Duck Butts

Duck Butts.  They make me laugh.  I just can't help myself.  They provide sheer joy.  Their little webbed feet dancing to keep them underwater - delightful.  They then bob back up, reminiscent of that bobbing water toy from the 70s, adding an odd sense of nostalgia for me.  It's a two-fer.

hee hee hee

Sometimes they do it in duos and trios and that's even funnier.  They are like little feathered synchronized swimmers. 

They could give the Russians a run for their money in snchronicity.

It's the simple pleasures in life.  Duck butts make me happy.  They make me laugh.

True laughter, when it hits, is like a modern-day miracle.  I once laughed so hard in a film that I was "shushed" by the patron in front of me.  He was about 4 - the film was Horton Hears a Who.  The scene was with Vlad the Vulture who threatened to devour his prey...  "First I will devour it and then [coughs] regurgitate it and devour it again - so, two times devoured."  I almost wet my pants giving in to the true laugh, hence the vehement "Shush!!!" by the 4 year old.   It was that deep and chortley laugh - the kind of laugh that we all used to have when we were little - the contagious kind. Giving into that laugh is akin to rebirth for me. 

I stop and smell the roses too.  Truly.  There's no reason I would make that shit up.   I will actually back up and smell a rose, if I catch it out of the corner of my eye.  I gaze with awe at monarch butterflies - especially now before they make their trek to Mexico.  There are hundreds of them out on the beach - it's like walking through a fairy tale illustration.  I ask strangers if I can pet their dogs.  I carpe the diem as much as I can.  I've basically become my mother, which is a good thing.  She's like freaking PollyAnna - it's awesome to see her in action. 

I have not always been this way.  My mom was the ultimate optimist, my dad the ultimate pessimist.  It could have gone either way for me, but I took after my father.  Then, in my 20s, I suffered from depression.   The big, dark, seething pit of vipers in a bottomless pit in your stomach kind of depression.  I clawed my way out and basically had to rethink the way I looked at the world.  I had a choice.  I could either a) Be afraid that every day I would get hit by a bus and wallow in existential angst or b) I could live my life.  I chose b).   It wasn't easy.  Wallowing in existential angst takes way less effort.  I basically had to re-wire my brain.  It was like that episode of Seinfeld where George did the opposite of what his instincts told him.   I forced myself to focus on the positive and after a while, it became habit.  And now, I smell the roses.  I laugh at duck butts.  I find humour in a bad situation. 'Cause if you can't laugh at all the bullshit?  You're wasting an opportunity.  How often do you get the chance to almost pee your pants nowadays?  (Unless you've had a couple of babies squeezed out through your vagina and that happens every time you sneeze or cough.)