It occurs to me that over the years I have often been told that I am funny. I have long suspected that this was a reference to funny - peculiar, rather than funny - haha but, assuming that the latter was being implied, I would like to take a moment to clarify the reality of this indictment. It seems appropriate as this is St. Patricks day to discuss the topic of blarney. Blarney has for many years been the basis for much of our humor. I am, frankly, blarney-less. Blarney suggests a tall tale, something made up. I am incapable of fiction.
My friends I assure you, I am not funny. I have a saggy bum, turkey wings under my arms (in spite of having developed some lovely bicep muscles , the wings remain), I have arthritis in half my joints and my face has melted to the point that I am beginning to have the jowls of a Basset Hound. These things are not funny. They are a travesty .
So I am here to make this clarification. I am not funny, but life is freaking hilarious! If you can not see the humor that abounds all around us, then you should seek medical attention immediately because either your humorous or your funny bone are malfunctioning (do you see??? Bad puns are just not funny and yet there I go using them). No, I am not funny, but here is the thing. Every moment of every day I look around me and see things that are just so very amusing. I find politicians particularly amusing. I find it funny that they take themselves so very seriously and have such a withering grasp of hypocracy and yet maintain such astonishing self-righteousness. On a less global scale, I find it deeply amusing when I have one of those fraught ridden days where not one thing or two things are going to go wrong, but absolutely everything. That day when, after you have lost your keys, found them in the refrigerator, then lost your purse which you set down while you were looking for the keys, then answered the phone only to discover that your favorite aunt has passed away, then found your purse only to discover that your wallet isn't in it (you don't discover this until you are in line at the grocery store with 10 people behind you, after the cashier has rung everything up)....deep breath...that you stop; stand there staring at the ceiling with your hands pointed upward in a gesture of supplication and say, really Lord? You think this is funny? Cuz I'm just not that amused. But then, a tiny part of your brain starts to giggle and you see the twisted humor amongst that catastrophe that is your life.
It is this brand of humor that keeps us going. That entertains us when life isn't the adventure that we might have dreamed of. I have had the adventures. The world travel. The mishaps. The triumphs. The all out disasters (no really, actual bonifide disasters. Natural ones on several occasions). And I cherish every moment of these things. I love that I used to train dolphins. I love that I have been a singer and a pianist and that I have traveled and that a very large volcano erupted in my back yard. But what I love and cherish most is that I can find fun and humor and adventure in each simple day. My daughter has this gift. She and her two beautiful daughters find fun and adventure in everything they do. My other kids also have this gift. They find humor all around them. WE aren't where the humor comes from. Life is.
I have been told that I have led an adventurous life. So has everyone. It is all about seeing the adventure in everything we do and most importantly finding the humor in everything around us, because this is what keeps us sane. It isn't until we lose our sense of humor that we are in danger of losing our perspective.
So to all of my sweet friends who think I'm funny, thank you for the compliment because I think humor is a spectacular thing. But it isn't me. It's all of those people and places and situations in my life who bring humor to me, so on this day of blarney, I leave you with a heartfelt and blarney-less thank you.
............I just have to add at this point that as I finished writing this heartfelt and emotionally charged Ode to Humor, I looked up from my laptop only to discover that quite literally, in front of my face, my dog, with the stealth of a covert, black ops mission has managed to quietly shred at least 10 napkins into a pile of white fluff which has caused the room that I vaccummed less than have an hour ago, to resemble a recently shaken snow globe. All this was strategically accomplished by shredding the napkins hidden behind the 13 inch square that is my laptop screen so that I wouldn't see. Now, I don't care who you are. That's just funny.
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