After the Christmas day attempt by a terrorist to blow up an airplane coming into Detroit with a chemical bomb, TSA has announced that potential new rules will be coming out governing passenger activity.
Now, in addition to the nuisance of having to take off our shoes and be as devoid of metal as an applicant undergoing initiation to a fraternal lodge, they’re threatening to disallow all carry-on luggage.
They’re also threatening to make passengers stay in their seat the final hour of the flight with no blanket, no pillow, and nothing on their laps.
Think about that. An hour. Sitting there. No book, no laptop, no iPod, just staring straight ahead.
Most adults can tolerate that. We tend to be sleep-deprived enough that I suspect many will simply nod off.
Let’s not talk about what’s going to happen with the 6 year old who’s got nothing to do other than annoy his little sister for that last hour. Is this the happy start of a vacation or a trip to grandmas, much less the way to let a businessperson get in their happy place before making a major presentation?
The restriction that keeps you strapped into your seat for the last hour of a flight is of special concern, I suspect, to pregnant women and men over 40 who have bladders the size of a porcelain teacup. An hour – especially immobile and sitting after you’ve drank every single drop of that $7.25 soda you bought in the airport – is a long, long time to go without going.
It’s inappropriate to make a grown adult choose between peeing himself and being tackled by an undercover air marshal, and that’s about the choice that we’ll have to make.
My conspiracy theorist says this is another way to squeeze revenue out of the passenger.
Think about it. If you’re flying somewhere to a business meeting, wearing your suit and carrying no luggage besides your briefcase (containing the laptop you can't take out and use), the airline is only making the price of a ticket off of you.
Now, lest you suffer the indignity of smelling like a urinal at Yankee Stadium on game day, you will have to pack a bag with your suit while packing your "airplane clothes" in a plastic bag to take home and cleaned, like they used to do with cloth diapers. I suspect most of those clothes would simply be dropped into the trash can in the men's room.
What does the airline get out of this? $25.00 revenue for the checked bag you didn't have to tote along before. After all, that extra suit and clean undies are going to have to go somewhere.
The airline revenue will be partially offset by the cost of cleaning the upholstery, although I suspect that they’ll be pretty lax about that.
Pregnant women will likely get a buy if they have an accident. After all, they are excused some loss of control of bodily functions in their gentle condition. Middle aged men just get dirty looks.
The other thing that I predict is an increase in general nastiness from passengers.
Americans as a rule are notoriously bad at waiting. People have changed grocery stores because there have been more than 3 people in line ahead of them. Sitting with nothing to do, especially if you’re cold because the blankie has been taken away, is not going to promote good humor among the passengers.
So we wait and see. At the Charlotte airport on Tuesday afternoon there was no apparent appreciable change in screening procedures. My bag, carrying enough electrical cords and chargers to rewire and power the Space Shuttle went through without a hitch.
Even those little chemical handwarmer things that were in our Christmas stockings made it through without question. You know what I'm talking about - the ones with the gel inside that gets hot for 12 hours because of the chemical reaction that happens when you snap the little ampule inside of them.
Wow. I feel safer already.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
In Praise of Plungers
Thursday night is one of the biggest party nights of the year – New Year’s Eve. People everywhere will be inviting lots of friends and more than a few total strangers into their homes to celebrate with them. There’ll be lots of food and drink, music and everything else that goes with having a crowd of folks over.
From a practical standpoint, that also means that more than a few plumbing systems will have a stress added to them that’s not normally encountered. After all, you take 20 people, put them in a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom, and there’s going to be a lot of in-and-out in that part of the house.
Which leads to the eternal question – why do people hide the plunger?
It’s not like we don’t all have at least one in our home. They’re useful – even essential items – that stand as silent sentries until they’re crucial, at which time they leap into action.
You can't have an event that requires a plunger and think, “Oh, I need to get one of those next time I go to the hardware store.” If you need it, you pretty well need it NOW, or there’s the potential for some dire consequences.
The funny thing that goes with this is human nature. Some people who are in the bathroom when the toilet gets clogged go through different variations of the same ritual. It’s a lot like the five stages of grief.
First, there’s Denial. As the water begins to approach the rim of the toilet, the thought, “Nah, it can’t overflow. You can’t do this. I won’t let you. I refuse to believe this is happening to me.”
As the water creeps closer to the top, there's Anger. "Why don't these people manage their plumbing system correctly? It's terribly rude to let it get clogged with all these guests. I could get water all over my fancy goin' out clothes, not to mention these Hush Puppies aren't water-tight!"
Anger usually flashes through quickly, though, and is replaced by Bargaining. A toilet bowl fills at a remarkable pace when it looks like it'll overflow.
“Please don't overflow. Not with me in here. Let me get out and you can do whatever you want, as long as one other person comes in and leaves before you flood. Just go back down and I'll leave. I promise not to come back in here again tonight. Just let someone else come in before you flow over.”
This phase, of course, is worse for women because their clothes are frequently not designed either for running away or kneeling down to deal with the problem. Guys admittedly have it easier since, if they are quick thinking, they can reach down and turn off the water valve.
Depression is the fourth stage. "Oh, no. This is not the impression I wanted to make. Everyone will think I caused this, and it was SO not my fault. I'll die if this flows out the door and everyone is watching."
Finally is Acceptance. In some cases, this is accompanied by shouts for help, maybe on the theory that it will spread the blame to some extent. People might think that the person yelling simply happened upon the situation and is a hero for catching it before the tsunami makes it to the bar.
Unlike a terminal illness, these phases can happen instantaneously, depending on the degree of blockage and the water flow coming in. During acceptance, there is recognition that the toilet is going to flow over, and whomever is occupying the toilet at that moment is going to be the center of some very unwanted attention. It's going to happen no matter what.
She may have spent hours at the hairdresser and ages putting on her makeup so that it coordinates perfectly with the outfit. Nonetheless, a woman in this position will be remembered as, “the girl who made the toilet overflow.”
Not exactly the tag one would want to carry away from an otherwise nice evening.
Unlike many other conditions, though, remission can occur. If the plunger is available and can be used, it’s sometimes possible to stop the disaster and no one be the wiser (although in my opinion a polite guest does whisper in the host / hostess’ ear that there’s a problem, like they would if toilet paper were running low).
So let's all take a moment before our guests arrive, and make sure that the plunger is there in sight, ready for action.
You don't want this to happen at your party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xM5uladu6c
(Turn DOWN your volume, these ladies scream a lot)
From a practical standpoint, that also means that more than a few plumbing systems will have a stress added to them that’s not normally encountered. After all, you take 20 people, put them in a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom, and there’s going to be a lot of in-and-out in that part of the house.
Which leads to the eternal question – why do people hide the plunger?
It’s not like we don’t all have at least one in our home. They’re useful – even essential items – that stand as silent sentries until they’re crucial, at which time they leap into action.
You can't have an event that requires a plunger and think, “Oh, I need to get one of those next time I go to the hardware store.” If you need it, you pretty well need it NOW, or there’s the potential for some dire consequences.
The funny thing that goes with this is human nature. Some people who are in the bathroom when the toilet gets clogged go through different variations of the same ritual. It’s a lot like the five stages of grief.
First, there’s Denial. As the water begins to approach the rim of the toilet, the thought, “Nah, it can’t overflow. You can’t do this. I won’t let you. I refuse to believe this is happening to me.”
As the water creeps closer to the top, there's Anger. "Why don't these people manage their plumbing system correctly? It's terribly rude to let it get clogged with all these guests. I could get water all over my fancy goin' out clothes, not to mention these Hush Puppies aren't water-tight!"
Anger usually flashes through quickly, though, and is replaced by Bargaining. A toilet bowl fills at a remarkable pace when it looks like it'll overflow.
“Please don't overflow. Not with me in here. Let me get out and you can do whatever you want, as long as one other person comes in and leaves before you flood. Just go back down and I'll leave. I promise not to come back in here again tonight. Just let someone else come in before you flow over.”
This phase, of course, is worse for women because their clothes are frequently not designed either for running away or kneeling down to deal with the problem. Guys admittedly have it easier since, if they are quick thinking, they can reach down and turn off the water valve.
Depression is the fourth stage. "Oh, no. This is not the impression I wanted to make. Everyone will think I caused this, and it was SO not my fault. I'll die if this flows out the door and everyone is watching."
Finally is Acceptance. In some cases, this is accompanied by shouts for help, maybe on the theory that it will spread the blame to some extent. People might think that the person yelling simply happened upon the situation and is a hero for catching it before the tsunami makes it to the bar.
Unlike a terminal illness, these phases can happen instantaneously, depending on the degree of blockage and the water flow coming in. During acceptance, there is recognition that the toilet is going to flow over, and whomever is occupying the toilet at that moment is going to be the center of some very unwanted attention. It's going to happen no matter what.
She may have spent hours at the hairdresser and ages putting on her makeup so that it coordinates perfectly with the outfit. Nonetheless, a woman in this position will be remembered as, “the girl who made the toilet overflow.”
Not exactly the tag one would want to carry away from an otherwise nice evening.
Unlike many other conditions, though, remission can occur. If the plunger is available and can be used, it’s sometimes possible to stop the disaster and no one be the wiser (although in my opinion a polite guest does whisper in the host / hostess’ ear that there’s a problem, like they would if toilet paper were running low).
So let's all take a moment before our guests arrive, and make sure that the plunger is there in sight, ready for action.
You don't want this to happen at your party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xM5uladu6c
(Turn DOWN your volume, these ladies scream a lot)
Lena Belle's last Hurrah
It’s been a busy week. Aside from the usual Christmas hype and activities, we got a call early on Monday morning that the last grandparent remaining to either of us had passed away.
At 93, it’s hard to say it was unexpected, but given that she’d been up and mobile in her wheelchair, interacting with lots of people earlier that day it was a bit of a surprise. She was fine when the nursing home checked on her at 11, and she was gone when they made rounds at midnight.
I only knew Lena Belle Henson for about 10 years. During that time, though, she became something of a surrogate for my own grandmothers. Even when her dementia was progressing and she had no short term memory, she always seemed glad to see me when I walked in the door.
Her funeral was on December 23, which makes it a little hard to stay in the holiday spirit. It hit me when I was bundling the packages up to go to that side of the family on Christmas day. The candy we’d bought for her was under the tree waiting to go to her. This was also the first time that I hadn't bought my own Grandma her favorite candy for Christmas.
Funny how the most insignificant things can choke you up.
It was my first North Carolina funeral as well. I’d been to a few others, mostly professional obligations where an appearance was all that was required. Attendance at this one started for me with lunch (she called it "dinner") at Belle’s house.
Amazingly enough, the living room was open. I’d only been in there once before in all the time I’d known her, and that was to bring something out. Several of her great-grandkids commented that they’d never been in there, either, so I didn’t feel excluded at all.
At first appearance, it was much like any other living room of a little old lady. She didn’t “live” there, it was reserved for formal occasions. The one most people thought of next prior was her husband, Lemuel’s funeral in the early 1980’s.
There’s a lot of wear left in that carpet.
The room was full of her treasures, though. Aside from the myriad of family pictures, there were dozens of knick-nacks, salt and pepper shakers, and assorted stuff that we tend to collect.
At first, it didn’t look to have any significant value, but then, as different people were cycling through the living room eating the "dinner" that the church ladies provided, someone would pick up something and relate the story about it – an ash tray from a child’s first visit to Washington, DC, brought back to grandma. A music box that was Belle’s own mothers, that a child listened to when lying down for a nap.
Some of the things were truly hideous, the obvious choice of small children with limited resources looking for just the “right” thing for mom or grandma. They were received as treasures fit for a queen, though, and proudly displayed as such.
If you looked at the collection, though, it was obvious that Belle was loved. The choices had a story, and I’m sure that she could have told us about each one of them. Unfortunately, many of those stories are lost, or they will be after this generation.
Lena Belle has now gone to a place where none of us has ever gone, and no first-hand reports exist of what’s waiting. But if being a loved mother, grandmother and surrogate grandmother is any indication, she’s in a good place.
At 93, it’s hard to say it was unexpected, but given that she’d been up and mobile in her wheelchair, interacting with lots of people earlier that day it was a bit of a surprise. She was fine when the nursing home checked on her at 11, and she was gone when they made rounds at midnight.
I only knew Lena Belle Henson for about 10 years. During that time, though, she became something of a surrogate for my own grandmothers. Even when her dementia was progressing and she had no short term memory, she always seemed glad to see me when I walked in the door.
Her funeral was on December 23, which makes it a little hard to stay in the holiday spirit. It hit me when I was bundling the packages up to go to that side of the family on Christmas day. The candy we’d bought for her was under the tree waiting to go to her. This was also the first time that I hadn't bought my own Grandma her favorite candy for Christmas.
Funny how the most insignificant things can choke you up.
It was my first North Carolina funeral as well. I’d been to a few others, mostly professional obligations where an appearance was all that was required. Attendance at this one started for me with lunch (she called it "dinner") at Belle’s house.
Amazingly enough, the living room was open. I’d only been in there once before in all the time I’d known her, and that was to bring something out. Several of her great-grandkids commented that they’d never been in there, either, so I didn’t feel excluded at all.
At first appearance, it was much like any other living room of a little old lady. She didn’t “live” there, it was reserved for formal occasions. The one most people thought of next prior was her husband, Lemuel’s funeral in the early 1980’s.
There’s a lot of wear left in that carpet.
The room was full of her treasures, though. Aside from the myriad of family pictures, there were dozens of knick-nacks, salt and pepper shakers, and assorted stuff that we tend to collect.
At first, it didn’t look to have any significant value, but then, as different people were cycling through the living room eating the "dinner" that the church ladies provided, someone would pick up something and relate the story about it – an ash tray from a child’s first visit to Washington, DC, brought back to grandma. A music box that was Belle’s own mothers, that a child listened to when lying down for a nap.
Some of the things were truly hideous, the obvious choice of small children with limited resources looking for just the “right” thing for mom or grandma. They were received as treasures fit for a queen, though, and proudly displayed as such.
If you looked at the collection, though, it was obvious that Belle was loved. The choices had a story, and I’m sure that she could have told us about each one of them. Unfortunately, many of those stories are lost, or they will be after this generation.
Lena Belle has now gone to a place where none of us has ever gone, and no first-hand reports exist of what’s waiting. But if being a loved mother, grandmother and surrogate grandmother is any indication, she’s in a good place.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
An Early Christmas
Yesterday was an exhausting day all the way around. It actually started on Friday, with the threat of winter weather that sent everyone into a tizzie. The 6 inches of snow we ended up with didn’t match the 12 to 18 they were threatening, but it was definitely enough to catch the attention of these southern folks. It was the last day of school for the winter holiday for most kids, and it ended earlier than expected on most accounts in western North Carolina.
We had events planned, though, that were not mindful of the weather and could not be postponed. When our friend went back to Colombia in early November, we decided this was the perfect time to update and clean the apartment. It hadn’t been painted in almost 10 years through a variety of tenants and needed a bit of sprucing up. Some of the furniture simply didn’t work very well, there was too much of it, and it just needed to be freshened up.
We started by emptying out the apartment one Saturday a few weeks ago, arranging to get the floors sanded and refinished (they were overlooked during the first renovation), lining up painters and eventually getting a roofer to tackle the leak that’s been plaguing us for months.
We were supposed to have until January 6 to get all this done, but our friend’s visit back to Colombia didn’t go exactly as planned and he had us change his ticket to bring him home early – on December 19, to be exact.
Two weeks is a long time in remodeling talk. Especially if the deadline moves backwards by that amount. We were going along pretty well, except the painters couldn’t get back down the mountain on Friday in time to finish. No fault of theirs, the normally 45 minute trip from Blowing Rock took them over 6 hours. A person can only do what they can do.
Saturday was also complicated by the fact that our youngest son was scheduled to have his knee operated on at 6:30 on Saturday morning. He blew it out during the second Junior High JV football game this season.
So we were loaded up in the snow at 5 in the morning, travelling to the kid’s house to pick him up along with his mom and grandmother, and then head off to the hospital.
The short version of that story is that things went great. Damage wasn’t as bad as originally anticipated, so he’ll have a 4 week recovery instead of a 7 month one. Football appears to be on for next season, although it’ll be wearing a brace to prevent similar twisting in the futurre.
While he was in surgery, the painters called and said they couldn’t get out of their neighborhood, but if I’d bring the 4 wheel drive jeep (kept for just such an occasion), they’d come and work toward finishing up. Since I was expendable, I ventured out on the roads.
Which, incidentally, weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been since it always had hovered right at freezing and there wasn’t a lot of ice prior to the snow. By midday, most of the roads were cleared.
We were out of the hospital with one very happy young man (at that time mostly due to the anesthesia, since he wouldn’t remember most of what he’d been told) and fielding telephone calls as our friend journeyed back from Colombia.
From our perspective, things went without a hitch. Customs wasn’t a problem, his paperwork was blissfully correct and his flight was one of the few that wasn’t delayed or cancelled. He landed within 10 minutes of the scheduled time and by 7:30 we’d collected him at the Charlotte airport and were on our way home, hearing about his adventures in Colombia.
All families are dysfunctional. Some just do it with an accent. We’re all alike, though.
I might not have been quite so excited about arriving home to find that my house had been emptied, all my stuff moved around and some of my furniture replaced. He is, however, a very forgiving fellow and was thrilled with the upgrades, even though it meant he was in our guest room for the night and his house was in disarray. His exhaustion (since he’d been up since before 4 in the morning) turned to excitement as he started deciding how best to add to the renovations.
Overall, it was a great day. The snow is mostly gone and no more is forecast until Christmas Eve.
It was one of the best early Christmas presents we could have received.
We had events planned, though, that were not mindful of the weather and could not be postponed. When our friend went back to Colombia in early November, we decided this was the perfect time to update and clean the apartment. It hadn’t been painted in almost 10 years through a variety of tenants and needed a bit of sprucing up. Some of the furniture simply didn’t work very well, there was too much of it, and it just needed to be freshened up.
We started by emptying out the apartment one Saturday a few weeks ago, arranging to get the floors sanded and refinished (they were overlooked during the first renovation), lining up painters and eventually getting a roofer to tackle the leak that’s been plaguing us for months.
We were supposed to have until January 6 to get all this done, but our friend’s visit back to Colombia didn’t go exactly as planned and he had us change his ticket to bring him home early – on December 19, to be exact.
Two weeks is a long time in remodeling talk. Especially if the deadline moves backwards by that amount. We were going along pretty well, except the painters couldn’t get back down the mountain on Friday in time to finish. No fault of theirs, the normally 45 minute trip from Blowing Rock took them over 6 hours. A person can only do what they can do.
Saturday was also complicated by the fact that our youngest son was scheduled to have his knee operated on at 6:30 on Saturday morning. He blew it out during the second Junior High JV football game this season.
So we were loaded up in the snow at 5 in the morning, travelling to the kid’s house to pick him up along with his mom and grandmother, and then head off to the hospital.
The short version of that story is that things went great. Damage wasn’t as bad as originally anticipated, so he’ll have a 4 week recovery instead of a 7 month one. Football appears to be on for next season, although it’ll be wearing a brace to prevent similar twisting in the futurre.
While he was in surgery, the painters called and said they couldn’t get out of their neighborhood, but if I’d bring the 4 wheel drive jeep (kept for just such an occasion), they’d come and work toward finishing up. Since I was expendable, I ventured out on the roads.
Which, incidentally, weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been since it always had hovered right at freezing and there wasn’t a lot of ice prior to the snow. By midday, most of the roads were cleared.
We were out of the hospital with one very happy young man (at that time mostly due to the anesthesia, since he wouldn’t remember most of what he’d been told) and fielding telephone calls as our friend journeyed back from Colombia.
From our perspective, things went without a hitch. Customs wasn’t a problem, his paperwork was blissfully correct and his flight was one of the few that wasn’t delayed or cancelled. He landed within 10 minutes of the scheduled time and by 7:30 we’d collected him at the Charlotte airport and were on our way home, hearing about his adventures in Colombia.
All families are dysfunctional. Some just do it with an accent. We’re all alike, though.
I might not have been quite so excited about arriving home to find that my house had been emptied, all my stuff moved around and some of my furniture replaced. He is, however, a very forgiving fellow and was thrilled with the upgrades, even though it meant he was in our guest room for the night and his house was in disarray. His exhaustion (since he’d been up since before 4 in the morning) turned to excitement as he started deciding how best to add to the renovations.
Overall, it was a great day. The snow is mostly gone and no more is forecast until Christmas Eve.
It was one of the best early Christmas presents we could have received.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Winter Weather
For the first time since I’ve lived in North Carolina, a major snowfall seems likely to happen in our area. It’s been plastered all over the media for two days now, and we started to see moisture come from the sky early this morning.
Everyone who lives here seems to think this is a sign of impending doom, significant snow being such an unusual event. Hickory is in the “foothills” of the mountains, which is to say that the horizon is much, much too close for someone who grew up on the plains, but we still have to travel to actually be “. . . in the mountains,” with ski slopes and things like that.
This means that winter usually lurks in the background, like the hint of carrot in a carrot cake, enticing but not overwhelming.
Enticing, assuming you’re a fan of winter. If you're not it just sucks.
Human behavior about the weather is therefore somewhat puzzling. At the first hint that there might – maybe-- possibly – be snow somewhere within a 100 mile range, everyone immediately runs to the grocery store to buy bread and milk.
It would seem to me that the more important thing is that the power stay on. Central heat, lights and the internet all seem to require this magical elixir of current for us to stay comfortable. Peanut Butter sandwiches and cereal I can do without.
After all, electric blankets are kind of pointless in a power outage.
And of course, without power for refrigerators all the milk that people rushed out to buy will spoil.
We seldom got big snows in Oklahoma City when I was growing up. More frequently there was bad weather at the farm near Woodward, but that was just a bit of an inconvenience for my grandparents, not a major problem. With little to slow the wind from the North Pole other than a barbed wire fence, snow drifts could be a problem with even a few inches of precipitation.
One year they had a major snowstorm. Phones were always spotty, so of course they went down at the first sign of an icicle. Power was more reliable, but even it was off and on. With houses so far apart, electricity could easily be on in one location but not at another.
My grandparents were fortunate to be surrounded by caring neighbors as well. Grandpa was a paraplegic, having contracted polio in the late 1940’s and was confined to a wheelchair thereafter. Grandma was a tiny little woman who took care of him and did the physical operation of the farm. They lived a mile and a quarter off of the “blacktop”, an unlined 2-lane road that went from one rural community to the other.
The day after this big snowstorm, they heard a four-wheel drive vehicle laboriously making it’s way down the dirt road from the black top. It sounded as though it was in and out of the ditch several times, and finally pulled up to the door over an hour and a half later.
Out popped two members of their church, gentlemen who were worried about them and decided to bring them food and to make sure they didn’t need anything. To say this stunned Grandma and Grandpa is an understatement.
The guys came into the house to find a pot of vegetable soup simmering on the woodburning stove. This was frequently how she warmed her soup that had been made and home canned summers before, so the fact that the electricity had gone out wasn’t especially troubling to Grandma.
The soup was for supper, but things were far enough along on the propane powered stove towards dinner (the mid-day meal) that they invited them to stay.
Typically, this would have been something along the lines of steak in mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, a vegetable or two, hot homemade rolls and either cake or pie for desert. Grandma was used to cooking as if there were numerous hungry farmhands expecting to be fed. Extra people appearing at mealtime seldom had to worry about leaving hungry.
Grandpa, for his part, was dumbfounded that anyone would even think they needed help. The only inconvenience he’d noticed was that he couldn’t read the daily newspaper, since it was brought by the postman and there was no mail delivery due to the weather. He was reading magazines by the light of the kerosene lantern that had been brought in and returned to service.
Their condition was secure in part because they had two cellars – one, a traditional cellar with steps to go underground, that had a wall easily ten feet in each direction that was lined with shelves, crammed full of home-canned fruit and vegetables from their garden. Potatoes, onions and other root vegetables were in boxes and overflowing onto the floor as well.
The other cellar, built into a dirt bank next to the house, was dubbed the “pillbox” and was more convenient because his wheelchair rolled right into it whenever there was inclement weather. It was a lot more like an extra bedroom than a cellar. This always had a huge freezer that held whatever couldn’t be home canned, along with whatever beef, pork or chicken Grandma had stockpiled.
For two elderly people who ate little, they could easily have lasted months without leaving their house. To think that they needed food brought to them was kind of silly.
The guys from the church probably realized this pretty quickly, especially when they returned up the dirt road with big mason jars of the hot soup for their own suppers later that evening.
It’s very different than the panic which ensues at the first sign of a snowflake in the Carolinas, a condition which is observed with some confusion by all those who have migrated from locations north.
And as much as I hate to buy into it, I have to go to the grocery store before the weather hits and we get snowed in.
Not for bread and milk, which we could live without for 24 hours. But for Coffee, without which we cannot.
Besides, the shelves were long ago emptied of bread and milk.
Everyone who lives here seems to think this is a sign of impending doom, significant snow being such an unusual event. Hickory is in the “foothills” of the mountains, which is to say that the horizon is much, much too close for someone who grew up on the plains, but we still have to travel to actually be “. . . in the mountains,” with ski slopes and things like that.
This means that winter usually lurks in the background, like the hint of carrot in a carrot cake, enticing but not overwhelming.
Enticing, assuming you’re a fan of winter. If you're not it just sucks.
Human behavior about the weather is therefore somewhat puzzling. At the first hint that there might – maybe-- possibly – be snow somewhere within a 100 mile range, everyone immediately runs to the grocery store to buy bread and milk.
It would seem to me that the more important thing is that the power stay on. Central heat, lights and the internet all seem to require this magical elixir of current for us to stay comfortable. Peanut Butter sandwiches and cereal I can do without.
After all, electric blankets are kind of pointless in a power outage.
And of course, without power for refrigerators all the milk that people rushed out to buy will spoil.
We seldom got big snows in Oklahoma City when I was growing up. More frequently there was bad weather at the farm near Woodward, but that was just a bit of an inconvenience for my grandparents, not a major problem. With little to slow the wind from the North Pole other than a barbed wire fence, snow drifts could be a problem with even a few inches of precipitation.
One year they had a major snowstorm. Phones were always spotty, so of course they went down at the first sign of an icicle. Power was more reliable, but even it was off and on. With houses so far apart, electricity could easily be on in one location but not at another.
My grandparents were fortunate to be surrounded by caring neighbors as well. Grandpa was a paraplegic, having contracted polio in the late 1940’s and was confined to a wheelchair thereafter. Grandma was a tiny little woman who took care of him and did the physical operation of the farm. They lived a mile and a quarter off of the “blacktop”, an unlined 2-lane road that went from one rural community to the other.
The day after this big snowstorm, they heard a four-wheel drive vehicle laboriously making it’s way down the dirt road from the black top. It sounded as though it was in and out of the ditch several times, and finally pulled up to the door over an hour and a half later.
Out popped two members of their church, gentlemen who were worried about them and decided to bring them food and to make sure they didn’t need anything. To say this stunned Grandma and Grandpa is an understatement.
The guys came into the house to find a pot of vegetable soup simmering on the woodburning stove. This was frequently how she warmed her soup that had been made and home canned summers before, so the fact that the electricity had gone out wasn’t especially troubling to Grandma.
The soup was for supper, but things were far enough along on the propane powered stove towards dinner (the mid-day meal) that they invited them to stay.
Typically, this would have been something along the lines of steak in mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, a vegetable or two, hot homemade rolls and either cake or pie for desert. Grandma was used to cooking as if there were numerous hungry farmhands expecting to be fed. Extra people appearing at mealtime seldom had to worry about leaving hungry.
Grandpa, for his part, was dumbfounded that anyone would even think they needed help. The only inconvenience he’d noticed was that he couldn’t read the daily newspaper, since it was brought by the postman and there was no mail delivery due to the weather. He was reading magazines by the light of the kerosene lantern that had been brought in and returned to service.
Their condition was secure in part because they had two cellars – one, a traditional cellar with steps to go underground, that had a wall easily ten feet in each direction that was lined with shelves, crammed full of home-canned fruit and vegetables from their garden. Potatoes, onions and other root vegetables were in boxes and overflowing onto the floor as well.
The other cellar, built into a dirt bank next to the house, was dubbed the “pillbox” and was more convenient because his wheelchair rolled right into it whenever there was inclement weather. It was a lot more like an extra bedroom than a cellar. This always had a huge freezer that held whatever couldn’t be home canned, along with whatever beef, pork or chicken Grandma had stockpiled.
For two elderly people who ate little, they could easily have lasted months without leaving their house. To think that they needed food brought to them was kind of silly.
The guys from the church probably realized this pretty quickly, especially when they returned up the dirt road with big mason jars of the hot soup for their own suppers later that evening.
It’s very different than the panic which ensues at the first sign of a snowflake in the Carolinas, a condition which is observed with some confusion by all those who have migrated from locations north.
And as much as I hate to buy into it, I have to go to the grocery store before the weather hits and we get snowed in.
Not for bread and milk, which we could live without for 24 hours. But for Coffee, without which we cannot.
Besides, the shelves were long ago emptied of bread and milk.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Of Meat and Men
Last week the New York Times Magazine reported on a study of several hundred British dairies published in the journal Anthrozoos that discovered that cows that have names give, on average, about 6% more milk than those that aren’t named.
Undoubtedly, this was a government study as anyone who grew up on a farm could have told you that without needing either a PhD or a grant. On my grandparents farm, our animals were all named. Naming the various creatures was, in fact, was a big deal when we were growing up.
For several years, the bull was named “Charlie”, not because he happened to be a white Charlet, but rather because that was the name of the man from whom my grandparents bought him. Charlie had a wandering eye and refused to stay in our pasture, jumping the fence to visit the trollops one pasture over whenever the opportunity presented itself. In an effort to improve the bloodlines, he was eventually replaced with a red-white faced Hereford mix named “Andy”.
It came from his habit of following the pickup through the pasture and the line from the old gospel song, “And he walks with me, and he talks with me….”
Most animals on family farms got some type of name, or at least a nickname by which they could be identified.
In college, I had different roommates who had families that raised pigs. In one, the current tenant of the feed lot was named either “Bacon” or “Pork Chop” alternately. The other picked the cartoon stand-by of “Porky” and “Petunia” for theirs.
Another family always named their beef steer “Hamburger”. A steer, incidentally, is a male that sings soprano.
See, when you grow up around animals, you have a pretty clear understanding that while you like and respect the beast, he or she is eventually going to end up in the freezer. There was never any doubt that the ultimate purpose of these animals was to feed the humans that cared for them.
One year, when money was especially tight and cattle prices were very high, my grandparents went to the sale barn not sure how they were going to buy a calf to raise for next year’s meat. Eventually, a very small, undersized little animal was shoved into the ring, and it was immediately obvious that he was blind as he stumbled and ran into the walls, bleating pitifully.
No bids were forthcoming. The auctioneer finally quit trolling for offers and said, “Will anyone pay anything for this calf?”
Grandma’s best “church-singin’” voice sounded out across the stands, ”I’ll give a dollar!” and was immediately followed by the auctioneer’s hammer. Spooky, as he was dubbed, rode home with them that afternoon.
Most of the animals went on to obscurity. Although they were named, and were cared for and respected, they were not intimates with whom you forged strong personal relationships, especially given their career paths. Once in a while, though, one stood out in the family’s lore.
Woody was a black and white Holstein that we raised when my youngest brother was about four. My brother happened to be at the farm when Woody was transported to the meat locker, an exciting event for everyone because a metal cage was attached to the back of their pickup and the steer was then driven up an elevated chute and loaded into the back of the pickup, grand marshal in his own private, if somewhat final, parade.
A month or so later, you went back to the meatlocker and nice white paper packages of hamburger, steak and roasts were carried home and stocked into the freezer.
Not long after that was a holiday, maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. The entire family had gathered, tables were pushed together and some 30-odd folks bowed their heads as Grandpa asked the blessing on the meal, the centerpiece of which was a huge roast, courtesy of that same Holstein.
Grandpa was always thorough in the task of blessing the food, and there was the opportunity for your mind to wander off if you weren’t careful. This also meant that the end of the prayer could have occurred without your realizing it, leaving that moment of silence immediately afterwards before the food started being passed around.
One person was paying attention, though. As Grandpa’s “Amen” sounded, my brother’s tiny little voice piped across the table, “Poor old Woody, all chopped up. Let’s eat!”
The fact that the cows are named isn’t why they give more milk. It’s the fact that they’re respected and cared for, if not loved. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to escape their fate, but simply that they’re going to have as good a life as possible before that end.
Of course, it’s simply not possible to name 2,200 cattle in a commercial operation. But you have to wonder if the meat and milk might not be better if you could.
Undoubtedly, this was a government study as anyone who grew up on a farm could have told you that without needing either a PhD or a grant. On my grandparents farm, our animals were all named. Naming the various creatures was, in fact, was a big deal when we were growing up.
For several years, the bull was named “Charlie”, not because he happened to be a white Charlet, but rather because that was the name of the man from whom my grandparents bought him. Charlie had a wandering eye and refused to stay in our pasture, jumping the fence to visit the trollops one pasture over whenever the opportunity presented itself. In an effort to improve the bloodlines, he was eventually replaced with a red-white faced Hereford mix named “Andy”.
It came from his habit of following the pickup through the pasture and the line from the old gospel song, “And he walks with me, and he talks with me….”
Most animals on family farms got some type of name, or at least a nickname by which they could be identified.
In college, I had different roommates who had families that raised pigs. In one, the current tenant of the feed lot was named either “Bacon” or “Pork Chop” alternately. The other picked the cartoon stand-by of “Porky” and “Petunia” for theirs.
Another family always named their beef steer “Hamburger”. A steer, incidentally, is a male that sings soprano.
See, when you grow up around animals, you have a pretty clear understanding that while you like and respect the beast, he or she is eventually going to end up in the freezer. There was never any doubt that the ultimate purpose of these animals was to feed the humans that cared for them.
One year, when money was especially tight and cattle prices were very high, my grandparents went to the sale barn not sure how they were going to buy a calf to raise for next year’s meat. Eventually, a very small, undersized little animal was shoved into the ring, and it was immediately obvious that he was blind as he stumbled and ran into the walls, bleating pitifully.
No bids were forthcoming. The auctioneer finally quit trolling for offers and said, “Will anyone pay anything for this calf?”
Grandma’s best “church-singin’” voice sounded out across the stands, ”I’ll give a dollar!” and was immediately followed by the auctioneer’s hammer. Spooky, as he was dubbed, rode home with them that afternoon.
Most of the animals went on to obscurity. Although they were named, and were cared for and respected, they were not intimates with whom you forged strong personal relationships, especially given their career paths. Once in a while, though, one stood out in the family’s lore.
Woody was a black and white Holstein that we raised when my youngest brother was about four. My brother happened to be at the farm when Woody was transported to the meat locker, an exciting event for everyone because a metal cage was attached to the back of their pickup and the steer was then driven up an elevated chute and loaded into the back of the pickup, grand marshal in his own private, if somewhat final, parade.
A month or so later, you went back to the meatlocker and nice white paper packages of hamburger, steak and roasts were carried home and stocked into the freezer.
Not long after that was a holiday, maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. The entire family had gathered, tables were pushed together and some 30-odd folks bowed their heads as Grandpa asked the blessing on the meal, the centerpiece of which was a huge roast, courtesy of that same Holstein.
Grandpa was always thorough in the task of blessing the food, and there was the opportunity for your mind to wander off if you weren’t careful. This also meant that the end of the prayer could have occurred without your realizing it, leaving that moment of silence immediately afterwards before the food started being passed around.
One person was paying attention, though. As Grandpa’s “Amen” sounded, my brother’s tiny little voice piped across the table, “Poor old Woody, all chopped up. Let’s eat!”
The fact that the cows are named isn’t why they give more milk. It’s the fact that they’re respected and cared for, if not loved. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to escape their fate, but simply that they’re going to have as good a life as possible before that end.
Of course, it’s simply not possible to name 2,200 cattle in a commercial operation. But you have to wonder if the meat and milk might not be better if you could.
Monday, December 14, 2009
News of my absence
I haven’t posted much on here in a couple of days. Part of that is good (maybe all of it is good, I’m not sure yet). I haven’t had a cold that’s kicked me in the butt like this for several years. I’ve gone beyond the mere inconvenience to the wracking cough and congestion that won’t give up.
I keep worrying that I’m going to hack up a lung, and I hope that Theraflu isn’t addictive.
It, and the assortment of other remedies I’ve tried since the Wild Turkey incident the other night, have impacted my ability to think very clearly.
Fortunately, I have a live-in editor who has the password to my blog and can say, “No. You sound like one of the crazy people from the internet. We won’t be posting that.”
This has cut my productivity a lot. Believe it or not, coherent thought is sometimes necessary to do a blog.
I’m not yet recovered, a point that was driven home last night. I’d tried to return to my normal bed and abandon the couch. The pillow placed firmly over my face to stop the coughing indicated that I hadn’t yet reached the point to reintegrate with society – or the other people who live here.
Hopefully I’m on the mend, though.
I keep worrying that I’m going to hack up a lung, and I hope that Theraflu isn’t addictive.
It, and the assortment of other remedies I’ve tried since the Wild Turkey incident the other night, have impacted my ability to think very clearly.
Fortunately, I have a live-in editor who has the password to my blog and can say, “No. You sound like one of the crazy people from the internet. We won’t be posting that.”
This has cut my productivity a lot. Believe it or not, coherent thought is sometimes necessary to do a blog.
I’m not yet recovered, a point that was driven home last night. I’d tried to return to my normal bed and abandon the couch. The pillow placed firmly over my face to stop the coughing indicated that I hadn’t yet reached the point to reintegrate with society – or the other people who live here.
Hopefully I’m on the mend, though.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Corporate Holiday Cards
It’s the time of the year when the mailbox brings holiday greetings. Yesterday there were half a dozen or so, which I managed to rescue from the rain that before they looked like Tammy Faye after a three day tent revival.
It was somewhat disappointing to find out that four of them aren’t from friends or relatives – people with whom I’d actually like to connect or reconnect – but are instead merely business contacts that are camouflaged as holiday wishes when, in reality, their purpose is to curry favor of a customer or donor.
Do these holiday greetings make anyone think, “Wow. That was a great card. I need to go buy more stuff from them!”
Somehow I doubt it.
At our house, most of them go directly into the recycle bin unless they’re really incredible looking. Since a high end corporate card can run upwards of $5.00 each, you don’t see many of those any more. I can’t say that I blame companies for that budget cut, either. But you have to admit it’s a bit pathetic to see a big display of holiday cards set up on someone’s piano and then when you start looking through them you realize that they’re from the gas company.
Does anyone think there’s any sincerity in holiday wishes from the cable company? They sure weren’t showing that jolly spirit when I had to make an appointment for repairs two weeks out and then wait for them to show up sometime between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., with an adult over 18 home that entire time to receive their representative. Do they think that sending out a card will make up for how they treat people the rest of the year?
After all they are monopolies and I don’t have a choice about doing business with them. It just ticks me off that they’re wasting money on cards and postage when they just asked for a rate hike.
Some cards are actually annoying. I have an “account representative” at the bank that tells me how much money my retirement account is losing in a monthly statement. He not only sends cards during the holidays, but a couple of times a year (usually after a vacation) I get these seemingly random cards, always with pictures of his kids on them. It always takes me a few minutes to realize that these aren’t some long-lost cousin’s children, but are in fact kids I’ve never met before playing at the beach or showing off some fish they’ve caught on a camping trip.
The cards don’t make me want to invest more money with him. They do make me wonder they have to charge me an annual service fee of $15.00 and then spend $5.00 of that sending me a Christmas Card. If I get three cards a year, is that where my service fee is going? Am I funding my own greeting?
Charitable organizations aren’t much better. Some seem to think that you’ll feel obligated to send them money if they send you return address labels, a bookmark or some other little whiz-bang gizmo that you can’t live without. Anyone who’s ever sat on the board of a not-for-profit tends to look at them and go, “Why are you wasting money that way? That trick hasn’t worked since the 50’s.”
Besides, I’ve got more address labels than I can use in 10 lifetimes, even counting the ones that went through the shredder because they have advertising on them for organizations that I would not support. It’s amazing the mailing lists you can get on without even trying.
Another nonprofit I know of sends out cards that are individually signed by the Executive Director. They send out about 15,000 cards a year, and she takes almost a week to sign each and every one and then addresses them by hand.
There’s no note, nothing personal about them. It’s just a corporate card that happens to be hand signed under the organization’s printed name. She thinks it makes them “special and meaningful.” I think it’s a tremendous waste of time for an employee who’s pulling down six figures annually, especially when this same person then has the audacity to call directly several times a year to mention how busy they are and talk about how she doesn’t know where she’ll find the time to get it all done, usually while requesting donations.
The urge to point out that if she’d been a better steward with what she’d already been given in terms of both time and money, she might not need to be back at the trough lookin’ to feed again is pretty strong.
That doesn’t happen, of course. Most of us hold our tongues, though, having been brought up right.
We get the cards, keep the pretty ones on the piano, put the others in the recycle bin and, at least for a moment, our thoughts are directed toward that group either for good or ill. At the same time, we get to enjoy the ritual of opening those from family and friends with whom we haven’t had contact since last year, maybe to be told of a new grandchild or career, and to share the joys (and sorrows) in their lives.
It’s all part of the holiday season.
It was somewhat disappointing to find out that four of them aren’t from friends or relatives – people with whom I’d actually like to connect or reconnect – but are instead merely business contacts that are camouflaged as holiday wishes when, in reality, their purpose is to curry favor of a customer or donor.
Do these holiday greetings make anyone think, “Wow. That was a great card. I need to go buy more stuff from them!”
Somehow I doubt it.
At our house, most of them go directly into the recycle bin unless they’re really incredible looking. Since a high end corporate card can run upwards of $5.00 each, you don’t see many of those any more. I can’t say that I blame companies for that budget cut, either. But you have to admit it’s a bit pathetic to see a big display of holiday cards set up on someone’s piano and then when you start looking through them you realize that they’re from the gas company.
Does anyone think there’s any sincerity in holiday wishes from the cable company? They sure weren’t showing that jolly spirit when I had to make an appointment for repairs two weeks out and then wait for them to show up sometime between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., with an adult over 18 home that entire time to receive their representative. Do they think that sending out a card will make up for how they treat people the rest of the year?
After all they are monopolies and I don’t have a choice about doing business with them. It just ticks me off that they’re wasting money on cards and postage when they just asked for a rate hike.
Some cards are actually annoying. I have an “account representative” at the bank that tells me how much money my retirement account is losing in a monthly statement. He not only sends cards during the holidays, but a couple of times a year (usually after a vacation) I get these seemingly random cards, always with pictures of his kids on them. It always takes me a few minutes to realize that these aren’t some long-lost cousin’s children, but are in fact kids I’ve never met before playing at the beach or showing off some fish they’ve caught on a camping trip.
The cards don’t make me want to invest more money with him. They do make me wonder they have to charge me an annual service fee of $15.00 and then spend $5.00 of that sending me a Christmas Card. If I get three cards a year, is that where my service fee is going? Am I funding my own greeting?
Charitable organizations aren’t much better. Some seem to think that you’ll feel obligated to send them money if they send you return address labels, a bookmark or some other little whiz-bang gizmo that you can’t live without. Anyone who’s ever sat on the board of a not-for-profit tends to look at them and go, “Why are you wasting money that way? That trick hasn’t worked since the 50’s.”
Besides, I’ve got more address labels than I can use in 10 lifetimes, even counting the ones that went through the shredder because they have advertising on them for organizations that I would not support. It’s amazing the mailing lists you can get on without even trying.
Another nonprofit I know of sends out cards that are individually signed by the Executive Director. They send out about 15,000 cards a year, and she takes almost a week to sign each and every one and then addresses them by hand.
There’s no note, nothing personal about them. It’s just a corporate card that happens to be hand signed under the organization’s printed name. She thinks it makes them “special and meaningful.” I think it’s a tremendous waste of time for an employee who’s pulling down six figures annually, especially when this same person then has the audacity to call directly several times a year to mention how busy they are and talk about how she doesn’t know where she’ll find the time to get it all done, usually while requesting donations.
The urge to point out that if she’d been a better steward with what she’d already been given in terms of both time and money, she might not need to be back at the trough lookin’ to feed again is pretty strong.
That doesn’t happen, of course. Most of us hold our tongues, though, having been brought up right.
We get the cards, keep the pretty ones on the piano, put the others in the recycle bin and, at least for a moment, our thoughts are directed toward that group either for good or ill. At the same time, we get to enjoy the ritual of opening those from family and friends with whom we haven’t had contact since last year, maybe to be told of a new grandchild or career, and to share the joys (and sorrows) in their lives.
It’s all part of the holiday season.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
VooDoo Medicine
Everyone has their limit.
I understand and fully appreciate that. We’ve all melted down over something that might be relatively insignificant, but when heaped upon other events, it is simply too much for human nature to ignore.
Thus, I found myself about 3:00 this morning (still sleeping on the couch) facing a man in his underwear holding a glass that had fully two ounces of Wild Turkey and a splash of honey in it, insisting, “Drink this”.
"What is it"
"DRINK IT!!"
Apparently my racking cough, which had gotten progressively worse through the evening and into the night, was disturbing even on in different room and on another floor.
It’s not like this is a new remedy. In our family lore, I was told of a maternal great-great-grandmother, Granny Bransol, who drank whiskey from a spoon on a more or less continuous basis and referred to it as,”. . . nasty old cough medicine.”
I suspect this camouflage was to protect her position in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was one of the major social outlets for women in western Oklahoma at the time. Their advocacy of prohibition was somewhat inconsistent with a hip flask in the purse of the President of a local chapter.
We’re not opposed to alternative medicine in this family. Any sniffle or ailment results in a call to the kid’s mom to “voodoo us up,” she being the resident expert on homeopathic remedies. If told to sacrifice a chicken by the light of a full moon to cure some malady, I’d at least give it a shot.
After all, there’s no co-pay or insurance forms to fill out.
I suspect that last night's cure was further prompted after a new book had arrived at the house – Best Choices from The People’s Pharmacy by Joe and Teresa Graedon. They have a very popular radio show on NPR that offers all types of alternative remedies. This handy-dandy book simply makes it easier to find them than going to the web site at 3:00 in the morning.
This is also why, after I was trying to catch my breath from downing the whiskey, I was forced to surrender my feet to be slathered with Vicks Vap-o-Rub and encased in cotton socks.
I don’t know which of the remedies worked. I do know that I was able to sleep until that same man came downstairs, this time fully dressed.
I’m just glad the cure didn’t call for a belt cinched tightly around the neck until the coughing stops.
I understand and fully appreciate that. We’ve all melted down over something that might be relatively insignificant, but when heaped upon other events, it is simply too much for human nature to ignore.
Thus, I found myself about 3:00 this morning (still sleeping on the couch) facing a man in his underwear holding a glass that had fully two ounces of Wild Turkey and a splash of honey in it, insisting, “Drink this”.
"What is it"
"DRINK IT!!"
Apparently my racking cough, which had gotten progressively worse through the evening and into the night, was disturbing even on in different room and on another floor.
It’s not like this is a new remedy. In our family lore, I was told of a maternal great-great-grandmother, Granny Bransol, who drank whiskey from a spoon on a more or less continuous basis and referred to it as,”. . . nasty old cough medicine.”
I suspect this camouflage was to protect her position in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was one of the major social outlets for women in western Oklahoma at the time. Their advocacy of prohibition was somewhat inconsistent with a hip flask in the purse of the President of a local chapter.
We’re not opposed to alternative medicine in this family. Any sniffle or ailment results in a call to the kid’s mom to “voodoo us up,” she being the resident expert on homeopathic remedies. If told to sacrifice a chicken by the light of a full moon to cure some malady, I’d at least give it a shot.
After all, there’s no co-pay or insurance forms to fill out.
I suspect that last night's cure was further prompted after a new book had arrived at the house – Best Choices from The People’s Pharmacy by Joe and Teresa Graedon. They have a very popular radio show on NPR that offers all types of alternative remedies. This handy-dandy book simply makes it easier to find them than going to the web site at 3:00 in the morning.
This is also why, after I was trying to catch my breath from downing the whiskey, I was forced to surrender my feet to be slathered with Vicks Vap-o-Rub and encased in cotton socks.
I don’t know which of the remedies worked. I do know that I was able to sleep until that same man came downstairs, this time fully dressed.
I’m just glad the cure didn’t call for a belt cinched tightly around the neck until the coughing stops.
Who Gets the Bed?
Now that the cold and flu season is upon us in North America, and we’ve had the big H1N1 scare about how bad this is going to be if we don’t get our shots, there’s still one important unanswered question.
If one person in a couple gets sick, who has to leave the bedroom? The sick guy, or the healthy guy?
There’s an argument to be made for each side. The sick person needs a bit of pampering. They should be able to wallow in their own bed with their regular blankets and pillows, not to mention the ambient noise and conditions that are normal to them. This, presumably, would promote more rest and help them get healthy faster, not to mention the fact that the best television is probably in that bedroom, maybe even with an extra cable box, so there’s more to occupy their time while convalescing.
On the other hand, the sick person is probably going to stay in bed all the next day. There’s not a thing in the world to stop them from hauling themselves out of the sick room and back to their bedroom (for access to the good TV and their own bed) or down to the living room (for a change of scenery). The healthy person has to get up and go to work and needs to be rested for the next day, plus they shouldn’t be subjected to the potential for contamination from the “sickee”.
If you’re the one who’s put out of your normal bed there’s no doubt that it interrupts your sleep. The house sounds very different from another room, especially if that’s on another floor. Ordinary creaks and noises can leave you convinced that there are either burglars or ghosts, or both, that are trying to force in and take over the place.
A fever doesn’t help this perception, either.
In our house, those sensations are compounded by the fact that we have lots of lamps on timers in almost every room, so if you forget to turn one off it will suddenly come on with a “clunk”, startling you out of whatever doze you’ve managed to embrace and emitting a dim glow from the next room.
I have been sleeping on the couch in the den for the last couple of nights. Not, fortunately, because of any transgression that’s resulted in my exile, but because that slight tickle in my throat that I noticed on Saturday has grown into a full blown cold.
These things are never convenient, but normally I would have just gone to the guest room to sleep. Unfortunately, before I realized what had happened we’d had the kids in to help and had emptied three rooms of furniture in anticipation of the last bit of remodeling in the house.
Unfortunately, that means that all the stuff from those rooms is shoved into the guest room, making the bed inaccessible. The couch in the den was the next best option.
Fortunately, there’s a nice television with 500 channels available.
If one person in a couple gets sick, who has to leave the bedroom? The sick guy, or the healthy guy?
There’s an argument to be made for each side. The sick person needs a bit of pampering. They should be able to wallow in their own bed with their regular blankets and pillows, not to mention the ambient noise and conditions that are normal to them. This, presumably, would promote more rest and help them get healthy faster, not to mention the fact that the best television is probably in that bedroom, maybe even with an extra cable box, so there’s more to occupy their time while convalescing.
On the other hand, the sick person is probably going to stay in bed all the next day. There’s not a thing in the world to stop them from hauling themselves out of the sick room and back to their bedroom (for access to the good TV and their own bed) or down to the living room (for a change of scenery). The healthy person has to get up and go to work and needs to be rested for the next day, plus they shouldn’t be subjected to the potential for contamination from the “sickee”.
If you’re the one who’s put out of your normal bed there’s no doubt that it interrupts your sleep. The house sounds very different from another room, especially if that’s on another floor. Ordinary creaks and noises can leave you convinced that there are either burglars or ghosts, or both, that are trying to force in and take over the place.
A fever doesn’t help this perception, either.
In our house, those sensations are compounded by the fact that we have lots of lamps on timers in almost every room, so if you forget to turn one off it will suddenly come on with a “clunk”, startling you out of whatever doze you’ve managed to embrace and emitting a dim glow from the next room.
I have been sleeping on the couch in the den for the last couple of nights. Not, fortunately, because of any transgression that’s resulted in my exile, but because that slight tickle in my throat that I noticed on Saturday has grown into a full blown cold.
These things are never convenient, but normally I would have just gone to the guest room to sleep. Unfortunately, before I realized what had happened we’d had the kids in to help and had emptied three rooms of furniture in anticipation of the last bit of remodeling in the house.
Unfortunately, that means that all the stuff from those rooms is shoved into the guest room, making the bed inaccessible. The couch in the den was the next best option.
Fortunately, there’s a nice television with 500 channels available.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Regulation of Flesh Eating Fish
In Arizona, the Goldwater Institute (a conservative watchdog agency) brought a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Cosmetology.
It seems that the Arizona Board of Cosmetology has decided that it has the authority to regulate a practice that is gaining popularity at nail salons, where customers pay $30.00 to plunge their feet into a clean (?!?!?) tank filled with fish who nibble on the customers feet, removing dead skin.
I can see how the Goldwater Institute would take up this cause, because if there was ever free-enterprise at its peak, this has got to be it.
After all, whod’a thunk that you could get people to pay money for this?
Now, mind you, I’m not judging. But since I swim like a rock and seldom go into water where I cannot see my feet for the specific purpose of PREVENTING little fish or other critters who happen to live in the vicinity from chewing my feet off, I can’t imagine that this is a treatment that I would embrace any more than being bled by leeches.
In the central United States, there is a practice called “noodling”, where grown men – I suspect usually under the influence of alcohol if not stronger substances – jump in the river and start feeling along the banks for holes in which enormous catfish make their homes. There don't seem to be any women noodlers, seemingly having more common sense than the male of the species.
These are the whoppers – 50 pounds up – and they “feel” for the fish in their lairs.
Mind you, if I “felt” one of these, the immediate area around where I was swimming would have to be evacuated because of man-made pollution in the water.
Braver – or drunker – men than I, however, embrace this sport and once they find the fish they reach into it’s mouth to encourage it to bite down and be dragged out of its hole.
This in water that has the consistency and opaqueness of coffee with creamer in it.
Injuries in an extreme sport like this would seem to be inevitable. Grandpa Johnson swore that his cousin had an arm bit off when he was a child while engaged in such activity.
I have no idea if this is true, since Grandpa was prone to kidding and the alleged victim, as with so many urban legends, was long dead before I came along.
Probably because he tried to keep noodlin’ when he only had one arm.
A few years back we went snorkeling while in the Carribean. I was more than content to blow up my vest and float around while sucking roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean into my lungs through the snorkel, looking at the pretty fish from a distance. It was, in my opinion, the equivalent of driving through a nice neighborhood to look at the homes. Nobody was really hurting anything.
One of the guys that was with the excursion, however, decided to “call out” a very large eel for us to see.
If polled, I suspect that no one over the age of 16 had any desire to see an eel any way other than through the glass at an aquarium. Under maritime laws excursion boats are not a democracy, though, and the will of the majority does not always prevail.
After failing to lure the beast out with bait, he decided to poke at him with a stick to encourage him to come out and visit with the tourists.
Eventually, Mr. (or Ms., I’m not sure) Eel came out with a vengeance, attempting to sink it’s teeth into the guy with a stick while everyone still in the water who was paying attention attempted to perform a miracle and walk on the water out of the immediate area.
I was on the boat enjoying a complimentary drink already. After that, I wasn’t much inclined to get back in the water, whether I could see my feet or not. This was THEIR ‘hood, and I was just cruising through from the wrong side of the tracks. What business do I have agitating the locals?
So with this background, I’m amazed that a salon owner can convince people to pay her – PAY HER – $30.00 to let them put their feet in a tank with these fish, who will eat their flesh.
Although it sounds like a “B” movie, this is a free market economy at it’s best, and it’s begin thwarted by some regulatory people who have no respect for the need of simple, honest working folk to have their flesh eaten by fish.
Oh, the reason for prohibiting the practice?
The little fish can’t be sterilized.
I can see how that’s a problem. I bet there are few veterinary schools that teach fish sterilization, at least as a core course. It looks like they could put them on little birth control pills, though, rather than having to sterilize them. Then everyone’s needs could be met.
It seems that the Arizona Board of Cosmetology has decided that it has the authority to regulate a practice that is gaining popularity at nail salons, where customers pay $30.00 to plunge their feet into a clean (?!?!?) tank filled with fish who nibble on the customers feet, removing dead skin.
I can see how the Goldwater Institute would take up this cause, because if there was ever free-enterprise at its peak, this has got to be it.
After all, whod’a thunk that you could get people to pay money for this?
Now, mind you, I’m not judging. But since I swim like a rock and seldom go into water where I cannot see my feet for the specific purpose of PREVENTING little fish or other critters who happen to live in the vicinity from chewing my feet off, I can’t imagine that this is a treatment that I would embrace any more than being bled by leeches.
In the central United States, there is a practice called “noodling”, where grown men – I suspect usually under the influence of alcohol if not stronger substances – jump in the river and start feeling along the banks for holes in which enormous catfish make their homes. There don't seem to be any women noodlers, seemingly having more common sense than the male of the species.
These are the whoppers – 50 pounds up – and they “feel” for the fish in their lairs.
Mind you, if I “felt” one of these, the immediate area around where I was swimming would have to be evacuated because of man-made pollution in the water.
Braver – or drunker – men than I, however, embrace this sport and once they find the fish they reach into it’s mouth to encourage it to bite down and be dragged out of its hole.
This in water that has the consistency and opaqueness of coffee with creamer in it.
Injuries in an extreme sport like this would seem to be inevitable. Grandpa Johnson swore that his cousin had an arm bit off when he was a child while engaged in such activity.
I have no idea if this is true, since Grandpa was prone to kidding and the alleged victim, as with so many urban legends, was long dead before I came along.
Probably because he tried to keep noodlin’ when he only had one arm.
A few years back we went snorkeling while in the Carribean. I was more than content to blow up my vest and float around while sucking roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean into my lungs through the snorkel, looking at the pretty fish from a distance. It was, in my opinion, the equivalent of driving through a nice neighborhood to look at the homes. Nobody was really hurting anything.
One of the guys that was with the excursion, however, decided to “call out” a very large eel for us to see.
If polled, I suspect that no one over the age of 16 had any desire to see an eel any way other than through the glass at an aquarium. Under maritime laws excursion boats are not a democracy, though, and the will of the majority does not always prevail.
After failing to lure the beast out with bait, he decided to poke at him with a stick to encourage him to come out and visit with the tourists.
Eventually, Mr. (or Ms., I’m not sure) Eel came out with a vengeance, attempting to sink it’s teeth into the guy with a stick while everyone still in the water who was paying attention attempted to perform a miracle and walk on the water out of the immediate area.
I was on the boat enjoying a complimentary drink already. After that, I wasn’t much inclined to get back in the water, whether I could see my feet or not. This was THEIR ‘hood, and I was just cruising through from the wrong side of the tracks. What business do I have agitating the locals?
So with this background, I’m amazed that a salon owner can convince people to pay her – PAY HER – $30.00 to let them put their feet in a tank with these fish, who will eat their flesh.
Although it sounds like a “B” movie, this is a free market economy at it’s best, and it’s begin thwarted by some regulatory people who have no respect for the need of simple, honest working folk to have their flesh eaten by fish.
Oh, the reason for prohibiting the practice?
The little fish can’t be sterilized.
I can see how that’s a problem. I bet there are few veterinary schools that teach fish sterilization, at least as a core course. It looks like they could put them on little birth control pills, though, rather than having to sterilize them. Then everyone’s needs could be met.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Newspapers and Trivia
I miss newspapers the way they used to be, when metal type was set by hand, rather than the computer massaging the articles so that they came out exactly right.
It has nothing to do with the quality of writing, which is another topic all together.
I liked those little filler lines that used to go in, that gave you visual sound-bites of information in those pre-computer days.
“Madagascar primarily exports agricultural products coffee, vanilla, shellfish, sugar, and fiber.”
“Babe Ruth was born on February 6, 1895.”
"Woodrow Wilson’s first name was Thomas. His middle name was Woodrow.”
Useless facts, but for some reason they have always stuck in my brain. My nephew observed on more than one occasion that this tendency is probably the reason I can not remember where we parked the car at the mall. I’d used up all my available memory with bits of trivia.
Now, of course, you go to the internet to find out anything you want instantly. With the availability of WiFi, Blackberries and iPhones, facts about anything you want are almost always available.
Those factoids of information were like the prize in a box of CrackerJack, (first created in 1896). You never knew what it was going to be, it was of little value and intended for immediate consumption after which it could be discarded without consequence.
I wondered who found all these tidbits, and did they have a “fact-checker” following along behind them, sending memos, “No, Jim, you’re wrong there. Champagne was originally invented by a Benedictine Monk, not a Dominican. If you’re not more careful with your research, it’s going to reflect poorly on your next evaluation.”
Or, like the tour guides on those open topped buses that show you around big cities, do they simply make up stuff that sounds reasonable, figuring it’s not likely to rise to the level that anyone sends a letter of outrage to the Editor?
“I was deeply offended to see that the quality of journalism for your paper has fallen to the point that you fail to recognize that the Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) is a separate and distinct creature from the Yellow Bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris), as is obvious from the distinct black feet which are readily apparent. I chose to no longer waste my time reading such shoddy journalism. Please cancel my subscription immediately.”
As with so many other functions newspapers no longer perform, there’s no longer a need for these fillers. Computers set the type perfectly, making the story fit the space available, stretching or shrinking the print as needed.
You can find an endless supply of random facts at http://www.mentalfloss.com/amazingfactgenerator, a particularly addictive site for those who suck up and store minutiae just in case we ever get picked as a fill-in contestant on Jeopardy.
Having this endless supply of trivia available may be helpful if you’re an information junkie like me, but if you emerge from the bathroom and suddenly announce, “About one in every 30 American births results in twins,” you’re likely to get a very different reaction from the family than you would if you’d had the newspaper in there with you.
It has nothing to do with the quality of writing, which is another topic all together.
I liked those little filler lines that used to go in, that gave you visual sound-bites of information in those pre-computer days.
“Madagascar primarily exports agricultural products coffee, vanilla, shellfish, sugar, and fiber.”
“Babe Ruth was born on February 6, 1895.”
"Woodrow Wilson’s first name was Thomas. His middle name was Woodrow.”
Useless facts, but for some reason they have always stuck in my brain. My nephew observed on more than one occasion that this tendency is probably the reason I can not remember where we parked the car at the mall. I’d used up all my available memory with bits of trivia.
Now, of course, you go to the internet to find out anything you want instantly. With the availability of WiFi, Blackberries and iPhones, facts about anything you want are almost always available.
Those factoids of information were like the prize in a box of CrackerJack, (first created in 1896). You never knew what it was going to be, it was of little value and intended for immediate consumption after which it could be discarded without consequence.
I wondered who found all these tidbits, and did they have a “fact-checker” following along behind them, sending memos, “No, Jim, you’re wrong there. Champagne was originally invented by a Benedictine Monk, not a Dominican. If you’re not more careful with your research, it’s going to reflect poorly on your next evaluation.”
Or, like the tour guides on those open topped buses that show you around big cities, do they simply make up stuff that sounds reasonable, figuring it’s not likely to rise to the level that anyone sends a letter of outrage to the Editor?
“I was deeply offended to see that the quality of journalism for your paper has fallen to the point that you fail to recognize that the Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) is a separate and distinct creature from the Yellow Bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris), as is obvious from the distinct black feet which are readily apparent. I chose to no longer waste my time reading such shoddy journalism. Please cancel my subscription immediately.”
As with so many other functions newspapers no longer perform, there’s no longer a need for these fillers. Computers set the type perfectly, making the story fit the space available, stretching or shrinking the print as needed.
You can find an endless supply of random facts at http://www.mentalfloss.com/amazingfactgenerator, a particularly addictive site for those who suck up and store minutiae just in case we ever get picked as a fill-in contestant on Jeopardy.
Having this endless supply of trivia available may be helpful if you’re an information junkie like me, but if you emerge from the bathroom and suddenly announce, “About one in every 30 American births results in twins,” you’re likely to get a very different reaction from the family than you would if you’d had the newspaper in there with you.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
World AIDS Day
Yesterday was the 22nd annual World AIDS day. As has been our custom for quite some time, we went to the ALFA memorial service.
For those not in the know, ALFA is the HIV / AIDS service organization serving nine counties in Western North Carolina. You can get more information about them at http://www.alfainfo.org/.
It’s almost impossible to be a gay man in your 40’s and not have been to several of these services. While there have been some similarities over the years, there are also differences.
There are fewer wheelchairs and walkers present, as individuals who have been infected with HIV / AIDS now find that it’s not a death sentence, but rather is a chronic condition that carries a significant life expectancy if one receives proper treatment.
The services are more upbeat now than in the early 1990’s, when there was still so much information about the disease and how it was spread. The panic has subsided, to some extent. The work remains, however.
The visible manifestations of the disease in those who are infected are much more subtle than initially. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, there was an immediate and distinct wasting of the body as muscle mass was lost and could not be rebuilt. Now, with proper treatment, many individuals who are positive for the virus frequently show no outward symptoms.
This is, to some extent, both a blessing and a curse, since some who are infected and do not appear sick refuse to modify their behaviors, continuing to have unprotected sex or share intravenous drugs with others who make poor choices regarding their own protection.
The music with the service is much more upbeat, in our case having been provided by the Lenoir-Rhyne University Gospel Choir. Many colleges, especially those with church affiliations, were reluctant to participate in such events initially. http://www.lr.edu/
We now see interfaith participation in the services and a broad spectrum of participants and attendees. Last night's service was hosted by the Unifour Christian Fellowship, a church that has been a very active supporter of ALFA over the years. http://www.ucfc.net/ They are a group that put their boots on the ground to carry out their message of support.
The messages brought, in this case by a missionary who works with AIDS patients in Africa and by a pastor who has been HIV positive for over twenty years, are not those of despair but rather testaments of victory over the disease, although all acknowledge that there is much more to do.
There are, however, similarities that have remained in the services over the years.
There is the recognition that the stigma associated with the disease causes many people to decline to be tested, or to fail to obtain appropriate treatment out of fear that their condition will be discovered.
There is a request for volunteers to get involved and help those who are afflicted and affected by HIV / AIDS. Aside from donating money or food or office supplies or whatever, or offering to act as chauffer to someone who can no longer drive to help them get to the grocery store or doctor appointments, one of the most fundamental ways a volunteer can help is to approach those with authority over school systems to allow educational materials that are based in the realities of society today be presented to young people. Informative, fact based data is the only way to enable them to consider the consequences of their actions and hopefully make rational decisions regarding their own safety.
It continues to amaze me that entire school systems refuse to allow any educational materials other than abstinence only be presented to their students. Invariably, these are the school systems that have the highest incidents of teen pregnancy.
There is a recognition that the client base for groups such as ALFA continues to grow, despite attempts at education and availability of testing. More and more clients do not discover that they are infected with HIV until they have some catastrophic illness and are diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. This is the equivalent of discovering that you have cancer not when it is a small lump in a woman's breast, but after it has spread through the lymphatic system, encroaching upon the entire body.
The services always end with a candlelight vigil, where the names of those who have passed to another realm are recalled. The readings start somewhere in the 1990’s, the lists from prior to that being simply too long to read. A difference, though, is that the lists get shorter for each year as medical advances and information became available.
Those for the last few years usually contain only three or four names.
Finally, there’s a moment of silence, as we contemplate the flames in the crowd, vigil to the messages in our hearts to which we cannot give voice. Longing for those who had their lives cut short by this disease.
Those in attendance recall the names of those who were not mentioned.
For me, those names include Jerry and Rick. Steve. Skip and Joe. All who fought the good fight, but finally relinquished their hold on this earth to journey on to the next reality.
We remember them especially on World AIDS day, and hope that the list of names continues to get shorter each year.
For those not in the know, ALFA is the HIV / AIDS service organization serving nine counties in Western North Carolina. You can get more information about them at http://www.alfainfo.org/.
It’s almost impossible to be a gay man in your 40’s and not have been to several of these services. While there have been some similarities over the years, there are also differences.
There are fewer wheelchairs and walkers present, as individuals who have been infected with HIV / AIDS now find that it’s not a death sentence, but rather is a chronic condition that carries a significant life expectancy if one receives proper treatment.
The services are more upbeat now than in the early 1990’s, when there was still so much information about the disease and how it was spread. The panic has subsided, to some extent. The work remains, however.
The visible manifestations of the disease in those who are infected are much more subtle than initially. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, there was an immediate and distinct wasting of the body as muscle mass was lost and could not be rebuilt. Now, with proper treatment, many individuals who are positive for the virus frequently show no outward symptoms.
This is, to some extent, both a blessing and a curse, since some who are infected and do not appear sick refuse to modify their behaviors, continuing to have unprotected sex or share intravenous drugs with others who make poor choices regarding their own protection.
The music with the service is much more upbeat, in our case having been provided by the Lenoir-Rhyne University Gospel Choir. Many colleges, especially those with church affiliations, were reluctant to participate in such events initially. http://www.lr.edu/
We now see interfaith participation in the services and a broad spectrum of participants and attendees. Last night's service was hosted by the Unifour Christian Fellowship, a church that has been a very active supporter of ALFA over the years. http://www.ucfc.net/ They are a group that put their boots on the ground to carry out their message of support.
The messages brought, in this case by a missionary who works with AIDS patients in Africa and by a pastor who has been HIV positive for over twenty years, are not those of despair but rather testaments of victory over the disease, although all acknowledge that there is much more to do.
There are, however, similarities that have remained in the services over the years.
There is the recognition that the stigma associated with the disease causes many people to decline to be tested, or to fail to obtain appropriate treatment out of fear that their condition will be discovered.
There is a request for volunteers to get involved and help those who are afflicted and affected by HIV / AIDS. Aside from donating money or food or office supplies or whatever, or offering to act as chauffer to someone who can no longer drive to help them get to the grocery store or doctor appointments, one of the most fundamental ways a volunteer can help is to approach those with authority over school systems to allow educational materials that are based in the realities of society today be presented to young people. Informative, fact based data is the only way to enable them to consider the consequences of their actions and hopefully make rational decisions regarding their own safety.
It continues to amaze me that entire school systems refuse to allow any educational materials other than abstinence only be presented to their students. Invariably, these are the school systems that have the highest incidents of teen pregnancy.
There is a recognition that the client base for groups such as ALFA continues to grow, despite attempts at education and availability of testing. More and more clients do not discover that they are infected with HIV until they have some catastrophic illness and are diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. This is the equivalent of discovering that you have cancer not when it is a small lump in a woman's breast, but after it has spread through the lymphatic system, encroaching upon the entire body.
The services always end with a candlelight vigil, where the names of those who have passed to another realm are recalled. The readings start somewhere in the 1990’s, the lists from prior to that being simply too long to read. A difference, though, is that the lists get shorter for each year as medical advances and information became available.
Those for the last few years usually contain only three or four names.
Finally, there’s a moment of silence, as we contemplate the flames in the crowd, vigil to the messages in our hearts to which we cannot give voice. Longing for those who had their lives cut short by this disease.
Those in attendance recall the names of those who were not mentioned.
For me, those names include Jerry and Rick. Steve. Skip and Joe. All who fought the good fight, but finally relinquished their hold on this earth to journey on to the next reality.
We remember them especially on World AIDS day, and hope that the list of names continues to get shorter each year.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Roses and Orange Blossoms
Something happened this afternoon that hadn’t happened to me in a long, long time.
I found myself in close with a woman to whom I was not related and noticing her perfume.
It was not an especially enjoyable experience for me for a number of reasons.
We were at the gym. I was 20 minutes into my aerobics and was more interested in staying upright than noticing anything else. It took all of my extra brain cells to pry the cap off my water bottle and not spill down the front of my shirt like a 2 year old graduated from his tippy cup.
I first noticed this particular young woman when the fan in the gym caused a breeze to blow from her direction to mine. The odor was unmistakable.
It was something like a strawberry milkshake that’s been left on the dash of your car for a couple of days.
In August.
Immediately, as I felt my sinuses closing in, I began mentally cursing the marketing people who made this monstrosity seem like a good idea. There didn’t seem to be a feasible escape.
Of course, the gym was full and there really wasn’t an opportunity to move even if I’d wanted.
I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of dispensing evil odors myself, although primarily when I was younger and didn’t know any better.
Mom received uncountable gallons of Avon’s Roses, Roses, especially popular in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was popular because it was a double-duty gift; not only did it offer what was then perceived as nice stinkum, but came in a decorative decanter like good scotch. Even empty, it hung around as a reminder of Mother’s Day, 1968 until the bottles finally got knocked off and broken.
Probably the worst olfactory sin that I ever committed happened on vacation in the early 1970’s. We went to Florida and I returned with a tube of “orange blossom cream perfume” for each of my grandmothers.
Mom’s mom resolved the issue by putting hers on the shelf and, “saving it for good,” she said, whenever asked why she didn’t wear it. Occasionally, during the summer, she could be cajoled into putting a tiny drop on her neck. I note that a tiny speck was sufficient to clear the barn, and she tried to make certain that company was unlikely between the time of application and a bath.
My other grandmother, having raised 3 sons and likely encountering such “gifts” in the past, knew that a quick and firm response was the only way to deal with it.
She smeared the entire tube on in one fell swoop, I suspect also when she was relatively certain that she would not encounter anyone else and a bathtub was at hand. After that, she could honestly say that it was all used up and, travelling to Florida being the only way to acquire a supply in those pre-internet days, there was no chance of replenishing the stash.
The young lady at the gym was too young to have been trying to make a grandchild happy by using up a present.
The next time I ponder adding a scent to my body......I'll try to think of Roses and Orange blossoms first.
I found myself in close with a woman to whom I was not related and noticing her perfume.
It was not an especially enjoyable experience for me for a number of reasons.
We were at the gym. I was 20 minutes into my aerobics and was more interested in staying upright than noticing anything else. It took all of my extra brain cells to pry the cap off my water bottle and not spill down the front of my shirt like a 2 year old graduated from his tippy cup.
I first noticed this particular young woman when the fan in the gym caused a breeze to blow from her direction to mine. The odor was unmistakable.
It was something like a strawberry milkshake that’s been left on the dash of your car for a couple of days.
In August.
Immediately, as I felt my sinuses closing in
Of course, the gym was full and there really wasn’t an opportunity to move even if I’d wanted.
I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of dispensing evil odors myself, although primarily when I was younger and didn’t know any better.
Mom received uncountable gallons of Avon’s Roses, Roses, especially popular in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was popular because it was a double-duty gift; not only did it offer what was then perceived as nice stinkum, but came in a decorative decanter like good scotch. Even empty, it hung around as a reminder of Mother’s Day, 1968 until the bottles finally got knocked off and broken.
Probably the worst olfactory sin that I ever committed happened on vacation in the early 1970’s. We went to Florida and I returned with a tube of “orange blossom cream perfume” for each of my grandmothers.
Mom’s mom resolved the issue by putting hers on the shelf and, “saving it for good,” she said, whenever asked why she didn’t wear it. Occasionally, during the summer, she could be cajoled into putting a tiny drop on her neck. I note that a tiny speck was sufficient to clear the barn, and she tried to make certain that company was unlikely between the time of application and a bath.
My other grandmother, having raised 3 sons and likely encountering such “gifts” in the past, knew that a quick and firm response was the only way to deal with it.
She smeared the entire tube on in one fell swoop, I suspect also when she was relatively certain that she would not encounter anyone else and a bathtub was at hand. After that, she could honestly say that it was all used up and, travelling to Florida being the only way to acquire a supply in those pre-internet days, there was no chance of replenishing the stash.
The young lady at the gym was too young to have been trying to make a grandchild happy by using up a present.
The next time I ponder adding a scent to my body......I'll try to think of Roses and Orange blossoms first.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Miss Peggy's Last Days
The call came late on Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. I suspected the news was not good when the message was just, “Please call my office as soon as possible.”
Those kind of calls are never to tell you that you’ve won a sweepstakes. Maybe it’s the somber tone in the person’s voice, but instinctively you just know that something is amiss.
The problem isn’t an easier when you’ve come to know someone who can give such serious information on a first-name basis.
“Hi Bob, returning your call.”
“I hate to tell you this right before the holiday, but it’s not good news.”
“Miss Peggy? Bad?”
“Yeah. Once we had her opened up, I realized that there’s no hope. We just closed her back up and are making her comfortable. She can come home whenever you’d like to spend whatever time is left with you and the family.”
I was stunned. It wasn’t expected at all. I mean, we knew she was getting up in years and had those little quirks that the elderly tend to get – they move a bit slower on cold mornings, sometimes hesitate before heading out to do errands, and it just takes more time to get ready to do about anything.
But to say things were hopeless was something of a shock.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, I know. But I knew you wanted it straight, so I haven’t tried to sugar-coat it for you.”
“Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks, Bob.”
The holiday was not to be delayed, Almost 20 people were scheduled to appear the next day and expected to be fed. After that, we’d obligated ourselves to go to a celebration at our friend’s house so there was little time for grieving or planning. Others simply wouldn’t understand the feelings that we were experiencing over the news.
So we did as so many others have done and swallowed our emotions, putting on a cheerful front so as to not adversely impact the celebrations of others.
Between the tryptophan from the turkey on Thursday, the wine and utter exhaustion, sleep came readily on Thursday night but Friday was another story. Miss Peggy was home and comfortable, but the inevitable would soon be upon us. Plans had to be made, contingencies anticipated and put into place, and options for immediate resolution addressed. Unlike the others anticipating the Black Friday sales, we were on the internet early, shopping and evaluating the various possibilities on how to deal not with Christmas presents, but with a vacancy in our family that would soon arrive.
Thus was the position we found ourselves after Miss Peggy, our 1993 Cadillac Eldorado had been given Extreme Unction by her auto physician. There was no hope, the cost of fixing a leaky sunroof potentially exceeded the value of the car (at least according to Kelly Blue Book), not to mention the coolant leak and other problems that plagued her.
Bob, our trusted mechanic, had promised that he’d tell us when it was time to pull the plug. That time had arrived and our obligation was to accept the diagnosis with dignity.
Thus Miss Peggy found herself parked on the curb with magnetic “For Sale” signs attached to three sides.
Even worse than the crisis of having to replace a vehicle, the timing of the news meant that we had to venture out into the post-Thanksgiving crowds to car shop.
We had previously narrowed the possibilities down. After a bit of internet shopping, CarMAX is now our new friend. Two test drives and it’s narrowed down by model and year, and a few minutes inside to figure out if one was available in the color and options available and we were on our way. The replacement will be here by Noon on Saturday.
Thus Miss Peggy finds herself on the curb, not up to CarMAX standards and looking for a new home where someone will forgive her age and infirmities in hopes that she can provide a few more years of service. She served us well, but economic realities cannot be denied.
Besides, there’s the bittersweet excitement of the new relationship to anticipate.
Those kind of calls are never to tell you that you’ve won a sweepstakes. Maybe it’s the somber tone in the person’s voice, but instinctively you just know that something is amiss.
The problem isn’t an easier when you’ve come to know someone who can give such serious information on a first-name basis.
“Hi Bob, returning your call.”
“I hate to tell you this right before the holiday, but it’s not good news.”
“Miss Peggy? Bad?”
“Yeah. Once we had her opened up, I realized that there’s no hope. We just closed her back up and are making her comfortable. She can come home whenever you’d like to spend whatever time is left with you and the family.”
I was stunned. It wasn’t expected at all. I mean, we knew she was getting up in years and had those little quirks that the elderly tend to get – they move a bit slower on cold mornings, sometimes hesitate before heading out to do errands, and it just takes more time to get ready to do about anything.
But to say things were hopeless was something of a shock.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, I know. But I knew you wanted it straight, so I haven’t tried to sugar-coat it for you.”
“Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks, Bob.”
The holiday was not to be delayed, Almost 20 people were scheduled to appear the next day and expected to be fed. After that, we’d obligated ourselves to go to a celebration at our friend’s house so there was little time for grieving or planning. Others simply wouldn’t understand the feelings that we were experiencing over the news.
So we did as so many others have done and swallowed our emotions, putting on a cheerful front so as to not adversely impact the celebrations of others.
Between the tryptophan from the turkey on Thursday, the wine and utter exhaustion, sleep came readily on Thursday night but Friday was another story. Miss Peggy was home and comfortable, but the inevitable would soon be upon us. Plans had to be made, contingencies anticipated and put into place, and options for immediate resolution addressed. Unlike the others anticipating the Black Friday sales, we were on the internet early, shopping and evaluating the various possibilities on how to deal not with Christmas presents, but with a vacancy in our family that would soon arrive.
Thus was the position we found ourselves after Miss Peggy, our 1993 Cadillac Eldorado had been given Extreme Unction by her auto physician. There was no hope, the cost of fixing a leaky sunroof potentially exceeded the value of the car (at least according to Kelly Blue Book), not to mention the coolant leak and other problems that plagued her.
Bob, our trusted mechanic, had promised that he’d tell us when it was time to pull the plug. That time had arrived and our obligation was to accept the diagnosis with dignity.
Thus Miss Peggy found herself parked on the curb with magnetic “For Sale” signs attached to three sides.
Even worse than the crisis of having to replace a vehicle, the timing of the news meant that we had to venture out into the post-Thanksgiving crowds to car shop.
We had previously narrowed the possibilities down. After a bit of internet shopping, CarMAX is now our new friend. Two test drives and it’s narrowed down by model and year, and a few minutes inside to figure out if one was available in the color and options available and we were on our way. The replacement will be here by Noon on Saturday.
Thus Miss Peggy finds herself on the curb, not up to CarMAX standards and looking for a new home where someone will forgive her age and infirmities in hopes that she can provide a few more years of service. She served us well, but economic realities cannot be denied.
Besides, there’s the bittersweet excitement of the new relationship to anticipate.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving
It’s the day before Thanksgiving, which means that there are two types of things written about, either humorous food disasters or things that we’re thankful for. I’m not sure which category this is going to fall in.
This time of year, I always think about my friend Skeet Malone, who I met when I lived in Carnegie, Oklahoma. Skeet, who passed away a few years ago, was a fascinating guy for a couple of reasons.
First, he had a permanent trachestomy tube that would pop out suddenly if he coughed or laughed. The first few times it was really startling to see that plastic plug shoot out at you like the cork from a champagne bottle, but once you realized it was tethered to him and wouldn’t hit you it just became another aspect of his character.
Especially when you found out how he got it.
Skeet was a very young man who was at the invasion of Normandy Beach. He married his wife Jeanne just two days before deployment. While he was there, he took a strafe of machine gun fire across his chest and toward his right arm.
At the time, he was given up for dead and was stacked up with the other bodies for disposition, much like cordwood waiting for a cold winter day. Someone heard him gurgle as the blood seeped into his lungs, yelled, “This one’s alive” and they pulled him from the stack.
As a result of his injuries, his right hand was curled and paralyzed much like that of a stroke victim. It didn’t slow him down from becoming a school teacher and later high school principal, from following several different business paths after retirement or from becoming a very skilled stained glass artisan.
Skeet was also a master storyteller, and one of his favorites centered around growing up during the Great Depression. I can’t recount the tale with his panache (or without his glass of scotch), but those who knew him will recognize it immediately.
It seems that there was a family near his who had about a dozen children. The mom had died in childbirth and the dad had quickly remarried a much younger woman who was expected to become the mother of these children.
To say that they were “dirt poor” was a vast understatement. They lived in a tiny two room house without electricity or running water. The step-mom, who was in her early 20’s, was charged with the care of all the children who ranged from about 14 down to infancy. Because it was the depth of the Great Depression, money was almost non-existent and the family occasionally received “Relief”, the precursor to food stamps.
As with lots of government programs, there were occasionally glitches in the system.
One time, they got ten pounds of lard. Nothing else. Just lard.
Useful, I suppose, but hardly sustenance for a family of 14.
Occasionally, though, especially around the holidays, the delivery was a bonanza of treats that were otherwise unknown in western Oklahoma. In the year that Skeet liked to talk about, the delivery included a 25 pound bag of California Grapefruit.
Remember that this was prior to the days of supermarkets. Food tended to be locally grown and seasonal or home canned. Besides, they had no money to go to the store to buy food. Most of what they ate was grown in a garden out back of their little house.
Skeet himself said he’d never tasted a grapefruit himself until he was in the army, and that while growing up he generally got an orange once a year – from the Santa who came to the First United Methodist Church Christmas party.
A bag of such bounty was an absolute goldmine to anyone then, much less a family with such meager resources.
The day after the relief food was delivered, though, the young stepmom walked about half a mile down the road in tears to talk with Skeet’s mother, who had become something of a mentor to her.
“I don’t know what to do with these things,” she said. “I’ve tried to boil them, to fry them and to bake them, and the kids just won’t eat them. How do you cook them?”
We have much for which to be thankful. Food, for the most part, is abundant and as close as the corner grocery store without regard to the season. Most of us have the resources to feed (and overfeed) ourselves. The internet provides information about how to fry your grapefruit, although I haven’t tried it yet.
I’m thankful also for all the men and women who have and are currently serving in the armed forces, but especially for three young men – Ither D. “Skeet” Malone, Robert Weidenmaier and Gene Sawyer – all from Caddo County, Oklahoma, who, in 1942 answered the call of their country and then returned to continue to serve their communities and influence others in ways that they probably never realized.
This time of year, I always think about my friend Skeet Malone, who I met when I lived in Carnegie, Oklahoma. Skeet, who passed away a few years ago, was a fascinating guy for a couple of reasons.
First, he had a permanent trachestomy tube that would pop out suddenly if he coughed or laughed. The first few times it was really startling to see that plastic plug shoot out at you like the cork from a champagne bottle, but once you realized it was tethered to him and wouldn’t hit you it just became another aspect of his character.
Especially when you found out how he got it.
Skeet was a very young man who was at the invasion of Normandy Beach. He married his wife Jeanne just two days before deployment. While he was there, he took a strafe of machine gun fire across his chest and toward his right arm.
At the time, he was given up for dead and was stacked up with the other bodies for disposition, much like cordwood waiting for a cold winter day. Someone heard him gurgle as the blood seeped into his lungs, yelled, “This one’s alive” and they pulled him from the stack.
As a result of his injuries, his right hand was curled and paralyzed much like that of a stroke victim. It didn’t slow him down from becoming a school teacher and later high school principal, from following several different business paths after retirement or from becoming a very skilled stained glass artisan.
Skeet was also a master storyteller, and one of his favorites centered around growing up during the Great Depression. I can’t recount the tale with his panache (or without his glass of scotch), but those who knew him will recognize it immediately.
It seems that there was a family near his who had about a dozen children. The mom had died in childbirth and the dad had quickly remarried a much younger woman who was expected to become the mother of these children.
To say that they were “dirt poor” was a vast understatement. They lived in a tiny two room house without electricity or running water. The step-mom, who was in her early 20’s, was charged with the care of all the children who ranged from about 14 down to infancy. Because it was the depth of the Great Depression, money was almost non-existent and the family occasionally received “Relief”, the precursor to food stamps.
As with lots of government programs, there were occasionally glitches in the system.
One time, they got ten pounds of lard. Nothing else. Just lard.
Useful, I suppose, but hardly sustenance for a family of 14.
Occasionally, though, especially around the holidays, the delivery was a bonanza of treats that were otherwise unknown in western Oklahoma. In the year that Skeet liked to talk about, the delivery included a 25 pound bag of California Grapefruit.
Remember that this was prior to the days of supermarkets. Food tended to be locally grown and seasonal or home canned. Besides, they had no money to go to the store to buy food. Most of what they ate was grown in a garden out back of their little house.
Skeet himself said he’d never tasted a grapefruit himself until he was in the army, and that while growing up he generally got an orange once a year – from the Santa who came to the First United Methodist Church Christmas party.
A bag of such bounty was an absolute goldmine to anyone then, much less a family with such meager resources.
The day after the relief food was delivered, though, the young stepmom walked about half a mile down the road in tears to talk with Skeet’s mother, who had become something of a mentor to her.
“I don’t know what to do with these things,” she said. “I’ve tried to boil them, to fry them and to bake them, and the kids just won’t eat them. How do you cook them?”
We have much for which to be thankful. Food, for the most part, is abundant and as close as the corner grocery store without regard to the season. Most of us have the resources to feed (and overfeed) ourselves. The internet provides information about how to fry your grapefruit, although I haven’t tried it yet.
I’m thankful also for all the men and women who have and are currently serving in the armed forces, but especially for three young men – Ither D. “Skeet” Malone, Robert Weidenmaier and Gene Sawyer – all from Caddo County, Oklahoma, who, in 1942 answered the call of their country and then returned to continue to serve their communities and influence others in ways that they probably never realized.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Breast Cancer Awareness - a fun video
The following is from the blog http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/. It's a fun video to watch, and as he indicates, will result in a donation to a worthy cause. Although the link in his post won't copy, you can find the video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
Emily Somers created, directed and choreographed this video in Portland last week for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves. I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.
When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It's an easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who hasn't been touched by breast cancer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
Emily Somers created, directed and choreographed this video in Portland last week for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves. I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.
When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It's an easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who hasn't been touched by breast cancer?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
International Communication
Ever sit in an international airport or train station and listen to the conversations around you? It really doesn’t matter whether you speak the language or not, when you watch others you realize that some things are universal.
You also recognize that lots of words don’t necessarily mean communication, whereas few words sometimes communicate a wealth of information.
Recently I found myself in a lounge full of individuals from all over the world. We were all waiting for various groups to leave from the common point of congregation, and everyone had their “stuff” for the day with them.
First, there were the moms. They are impervious to children tugging on their sleeves going “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama,” ad naseum, although after about 30 seconds everyone else within a 30 foot radius would gladly have held the little spawn underwater until the bubbles stopped. Apparently something about giving birth affects a woman’s hearing in certain ranges, just as football games on televisions can cause many husbands to stop hearing tones within the range of their wife’s voice.
Let the child truly be in trouble, though, and squawk just the slightest bit differently and the mother immediately turns her attention to the offspring to determine that there’s no true danger.
The corollary to that, of course, is the Dad. He’s sitting there fidgeting with something new – a camera, snorkel, cell phone – trying to figure it out so that he can explain it to everyone else. I’ve watched this in my own dad a lot – with three little boys, he knew that every new piece of equipment, no matter what it was, would need to be explained at least 9 times or more. He’s got to understand all the nuances so that he can not only undo whatever stupidity the others do when they don’t wait for his instructions, but also to be able to then lead them down the right path to make the thingamajig work before frustration sets in.
Usually without actually reading the directions.
There are fighting couples. Usually, they’re easiest to observe because there are no words going between them, or if there are, one will offer something and get “the look” from the other, usually followed by curt answers or stony silence.
They are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the “first daters”, who are nervously talking about themselves, interspersed with questions with each other and revealing the picture that they would have the other see, at least until they decide if there’s going to be a second date.
There is the tired resignation on the face of someone who has gotten trapped by a chatty-Cathy who has decided that they are now new best friends, Cathy being the only one talking. The victim of that case is hoping that someone has dropped a nail file on the floor so that they can gouge their eyes out and therefore have an excuse to leave without being rude.
There are grandparents who are along for the ride, having had little input in the planning and probably preferring half the activities and twice the nap they’re going to be allowed. The grandfather is concerned about how much things are costing, being unable to truly enjoy a $10.00 hamburger and wanting to pay his part despite the obvious ability of the kids to treat, and the grandmother taking in all the things that need correcting were she in charge – that baby needs a sweater; that girl needs a safety pin for her top, she’s showing waaayyy too much cleavage for a teenager; that woman over there needs to quit reading that trashy novel and either pay attention to or smack her husband for looking at that other woman who’s grandmother obviously never explained to her the proper use of a safety pin, and now it’s too late and she’s learned to enjoy the attention brought about by a low cut blouse – again, some things are universal.
Mind you, all of these things were happening in at least five languages that I could distinguish. I don’t speak enough of anything but English to be able to do more than ask the location of the toilet and how much something costs. It was easy enough to get a pretty good grasp of what was happening in the crowd, though, regardless of the words actually used.
So maybe we’re not as different as we think we are.
You also recognize that lots of words don’t necessarily mean communication, whereas few words sometimes communicate a wealth of information.
Recently I found myself in a lounge full of individuals from all over the world. We were all waiting for various groups to leave from the common point of congregation, and everyone had their “stuff” for the day with them.
First, there were the moms. They are impervious to children tugging on their sleeves going “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama,” ad naseum, although after about 30 seconds everyone else within a 30 foot radius would gladly have held the little spawn underwater until the bubbles stopped. Apparently something about giving birth affects a woman’s hearing in certain ranges, just as football games on televisions can cause many husbands to stop hearing tones within the range of their wife’s voice.
Let the child truly be in trouble, though, and squawk just the slightest bit differently and the mother immediately turns her attention to the offspring to determine that there’s no true danger.
The corollary to that, of course, is the Dad. He’s sitting there fidgeting with something new – a camera, snorkel, cell phone – trying to figure it out so that he can explain it to everyone else. I’ve watched this in my own dad a lot – with three little boys, he knew that every new piece of equipment, no matter what it was, would need to be explained at least 9 times or more. He’s got to understand all the nuances so that he can not only undo whatever stupidity the others do when they don’t wait for his instructions, but also to be able to then lead them down the right path to make the thingamajig work before frustration sets in.
Usually without actually reading the directions.
There are fighting couples. Usually, they’re easiest to observe because there are no words going between them, or if there are, one will offer something and get “the look” from the other, usually followed by curt answers or stony silence.
They are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the “first daters”, who are nervously talking about themselves, interspersed with questions with each other and revealing the picture that they would have the other see, at least until they decide if there’s going to be a second date.
There is the tired resignation on the face of someone who has gotten trapped by a chatty-Cathy who has decided that they are now new best friends, Cathy being the only one talking. The victim of that case is hoping that someone has dropped a nail file on the floor so that they can gouge their eyes out and therefore have an excuse to leave without being rude.
There are grandparents who are along for the ride, having had little input in the planning and probably preferring half the activities and twice the nap they’re going to be allowed. The grandfather is concerned about how much things are costing, being unable to truly enjoy a $10.00 hamburger and wanting to pay his part despite the obvious ability of the kids to treat, and the grandmother taking in all the things that need correcting were she in charge – that baby needs a sweater; that girl needs a safety pin for her top, she’s showing waaayyy too much cleavage for a teenager; that woman over there needs to quit reading that trashy novel and either pay attention to or smack her husband for looking at that other woman who’s grandmother obviously never explained to her the proper use of a safety pin, and now it’s too late and she’s learned to enjoy the attention brought about by a low cut blouse – again, some things are universal.
Mind you, all of these things were happening in at least five languages that I could distinguish. I don’t speak enough of anything but English to be able to do more than ask the location of the toilet and how much something costs. It was easy enough to get a pretty good grasp of what was happening in the crowd, though, regardless of the words actually used.
So maybe we’re not as different as we think we are.
Cell Phone Replacement
It’s time to get a new cell phone. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Blackberry that I’ve carried for two years, but the honeymoon is over and it’s time to ship it off to a box in the technology closet, an elephant’s graveyard in my office where unattached chargers, dead or dying laptops and obsolete MP3 players go to languish and die.
I have a hard time shipping those things off to the thrift store because I think that there’s still useful life in them. What if I lose my new phone, or my iPod won’t sink?\
Besides, good money was paid for those and they still work. Why should they be simply thrown out??
The reality, of course, is that they go into the closet. This is the same closet that holds the box where all the black, unmarked chargers with wall warts migrate, interbreeding to increase their mass and procreate little indeterminate electronic parts that might go to any one of three or four different appliances but which will never be matched up to anything specific again.
Until, of course, the week after they are thrown out, at which point their use will immediately become apparent, as will the fact that they can no longer be procured from the manufacturer.
Part of the need to save these gizmos comes from the fact that I remember how much they cost when they were new. Like the $200 electronic “Pong” game that dad got us for Christmas about 1977, or the subsequent Atari, the fun may be gone after a while but nothing which cost that much is going to be thrown away unless it’s absolutely broken and cannot be fixed or repaired.
Adjust for 1977 dollars, and you’ll understand why that could be an issue.
Cell phones, for the most part, are disposable. Sure, you may plop down some portion of the purchase price, but if you’ll sign up for another couple of years they will happily give you a new gizmo fix to feed your habit.
So why keep the old ones?
A couple are “backups”. When my current Blackberry quit functioning a couple of months after I got it, Verizon was happy to replace it. I just sent the old one back to them via Fed Ex and in a few short days my new one arrived.
Now, we’ve seen on television the extent that crack addicts will go to keep a supply of drugs for their habits. Is it realistic to think that an electronic junkie is going to go any length of time on the PROMISE that a telephone company is going to send a new phone? Who believes anything that the phone company or the cable company tells them, anyhow?? Besides, since we cut the land line, this is the primary form of communication.
It ain’t happenin’. The old Palm came out of the box and was pressed back into service.
Occasionally one of the kids will mangle / lose their phone, so having a couple of spares even makes more sense.
The reality, though, is that the old one is being kept in case I’m not bright enough to learn how to use the new one. While the newest features touted by the advertisers are enticing – after all, the new phone is going to organize my life, provide constant internet access and take photographs to record even the most mundane of activities to share with my friends via Facebook – but the problem is I still have to figure out how to use the darned thing to make it work.
Lots of these things are no longer intuitive for me. I have to study and practice them out methodically over time. Sometimes this takes a couple of years, and then, of course, it’s time for a new phone.
The problem is compounded by the fact that devices now re-arrange themselves to make things more “useful,” thus slowing my learning curve even more. I may not always do things in the most efficient manner because that’s the way I’ve learned to do them. Like typing on a QWERTY keyboard, my fingers know what to do without a lot of intention on my part. You go changing things around, and I’m going to have to learn all over again.
Lately, my decisions regarding cell phones haven’t been based as much on the applications and neat things it will do, but rather on how big the type will get and how easy it is to read the buttons. Blackberry is a dismal failure on the latter – multi-function buttons, labeled in black against a silver background means that anything viewed without my reading glasses is but a miniscule blur.
Verizon, my carrier, has introduced the new Droid just this week – flat screen, no visible keyboard unless you slide it open and then it’s got the full thing in the order I’m used to, and it looks to have nice big print so I can actually see what the heck is going on.
Of course, I’ll have to keep the old one just in case.
I have a hard time shipping those things off to the thrift store because I think that there’s still useful life in them. What if I lose my new phone, or my iPod won’t sink?\
Besides, good money was paid for those and they still work. Why should they be simply thrown out??
The reality, of course, is that they go into the closet. This is the same closet that holds the box where all the black, unmarked chargers with wall warts migrate, interbreeding to increase their mass and procreate little indeterminate electronic parts that might go to any one of three or four different appliances but which will never be matched up to anything specific again.
Until, of course, the week after they are thrown out, at which point their use will immediately become apparent, as will the fact that they can no longer be procured from the manufacturer.
Part of the need to save these gizmos comes from the fact that I remember how much they cost when they were new. Like the $200 electronic “Pong” game that dad got us for Christmas about 1977, or the subsequent Atari, the fun may be gone after a while but nothing which cost that much is going to be thrown away unless it’s absolutely broken and cannot be fixed or repaired.
Adjust for 1977 dollars, and you’ll understand why that could be an issue.
Cell phones, for the most part, are disposable. Sure, you may plop down some portion of the purchase price, but if you’ll sign up for another couple of years they will happily give you a new gizmo fix to feed your habit.
So why keep the old ones?
A couple are “backups”. When my current Blackberry quit functioning a couple of months after I got it, Verizon was happy to replace it. I just sent the old one back to them via Fed Ex and in a few short days my new one arrived.
Now, we’ve seen on television the extent that crack addicts will go to keep a supply of drugs for their habits. Is it realistic to think that an electronic junkie is going to go any length of time on the PROMISE that a telephone company is going to send a new phone? Who believes anything that the phone company or the cable company tells them, anyhow?? Besides, since we cut the land line, this is the primary form of communication.
It ain’t happenin’. The old Palm came out of the box and was pressed back into service.
Occasionally one of the kids will mangle / lose their phone, so having a couple of spares even makes more sense.
The reality, though, is that the old one is being kept in case I’m not bright enough to learn how to use the new one. While the newest features touted by the advertisers are enticing – after all, the new phone is going to organize my life, provide constant internet access and take photographs to record even the most mundane of activities to share with my friends via Facebook – but the problem is I still have to figure out how to use the darned thing to make it work.
Lots of these things are no longer intuitive for me. I have to study and practice them out methodically over time. Sometimes this takes a couple of years, and then, of course, it’s time for a new phone.
The problem is compounded by the fact that devices now re-arrange themselves to make things more “useful,” thus slowing my learning curve even more. I may not always do things in the most efficient manner because that’s the way I’ve learned to do them. Like typing on a QWERTY keyboard, my fingers know what to do without a lot of intention on my part. You go changing things around, and I’m going to have to learn all over again.
Lately, my decisions regarding cell phones haven’t been based as much on the applications and neat things it will do, but rather on how big the type will get and how easy it is to read the buttons. Blackberry is a dismal failure on the latter – multi-function buttons, labeled in black against a silver background means that anything viewed without my reading glasses is but a miniscule blur.
Verizon, my carrier, has introduced the new Droid just this week – flat screen, no visible keyboard unless you slide it open and then it’s got the full thing in the order I’m used to, and it looks to have nice big print so I can actually see what the heck is going on.
Of course, I’ll have to keep the old one just in case.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Restroom Habits
The other day I was watching a show on History or Discovery or one of those other “educational” channels that’s not quite so PBS as to require being subsidized by an annual fund drive, but which has more informational content than, say, FOX News. I forget which one it was, as they tend to run together. They’re about all that gets watched, though, since we’ve gotten off of the TRU TV kick of collections of police chases and home video of people doing stupid things and yet remaining alive afterwards.
There is some truth to the old joke that the last words uttered by many individuals, is, “Hey, Y’all, watch this!” You can only watch so many car crashes, traffic stops or attempts to jump a car / motorcycle / motor home / tractor over a quantity of cars / motorcycles / motor homes/ tractors / cheerleaders before it starts to get repetitive.
I’m amazed, though, at how some of the shows on these educational channels take the most mundane and are able to stretch it into 23 minutes of programming which advertisers will support and at least enough people like me will sit and watch to make it worth producing.
The particular show I was watching was about plumbing, and it caused me to think about how cultural and different bathroom habits are, even within our cultures.
Did you know that there were public toilets in ancient Rome? Apparently, like many other aspects of Roman life, toilets were just as much a social gathering place as the baths or, say, the vomitorium.
There didn’t seem to be any privacy related to bodily functions there, either. Facilities consisted of long benches with holes cut in them. Waterworks below carried the waste products away.
I’ve long thought that people in Public Utilities, especially wastewater treatment facilities, are the unsung heroes of our society. After all, if the busses or trains don’t run, people are inconvenienced, but you can always walk as a last resort. If there’s nobody working in the Mayor or City Manager’s office – and many would legitimately argue that society would be better off without some of those folks – life goes on for a few days, anyhow. Police and firemen, while essential and doing heroic tasks, also work somewhat intermittently in that they're waiting to be called out. Waste departments are on call 24/7, without regard to when one might need to use the wastewater facilities.
Take away the ability to flush, though, and things get pretty dire pretty quickly. In houses with lots of children, maybe even as little as a few hours.
These people deal with nasty, smelly, and sometimes disgusting byproducts of humanity. It’s easy to overlook their contribution, but I submit that they are some of the most important people in local government today.
The show, of course, was about their mastery of waterworks to carry the waste products away, but what struck me was the social aspects of using the restroom. People arranged meetings, both to transact business and for more furtive assignations, to occur in the toilets. Sitting on a bench with your goodies hanging out was apparently a great equalizer – there was little class distinction, and by simply looking around you could recognize that all men truly are created equal.
That’s very different than public restroom culture in the US today. That was made very clear recently when travelling through the New Orleans airport. We headed off of our plane and, as most people did, immediately went to the toilet.
Face it, it’s impossible to be either efficient or effective in an airplane lavatory. Regardless of whether you went on the plane or not, you probably need to go when you get off, especially since heaven knows how long it will take your luggage to arrive.
Men who go into a public restroom usually approach it with the same reverential whispers that one uses in church or a library.
As a result, you could see guys physically flinch when an airport employee who was sitting on a bar stool near the sinks bellowed out to every entrant, “GOOD MORNING, SIR, AND WELCOME TO THE MEN’S ROOM.”
More than one dropped the handle on their roller bag, and one guy with three little boys in tow, not sure of what was happening in the hubbub did and immediate about-face with the boys and herded them back the other direction.
As we get older, there are some things that simply cannot be delayed. Anyone who’s topped 40 knows that the urge to go to the bathroom means that you HAVE to go to the bathroom, and RIGHT NOW. Besides, the place was packed with other guys, so figuring what could really happen and being urged on biologically, we proceeded to the urinals.
It soon was obvious that the restroom attendant was mentally challenged, and was undoubtedly following the directions that he’d been given. He was performing other functions of a men’s room attendant, wiping down the sinks and refreshing the supplies, etc. He was also doing a great job at keeping the place clean and tidy, and it was refreshing and heartwarming to see someone with challenges employed and contributing to society.
But his greeting was much more exuberant than normally encountered in a public men’s room.
When you go in, even if you’re with your friends, your voice drops to a quieter tone, conversations are suspended, and you deal with the business at hand. I have no idea what goes on in women’s restrooms, but based on the anecdotal information, I gather that they can be much more social institutions than on the guy’s side of the building.
Seldom do you make idle conversation with the guy next to you unless you’re a Republican Congressman. I’m not sure whether that’s because of the fear of a police sting or you’re worried that you’ll be approached to help fund some pork barrel project in a nearby district, but either way the results could be bad.
If you do have to talk to someone you don’t know there, there are rules.
Preferably, you wait until they are finished and washing their hands. Otherwise, you look them straight in the eye, speak clearly (lest a mumbled inquiry be misinterpreted) and get straight to the point.
Topics, similarly, are limited. The immediate weather, such as the blizzard / tornado warning that was issued just moments ago. Escaped gunmen in the area who may have infiltrated the building. Sports figures who have been arrested (if, as in some places, there are current newspapers posted over the urinals and the article happens to be visible). Performance of new car models (but only in October when the new models just come out).
Discussions about shoes, no matter how cool they may be, are off limits, as are those about wait gain or loss (even among the closest of friends), relationships or anything vaguely associated with “feelings”.
After all, even though it may not make the participants in the conversation feel awkward, it could be uncomfortable for the other occupants.
It's a far cry from a business meeting in an ancient Roman toilet, that's for sure.
Gotta run; I see there’s a program about how Dihydrous Monoxide impacts our daily lives coming on shortly. Wouldn’t want to miss that!’
There is some truth to the old joke that the last words uttered by many individuals, is, “Hey, Y’all, watch this!” You can only watch so many car crashes, traffic stops or attempts to jump a car / motorcycle / motor home / tractor over a quantity of cars / motorcycles / motor homes/ tractors / cheerleaders before it starts to get repetitive.
I’m amazed, though, at how some of the shows on these educational channels take the most mundane and are able to stretch it into 23 minutes of programming which advertisers will support and at least enough people like me will sit and watch to make it worth producing.
The particular show I was watching was about plumbing, and it caused me to think about how cultural and different bathroom habits are, even within our cultures.
Did you know that there were public toilets in ancient Rome? Apparently, like many other aspects of Roman life, toilets were just as much a social gathering place as the baths or, say, the vomitorium.
There didn’t seem to be any privacy related to bodily functions there, either. Facilities consisted of long benches with holes cut in them. Waterworks below carried the waste products away.
I’ve long thought that people in Public Utilities, especially wastewater treatment facilities, are the unsung heroes of our society. After all, if the busses or trains don’t run, people are inconvenienced, but you can always walk as a last resort. If there’s nobody working in the Mayor or City Manager’s office – and many would legitimately argue that society would be better off without some of those folks – life goes on for a few days, anyhow. Police and firemen, while essential and doing heroic tasks, also work somewhat intermittently in that they're waiting to be called out. Waste departments are on call 24/7, without regard to when one might need to use the wastewater facilities.
Take away the ability to flush, though, and things get pretty dire pretty quickly. In houses with lots of children, maybe even as little as a few hours.
These people deal with nasty, smelly, and sometimes disgusting byproducts of humanity. It’s easy to overlook their contribution, but I submit that they are some of the most important people in local government today.
The show, of course, was about their mastery of waterworks to carry the waste products away, but what struck me was the social aspects of using the restroom. People arranged meetings, both to transact business and for more furtive assignations, to occur in the toilets. Sitting on a bench with your goodies hanging out was apparently a great equalizer – there was little class distinction, and by simply looking around you could recognize that all men truly are created equal.
That’s very different than public restroom culture in the US today. That was made very clear recently when travelling through the New Orleans airport. We headed off of our plane and, as most people did, immediately went to the toilet.
Face it, it’s impossible to be either efficient or effective in an airplane lavatory. Regardless of whether you went on the plane or not, you probably need to go when you get off, especially since heaven knows how long it will take your luggage to arrive.
Men who go into a public restroom usually approach it with the same reverential whispers that one uses in church or a library.
As a result, you could see guys physically flinch when an airport employee who was sitting on a bar stool near the sinks bellowed out to every entrant, “GOOD MORNING, SIR, AND WELCOME TO THE MEN’S ROOM.”
More than one dropped the handle on their roller bag, and one guy with three little boys in tow, not sure of what was happening in the hubbub did and immediate about-face with the boys and herded them back the other direction.
As we get older, there are some things that simply cannot be delayed. Anyone who’s topped 40 knows that the urge to go to the bathroom means that you HAVE to go to the bathroom, and RIGHT NOW. Besides, the place was packed with other guys, so figuring what could really happen and being urged on biologically, we proceeded to the urinals.
It soon was obvious that the restroom attendant was mentally challenged, and was undoubtedly following the directions that he’d been given. He was performing other functions of a men’s room attendant, wiping down the sinks and refreshing the supplies, etc. He was also doing a great job at keeping the place clean and tidy, and it was refreshing and heartwarming to see someone with challenges employed and contributing to society.
But his greeting was much more exuberant than normally encountered in a public men’s room.
When you go in, even if you’re with your friends, your voice drops to a quieter tone, conversations are suspended, and you deal with the business at hand. I have no idea what goes on in women’s restrooms, but based on the anecdotal information, I gather that they can be much more social institutions than on the guy’s side of the building.
Seldom do you make idle conversation with the guy next to you unless you’re a Republican Congressman. I’m not sure whether that’s because of the fear of a police sting or you’re worried that you’ll be approached to help fund some pork barrel project in a nearby district, but either way the results could be bad.
If you do have to talk to someone you don’t know there, there are rules.
Preferably, you wait until they are finished and washing their hands. Otherwise, you look them straight in the eye, speak clearly (lest a mumbled inquiry be misinterpreted) and get straight to the point.
Topics, similarly, are limited. The immediate weather, such as the blizzard / tornado warning that was issued just moments ago. Escaped gunmen in the area who may have infiltrated the building. Sports figures who have been arrested (if, as in some places, there are current newspapers posted over the urinals and the article happens to be visible). Performance of new car models (but only in October when the new models just come out).
Discussions about shoes, no matter how cool they may be, are off limits, as are those about wait gain or loss (even among the closest of friends), relationships or anything vaguely associated with “feelings”.
After all, even though it may not make the participants in the conversation feel awkward, it could be uncomfortable for the other occupants.
It's a far cry from a business meeting in an ancient Roman toilet, that's for sure.
Gotta run; I see there’s a program about how Dihydrous Monoxide impacts our daily lives coming on shortly. Wouldn’t want to miss that!’
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Happy Feet
There was a time, back when Wally and the Beav were kids, that gentlemen went to the barber shop for a haircut. Sometimes, a shave with a straight razor was involved, too, and if you were going all out, the trip included a shoe shine as well.
Since I graduated beyond the home-haircuts of Mom and my Grandma, about the same time I started driving, I’ve tended to go to a “stylist”, the traditional barbershops having gone the way of the General Store and hitching posts on main street. Once in a while you find a true old-fashioned barbershop, and it’s an experience when you come across it, but you have to really look for them.
On a trip to New York last summer, a friend and I were killing time walking around Greenwich Village while waiting for the others in our group to finish their tasks. We both needed haircuts, and he chose where we were going.
I honestly didn’t think that there was such a thing as a straight (as in….not gay) hair stylist in the Village in NYC, but we apparently stumbled into the only such facility there. Four barbers – no stylists there – sports on the television and the invitation, “What can I do for youse guys?”
It was an interesting experience, finding Sports Illustrated, Field and Stream and Playboy to peruse rather than Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens or those gawdawful hair magazines that you usually encounter.
The one thing they didn’t offer, though, was a shoeshine stand.
In the past, I’ve tended to shine my own shoes, giving them a quick swipe with bottled dye and calling it good if the color is relatively even. It was not a shine, for example, that Dad would have been proud of because he was taught to shine shoes in the army.
Apparently this was a life-skill deemed necessary in the 1950’s, because they spent a great deal of time doing it. Even now, more than 50 years after he completed basic training he will regularly pull out the same kit he had then with it’s myriad of sponges, brushes and polishing clothes (some of which have surely been replaced, although the brush still sports his Army Serial Number on the wooden handle) and make his dress shoes gleam for whatever event happens to be upcoming.
Since retirement, he’s slacked off a bit and discovered the joys of hush puppies rather than wingtips for daily wear.
In adolescence, he apparently sensed that a military career wasn’t in my future – probably because of my propensity to question directives rather than follow them – so he taught me the right way to shine shoes.
It’s a pain. It’s time consuming since I don’t tend to think about it while watching television some evening, but instead let it cross my mind after I’ve got on a white long sleeved dress shirt and a short deadline. The result usually comes from one of those little pre-filled sponges with the polish built in. I can usually get the scuff marks covered without having to change clothes again.
Only guys who used to be in the military would probably notice that it’s not a Grade-A shine job.
So the other day, I found myself killing time in the airport and happened across a shoe-shine stand and decided to splurge on an indulgence. There is an event coming up which will require that I be squoze into my tuxedo for the first time in several years, and I was hoping that nice shiny shoes would put enough of a reflection up that people wouldn’t notice that I need to move up a size because my jacket no longer buttons and the cummerbund is at the extreme limits of physical tolerance.
Besides, the cost of the shine would more than likely be offset by the savings for the ruined tuxedo shirt when I got polish on the sleeves.
I climbed up on one of the four thrones in the nook at the airport, designed apparently to make you feel like royalty as you survey the minions below while being serviced. The young lady welcomed me (an innovation you probably wouldn’t have seen in Floyd’s Barber Shop in downtown Mayberry!), rolled up my pant legs and put little guards around my ankles.
This obviously was going to be more involved than the vague swipes that I usually made while sitting on the side of the bathtub.
First, she actually washed the shoes with a little brush and some type of soapy-looking water. Whoda thunk you need to remove dirt before you smear on the shine?
Then she began applying her assorted pastes and poultices, the rubber gloves she wore looking like purple based palamino hide with the remnants of earlier endeavors.
The first thing I noticed was that the foot massage you got, even through the leather of the shoes, was wonderfully relaxing. There was a reason that you sat up on the throne, because this is how I imagine royalty is treated! Every time I thought she was surely about done, she’d grab another container from the drawer, smear on another layer and go at it again.
I was neither out of breath, nor did my stomach hurt from trying to bend over to become reacquainted with my feet, both events becoming more common of late. My throne-mates and I were also entertained by the banter from the man who seemed to be in charge of the stand, a slim African-American gentleman of indeterminate age and enough grey in his hair that one would suspect that he may have learned his craft as a result of the military draft earlier.
Today’s topic was numismatic trivia, and he posed questions about American coins. In an interesting paradox, he revealed that he goes online every evening after work to determine the following day’s questions. Then when there was a dispute among us regarding the answer to a question, an airport security guard on the next throne whipped out his cell phone, logged onto the internet and resolved the issue.
All too soon, about the time that I was ready to doze off, my sommelier of footwear was snapping a cloth across my toes, removing the guards and indicated that I was all done.
The total price of the indulgence? $5.00, plus tip. I had no idea you could buy luxury that cheaply.
Or that I could get my shoes looking so good without breaking a sweat.
Since I graduated beyond the home-haircuts of Mom and my Grandma, about the same time I started driving, I’ve tended to go to a “stylist”, the traditional barbershops having gone the way of the General Store and hitching posts on main street. Once in a while you find a true old-fashioned barbershop, and it’s an experience when you come across it, but you have to really look for them.
On a trip to New York last summer, a friend and I were killing time walking around Greenwich Village while waiting for the others in our group to finish their tasks. We both needed haircuts, and he chose where we were going.
I honestly didn’t think that there was such a thing as a straight (as in….not gay) hair stylist in the Village in NYC, but we apparently stumbled into the only such facility there. Four barbers – no stylists there – sports on the television and the invitation, “What can I do for youse guys?”
It was an interesting experience, finding Sports Illustrated, Field and Stream and Playboy to peruse rather than Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens or those gawdawful hair magazines that you usually encounter.
The one thing they didn’t offer, though, was a shoeshine stand.
In the past, I’ve tended to shine my own shoes, giving them a quick swipe with bottled dye and calling it good if the color is relatively even. It was not a shine, for example, that Dad would have been proud of because he was taught to shine shoes in the army.
Apparently this was a life-skill deemed necessary in the 1950’s, because they spent a great deal of time doing it. Even now, more than 50 years after he completed basic training he will regularly pull out the same kit he had then with it’s myriad of sponges, brushes and polishing clothes (some of which have surely been replaced, although the brush still sports his Army Serial Number on the wooden handle) and make his dress shoes gleam for whatever event happens to be upcoming.
Since retirement, he’s slacked off a bit and discovered the joys of hush puppies rather than wingtips for daily wear.
In adolescence, he apparently sensed that a military career wasn’t in my future – probably because of my propensity to question directives rather than follow them – so he taught me the right way to shine shoes.
It’s a pain. It’s time consuming since I don’t tend to think about it while watching television some evening, but instead let it cross my mind after I’ve got on a white long sleeved dress shirt and a short deadline. The result usually comes from one of those little pre-filled sponges with the polish built in. I can usually get the scuff marks covered without having to change clothes again.
Only guys who used to be in the military would probably notice that it’s not a Grade-A shine job.
So the other day, I found myself killing time in the airport and happened across a shoe-shine stand and decided to splurge on an indulgence. There is an event coming up which will require that I be squoze into my tuxedo for the first time in several years, and I was hoping that nice shiny shoes would put enough of a reflection up that people wouldn’t notice that I need to move up a size because my jacket no longer buttons and the cummerbund is at the extreme limits of physical tolerance.
Besides, the cost of the shine would more than likely be offset by the savings for the ruined tuxedo shirt when I got polish on the sleeves.
I climbed up on one of the four thrones in the nook at the airport, designed apparently to make you feel like royalty as you survey the minions below while being serviced. The young lady welcomed me (an innovation you probably wouldn’t have seen in Floyd’s Barber Shop in downtown Mayberry!), rolled up my pant legs and put little guards around my ankles.
This obviously was going to be more involved than the vague swipes that I usually made while sitting on the side of the bathtub.
First, she actually washed the shoes with a little brush and some type of soapy-looking water. Whoda thunk you need to remove dirt before you smear on the shine?
Then she began applying her assorted pastes and poultices, the rubber gloves she wore looking like purple based palamino hide with the remnants of earlier endeavors.
The first thing I noticed was that the foot massage you got, even through the leather of the shoes, was wonderfully relaxing. There was a reason that you sat up on the throne, because this is how I imagine royalty is treated! Every time I thought she was surely about done, she’d grab another container from the drawer, smear on another layer and go at it again.
I was neither out of breath, nor did my stomach hurt from trying to bend over to become reacquainted with my feet, both events becoming more common of late. My throne-mates and I were also entertained by the banter from the man who seemed to be in charge of the stand, a slim African-American gentleman of indeterminate age and enough grey in his hair that one would suspect that he may have learned his craft as a result of the military draft earlier.
Today’s topic was numismatic trivia, and he posed questions about American coins. In an interesting paradox, he revealed that he goes online every evening after work to determine the following day’s questions. Then when there was a dispute among us regarding the answer to a question, an airport security guard on the next throne whipped out his cell phone, logged onto the internet and resolved the issue.
All too soon, about the time that I was ready to doze off, my sommelier of footwear was snapping a cloth across my toes, removing the guards and indicated that I was all done.
The total price of the indulgence? $5.00, plus tip. I had no idea you could buy luxury that cheaply.
Or that I could get my shoes looking so good without breaking a sweat.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The World of Facebook
I have a profile on Facebook.
That’s really not surprising, because as best I can tell, most people with some type of computer access have filled out the papers and become assimilated into the Facebook congregation.
At first, it was kind of fun. You learn that your old high school crush is now a grandmother in Amarillo. Your 8th grade band teacher, now well into his 70’s, is still kicking around and, amazingly enough, has a Facebook profile as well. You can finally answer the question, “Whatever happened to __________” sometimes, although information overload can be problematic even if you’re looking for a relatively uncommon name.
After you’ve spent a month looking up all of the people from your past, you start to realize that there’s a downside to this.
Some of these people were edited out of your Rolodex for a reason. You’ve forgotten that the good-by hug and backslap at graduation was in many respects a celebration of relief that you could have some distance away from that person. No longer would you have to put up with the fact that they drink milk straight from the carton or hog all the Cheetos after they’ve been out partying.
When you renew the contact, you find that despite the fact that 30+ years have gone by, your old college roommate still expects you to be the designated driver AND buy the beer.
Or that the girl who all but stalked you now lives with 17 cats – and has the time to write you 4 times a day as well as forward many of the approximately 3,000 humorous emails she gets each week AND share current photos of all the kitties.
The obnoxious jerk that had the cubicle next to you at your first job after college still engages in the ritual of topping whatever achievement you’ve made because he's a legend in his own mind, but hey, that's his reality.
There’s a reason that we didn’t keep in contact with these people, but unfortunately some of them are now searching you out as well. After all, it’s really not that hard if you’ve filled in much of the demographic information at all.
Because most everyone has a profile on Facebook.
I tend to accept the “friend” invitation from just about anyone and then simply hide those I really don’t want to follow so I don’t see them every day. This usually includes those people who post their every move and thought for their friends to follow.
I’m sorry, but I don’t need to know what you had for lunch most of the time.
If they get too obnoxious – usually those who spout hate speech from one end of the spectrum or the other – I quietly delete them. I find that a lot of those people have hundreds of friends, if not thousands, so they seldom realize that one has dropped off the list. Rather than building relationships electronically, they seem to be looking for followers of their particular ideology.
Which leads us to another query – as I approach my 5th decade of life, I have fewer than a dozen people with whom I want to maintain that close of contact and it’s taken several months to acquire those. How is it that our 14 year old son has 387 “friends” within 48 hours of opening a profile? Friends who, if his page is to be believed, communicate on a fairly regular basis and recognize him in the real world when they come into contact with each other.
There is a dark side to Facebook, too.
Sometimes you find things out about people that you really are happier not knowing. I’m not talking about the end of relationships or illness or things like that. Those events may be unfortunate, but it usually is good to know it about people with whom you are in contact.
After all, asking a casual acquaintance how his wife Cindy is doing when, had you checked out his Facebook page you’d know that he’s now with his life partner Javier, can occasionally lead to awkward lulls in the conversation.
Sometimes though, like people-watching in a mall, you can learn about the true character of a person by what they post on their profile.
It’s somewhat irksome, for example, when the client who won’t pay his bill claiming that the poor economy has wrecked his business and he has no money posts photos of his trip to the beach along with comments about the boat chartered to take the group deep sea fishing.
Or the one who skips an appointment claiming illness and then posts pics of the concert she attended that same evening.
Some of the most curious ones are the elected officials who list other places as their home towns. I can understand if you left it blank, because there is an element of risk associated with putting your location out there – after all, your college buddies might show up on your front steps unexpectedly – but if you’re asking voters to pick you to run their City, shouldn’t you have at least enough pride in the location to list it as your home?
When computers were first introduced into the workplace, employers were worried that too much time was wasted playing solitaire. That’s got nothing on all the little games on Facebook that suck you in by requiring that you feed your fish, milk your cows, or wack someone who’s trying to move in on your turf.
Sorry, but I just ignore all those invitations. I have a hard enough time watering the three houseplants and feeding the fish that actually exist in my universe much less creating imaginary ones that need constant daily attention.
It’s hard enough to maintain relationships with all of my imaginary friends on Facebook.
That’s really not surprising, because as best I can tell, most people with some type of computer access have filled out the papers and become assimilated into the Facebook congregation.
At first, it was kind of fun. You learn that your old high school crush is now a grandmother in Amarillo. Your 8th grade band teacher, now well into his 70’s, is still kicking around and, amazingly enough, has a Facebook profile as well. You can finally answer the question, “Whatever happened to __________” sometimes, although information overload can be problematic even if you’re looking for a relatively uncommon name.
After you’ve spent a month looking up all of the people from your past, you start to realize that there’s a downside to this.
Some of these people were edited out of your Rolodex for a reason. You’ve forgotten that the good-by hug and backslap at graduation was in many respects a celebration of relief that you could have some distance away from that person. No longer would you have to put up with the fact that they drink milk straight from the carton or hog all the Cheetos after they’ve been out partying.
When you renew the contact, you find that despite the fact that 30+ years have gone by, your old college roommate still expects you to be the designated driver AND buy the beer.
Or that the girl who all but stalked you now lives with 17 cats – and has the time to write you 4 times a day as well as forward many of the approximately 3,000 humorous emails she gets each week AND share current photos of all the kitties.
The obnoxious jerk that had the cubicle next to you at your first job after college still engages in the ritual of topping whatever achievement you’ve made because he's a legend in his own mind, but hey, that's his reality.
There’s a reason that we didn’t keep in contact with these people, but unfortunately some of them are now searching you out as well. After all, it’s really not that hard if you’ve filled in much of the demographic information at all.
Because most everyone has a profile on Facebook.
I tend to accept the “friend” invitation from just about anyone and then simply hide those I really don’t want to follow so I don’t see them every day. This usually includes those people who post their every move and thought for their friends to follow.
I’m sorry, but I don’t need to know what you had for lunch most of the time.
If they get too obnoxious – usually those who spout hate speech from one end of the spectrum or the other – I quietly delete them. I find that a lot of those people have hundreds of friends, if not thousands, so they seldom realize that one has dropped off the list. Rather than building relationships electronically, they seem to be looking for followers of their particular ideology.
Which leads us to another query – as I approach my 5th decade of life, I have fewer than a dozen people with whom I want to maintain that close of contact and it’s taken several months to acquire those. How is it that our 14 year old son has 387 “friends” within 48 hours of opening a profile? Friends who, if his page is to be believed, communicate on a fairly regular basis and recognize him in the real world when they come into contact with each other.
There is a dark side to Facebook, too.
Sometimes you find things out about people that you really are happier not knowing. I’m not talking about the end of relationships or illness or things like that. Those events may be unfortunate, but it usually is good to know it about people with whom you are in contact.
After all, asking a casual acquaintance how his wife Cindy is doing when, had you checked out his Facebook page you’d know that he’s now with his life partner Javier, can occasionally lead to awkward lulls in the conversation.
Sometimes though, like people-watching in a mall, you can learn about the true character of a person by what they post on their profile.
It’s somewhat irksome, for example, when the client who won’t pay his bill claiming that the poor economy has wrecked his business and he has no money posts photos of his trip to the beach along with comments about the boat chartered to take the group deep sea fishing.
Or the one who skips an appointment claiming illness and then posts pics of the concert she attended that same evening.
Some of the most curious ones are the elected officials who list other places as their home towns. I can understand if you left it blank, because there is an element of risk associated with putting your location out there – after all, your college buddies might show up on your front steps unexpectedly – but if you’re asking voters to pick you to run their City, shouldn’t you have at least enough pride in the location to list it as your home?
When computers were first introduced into the workplace, employers were worried that too much time was wasted playing solitaire. That’s got nothing on all the little games on Facebook that suck you in by requiring that you feed your fish, milk your cows, or wack someone who’s trying to move in on your turf.
Sorry, but I just ignore all those invitations. I have a hard enough time watering the three houseplants and feeding the fish that actually exist in my universe much less creating imaginary ones that need constant daily attention.
It’s hard enough to maintain relationships with all of my imaginary friends on Facebook.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
A Visit from Friends
Does anything make a person’s heart sing like meeting up with friends you haven’t seen in a while? This weekend, our friends from San Antonio, TX have come to visit. Immediately the rapport that we established during the conference we all attended was renewed and refreshed. 10 minutes after the pickup at the airport and once again we fell into the groove of banter that has defined our friendship since we met.
The only thing that would have made it better is if the 5th member of our quintet had been able to make it. Actually, that was the plan. During the planning stages for the visit, we encouraged him to join us from his home in NYC. At first he talked about making it but a work conference came up and it wasn’t going to happen.
Little did we know that the guys from afar were working together to pull a fast one on us. The “meeting in DC” that had come up was actually code talk for sneaking to North Carolina to try and surprise us. An airline ticket was booked that would have dropped him in the Charlotte airport 30 minutes before the others arrived, he was going to come up and tap me on the shoulder.
Yeah, I would have been stunned beyond words.
Unfortunately, it’s sometimes possible to move mountains and lose to bugs.
In this case, the bug is called H1N1, and Mr. New York not only came down with it a couple of weeks ago, but it’s turned into pneumonia.
He still was firm about coming as late as Thursday, although he was so weak that he was unable to even finish taking a shower without being exhausted.
So on the way to dinner last night, a call was made to our friend and the gig was revealed.
It still would have been nice for him to have joined us, making our group complete, but it was best that he stay home, in bed, and take care of himself.
And now we're off with our friends to explore North Carolina.
The only thing that would have made it better is if the 5th member of our quintet had been able to make it. Actually, that was the plan. During the planning stages for the visit, we encouraged him to join us from his home in NYC. At first he talked about making it but a work conference came up and it wasn’t going to happen.
Little did we know that the guys from afar were working together to pull a fast one on us. The “meeting in DC” that had come up was actually code talk for sneaking to North Carolina to try and surprise us. An airline ticket was booked that would have dropped him in the Charlotte airport 30 minutes before the others arrived, he was going to come up and tap me on the shoulder.
Yeah, I would have been stunned beyond words.
Unfortunately, it’s sometimes possible to move mountains and lose to bugs.
In this case, the bug is called H1N1, and Mr. New York not only came down with it a couple of weeks ago, but it’s turned into pneumonia.
He still was firm about coming as late as Thursday, although he was so weak that he was unable to even finish taking a shower without being exhausted.
So on the way to dinner last night, a call was made to our friend and the gig was revealed.
It still would have been nice for him to have joined us, making our group complete, but it was best that he stay home, in bed, and take care of himself.
And now we're off with our friends to explore North Carolina.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A Journey Across Continents
It’s a bittersweet day for us. Our good friend and neighbor is returning to South America for the first time in eight years to visit his family.
When he left in 2001, it was in the dark of night, escaping from the Mafia who had threatened to kill him because he refused to participate in drug transport schemes. His story is fascinating, but it is his and I won’t recount it here other than to say that those of us in America have no idea how truly blessed we are that we usually do not have to worry about these types of threats.
The threat that he faces now, though, is from the US Government and its bureaucracy.
I’ve helped him fight through the Department of Homeland Security’s oppressive regulations to enable him to become a permanent resident here. That just happened a few months ago, after more than two years of red tape.
I learned that anyone who wants to do that type of work needs to do it full time. You cannot “dabble” in immigration, any more than you can in Social Security or tax law. You have to devote your mind and soul to knowing how to work the system and which button to push at which time.
I have a high tolerance for government forms; after all, I spent years writing a good number of them but I found myself numbed at the instruction sheets most of the time, much less attempting to compile the information. I don’t see how anyone who holds English as their second language could begin to muddle through.
The rules say that he can travel up to six months on his Permanent Citizen card without needing any other forms or permits. I’ve confirmed that with immigration attorneys who say that’s the rule, but sometimes the staff at the border decide to use a different standard. There’s no way to foresee whether there will be problems or not.
I know what a parent feels like when their child takes off, though. He is our friend, and has become a member of our family, joining us at birthdays, holidays and “just because” dinners for several years now. I feel very responsible, and hope that no border agent decides that he should be singled out for some reason. I have seen it happen when we’ve been returning to the US from abroad, and know how intimidating it can be, and it worries me.
But I can’t make the journey with him, nor do I know that I could do anything to help get through the system even if I were there. In the past, we’ve followed the rules, made appointments and then driven an hour to Charlotte only to be turned away because the appointment was cancelled just minutes before it was to occur.
No, there was no supervisor to talk with. We were not even allowed to enter the building, told we should try again another day.
Things have changed for him since he left his native country. His mother has died, other family members have aged, grown, married, and had children. There are easily as many toys for the babies in his luggage as clothes. He is, however, excited to see his family again. He suggests that it will provide closure, and that he will probably not make the journey again in his life.
I only hope that he is able to return to us, to rejoin our family of choice, and to continue his life here.
When he left in 2001, it was in the dark of night, escaping from the Mafia who had threatened to kill him because he refused to participate in drug transport schemes. His story is fascinating, but it is his and I won’t recount it here other than to say that those of us in America have no idea how truly blessed we are that we usually do not have to worry about these types of threats.
The threat that he faces now, though, is from the US Government and its bureaucracy.
I’ve helped him fight through the Department of Homeland Security’s oppressive regulations to enable him to become a permanent resident here. That just happened a few months ago, after more than two years of red tape.
I learned that anyone who wants to do that type of work needs to do it full time. You cannot “dabble” in immigration, any more than you can in Social Security or tax law. You have to devote your mind and soul to knowing how to work the system and which button to push at which time.
I have a high tolerance for government forms; after all, I spent years writing a good number of them but I found myself numbed at the instruction sheets most of the time, much less attempting to compile the information. I don’t see how anyone who holds English as their second language could begin to muddle through.
The rules say that he can travel up to six months on his Permanent Citizen card without needing any other forms or permits. I’ve confirmed that with immigration attorneys who say that’s the rule, but sometimes the staff at the border decide to use a different standard. There’s no way to foresee whether there will be problems or not.
I know what a parent feels like when their child takes off, though. He is our friend, and has become a member of our family, joining us at birthdays, holidays and “just because” dinners for several years now. I feel very responsible, and hope that no border agent decides that he should be singled out for some reason. I have seen it happen when we’ve been returning to the US from abroad, and know how intimidating it can be, and it worries me.
But I can’t make the journey with him, nor do I know that I could do anything to help get through the system even if I were there. In the past, we’ve followed the rules, made appointments and then driven an hour to Charlotte only to be turned away because the appointment was cancelled just minutes before it was to occur.
No, there was no supervisor to talk with. We were not even allowed to enter the building, told we should try again another day.
Things have changed for him since he left his native country. His mother has died, other family members have aged, grown, married, and had children. There are easily as many toys for the babies in his luggage as clothes. He is, however, excited to see his family again. He suggests that it will provide closure, and that he will probably not make the journey again in his life.
I only hope that he is able to return to us, to rejoin our family of choice, and to continue his life here.
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