Category: Humor

Put Yourself On the Bright Side of Life

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

laughter-new I more than realize that there are many serious issues that we humans face, but I often wonder if we have generally become far too humorless. I believe that there is no better cure for what ails us than a really good belly laugh, but these days cracking a joke is akin to walking through a mine field. There will almost always be someone who takes offense from words intended only as a joke. As a society we just don’t seem to have a healthy sense of humor anymore, and I suspect that being that way has become the source of many of our problems.

The old saying suggests that if we laugh the world will laugh with us. I tend to believe the truth of that platitude, as long as the comedy is not intended to be mean spirited or cruel. It’s been proven time and again that laughter is indeed a form of medicine, but we have become very thin-skinned and more and more likely to find offense in what once might have made us roar with delight. I think that people would find themselves to be less likely targets if they would instead simply enjoy the humor and join the fun. I’ve found laughter to be an incredible release of tension that has the power to join people together rather than pull them apart. God knows that we could use a bit of unity.

I heard about a school in India where children are literally given classes in laughter. They are encouraged to learn how to engage in deep belly shaking howls of hilarity that bring grins to their faces and make them feel renewed. While it may seem like a somewhat strange concept, the reality is that the ability to laugh is one of nature’s greatest gifts to us that we sometimes forget to use.

Some of my fondest memories center around hilarious moments when I laughed so hard that I literally had tears streaming down my face. My best teachers were the ones who engaged us with stories that made us chuckle and those who were willing to join us in our merriment. I recall the time that we created hydrogen sulfide in the science lab and then blew the rotten egg smell toward our mathematics teacher’s classroom. When we enticed him to open his door we grabbed our sides with glee even as he feigned anger to please us.

Then there was the occasion when our English teacher recounted his trip to a proctologist. We nearly fell out of our chairs we were laughing so hard. Few comedians have ever entertained me as much as our beloved instructor did. He definitely secured our attention and kept it even when he needed to be serious. We loved him so much that we were in awe from the moment that we walked into his classroom each day. The fact that he encouraged us to enjoy a good joke with him was a powerful motivator and one of the most powerful tools that he used with us.

There are movies with scenes so classically funny that they tickle me every single time that I see them. Mel Brooks was a master at creating situations that were hilarious, and it’s almost impossible to watch Monty Python without breaking out in a great big grin. We revisit movies like Christmas Vacation and Elf year after year because they make us smile, something that always feels good no matter what our life has otherwise been like.

I always appreciated that both George W. Bush and Barrack Obama were willing to become part of jokes about themselves. They enjoyed the idea of humor rather than feeling hurt by the skits and word play. They were eager to be part of the fun because they understood that we can’t be serious all of the time. Sometimes laughter is our saving grace. The trick is in knowing when it is appropriate and when we must be more solemn.

Years ago when my husband Mike was receiving chemotherapy for a very serious fungal disease a friend of his came to the hospital to visit. He had us in stitches with an imitation of a farmer providing advice on how to get rid of the offending infection. He suggested that Mike should get some Green Light fungicide and create a curative cocktail. He went on and on with the joke until Mike almost fell out of his bed with unrestrained laughter. It was the best medicine that he had received and the first time that he had felt so good in many weeks.

Much like Mike’s irreverent friend the Irish are known for their wakes that often become rather raucous. I once worked with a teacher from Ireland who told us tales of one occasion when she and her friends went to great pains to install a spring inside the coffin of one of her relatives. When unsuspecting visitors were kneeling in front of the deceased, they would push a button that caused the corpse to rise into a sitting position. She and the other pranksters would howl with delight as the frightened guests nearly fainted from fright. My friend impishly told this story with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and as we laughed at her antics I always found myself wondering if she had actually put one over on us with a fictional tale or if her story was actually true. Whatever the case she always noted that the purpose of the trickery had been to bring some levity into an occasion that was far too laden with tears and that their plan actually worked.

We may not be quite ready to follow my Irish friend’s lead when it comes to funerals but the point is that laughter can be a cure for the blues. Instead of huffing with indignation so often, we would do well to let ourselves go and put ourselves on the bright side of life. 

Splat! Bam!

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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I’m generally known for my high energy approach to life. I’m the sort who can’t sit still for long and I tend to drive folks a bit crazy because of that trait. I am the Martha rather than the Mary of biblical fame. I am a rather determined soul who gets things done one way or another. Long after everyone else has collapsed into a heap of exhaustion I tend to find that last bit of liveliness that allows me to complete a task. I’ve been that way for my entire life, but another aspect of my vitality is rarely seen by anyone other than those who are closest to me. Those are the moments when the big event is over, the exams are completed, the end has successfully arrived. That is when I hit the wall like a bird flying into a clear glass window. Splat! Bam! I become a useless puddle of goo. I take to my recliner or perhaps my bed and literally waste away an entire day recharging my inner batteries for the next big push.

I seem to do nothing halfway. I’m either blowing and going like a crazed bunny, or I’m as listless as a spent dishrag. That’s been my nature for as long as I remember. I was the kid who would be dancing around the room one minute and then asleep on the floor in the blink of an eye. I throw myself into life and adventures with so much abandon that I’ve been the butt of jokes within my family. There have even been suggestions that I may have been the model for Hermione Granger of Harry Potter fame. Others wonder if perhaps I’m a bit more akin to Charlie Brown’s friend Lucy. My daughter thinks I’m a kindred spirit to Hillary Clinton and a recent quiz on Facebook did indeed verify that I appear to be more in line with her than any other First Lady. The difference is that I am driven mostly by a need to do things properly rather than a quest for power which I tend to eschew. I am a self confessed control freak, but I have never wanted to run the show.

Then there are my limitations. Like any ordinary human I eventually run out of steam and I do it with the same level of enthusiasm that I attempt to apply to my other accomplishments. When I  rest I am all in, and on the day after Christmas this week I immersed myself into a state of total relaxation.  I was done, caput, unable and unwilling to make any unnecessary moves. Luckily it was a dreary day and nobody came calling either on my phone or at my door, so I was able to become a virtual hermit for a full twenty four hours.

I vegetated in my bedroom with no plan, no idea of how I would choose to spend my hours other than doing as little as possible. I comforted myself with leftover mac and cheese and an assortment of cookies that I had made for Christmas. I indulged in a marathon of programs on Netflix and dozed off into wintery naps more than once. I found myself longing to be a bear hibernating inside a cave and wondering what it would be like to spend the winter months resting up for the sunnier days of spring. I luxuriated in the gloriousness of unadulterated sloth, telling myself that I had more than earned the right to such an extravagance of listlessness.

Wishing that the SciFy Channel would run it’s Twilight Zone marathon on the day after Christmas rather than New Year’s Eve I stumbled upon a Netflix series called The Mindhunters. It captured my fancy so much that I watched one episode after another, transfixed by a well written story and interesting characters who were on a quest to understand what makes serial killers tick. Their research lead them to question whether individuals are born evil or made to be that way by the environment. In particular they began to wonder if there is a critical point at which deviant inclinations might be eliminated by a proper intervention. Of course the topic was fascinating to me and I became a junkie for hours as I lay in repose nursing my tired body.

I woke up the following morning with my batteries fully charged and my usual enthusiasm for making outrageous plans that will fill my days in the coming weeks. I have little doubt that I will over do it just as I always have and eventually find myself only fit for a lost day dedicated to appreciating my sluggish inclinations. Fortunately I have always understood when it was time for such an interlude and I have managed to renew myself time and again.

I feel for the souls who do not have the luxury of selfishly devoting a full twenty four hours to themselves. I know that there are circumstances that preclude such excess. Babies don’t wait for their mamas to feel better. Some jobs demand attention no matter how one is feeling. Little wonder that we often hear of a major star landing in the hospital from sheer exhaustion. Our humanity has few super powers no matter how much we attempt to push ourselves to create them. The reality is that we really do need to pace ourselves lest we wind up with more than an overwhelming tiredness. We also must be willing to accept that even our leaders require time away from the clock or they will ultimately crash and burn.

Our expectations for ourselves and others are all too often beyond mere perfection. We chide ourselves for being less than we think we ought to be even as our bodies and minds tell us that we need to stop and reconsider the abuse that we are piling on ourselves. We are sometimes too unwilling to accept our limitations or those of the people around us. When a political candidate requires a day of rest while on the campaign trail we tend to write that person off as being too weak for the task of governing. If a coworker has to miss a day we become judge and jury and find that person guilty of being too soft. We create false images of perfection that are generally impossible to achieve and then chide ourselves and those around us for their inability to be all things to all people.

The wisest among us know none of us is made of iron or steel. We have frailties which make us more beautifully human and understanding. They are not bad things, but rather simply an essential aspect of who we are as people. Now and again it is essential that we learn how to embrace our need for R and R. It is a far better tactic than waiting until we have made a big mess in the act of slamming into a wall. Perhaps we would be wise to build in days of nothingness as part of our routine just as the good Lord appears to have intended. According to the Bible even God had the good sense to rest at the end of his labors. It’s time that we all learn to do the same, so go ahead and indulge in leisure. It’s a very good thing to not do anything.

Outdoor Illumination

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Griswold-house-Christmas-Vacation-movie-in-lightsI miss all of the lights that used to glow all over my neighborhood. For some reason very few people near me are bothering to get enthusiastic about outdoor illumination this holiday season. My daughter’s neighborhood in Sugar Land has been glowing for weeks now, but mine is mostly dark save for the house across the street. I suspect that my husband Mike might have been willing to join the energy saving club had I not insisted that we were going to buck the trend and light up our little cul-de-sac with a bit more merriment. It took us longer than usual to accomplish this year because winter storms came making the task almost impossible. Eventually the sun returned and along with it came my resolve to deck our halls.

The first phase of the project involved climbing into the attic and crawling to its farthest reaches to retrieve the boxes holding all of our materials. Since my knees are a shell of their former selves I had to wear kneepads for this part of the venture. Then came the real fun which involved testing all of the strings of lights before hanging them. Invariably there will be a set or two that has somehow decided to die during the long hibernation period from one year to the next. Because I have no desire whatsoever to examine one hundred tiny bulbs to find the source of the problem I generally just toss the nonfunctioning array and substitute one of the new strings that I have purchased as soon as the Christmas items show up at Hobby Lobby along about August. I’ve learned the hard way that waiting until December is like playing Russian Roulette. The odds are very good that nothing will be left anywhere if I procrastinate, so I grab spares right away even though it feels strange to invest in Christmas gear when the temperature is hovering in the high nineties.

Once I have determined that all of the lights that we will use are in working order Mike and I get down to business. Mike has a routine that he follows to hang icicles along the fence line of our corner. He is quite meticulous. Each box is carefully labeled and stored in such a manner that there is rarely any problem with the procedure. My methodology is a bit more haphazard. I’m so ready to put Christmas away come January that I tend to just throw my lights into a big container where they manage to get tangled somehow. I utter more than a few naughty words as I struggle to untie the knots. Then I create a lovely twinkling pathway by scooting along the sidewalk on my bottom. Invariably I will be in the process of just finishing a section when half of the string decides to die. That’s when the real despicable language escapes from my mouth and I begin collecting demerits from Santa for my profanity.

Eventually we both manage to line the perimeter of our home with lovely twinkling lights that would be wonderful all alone but we have more to add. A jolly snowman sits at the edge of a flowerbed. He’s been bringing joy for years now. He used to blow away and end up dangling from his electrical cord in the middle of the yard but Mike finally found a way to keep him in place by tying him to a tall stake. He’s happy throughout the season now even though he looks a bit like a prisoner.

We place a lighted Christmas tree in the middle of the yard. It’s a wooden structure that is anchored into the ground. I keep an assortment of replacement lights for it because there always seems to be one or more that decide not to operate. I sometimes think that Mike would love to get rid of the display because it’s difficult to store. It won’t fit in the attic so it has to sit along the wall all year long getting in his way. He glares at it now and again, but puts up with the inconvenience because it’s one of my favorite things. After the tree is in place I bring out a set of lighted boxes that look like gifts that I set them lovingly in front the the tree.

Long ago my mother-in-law gave me some birthday money that I used to purchase a cute wooden Santa from a craft store in Beaumont. He’s a great little character that I set on the front porch. He has a few design flaws that have created some problems over the years. There is a little circle at the top of his cap that fell off almost as soon as I brought him home. We used glue, gorilla tape and all sorts of adhesives in an attempt to repair him but nothing has worked for very long. I think that Mike wonders why I keep Santa, but he understands how sentimental I am about the old fellow so this year he tried a new repair trick. He performed an operation on the old guy which he referred to as brain surgery, attaching the little ball with both a screw and some glue. It appears to be the fix for which we have long hoped. The only problem now is that a stiff wind has a tendency to topple St. Nick, so we have to place him in a corner out of the line of fire. So far all is good.

Thanks to Costco and my tutoring we were able to invest in a new wreath and lighted garland for the front door. The fresh new greenery happily gives the place a much needed uplift. Added to that was my idea to place an indoor tree on top of a table upstairs in front of the big window above the front door. It sets off the whole display quite well and brings balance to our efforts. Finally we installed a set of huge multicolored light bulbs along the sidewalk leading to our entryway. They are a bit comical and reminiscent of Whoville, but I love them.

Mike’s job is to get all of the illumination in sync with timers so that we don’t have to turn our handiwork on and off during the season. It automatically lights up the night each evening and politely darkens when it’s time to go to bed. Mostly it is a grand way to welcome visitors to our neighborhood and to spread cheer to our neighbors.

Mike and I aren’t the energetic kids that we once were. By the end of our work my back was screaming at me and asking why I was silly enough to do so much bending. I’ve filled the cuss jar to the brim with my outbursts that make Griswold appear to be a choir boy by comparison and Mike does his best Grinch impersonation mostly to play with me. When all is said and done we are always happy and proud that we did this one more time. I think our neighbors like it too.

Finding Inspiration

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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I  was having a difficult time finding inspiration for writing my blog today. I’ve been enjoying doing this task five days a week for almost five years now, and there really are very few days when I search desperately for a topic. When that happens I usually serf the Internet hoping to find something that sends a sudden burst of ideas to my brain. Today was one of those times when nothing was coming to mind, so I spent some time reading posts on my Facebook wall hoping desperately that something would jump from the page to tickle my fancy.

I read about a friend who had run a half marathon and ended up exhausted and hurting. I was intrigued by what she had done, but since it would never even cross my mind to think of doing such a thing I didn’t exactly come up with fertile ideas for writing when I read about her adventure. How far would I get reiterating the idea that my knees no longer allow me to run, and that I have little or no desire to push myself into a state of pain doing anything. It became obvious to me that I would have to keep reading if I was to find any kind of material for creating an essay. That’s when I saw  a post from a high school friend that sent me into gales of laughter.

He was asking if anyone had an extra set of feet for an artificial Christmas tree because he was unable to locate his. He had searched closets and attics and all sort of places all to no avail. Friends in his age group razzed him about getting old and the inevitability of becoming forgetful. I identified completely because I had decided on a great blog topic only an hour or so before, but couldn’t recall what it had been for the life of me. Lately I’ve had to learn to write things down as soon as they come to mind or the slightest interruption may erase them forever. My husband had asked me a question and in the short space of time that it took me to respond I literally forgot what I had intended to write about for today. So there I was wondering what to put on a page.

That’s when I saw yet another post from a former teacher friend who was asking for advice on what to do to find inspiration when it eludes us. There were some great ideas like gazing up at the sky, but it was very dark and rainy where I was, so that didn’t seem to be an option. I’d already tried looking for interesting quotes and perusing the news, none of which jostled even an iota of creativity. That’s when I thought of the many times when I had a deadline for an essay, and I drew a blank regarding what to compose.

Writer’s block is the stuff of legend. After creating the masterpiece The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald struggled to regain his footing. Somehow he was not able to repeat his performance as a writer and it lead to depression and alcoholism, so I know I shouldn’t feel too bad if I find myself without ideas now and again. Still it is so frustrating, and I remember one occasion in particular when I stared at a page with the same painful realization that I was as stumped as Jack in The Shining. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to write the same sentence over and over again. I was unable to even string together a nonsensical group of words, and it threw me into a panic because I was taking a class at the time, and my assignment was due the following day.

I was willing to admit that procrastination had created my dilemma, but that was little comfort as the clock ticked away. It seemed that the harder I tried, the more locked up my brain seemed to be. Taking a walk did little to help. Lying down and attempting to quiet my mind did not work. Screaming my frustration only felt worse, because I knew that I must have sounded ridiculous. I was on the verge of panic and tears when my husband brought me a cold beer.

I looked at him as though he had two heads. I argued that drinking a brew might only make me sleepy and then I would really be in a pickle. I thought of poor Fitzgerald and how not even a prolonged bender alleviated his problems. I failed to see how pausing for a sip of suds was going to change the situation, but I had almost reached a breaking point, so I surrendered to the idea.

I relaxed a bit while enjoying the amber liquid, and as I did I became quite mellow, so much so that I wondered if I would just drift off into slumber and end up having to attend class without completing the assignment. I was certain that I was totally in trouble, when I slowly found myself considering a number of out of the box ideas. The more gulps I took of the beer, the more fertile my thoughts became, and before long I was banging out a paper that in that moment made me feel as though I was writing the next great educational document. My fingers were barely able to keep up with the flood of ideas that filled the once blank paper with a sea of characters forming words, sentences, paragraphs and entire pages. Not more than an hour later I was proof reading my manuscript and creating the final copy for submission.

I went to bed that night feeling relaxed and accomplished. My alcohol soothed brain was bristling with greatness, or at least it felt that way. Sadly by morning I wasn’t as sure of myself, but I had to work all day and understood that I was stuck with the essay that I had written with a muddled mind and no time to change it in any way. Rather than torture myself I decided not to even read it again, and I began to feel a dark sense of foreboding. Somehow I believed that any chance of getting a decent grade was doomed. I chastised myself for allowing such a situation to exist in the first place, but it was too late.

As it happened, I had somehow unlocked the creative juices of my brain with my drinking binge and my paper proved to be more than satisfactory. When I saw the grade I was amused that I had pulled off my smoke and mirrors magic trick. The professor wrote dazzling comments about my brilliance, but I could only laugh at the fact that I was unable to remember what I had written. (Bear in mind that it takes very little for me to become the victim of a drunken state, so that beer had rendered me rather incoherent, but apparently still somehow in control of my faculties. I now fully understood why so many writers turn to drink as a muse.)

My latest episode of writer’s block and the search for inspiration lead me into a discussion of over imbibing with a group of relatives. My brother who is almost a tee totaler spoke of a time when he enjoyed himself a bit too much and engaged in a match of chess with a graduate of MIT after running a foot race with his buddies. Surprisingly he recalls the incident as the best game that he has ever played, and he was so relaxed that he won handily in both the race and the chess game. Others told of amazing feats like being able to do pushups on a countertop, or dancing like Fred Astaire. It seems that rather than inspiration, what we all found was a way to eliminate our inhibitions.

I certainly would never recommend my inebriated writing method as a regular means of expressing my thoughts. It might have ended quite badly, but for a bit of luck. I suspect that the secret was that I was able to relax, and I might have accomplished the same thing with a brisk walk or a few minutes of meditation. It may well have been my brother’s exercise before the chess match that was the source of his winning ways, and not the vodka. It didn’t seem to work for F. Scott Fitzgerald, so it may be a mistake to think that it worked for us.

Anyway, I’ve somehow managed to fill a blog with a bit of nostalgia and nonsense and maybe even some hidden ideas for finding inspiration. In the future, however it is no doubt best to write down the ideas that I have before I lose those thoughts. It is a lot less frustrating than tackling an empty page.

The Road Ahead

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be sixty nine years old. That number sounds ancient to me. It is a place in time that I have never really imagined being. Time is relative when it comes to me because I still feel as though I am little more than middle aged. Surely I will be thirty nine tomorrow, going on forty next year. Where did I lose the thirty years that I don’t remember passing by so quickly? One day I was still young and the next I became a member of AARP and qualified for Medicare. It’s enough to boggle the mind.

I’m still able to perform complex mathematics problems and show youngsters how to do them as well. I write almost everyday and read constantly, but not without glasses. My vision went south some time back along with my ability to recall small things like where I have left one of the dozens of pairs of glasses that I keep on hand. I tried wearing one of those chains around my neck that keep glasses handy but they just didn’t work for me. They got in the way mostly of my vanity.

I can’t run well anymore. My knees yell at me if I even try. I’ve shrunk about three inches because I have developed osteoporosis like my grandmother and several of my aunts. Heredity can be a real bitch sometimes. I used to be a tall girl, but now I am rather short. It makes me wonder if my grandma was always a small person or if her own troubles with brittle bones made her much tinier than she once was.

Mostly I’m rather healthy. People predict that barring some unforeseen accident or a disease that sneaks up on me I will live long like my grandfather who made it to one hundred eight. If that’s the case I have almost forty more years to go. I’ll need to figure out what to do with all of that time. I hope I am able to use it as well as Grandpa did. He was an avid reader who devoured books like chocolate bonbons, and then proceeded to discuss every detail in them when someone came to visit. His mind was as clear as a sparkling lake up until the very last weeks of his life, but he had grown weary by then. He often spoke of being ready to end his marathon time here on earth and start a new run in heaven. He had lost all of his friends and most of his relatives including all three of his children. Somehow he managed to stay optimistic in spite of the fact that he had spent all of money and lived from one Social Security check to the next. He had planned well for retirement, but nobody expects for a life to last as long as his did,

There is still so much of the world that I hope to experience. I love the idea of continuously learning and traveling. It is a habit that I have followed and it provides me with great pleasure. I like to stay abreast of changes and I truly hope that I never become a dotty old fuddy-duddy, a dotard if you will. One reason that I enjoy working with children is that they keep me young. I get a kick out their antics and I find that on the whole they are quite polite and wonderful. The idea that today’s kids are spoiled and badly behaved is a myth perpetuated by grouchy individuals who abhor change. The truth is that our future is in good hands from what I have seen. The world will surely keep on moving along and things will get better regardless of who is living at the White House.

Somehow getting older makes me far happier and more content than I have ever been. I view life with a great deal more appreciation. All of my competitive inclinations have fallen by the wayside. I realize how very lucky I have been from the cold November day when I was born to the present. I may not have accumulated much wealth, but I can say without reservation that I have always been loved. There is absolutely nothing better than that, and I now realize that more so than ever before.

I still harbor hopes and dreams, but now they are more for my grandchildren than myself. I want to watch them finding ways to use their talents and build their own lives. If they are half as fortunate as I have been then the world will be very good to them. I pray that their inevitable trials will be few and that they will possess all of the skills needed to deal with them. I myself had so much support any time that I was struggling. There always seemed to be a relative, neighbor, teacher, coworker or friend to help me overcome even the most horrific situations. I treasure all of the people who have encouraged me, some of whom never knew how much they actually meant to me.

I think back to my many birthdays. My mom always worked hard to make my day as special as possible, and did so until the very day that she died. Her family had been so poor that their only gift each year had been a single nickel. She and her siblings continued the tradition of sending each other nickels, and I thought it a beautiful gesture of love. My mom never missed brining me a cake and a very carefully chosen gift which always reminded me of how important I was to her. I find myself missing her bit more each year. She was with me from the very beginning, forging that special bond that only a mother is capable of doing.

Much of my family is coming to my house to help me celebrate my birthday tomorrow. Family has been the best gift that I have ever enjoyed. I honestly don’t know what I would do without all of them. We are a loud and crazy bunch that sometimes confounds and annoys other people. I don’t think those who shy away from us can tell if we are yelling at each other or just being a bit too overjoyed to be together. I know that some folks can’t handle our antics, but I can’t imagine being any other way than we just naturally are. Our exuberance is simply the outward manifestation of our unending love.

So this old woman plans to savor every minute that I have. At this point there is no telling whether my days are numbered or I have a long way to go. I’ve learned to take one day at a time and to roll with whatever happens. I may not hear as well as I once did but I am a survivor and I am far tougher than I appear to be. It’s been a great ride thus far. It’s going to be fun to see where the rest of my life takes me. I’m more than ready for the adventures that lie along the road ahead.