May 2011
I can't believe one third of the year has gone. Where?
It seems to me that I just had a cup of tea, I looked around, and there it was, gone, a whole third of a year, vanished never to be seen again.
It's all to do with something we have absolutely no control over...Time!!!
Time is a cruel, vicious mistress who holds us in her hands and ultimately squeezes the life out of us.
In gentler days there were only seasons: spring, summer autumn and winter. Then slowly all that changed. How?
Well, according to my old mate, Unfortunate O'Day, we were doing fine until Einstein invented time. Einstein invented the space time continum.
Unfortunate never explained it to me. I must get in touch with Gerard Keyser, he'll know. What was Einstein thinking about when he invented time?
Why couldn't he have been satisfied with inventing E=MC2.
And look at all the trouble that caused...the atom bomb, nuclear fission.
The Japanese must love Einstein.
Why couldn't he have invented something we could all use, like cheap electricity or a television set that didn't get louder when the commercials come on.
When you think of the trouble and angst that time has caused us humans, it's enough to make you want to blow up Big Ben, turn Rolex into a bicycle shop and put the atomic clock back where it belongs...up Einstein's nose.
The only clock for which I have any respect is the one in the middle of the road in Mittagong. It happily keeps it's own time regardless.
That's what I love about Kangaroo Valley. Kangaroo Valley time is precious and we protect it from the outside world even if we do miss the bus and the odd appointment.
The Leader of the Opposition does not share my disregard for time. The row we had at the end of summer time.
Well, she had the row and I just listened.
The question was: at the end of summertime do we put the clock back or put the clock forward. This year I circumvented any row.
I put the clock in the garage.
Time is a tyrant. Think of the number of people who have lost their jobs because they were late for work.
Think of that poor lady on the phone, day in day out: "At the third stroke it will be 11:47 and 12 seconds. The poor darling, by the sound of her, she never gets a day off.
My mate, Unfortunate O'day is tortured by time. He spent an evening watching a carton of yoghurt to see what would happen when it reached it's use by date. He had the yoghurt sitting on the table As the clock slowly moved toward the midnight hour, his nerves were screaming. His brain was telling him to cancel the experiment. But he was determined to see it through. He was doing well until five minutes to midnight, when he took the yoghurt and threw it out the window.
I'm glad I'm no slave to time.
Oh dear, look at the time. I've got to run out and get a mother's day present for the Leader of the Opposition.
I know, she's not my mother, but she treats me like a child.
I wish all you mothers a wonderful and peaceful day. I've just realised every mother's day is bound by time.
Did you know that mother's day comes nine months after father's day?
Sean Kramer