28% of the average daily calories are consumed in the form of liquids

· Actively obese people are almost 50% less likely to die of heart disease than sedentary thin people