Like Surfacing From a Dive

Quote of the day:
"I never thought about any reward or anything in return. I can never keep anything that belongs to any other person. I have been this way all my life,"
--Osman Chowdhury, New York cabdriver who returned $500,000 accidentally left in his cab.

Quote of the day no. 2 (arachnophobes beware):
“One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.”
--Burkhard Bilger, in the March 5th "New Yorker."

I thought I might have to take Merrie’s blood pressure at the end of "American Idol" last night. Neither of us can understand how anyone but Sanjaya can be eliminated. I mean, c’mon. He’s a nice guy but clearly can’t sing. (Actually, we do understand why he’s still on the show: heavy voting among preteen girls.)

This morning, Merrie was still fuming about this. I guess "American Idol" continues to teach us what we don’t want to know about the commercial music business. I know calling it “the commercial music business” seems redundant, but what we are dealing with here is the most-commercialized part of the music business. And it sometimes ain’t pretty. But we continue to watch the show.

As I write this, a hawk (not a red-tail--not sure what kind) is flying up and down our canyon.

We ran into a couple of our terrific neighbors on our short walk this morning. I realized how much energy these conversations can take, as Merrie came home tired.

A friend has compared what we are going through to a deep-sea diver returning to the surface. It must be done slowly so that the body can gradually get used to decreasing pressure.