Coddiwompling through the Phontistery or TAKE A WALK AND LEARN SOMETHING

To coddiwomple: Walking purposefully toward a vague destination.

My cat does this a lot. But what choice does he have really, considering he rarely escapes to the great ‘out of doors’ and when he does he just looks befuddled. He heads toward the driveway in a meaningful manner toward nothing in particular (he coddiwomples) and then comes right back to the porch. I suppose if the opposite of coddiwomple were to take place: Walking vaguely toward a definitive destination…. then that may be considered jaywalking! But I digress.

I truly love minced oaths(euphemisms, expostulations)…

Like this one: Christ on a crutch!

or how about: Zounds!

So speaking of coddiwompling, I’m going to Boston Monday for a few days. I’ve got to pick up a few paintings from AANE and a concert planned as well…Some of the trip is planned but a whole lot of it will be a coddiwomple trek and that’s the point. Lots of good things come about unexpectedly through random ramblings. For example, if you’re ever without first aid in an African jungle and need to suture a wound closed, did you know you can sew up the cut using the heads of African army ants? Works like a charm I understand.

You can also douse flames with low frequency sound waves. Blimey! How did people discover either of those things?

Hunches.

Theory.

Imaginative thoughts.

Experimentation.

It was Lao Tzu who really said this, right? I believe in quoting a source accurately and this meme is I think- incorrectly attributed to “Laozi”— so having said that— the message is appropriate for my upcoming three day ‘holiday.’

Saint Jerome wrote,

“Solvitur ambulando” — (To solve a problem, walk around).

I don’t know why I’m so zen today! Walking is meditation, though. No doubt about that and speaking of walking, my son walked right through a pair of his shoe’s soles playing Pokemon Go. (With the exception of people who are not aware where they are walking,) I’m seeing that game as a mindfulness, a connectivity, a shared relatedness and kinship of minds. Think of those little fuzzy doodles and dots that appear in the air in the original Willa Wonka and The Chocolate Factory- floating over people’s heads as the chocolate bar (and later the boy-MikeTV) is broken up in a million pieces and shrunk down to fit inside the TV:

Playing that game is like that, in much the same way people’s minds are in the atmosphere in sync, focused for good in unison…sort of like….

brainwaves connected at memorial services or

intention sent out for peace in churches or

vibrating unseen energy of the connectedness at live music events…

This meeting up at Pokestops and sharing moments is not a bad thing. What does a person gain meandering about? All sorts of good stuff. What does a person lose? What do they ‘let go’ while coddiwompling around? Anxiety, complex problems, tension… Labyrinthine problems can be addressed in the subconscious. To answer complex problems, think simplistically.

Phrontistery: a place for thinking and study. The world is a phrontistery, right?

I’ve been listening to webinars by Dr. Ross Greene on the subject of what works and what doesn’t for behaviorally challenging children.

It’s all so simple when it’s broken down:

“Stop being reactive to challenging behaviors and be proactive. Figure out the WHY behind the behaviors. Be compassionate. Understand that whining, crying, screaming (or worse) is occurring because the expectations are exceeding the child’s skillset. There should not be a dictator-like need to control. No one does well with imposed restraint…” Dr. Ross Greene

So that’s a small part of the webinars I’ve been listening to… Funny thing is, I thought I wanted to listen to these because I wanted to earn a certificate. But that turned out only to be partly true. As it turns out, my reward was not the certificate but instead the process of learning this passionate and valuable information. The learning;;; That’s TRULY rewarding.

From Fiona Macdonald at the fascinating site link listed below, THIS other newly acquired fact I just learned:

Scientists in the US have discovered a new series of lymphatic vessels in the body that link the brain to the immune system – a connection researchers had previously thought didn’t exist. The discovery could not only prompt a rewrite of the textbooks, it might also lead to a new understanding of how our immune system influences our brain and our behavior.

So there’s a scientifically proven link between immune health and the brain!

Before I go, here’s what I’ve been up to… If you’ve read my book Under The Banana Moon, you may know that I always wanted to find owl balls or ‘pellets’ which are undigested owl barf balls that are regurgitated by owls and dropped to the forest floor. Owls may eat 30 rodents a day. They may hack up fur, teeth, bones, etc. twice a day so each pellet may contain several tiny skulls, ribs, rodent teeth, even bugs that their prey has eaten.

Here’s an example of a pellet I dissected at my local library with my grandson recently. The woman who gave the class buys her pellets online (I’m going to get some for future dissections) from Florida, Alabama or wherever, and then she wraps them in foil and bakes them to sterilize them.

As you can see we had fun:

In fact my grandson found maggots (they were quite dead, petrified really) in his pellet and the class director had never seen this before. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve seen thousands of these dissected but seeing maggots is a first. Normally I see caterpillars partially digested by the owl’s prey and tons of caterpillar poop but I can’t understand why the maggots were whole and not digested by the rodent or bird that the owl ate.”

I told her that chances are that wherever she bought her owl pellets, these particular ones sat on the ground longer than ones she usually bought and had begun to be infested by the maggots as they lay on the forest floor. “I didn’t think of that!” she said and figured it made perfect sense. Look at all these bones. Look closely and you’ll see the hard little maggots.

Look at the pile of gray fur from my pellet!

This a yellowed set of teeth from a rodent skull I dug out of my pellet.

I will blog again when I return from my holiday and have all my ducks in a row as far as pictures that I plan to take. Three days till these two:

Be warned, after the concert my next few blogs may contain more song lyrics. Till then, why not meander a little? It’s good for you. Oh, did I say something about ducks all in a row? My granddaughter really does have hers in a row!