I am guilty of considering the shifting of the Earth's crust, that force that ripped Africa from South America and slipped an ocean in between, as something that happened long ago. But of course it is not; the altering of geography is an on-going process, a remarkably slow moving kaleidoscope of cause and effect, with only infrequent ripping involved.

And while it is interesting to know that Boston was once where the Sahara is today, it is far more wondrous to contemplate that, given patience, it will return. Maybe not with the Big Dig fully functional, or with J. D. Drew playing right field, but under the circumstances, wouldn't it be wise to begin to develop a better understanding of that part of the world?

Santina and I have been trying to downsize for a couple of years. Our timing's bad. With just the 2 of us, we'd like to move into a smaller space. No big deal, I mean it's nothing like Kaiser Wilhelm contemplating Lichtenstein. But with the economy being what it is, we're thinking smaller all the time. We've stepped back from 3 bedrooms/2 baths, to maybe one door and a perch.

A trade-off of sump pump and paint brush for the occasional tete-a-tete with English sparrows works for me, but the requisite change in diet is off-putting; and of course the growing restrictions on air travel will ultimately nix this deal too.

On Sunday a small contingent of a tiny Kansas-based hate group, calling themselves the Westboro Baptist Church, launched a name calling assault right here in Concord.

It is NH's new gay marriage law and WBC's anti-gay crusade that brought them here, but they are not limited to anti-gay; they are anti nearly everything, including anti-everybody-else's-religion; and anti-military membership (since joining the military is an act of supporting the government of a country in moral collapse). And so, you can throw in anti-US as well.

It is only natural to shake a finger at their hate mongering, to question the use of the word "Church" in their title, and to wonder how Baptists in general view this group -- but one has to marvel at the power of heredity (or perhaps environment) when members of the paltry congregation include not only the founder's middle-age daughter (Margie Phelps), but also his grandson (Ben Phelps). What chance do you suppose these poor souls ever had? How many flushes of a badly clogged toilet are required before really clear water returns?

So while I hold no sympathy for the rest of this errant congregation, I'm cutting Margie and Ben some slack. These two have plenty of reasons to be flailing against the world.

We each leave our mark -- whether we mean to or not. There is no anonymous life.

While Gandhi and Mother Teresa left theirs through years of service, John Hancock, in 3 seconds of scrolly handwriting, said all he ever needed to. Babe Ruth only pointed. A cow's skull means Georgia O'Keeffe. But be careful about the mark you leave; you could end up like the Emperor Nero, bound for all eternity to share a blackened pasture with Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

If you decide to re-do your kitchen (like Santina and I did), and if you go the whole bit with the dishwasher made invisible (like Santina and I did), and if you then reach blindly for the silverware drawer, which pulls out, but inadvertently grab the dishwasher handle, which pulls down, your whole world will turn instantly topsy turvy and for a split second you will not even be certain of your gender.

Seems like we used to get a lot more Christmas cards than we do now. I trust this says more about the changing times than it does about us. Still, they're nice to receive. Diana touches base from Switzerland, Susan thanks Santina for the holiday cookies, LR speaks from the soul. And it's good to hear from Michelle and Barack, catch up with them, hear what they've been up to.

When I was in high school and just starting to shave, Bobby Poole enlightened me as to the nature of whiskers. They don't grow at a constant rate he told me, but rather they have two phases of rapid growth, the first phase beginning right after they've been cut, and then a second phase just before they're cut again.

(who was I to question a friend?)

And I confess that I have often wondered during all these intervening years just how many really stupid life decisions I might have avoided had I been only half as smart as Bobby Poole's whiskers.