Thursday, April 02, 2009

2 April: But I digress...

I was sitting in the garden, enjoying the warm sunshine, and idly knitting a sock, when I remembered that I have just missed a couple of anniversaries.

So, Happy (belated but Significant) Birthday, dear Bro!

And the other is yesterday's 17th anniversary of my bowel cancer operation. It's hard to feel you've actually had cancer when you didn't have any radiation treatment or chemotherapy and you still have and always had hair. Still, I am frequently reminded by my remaining bowel. Too much information?

So this all led on to musings about "where did all that time go?", and "what have we got to show for it?", and "does that really matter?" And that all very quickly becomes too deep.

Another happy half-hour wasted browsing through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (I've been a fan of dictionaries ever since school, when a substitute for detention was having to copy out pages from the dictionary - I did a lot of that).

Never mind; "what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare", as W.H.Davis wrote. Herman Hupfeld told us "the fundamental things apply, as time goes by", and Bob Dylan "the times they are a-changin"", and C. Northcote Parkinson that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion", who of course is on the same page as Dorothy Parker, who gave us such gems as "you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think", and "she ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B", as well as "men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses".

And just over there is a most appropriate quote from Emmeline Pankhurst - "The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics".

As Cicero said - "O tempora, O mores!"

2 comments:

tea and cake said...

Congratulations on your anniversary! The one I like is from Shirley Conran in the 60s or 70s - 'Life's too short to stuff a mushroom.' Which it is, as you'll know.
lotsaluv, Karen x

stitchwort said...

Thank you!
As far as food is concerned, it should take less time to prepare than it does to eat (that doesn't always include cooking time) - about the only area of life where "quick and easy" appeals to me.