Friday Donuts

For family and friends, For food, fitness, freedom, faith and fresh air For flights of fantasy and fiction flicks Football and fútbol Feelings of fondness; forgiveness of faults Whether fleeting or forever; foreign or familiar,  I raise a French press and French cruller And give thanks for life. Happy Friday!

  Friends, This week, Earth’s population symbolically crossed the eight billion inhabitant mark. This is an estimate, of course, it’s not like Big Brother has an exact tally of all the arrivals and departures from this planet, so we don’t know for sure who the eight billionth person was–that would be creepy. Although, it could also provide great promotional opportunities. Baby Kim Chin, born at 5:47 AM Tibet standard time on November 15th, 2022, might appear on the cover of Cracked Magazine or receive a lifetime supply of free Krispy Kreme donuts; the accident of her birth’s timing making her an instant global celebrity. Still, creepy! Speaking of creepy, I read somewhere that if you smooshed us all together into a giant sphere, the ensuing meatball would have a 1 Km diameter (granted, that thought experiment was done when there were 7.88 billion of us, but what’s 122 million among friends? While this may not seem like a lot, you’d need to meet five new people every second, 16 hour

Friends, For this week´s lunar eclipse, I headed out away from city lights to better observe the blood moon. At the mountain cabin, the river roars in the background while fireflies flash their brights. A startled dog barks, frogs chirp and croak in the petrichor. I fill my lungs with the crisp Andes air and set the pre-dawn alarm. The river, now the only background sound, lulls me to sleep in anticipation. Up before the sun, I grab a quick bite and brave the brisk morning air. A rooster crows while a couple of early birds chime-in—is that a toucan I hear? As predicted, the moon is way out east but something´s off. Our natural satellite appears whole—no bite taken by Earth´s shadow. As I slowly diagnose what´s happening, a donkey brays in the distance, barely audible over the river´s constant drone. I´m a day late, how embarrassing! So glad no one was here to witness my faux pas. O well, I guess I´ll go on a hike and take-in the unspoiled scenery. There´s always 2025… besides, I have

Friends,  Ever get the feeling some people have just stopped trying? Like the good folks at  ASOCOMCH , a small grocer in the town of Girón, Ecuador. While there might be a legitimate reason for their meaningless name, I prefer to imagine they accidentally printed their sign after a cat walked across the keyboard. When their print shop suggested a redo with the actual store name they shrugged and said “meh, close enough, besides, this will make trademarking the name a lot easier.” Or,  Fine Airport Parking  in Houston, Texas. How’s the place? It’s fine. Not great, just fine. I suppose their slogan must be "settle for us." As an added bonus, leave your car too long and you might get, you guessed it, a fine. Speaking of which, I was hoping to come up with a clever donut tie-in. Unfortunately I didn’t, so this will have to do. Like they say, good enough for government work. Happy Friday!