Deep in non-thought

I had an e-mail from Becca today. She said I needed to stop multi-tasking my vacation and try doing nothing at all. The prospect of sitting in a chair doing nothing – no reading, no mental list-making, no planning of any sort - for the prescribed three hours feels at once luxurious and utterly impossible. Still, I’ll try anything so I drugged Celia with www.PlayhouseDisney.com. I elected to enforce mandatory nothingness by spending my 1 hour (3 is out of the question) of uninterrupted non-thought floating around the pool on a blow-up lounge thingy staring into the sky.

There was no one else around and I have to credit Becca, the exercise soon had my brain traipsing off in the oddest places. For a while I closed my eyes to just listen. I could hear the waterfall in the pool coming from what seemed like all directions as the sound ricocheted off the stone walls. I could faintly hear the sound of the Higglytown heroes song coming from my laptop. The distant sound of cars moving through town and an occasional dog bark carried on the late afternoon breeze. Birds, too numerous to name, chirped, called and cackled - even the roosters chimed in. Then I heard a much louder, raspy screech from above. I opened my eyes to see three vultures circling no more than 30 feet above me - so close I could see their red shriveled heads! I abandoned ship in a panic and took shelter under the waterfall. The birds circled two more times and then headed north. Apparently, non-thought looks a lot like dead to a Mexican vulture.