Paradigm shift funk

I'm sort of in the calm before the storm as I'm down to 45 days before departure and in limbo on a few things:

• waiting for some paperwork to go through
• sprucing up the house before putting it on the market
• getting all of the cat import documents filed
• etc, etc, etc

I was at a coffee shop once (the American kind where there is no pot smoking going on) and a band of three teenagers took to the stage. The lead singer started with, "Our name is Paradigm Shift Funk and we are a funky, funky band." He played lead guitar quite well, had a mediocre bassist and a terrible drummer. I was impressed that they opened with a Steely Dan song, forget which, but impressive for someone that age to be into Steely. But, I guess if you are a funky, funky band, that might not be so odd.

Anyhow, paradigms... It's amazing to me how our daily thoughts are confined by certain perceptions and visions of the future. You know how, at the end of a cold harsh winter in the northeast, you just can't wrap your head around the notion that in July it will be 90 degrees? Just a year ago, I would have never thought that we would be moving to Taiwan. Never thought we'd be living in another home. Never thought we'd be speaking a foreign language. It all seemed so alien at that time. Now, it's the opposite:, can't envision sitting down to watch football on Sunday, driving a pickup truck, ice skating on a pond. It's all practically been erased, like when looking at the light in Men In Black. Gone.

I was working on mulching some of the planting beds the other day and uncovered, for the first time, an engraved stone that the previous owners had laid in the ground. It said, "The Mills, est. 1993". They got divorced in 2004, forcing the sale of the house to us. I wonder how soon before 2004 they realized how different their lives were about to come.

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