Thoughts on This, That and Parenting

"I tell my child, if I seem obsessed to always know where you've been, it is because my DNA will be found at the scene."


"I have come to believe that a child has sufficiently memorized his catechism when he has learned the questions."


"The first thing a child learns in school is to stop asking questions that can't be answered."


If you teach your children nothing else, teach them the Golden Rule and "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey."


"If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, but the problem is actually that your boss only has a screwdriver."


"Some call me gullible, but I do own the Brooklyn Bridge, pending resolution of my dispute on eBay."


"Some are skeptical of religion, but most believe that life's search is more happily conducted with a treasure map."


"I never get to meet the person in charge, like the other day I was tempted by the devil's second assistant for Northeast USA operations."


"Meanwhile, according to the Modern Book of Etiquette, the graveside ceremony is now considered a suitable period of mourning."


My last words, which I've instructed my wife to read to the mourners at  my graveside, will be as follows: "All are invited to a reception at our home, which I have strongly encouraged Joan to use as an opportunity to meet men."


"You can't blame your mom for everything, but when you miss your plane by five minutes, it's hard not to wish your mom had had you five minutes sooner."


"You are a man, my boy, when you realize that every woman is entitled to your admiration, every child to your protection and every animal to the gentle stroke of your hand."


~~ Robert Brault

For Us The Mona Lisa Smiled

To visit Paris is to relive a memory, a previous visit not required.

There is an instant nostalgia you feel as a couple in Paris. The words from Casablanca, “We will always have Paris,” seem to have been written for you alone. The feeling builds as you stroll up the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe. The avenue seems endless; the Arc looms in a blue haze, seeming always in the far distance. You move as if in slow-motion, the focus of some hidden camera, other strollers just figures in a blurred background.


Paris seemed our private "parc"
For us alone its charm beguiled
For us the Champs stretched to the Arc
For us the Mona Lisa smiled.

*********************************************************************************

At the Louvre, the crowd gathers in a semicircle, roped off to a distance of about 25 feet from DaVinci’s masterpiece. People jostle to get to the front, so as to turn to a friend’s camera and get a photo of themselves with the Mona Lisa in the background. If you stand off a bit and take in this scene, the Mona Lisa seems to look past the crowd, her eye catching yours, her enigmatic smile intended for you personally.

I imagine the young Madonna Lisa del Giocondo posing for her famous portrait, and it occurs to her that in all her life to come, whenever she gazes into a looking glass, she will behold the Mona Lisa – and a strange little smile comes across her face.


*********************************************************************************

And Satan said to the Lord, "I could make you Hemingway in Paris in the 1920’s."  And the Lord said, "Get away, Satan.  For it is written that you will not tempt the Lord thy God."


We are seated at a sidewalk café in Saint Germain, my bride with her café noir, I with my schooner of Leffe beer. It is easy enough to fancy that I am the young Hemingway in 1925, at work on The Sun Also Rises. Perhaps, this day, the writing has gone well, the sentences honest and true. We sit happily. It is a good time between us and we do not speak. It is good to sit and listen to the noise of the street. The beer is fresh and good and I finish it with pleasure. A few raindrops patter on the café awning. We get up and walk back to the hotel in the rain.

*********************************************************************************

The autumn glow of Giverny

Shown velvet soft on you and me,

No breeze astir, no gust to sway

The lily pond of Claude Monet.

We stood at the foot of Monet's lily pond, looking across at the Japanese footbridge. I glanced from the actual scene to the Monet print in my hand. It seemed, as I compared the impression to the reality, that Mother Nature had not quite captured it. I realized then that I had long ago fashioned from Monet’s impression my own imagined reality. And it had little to do with the lily pond at Giverny.

The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression. The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality.

*********************************************************************************


~~ Robert Brault

Some Pithy, Some Ponderous, Some Debatable

What is certainty but complete faith, and how then can faith not be the path to certainty?


For lack of an occasional expression of love, a relationship strong at the seams can wear thin in the middle.


It is not the rich who change the world but they who have no price.


Man is a creature of pranks whose God has never been heard laughing.


Where only loyalty is owed, loyalty is not owed either.


If it is true that my dog harbors no hope of salvation, then which of us is the nobler friend?


To love animals is to be fascinated by human nature in whatever creature it is found.


One must generally assume that a person is using no more brains than he or she has.


An old body is like an old building. Eventually its only reason for being is the employment of the maintenance staff.


No one ever improved a friendship to one’s personal advantage.


In sinners and repenters, you have the original division of labor.


There is a purpose to life totally obscured by the events following birth.


If the world is a stage, there is considerable evidence of a gay set decorator.


There is a proper conduct of human affairs the malpractice of which is called politics.


As a model for family values, I prefer the lion's den to the ant colony.


The difference between the sickness and the cure is that sickness makes house calls.


When in all history has fear of the unknown not yielded to the fear of not knowing?


If man can create an intelligence greater than his own, he must accept the likelihood that his creator could also.


~~ Robert Brault

The Covert Comic

The following twelve thoughts are not mine. They're by a fellow aphorist named John Alejandro King, also known as The Covert Comic. I'll tell you more about him after you've enjoyed this small sampling of his wit.



"I'm not afraid to think the unthinkable. I just can't figure out a way to do it."


My mother taught me: 'Always remember to wash between your ears."


"I would like to change the world, but I can't find a diaper big enough."


"They say you should never raise your hand to your children, but how else am I supposed to request their permission to speak?"


"Money isn't everything. There also has to be stuff to buy."


"Instead of building a better mousetrap, why not just genetically engineer an inferior mouse?"


"Know thyself, but officially disavow the relationship."


"If brevity is the soul of wit, how come it has more syllables?"


"After my accident, the doctors told me I shouldn't be alive. It wasn't a medical opinion - they were expressing a deeply held personal belief."


"There is untold wealth in Africa -- and untold Africa in wealth."


"Live each day as if it were your last. Lie in bed with a bunch of plastic tubes stuck in your body."


"The state of confusion has more than two senators."


~~ John Alejandro King



JAK sent me a fan letter the other day, and so I spent a little time checking him out. What I found left me open-mouthed. Here is an inventive, comic talent that puts my own forays into offbeat humor to shame. Jack Handy, move over -- your successor has arrived. I should emphasize that the items above are only twelve of the hundreds of John's items you can find on the quote site thinkersandjokers.com. That is where to start, since it showcases John's best. After that, you can check out John's own site at covertcomic.com   I should caution that John is always irreverent and sometimes a bit off-color, so steel up your sensitivities. A genius must be cut a little slack. Why the handle, The Covert Comic? Because John is a full-time CIA officer, or so he claims.  Enjoy! 

rb

Mid-Month Maunderings

A few leftover thoughts on pets


"Sometimes we forget to say goodbye to the only creature who will miss us."


"Although without sin, what animal ever cast the first stone?"


"There is in all animals a sense of duty that man condescends to call instinct."




Miscellaneous, old and new


"There is a limit to how much you can change to be liked for who you really are."


"The only certain mercy in life is that someday the undertaker will do your hair in such a way that you'll be glad you're dead."


"The thing about people is how they're exactly the same in so many different ways."


"We tend to reveal ourselves to our friends. Perhaps God is not so different."


One man's experience: "People who don't like you at first will not like you in the end, no matter how much they like you in between."


"If I were convinced that God is an illusion, I would worship the Illusionist."


"You have a claim on life, and at some point life will offer you a settlement. Don't take it."


The preponderance of the evidence stands little chance against the preponderance of the wishing-it-weren't-so.


"The most difficult requirement of becoming knowledgable is that you must give up certainty."


"I am not yet completely ignorant, for I do not know all the answers."


"After eight years on social security, I can truthfully say that my money has been hard-earned, although not by me."


"Be careful of electing to political office anyone who claims to know what you deserve."


"There is a strong profile we turn to the mirror and a weak profile by which everyone knows us."


"Family resemblance is always in the weak profile."


~~ Robert Brault

Most Everything I Ever Said About Pets

A mix of old and new thoughts.



"On the whole I would not wish to live a dog's life, except for the times when you show up to help and are told to go lie down."


"Life is mostly a good reason to go for a walk with your dog."


"An old dog, even more than an old spouse, always feels like doing what you feel like doing."


"If animals could talk, the world would lose its best listeners."


Sometimes my dog looks at me as if to say, "Did you know that petting an animal is a wonderful way to relieve stress?"


"Ever wonder where you'd end up if you took your dog for a walk and never once pulled back on the leash?


I almost can't bear the look in a dog's eyes that says, "I would gladly be your soulmate, if I only had a soul."


"It is now believed that the need to have ten cats is a sublimated desire to have twenty cats."


If animals don't talk, how do they say to themselves, "I guess I'll go take a nap."


"After a scolding, a cat goes about its business. A dog slinks off into a corner and pretends to be doing a serious self-reappraisal."


"If you could combine a cat and a dog, you'd have man's best accomplice."


"There is no better actor than a dog pretending to be as sad and lonely as you are."


"My dog and I have enjoyed many a silence together, a conversation always resumed exactly where left off."


"If you don't feel a bond with the animals who share with us this moment in eternity, you don't comprehend eternity."


"Man is the highest-rated animal, at least among the animals who returned the questionnaire."


"You wonder who would be the highest-rated animal if it were determined by a show of paws."


~~ Robert Brault

A Pre-Halloween Grab Bag

Some Halloween thoughts, old and new


"I don't know that there are haunted houses. I know that there are dark staircases and haunted people."


"The saddest ghouls of Halloween sit in darkened houses as trick-or-treaters scurry past."


"For every bodiless spirit you encounter, there is a spiritless body you really don't want to run across."


"There are moonlit nights when the dead send their ghosts to haunt us -- and dark, misty nights when they come themselves."


"I don't know that there are real ghosts and goblins, but there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids."


"Childhood ends when we realize that Santa Claus is make-believe, and the monster in the closet is for real."


"There is a lasting bond forged between two people who have hid together under the same bed."




The Grab Bag


"If you want your explanation accepted, stop explaining."


"To the skeptic, that which cannot be explained is a mystery. To the believer, that which cannot be explained is the explanation."


"It is not necessary that a truthful explanation be to anyone's satisfaction."


"I want to thank God for my life, which is to say, for this brief opportunity to explain myself."


"We all must live our life story, as much as we might prefer to live a synopsis."


"Science has always been less interested in when the world began than in when 2 + 2 started to equal 4."


"All science is reverse engineering, albeit with the steadfast insistence that there was no engineer to begin with."


"Every good speech contains a summary that would have made a great speech."


"The definition of insanity, said Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a  different result. And here I thought that was the definition of sex."


Today's cheery thought.   In life we are all Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land,  in death Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust.


I had this dream where I came face to face with God, and I said, "Lord, why did you create the world?" And God said, "That wasn't me."


"To be bound by our choices is not to have lost our freedom but to have exercised it."


"Failure is the insufficient foresight to have a fuzzy enough goal."


"Most long-married couples, one suspects, married for marriage."

 
~~ Robert Brault