Round Numbers

This is post 100. I know that because Blogger Dashboard counts them for me. I had 99 posts prior to this one. So it is number 100. A milestone.

Why are we enthralled with round numbers? Is turning ten any more momentous than nine or eleven? Why? Was writing 99 essays that small of a feat as to be not worth mentioning, but the 100th essay is something special?

Anniversaries are yearly events and mostly ignored unless you get to some fancy number like 25 or 50. So few people make it to 50 that 40 has gotten rather important now as well.

Willard Scott says happy birthday to people who hit 100. And then after that big moment in the spotlight, the old coots get ignored unless they happen to be the oldest living person on the planet or something. I can understand the concept of oldest living person on the planet. I even understand that not very many people make it to age 100. But even fewer make it to 101 and that number gets ignored.

There are a couple birthdays that are important and that aren't round numbers. They are important because they are actual milestones. Turn 16 and get a driver's license. Turn 18 and get to go off to war. Turn 21 and no matter where you are, you are an adult. Maturity, good sense, and intelligence play no part in any of these birthdays, they are simply counting methods.

High school and college reunions are for numbers ending in 0 or 5. That fifth year high school reunion has to be the dumbest thing to happen. Nothing much has changed in five years. I went to my ten year reunion and not enough changed with the idiots that I went to high school with for me to want to spend $100 for a chicken dinner so that I can spend time with them ever again. I didn't like them when I was 15 (or any other year I was in high school) and they didn't seem improved with age.

However, we will soon be attending my husband's 40th high school reunion. They didn't have enough interest in having one, so they are sharing cost and space with the other local high school. It should be horrible. But we are going.

I wonder what life would be like if we didn't have ten fingers. What if we used a base eight? Then being 64 would be a big deal because 64 would be the new 100. If we had a base 12, then 144 would be the big mark and no one would hit it. What a shame.

Our fascination with round numbers is based on how many fingers we have. And since we have ten, this 100th post is a milestone.

Feeling Good and Feeling Bad

What makes us feel the way we do? There are people who have next to nothing but are happy and there are vastly wealthy people who are unhappy. What makes us happy? Not wealth. Perhaps health? Probably not. People with chronic illnesses can be remarkably happy while those at the peak of health can be glum.

Happiness is a choice. How we are in the world is a choice. The glass is the size that it is and the fluid level is where it is at. It is neither full nor empty. It is. A glass. With water in it. Some water.

My cup overfloweth. My joys are immense. I have a beautiful life.

Next day. Nothing has changed.

I'm depressed and glum. Nothing is right. My place in the world should be used by someone who can appreciate it. I have no reason to take another breath of air.

Back and forth. Good days, bad days, same days.

I am the most fortunate of souls. I am free to spend my days in pursuits of my own choosing. I am my own boss. I am a free spirit.

I am the least fortunate of souls. I am condemned to a life of purposelessness. I have no boss, no job, no income, no easy way to define myself.

Todays and yesterdays blend into tomorrows. Good days and bad days.

What makes me happy? Chocolate and coffee? Some days that works. Some days I despise myself for slurping up more candy when I'm supposed to be on a diet. My clothes are tight and I eat chocolate.

What makes me sad? Essentially, the very same things that make me happy. One day my glasses are rose colored and all looks well with the world. Next day, not so much.

Some days I'm thrilled to even picture the chubby cheeks of my grandchildren and on the next day I'm bereft because I see them rarely and only for a few hours at a time. I spend more time in the car than I do playing with the kids.

I can argue for the good or bad in any situation. Each setback can be a learning experience. Each disappointment can be a springboard for growth. Each time something goes wrong I can prove that I am master of my fate by working to correct the flaws.

So, is it a good day or a bad day. I decide.

Celebrity Brilliance

In O Magazine Jennifer Aniston is quoted as saying: "I take a three-minute shower. Here's why: I found out that every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day!" She doesn't say if this is a low-flow shower head or not.

Aren't celebrities cute? This is a woman who is reported to have spent $1 million for a wedding. Her house went up for sale after that four year marriage died. The house that was purchased for $13.5 million two years prior went on the market with a lustrous asking price of $28 million. That includes the pool and the spa.

Ms Aniston is going "green" from her 10,000 square foot house. There is a screening room containing Brazilian mahogany floors and an art studio. Not to mention an outdoor fireplace and an indoor glass-walled pub.

It's hard to figure out how many two-minute showers it would take to fill a full sized swimming pool. Or even a hot tub. That's probably included in the spa. A fairly nice pool might be 60 feet by 30 feet with a sloping bottom. Such a pool contains 87,750 gallons of water – or enough to shower for 35,100 minutes with a low flow shower head since they put out about 2.5 gallons per minute. Ms Aniston could stand in her shower without ever leaving for 585 hours straight before she used as much water as in her pool. And that's without thinking about evaporation from the pool.

Instead of having a pool in the backyard, one could take 11,700 three-minute showers. That's more than 32 years worth of daily showers. The hot tub probably holds less than 1,000 gallons and isn't enough to worry one's pretty little head over. That would just be more than four month's worth of showers anyway.

Celebrities find a cause and then say really stupid things and get quoted in the press like they are some sort of Einstein. Regular people do the same thing. But we don't get quoted in the press and people tell us we are stupid when say incredibly stupid things.

I'm not sure how saving water when you live next to an ocean helps people living in a desert area. It's not like water is a non-renewable resource. Keeping all the water clean would be a great idea. Figuring out how to haul one of the mammoth size-of-a-small-country icebergs that calf off the Antarctica ice shelf to places that could use some fresh water would be wonderful.

Telling me you take a three-minute shower to conserve resources when you have a pool in the back of your 10,000 square foot mansion is – well, it isn't all that green.