YES!!! There is a God!! or something

The latest adventure which took in Vegas, of all places (you can have a great time there without gambling a dime if you know where to go) and a point north was as surreal and amazing as I could stand. These are most definitely the good old days.

My nephews figured in, briefly, to this excursion, and they seemed as happy and together as I've seen them. N2 was especially at his best ever, think. That is saying a lot because in the past I somewhat envied the balance and solidity that both seemed to possess in a quantity I'm not sure I'd ever achieved. And they were and are merely young punk, runny nosed kids, relatively speaking.

At the age of N1, I was recovering from two or three car wrecks in fewer month's time, found myself with no roof of my own begging a couch at the home for wayward musicians, and my mode of transport was my two tired feet. To see them building good relationships with nice women, in which mutual respect seems apparent, as well as doing OK on the financial front is a joy to me. One of us in my family per couple of generations is plenty enough to travel the sort of path I stumbled down.

I hope when they reach my age that they feel as content and happy as I do today. The future is uncertain, of course. Otherwise it wouldn't really be the future. Right now is quite an extraordinary thing. I just feel fortunate and I don't feel the need to place conditions on that feeling.

If I could explain the part of this adventure which entailed the northern-most exposure to myself, I might put it down here. All I know will be one of those landmarks by which I measure time and file memories. Some things defy explanation. It may be that certain experiences are of a nature which touch a part of the spirit too far inside to be verbalized or quantified. Efforts to do so just screw it up.

I will say that everyone from the two Ns to new people I met struck me as delightfully extraordinary, and my life was awash with one pleasant surprise after another. It is quite a gift when I come out the other side feeling like being me is OK, and I needn't lament the fact that I couldn't change the essence of that even if I tired.

That lament does sometimes haunt me. Not that I want to be what I'm not, just that I sometimes wonder if that dooms me to a destiny which precludes aspects that I'd rather it include. Regardless of what is down the road, I believe now that I am not doomed to that unless I chose to be.

On a musical note, I saw my favorite jazz harp player do a good show which included some spontaneous jamming. He pulled another harmonica wizard on stage and they blended like harp payers never do. usually when two or more harp players jam it is worse than listening to ice cream truck music. That is actually some version of affected CALLIOPE music.

Calliope was my new word for the weekend. I had no idea what it was but some smartass threw it out in a sentence as if any fool would know. Not to wane too far into the negative, but calliope music sucks. Apparently it was originally produced with steam passing through variously pitch train whistles. If that won't scare the cows off the track, nothing will.

So, what did I learn this trip?
That the ice cream truck music I despise is canned calliope music, that the Brick is a pretty cool tavern, that I have a good shot of thriving among the living, that I need supervision to properly tie my shoes or tape tin foil around a T shirt, and that there is sometimes blissful mercy on me from the powers that be.