Methusalem

The good news is: several people have inquired when the next GABROEN blog will be posted, meaning that there are people who not only read, but who are actually looking forward to these linguistic concoctions. The bad news is: it has been a challenge to find time to concoct, at least linguistically. GABROEN did spend time concocting cocktails, a newly found hobby as well as an outlet for a chemist who's last lab experiment was over a decade ago. Last weekend was the most intriguing mixology experiment yet, boiling resin from the Boswellia tree into an intense syrup, and mixing that with aromatic bitters, citrus juices and gin into something reminiscent of walking into a Roman Catholic church service.

Besides that mass in a glass, not much else came to fruition last weekend. In the past, only the better half of GABROEN used to devour magazines as a pleasant leisure pastime, but lately the men's periodicals have been equally piling up around our house. So last weekend was devoted to catching up on some of those piles, in front of the fireplace. I believe I have read through at least a dozen issues, some current but some more than a year old. The good news is that it feels pretty good to be all Esquired, Detailed, Dwelled, Afarred and Mentally Flossed, and equally good to carry a full bag out of the house and into the paper recycling bins. The bad news is that it made just a small dent in the piles, smaller than the dent in my self awareness that weekends are really too short and leisure time is too valuable to be spent reading articles about the 2012 Summer Olympics after the 2014 Winter Games have concluded.

A friend recently mentioned that as a 22-year old in her first job, she was tasked to create a bucket list of 100 items she wanted to do/see/accomplish in her lifetime. A pretty interesting assignment to get paid for, but also food for thought in between ploughing through the magazines. Regardless, I'm sure there's merit well beyond pay, as such a list provides perspective on how to spend, and prioritize one's time. Mixing in the final ingredient for this concoction, one magazine article I read over the weekend was about a 4800 year old bristlecone pine in California called Methusalem, possibly the oldest living organism on our planet. Not sure if the picture that came with the article was of that very pine tree (see below), because the 'living' part is somewhat questionable.


But the tree got me thinking about the relativity of a lifetime, the relativity of how we experience time, and life time experiences. While I am writing this I am actually in flight to Athens, and it's mentally flossing and humbling to realize that this Methusalem is twice as old as the famous Parthenon on the Acropolis.

The bad news is: all this magazine reading and pondering about time management has kept me from blogging the next GABROEN post. The good news is that writing a few lines about magazine reading and time management pondering just turned into a blog post nonetheless. More to follow, hopefully at a higher pace than in the past few months, because I sure ain't Methusalem.