Today's Pulse

A   L   O   H   A !

" Our patience will achieve 

more than our force. "

Edmund Burke

[///]

May the Magic 

of the Day

Find YOU!

                             Warmly, Cloudia

Play With It

A   L   O   H   A !

" To truly laugh,

you must be able

to take your pain

and play with it. "

Charlie Chaplin

" When people talk, 

listen completely. 

Most people never 

listen. "

Ernest Hemingway

" There's nothing written 

in the Bible, 

Old or New testament, 

that says, If 

you believe in Me, 

you ain't going

 to have no troubles. "

Ray Charles

" To find joy in work

is to discover

the fountain of youth. "

Pearl Buck

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Thank YOU

for kindly visiting

Join us in Comments

                                      Warmly, Cloudia

All Aboard High Speed Entrainment

How often we act

before we think.

Usually this works out

very well for us;

Concentrating on every

routine task would be

exhausting.

We stop at red lights

without inner debate

or wasted time.

Efficient, see?

Human relations

though

DO require thought.

When we respond

automatically to a stimulus

like real or perceived rudeness

an unpredictable chain of events 

begins,

one rail car draws the next,

and we are on board

before we know it!

You do not know

if the other will apologize,

smile, or "snap" 

and retaliate

automatically.

If someone is stressed

and ready to break

do you want to be present,

much less the cause 

and target?

Just asking.

Before responding to another

there is a golden moment.

Do not retaliate reflexively.

It may be that the other

will soon apologize

IF YOU

leave them that space.

If not,

 it is not Your role

to educate or correct.

Think of it this way:

How well do You

accept correction

from random strangers?

One of life's great axioms:

"Don't Take It Personally."

It sounds wise.

Practicing it is a challenge,

but one that will pay you

for the rest of your life.

" Learn to pause... 

or nothing worthwhile 

will catch up to you. "

  Doug King 

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Thank YOU

for looking in

                         Warmly, Cloudia

Skywatch Hawaii

A   L   O   H   A !

" The sky broke 

like an egg 

into full sunset 

and the water 

caught fire. "

Pamela Hansford Johnson 

[///]

Thank You

         for visiting. Cloudia

Visit Skywatchers

Around the World

HERE

Developments

A   L   O   H   A !

 “ Middle-aged people 

— like me — 

often look back on 

our teenage selves with 

some mixture of amusement 

and chagrin,

" What we never seem to realize

 is that our future selves 

will look back 

and think

 the very same thing 

about us. 

" At every age 

we think we’re having 

the last laugh, 

and at every age 

we’re wrong. ”

Daniel T. Gilbert 

Harvard Psychologist

[///]

I'd Rather Be Incomplete,

and Growing,

than Finished-

How About You?

            Warmly, Cloudia

Small Animals

A   L   O   H   A !

" What would be left 

of our tragedies

 if an insect were

 to present us his? "

Emile M. Cioran

[///]

See Small Animals

around the world

HERE

Thank YOU,

           Warmly, cloudia

Eternal Baseball

A   L   O   H   A !

Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia 1955

 Prelinger Archives

Dad took me to a game here 
when I was very little.
It looked like a gritty factory from outside,
inside was cement, brick, and exposed girders.
But the emerald green of the field
took my breath away!
Surely it is one memory sight
that I will see again
at the end.

 "A hot dog at the ballgame

beats roast beef 

at the Ritz."

Humphrey Bogart

Philadelphia 1892

" Baseball is almost 

the only orderly thing 

in a very unorderly world.

 If you get three strikes, 

even the best lawyer in the world 

can't get you off. "

Bill Veeck

Out at Home 1905

" Ideally, the umpire should 

combine the integrity of a 

Supreme Court judge, 

the physical agility of an acrobat, 

the endurance of Job 

and the imperturbability of Buddha. "

The Villains in Blue," 

Time magazine, 25 August 1961

Philadelphia Athletics & Boston Red stockings

1875

" This is a game to be savored, 

not gulped. 

There's time to discuss 

everything 

between pitches

 or between innings. "

Bill Veeck

" No game in the world 

is as tidy and 

dramatically neat

 as baseball, with cause 

and effect, 

crime and punishment, 

motive and result, 

so cleanly defined. " 

Paul Gallico

" What is both surprising and delightful 

is that spectators are allowed, and even 

expected, to join in 

the vocal part of the game.... 

There is no reason why the 

field should not try to put the batsman 

off his stroke at the critical moment by 

neatly timed disparagements 

of his wife's fidelity

 and his mother's 

respectability. "

George Bernard Shaw

" I see great things in baseball. 

It's our game — the American game. 

It will take 

our people out-of-doors, 

fill them with oxygen, 

give them a larger physical 

stoicism. . .

and be a blessing to us. "

Walt Whitman

" Baseball is the only sport I know

 that when you're on offense, 

the other team controls the ball. "

Ken Harrelson, 

Sports Illustrated, 6 September 1976

Poets are like baseball pitchers. 

Both have their moments. 

The intervals are 

the tough things. "

Robert Frost

" Say this much for 

big league baseball -

 it is beyond question 

the greatest conversation piece 

ever invented in America. "

Bruce Catton

Link

" Baseball is an allegorical play 

about America, a poetic, 

complex, and subtle play 

of courage, fear, good luck, 

mistakes, patience about fate, 

and sober self-esteem. "

Saul Steinberg

" It breaks your heart. 

It is designed to break your heart. 

The game begins in spring, 

when everything else begins again, 

and it blossoms in the summer, 

filling the afternoons and evenings,

 and then as soon as the chill rains come, 

it stops and leaves you 

to face the fall alone. "

A. Bartlett Giamatti, 

"The Green Fields of the Mind," 

Yale Alumni Magazine, 

November 1977

[]

Baseball is
a predictable series
of unpredictable events.

The pace is majestic
yet peppered with quick action
and reflexes,
like explosions in a 
precise piston
driving motion forward
towards "Home"
Just like the automobile,
and invented in the same era.

Time to absorb the 
ever-changing situation 
is built into the structure
of the game.
Each inning is full of promise.

Guests go to bat first,
but that sportsmanlike rule
means the home team hosts
have the "last say."

Decision of the umpires
is instant and final,
Satisfying in it's finality.
There ARE no unending arguments
on the diamond field.

Baseball is a mental,
even a psychic, game.
Everyone knows
how many Strikes,
how many Outs remain
before the teams
change roles again.
Before exultation
or "next time."

Powerful strive-alries,
exertions to the final 
ounce or farthest reach,
But the staunchest enemies
are both just teams
of baseball players,
of cities and regions
alike. 
Wearing the same caps,
uniforms and cleats,
just in different colors
but playing by 
the same rules
like Life is supposed to be:
Playing-field level,
Each player having 
a chance at bat.

A baseball game
is like a life
with chances to try again.

Private courage plays out
in public display.

Springtime promise,
endless Summer afternoons,
thrilling action under the lights.

The companionable silence
of those closest to us,
as well as those 
we've lost
[but will always remember]

Wreathed in Ballpark buzz,
smells of popcorn, and peanuts,
and beer.
Being part of something bigger,
older 
than your own private benefit;
every neighbor your fellow fan,
the best kind of civic pride
and patriotism,
The game you grew up with.

And for the length of the game
we sit among the generations,
remembering other games,
other Summer days
gone past.

You've been outdoors,
away from work and worries
for a time.
Ar least for the 
length of the game.

Baseball is timeless,
pure as numbers
human as a thrill.

Play Ball!

Dedicated to Dad,
and to Jim Labig

[///]

Inventor of Baseball

Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr.
 (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892)

is buried here in Honolulu!

Read about him HERE

The Eternal Sound of the Ball Park: