Category Life

The Dinner That Didn’t

Michael 6 Comments

Before I start today’s post I want to apologize to some of you. Somehow my site’s notification commands got changed and I haven’t been notified of new followers or comments since sometime in June. (OK, I probably did it, but I didn’t know I did it or even how I did it. Hmm. Maybe I didn’t do it. Anyway…) Unless I just happened to run across something you left for me I may not have acknowledged you. I’m sorry. It’s fixed now and if I haven’t caught up with you yet, I will soon.

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The Dinner That Didn’t

Yesterday was a dialysis day for me. But today is not a dialysis post. Today is a dinner post.

My dialysis time is right in the middle of the day. I leave home around 10:15 in the morning, about 2 hours after breakfast, and I get home at about 3 in the afternoon, at least 2 hours after when lunch should have been. Usually when I get home I grab a snack to settle the hunger pangs that had been roiling for 2 to 3 hours. That way I can still have dinner around 6ish and maybe a light snack sometime later so I don’t wake up famished. The only thing that makes this all a little tenuous is that on dialysis days I’m pretty tired (exhausted), and cooking is often not (never) something I want to take on. What I usually do on the four days of the week that I don’t have dialysis is cook enough for a small army, or at least two meals. When I get home from my treatments I can then rely on the “heat some leftovers method” for that evening’s meal. It usually works like a charm. And sometimes not.

Yesterday I was running a little late. I rushed out the door closer to 10:25 than 10:15. Actually, I was rushing out the door closer to 10:30 than 10:25. Things happen. But I still had 15 minutes to make a 20 minute drive. I can do that. I was merrily on my way with my bag of comforts (book, tablet, crossword puzzles, soft warm woolen blankie (ahhhh) (what can I say, I get cold there)) on the seat next to me when I realized I had forgotten not only my glasses (no crossword puzzles for me) but also my wallet. (Darn! Danger, danger! Reduce speed!!!.)

A while later I was sitting in my dialysis chair, not working a puzzle, controlling my heart rate, and thinking about what I was going to have for dinner. I took the proverbial mental inventory of the fridge and decided on…hmm, nothing. As my mind’s eye scanned the shelves I saw eggs, breakfast sausage, deli meat, several cheeses, some homemade relishes (I should really post the watermelon rind relish recipe I just did – fabulous on fish), condiments, milk, water, a couple of juices, white wine, a large bowl of cut fresh fruit, and a jar of leftover pancake batter. All perfectly yummy in their own right but nothing dinner-worthy. Oh there was plenty in the freezer but it all required real cooking. No Stouffer frozen entrees up there. (Darn.)

EmptyFridgeI thought about this quandary. I had plenty of time to think not being able to see well enough to read or write. That’s when I realized that I had a golden opportunity right there in front of me. Stop on the way home and treat myself! Yes! That’s when I remembered why I had such an empty refrigerator.

The day before yesterday I had a doctor appointment. On my way home I was going to treat myself to lunch at a local diner close to me. The only problem was that this hole in the wall greasy spoon (when I decide to treat myself, I go all out), doesn’t accept cards and I was cashless. No problem that a quick stop at the drive through ATM couldn’t fix. Except for the storm raging and the chain across the driveway that held the sign, “CLOSED. NO POWER.” (Darn.) (Again.) (Or the first time.) (Do you think I overuse parentheses?) By then I was so close to home and so hungry I just went home and ate. My last leftover meal. *sigh*

No problem, I chuckled to my remembering self. That was yesterday (actually 2 days ago), this is today (actually yesterday). The power’s back on. And I sat back in my chair and tried to relax without the help of my glasses. And I relaxed like that all the way through the rest of the afternoon and right on up until I pulled onto the greasy spoon’s parking lot and then I remembered some more. Still no cash. No wallet. No ATM card. No treat. *bigger sigh*

So yesterday for dinner I had pancakes with sausage and fresh fruit. I thought about topping it with watermelon rind relish but I think I’ll turn that and some cod I have in the freezer into fish tacos for dinner today.

Unless I go out and treat myself instead.

 

The Melted Pot

Michael 4 Comments

Yesterday I made French toast for breakfast and I asked myself once again that question I ask every time I make it: if you want French toast in France do you just ask for toast? Of course the answer is no. French toast in France is called pain perdu which actually means lost bread and I assume it makes no more sense to Paris diners than it does to me. And it would indeed make no sense to breakfasters there since it’s likely to be served as dessert not as breakfast. Where did we Americans go wrong?

To complicate my breakfast matters I actually had Canadian bacon (not really bacon) and Florida orange juice (all Florida, all the time) with my French toast. (I really should refrain from tart juices with such sweet breakfasts and not challenge my taste buds so dramatically in the morning.)

In America we often herald the origin of a dish in its name because we came from so many different places. Even food classically American is prefaced with its originating locale except in said locale. Although it may be a Philly cheesesteak anywhere else, in southeast Pennsylvania it’s just a cheesesteak. Nashville hot chicken is on Tennessean menus just hot chicken, and Wisconsin brick cheese can be ordered just as brick cheese in Milwaukee. But it doesn’t always hold true as even in Buffalo if you want their classic version of the buttery hot wing you probably need to specify Buffalo wings.

Some of the modifiers make sense. When someone on American soil decided to make an eggy potato salad, the vinegary version had to be differentiated so calling it German potato salad made clear it was of the sort a Bavarian immigrant brought over the Atlantic. And that’s surely also why Irish stew kept its identifier to distinguish it from other stews. Although that doesn’t explain why Swedish meatballs kept their moniker but Italian meatballs are now just meatballs nor why we still call Hungarian goulash Hungarian without knowing any other goulashes. It’s no wonder we have such schizophrenic menu choices.

So those of you elsewhere and those who have traveled elsewhere, what are these and other Somewhere Somethings called in their home-wheres?

 

You’ve Got Mail. ish.

Michael 5 Comments

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had three friends go on vacation. One to the other side of the world, one to the other side of the country, and one to the other side of her back porch. I don’t know if any of them were where sloths are indigenous but I do know that all of them swore off electronic communication of any kind while they were out of country, state, and office.

I also know that upon their returns, all of them swore they will never do that again. Apparently it took each of them as much as a full week to sift through email, Twitter and Instagram feeds, and Facebook posts. Email the worst.

I’m not a big vacationer. Other than a couple of longish trips over the last 45 years my vacations were mostly long weekends or 2 days jaunts. Before that my parents were responsible for recreational trips and mostly I remember being in the back seat of a large Chevrolet with no air conditioning during the two hottest weeks of the year. Probably why I now tend to vacation in the fall. Now by the time anybody realizes I am gone, I’m back home. The long trips that I did take were so long ago that snail mail was still a catchy way of denigrating the US Postal Service and my catch-up phase amounted to retrieving the mail and newspaper from the next door neighbor and dropping off some salt water taffy, moon pies, or beignet mix in exchange for being my personal drop box for a handful of bills and a flyer advertising the local department store’s weekend long one day sale. Catching up on hundreds of hundreds of emails wasn’t part of my routine. (The thousands of thousands of work generated emails accumulated over the rare day off don’t count. And they were easy to sort through anyway. Unless it came from someone who signed my paycheck or annual evaluation, they were quickly deleted.)

So the thought of having to take vacation time so I could catch up with correspondence that came in while I was off using vacation time is not something I would entertain. But it’s not something I would scoff at either. I wouldn’t entertain it because I haven’t had to entertain it. I’m not sure that I have that large of a friend base. But if you can accumulate a few hundred unanswered emails and again as many messages on this or that feed in a few days that means someone wanted you at least a few hundred times over those few days. I think that’s very cool. And pretty positive too.

SlothFor me though, I’m probably pretty safe going off grid and coming back to not much more than a full spam folder with which I’ve had lots of practice in dealing (see work emails above). I will offer my mail and newspaper pickup services to anybody planning a trip if you still get hard copy papers and mail sent with a stamp.  But if you expect me to pick up your mail and papers while you’re away for a month in the Brazilian rain forest I’m going to want more than a box of chocolate mini World Cup candies. You can at least bring me a mechanical sloth.

 

Happy [fill in the blank] Independence Day

Michael 3 Comments

Boy: Grandpa, did they have the fourth of July in Italy when you were growing up?

Old Man: Yes. In fact, they did. They have the fourth of July everywhere!

Ok, it’s an old joke. But actually, they do have a fourth of July, or more accurately a Fourth of July, or most accurately an Independence Day everywhere. No matter where Flagyou are reading this, sometime in the past, sometimes a quite distant past where you are isn’t what it used to be. Every nation on Earth at some time wasn’t. And a surprising number of when they became what they are happened in July.

There is our American Independence Day tomorrow on that at least here famous Fourth of July, commemorating when we told the English Crown that we would rather suffer through a couple hundred years of taxation with poor representation than another day of it without any representation.  The actual independence came five years, three months, and 15 days later when the British forces officially surrendered. All those Americans reading this, you knew that, right?

A couple of days ago, July 1 actually, our neighbors to the north celebrated Canada Day.When I was going to school it was known as Dominion Day (and probably was to a lot of Canadians back then also) and we were told it was the Canadian IndependenceFlags Day. What did we know? We’re Americans. I later learned that it actually commemorated the combining of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario into the Dominion of Canada, presenting a stronger unified border against the United States just in case the politicos in Washington having just reunited the states after the American Civil War might have designs on taking those Canadian provinces for their own. Our own. Somebody’s own. I found that out when the British Parliament declared Canada to be an independent nation 115 years later.

Another thing I learned in my American schooling was that July 14 was France’s Independence Day on what we were told they call Bastille Day. And in fact July 14 does commemorate the storming of the Bastille and the uniting of the French people against the monarchy in 1789. The French Republic was actually established on September 22, 1792 which like our October 19, 1781 doesn’t seem to be celebrated. Now you could say that all that isn’t really independence as much as a changing of the guard. For the real French Independence you have to go back to 481, give or take a couple of years, when the Kingdom of the Franks was founded by Clovis I with land taken from the Roman Empire.

WorldWhatever misconceptions I had of these days they were still momentous days in the formation of what nations share our terrestrial home today. But there are a lot more nations celebrating freedom this month. Twenty-one other nations from Algeria to Venezuela. (I was hoping when I did my research that I find Zimbabwe gained their independence from Great Britain in July but alas, it was actually on April 18.  But it would have made such a great sentence!)

So wherever you are, chances are pretty good that you or a nearby neighbor is celebrating something this month that made somewhere literally somewhere.

Happy Blank of July!

 

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Michael 4 Comments

I got on the scale last Friday, like I have almost every day for the past I don’t know how many years, and like it has been for so many of them I read out to myself 154.8 pounds. I then hopped into the shower (ok, I gingerly eased myself over the tub wall and carefully positioned myself under the running water’s spray), shampooed, rinsed, repeated, lathered, rinsed, sang a few verses of He’s So Fine (I was having a feminine moment), then hopped back out (no, I’m not going through that again). And then walked past the scale and couldn’t remember if I had recorded that day’s weight. So I weighed myself again.

No, I’m not obsessed with my body, good or bad it may be or the weight of it. I am, like most people with late stage kidney disease, obsessed with making sure my body isn’t holding onto water unduly. The best way to do this is to weigh oneself and track that weight hoping not to find more than minor daily changes or steady increases over time. Hence the daily recording and the longish explanation I just made you suffer.

Anyway, I weighed myself again. 154.6 pounds. I went to jot that number when I saw I had indeed recorded the earlier figure of 154.8 pounds. Hmm. I was sure I had just weighed myself at that lower number. Because I have always been a bit more than a bit obsessive I decided to again step on the scale. Yep, 154.6. Hmm.

ScaleSaturday morning I went through my routine weigh-in (or weigh-in routine if you prefer) and found myself to be 154.6 pounds. Did the shower stuff, made use of the freshly laundered bath towel (love a soft towel), and glanced down at the scale. Should I? I did. And it read 154.4 pounds.

Skip to Sunday. Before shower, 154.6. After, 154.4. Monday before, 154.8. (Went out for dinner Sunday. Must have been that glass of wine). After, 154.6. Tuesday, the same 0.2 pound difference. What is happening to me? Am I shrinking?

Two-tenths of a pound does not seem like much. Indeed it isn’t. It’s about 3 and 1/2 ounces, around 100 grams. On the other hand, it’s more than just a dribble. It is, to keep my comparisons bathroom related, a bit less than a family size tube of toothpaste, a bit more shampoo than what the TSA will permit you to carry through an airport security checkpoint. Where did those ounces go?

Since I conducted my experiment, non-scientific though it was, over 5 days and came up with the identical data for each day, I am assuming valid results. I wash off two tenths of a pound with every shower. Perhaps I’m rubbing too hard and sloughing off more skin than I can regrow in the time I’m under the water. If I use a luffa instead of a sponge would I weigh even less? Maybe I’m getting too involved with my intra-shower songfest. Would the choice of a shorter song or a less energetic display of air guitar playing (don’t judge me) result in less weight loss? Could the water actually be too hot and I really am shrinking? I’m sure I’ve never been Scotch Guarded and anything is possible.

I don’t know where it’s going but I am definitely lighter on the after side of the morning wash up. I might see if I can commercialize my findings. People are always looking for a no pain weight loss program. What can be more painless than showering? If everybody experiences the same 3+ ounce loss with each shower only 5 showers a day a day makes for more than a pound off every 24 hours. In a week that could be almost 10 pounds. Providing your hot water heater can take the strain.

I’m going to look into this. After all, I have that kind of time.

Lost Luggage

Michael 10 Comments
The past couple of weeks I’ve had an issue finding something that I wanted to write about. This week was quite different. I just have said to myself, “Self, now that’s blogworthy!” at least a half dozen times. And even though I took a couple of those ideas and fleshed them out to full fledged posts, none of them are what you’re about to read. Umm, assuming you’re going to stick it out here with me and keep on reading.
Sunday afternoon I was hanging around, feet up, relaxing for all the world to see, and catching up on the day’s email, which included a few new posts from the myriad and eclectic selected blogs I follow. Among those was the newest post by Nicole Sundays. If you’ve not read her yet you should go over and see what she has to say. Nicole reminds me of the daughter I never had. Now there’s nothing wrong with the daughter I do have. In fact, I am quite fond of that daughter and I would never trade her in. But…sometime I just don’t understand how that creative, confident, successful young woman got that way from my attempts at child rearing. Fortunately she has. And fortunately I’ll be well (hopefully) taken care of in my old age. Older age. But I digress.
In this week’s post, Nicole tells how she “lost” her luggage and the resumes she carried with her saved her from having to replace a replaceable suitcase. There’s a lot more than that, a lot more, and you need to head over there to read the whole thing (https://nicolesundays.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/i-became-a-security-threat-how-was-your-weekend/) but that one little subplot reminded me of a piece of lost then found luggage. Except it wasn’t “lost” in the way she “lost” hers, it wasn’t my suitcase, and it wasn’t a resume that found it. See how similar a tale this is going to be?
To make a long story longer, let me start at the middle. I had returned from a business trip to Las Vegas. Yes, a business trip. Really. Yes. While I was there, although I always made sure to carry them but never sure why, I handed out no copies of my resume. I did however hand out many business cards. That’s how I remembered that it was a business trip. If it was a pleasure trip clearly I would have carried pleasure cards. Anyway, I had returned a day earlier when I received a phone call from the airline I returned on, one of the more than several that is no longer flying the friendly skies. The call was more confusing than it had to be, especially considering that I hadn’t had any sleep since I returned even though it was the following day because the flight I had returned on was a dreaded red eye and although the day I left was indeed the day earlier, the day I landed was the day after that. Had I gotten any sleep since the time I boarded I might not have have this story to tell.
BaggageClaim
My recollection of the exact call and subsequent events is a bit fuzzy now some 15 years later but it was fuzzy to start so I don’t feel all that bad about it. I received a call saying they were holding my suitcase at lost luggage and would I like to pick it up or have them deliver it either to my home or place of work. I might have been still a bit tired but I was certain I had not lost luggage nor filled out a claim for same. I conveyed this information to the caller and had it confirmed that indeed I had not filed a claim but just the same, they had my suitcase. But I didn’t lose a suitcase, all my suitcases (which totaled one for that trip) made the trek all the way home. Actually, all the way to my office since neither if us actually made it all the way home yet.
Here it gets even fuzzier as the gentleman on the phone who sounded like he had made many similar calls during his (hopefully) brief career as a lost luggage specialist, and sped through some details. Either that or I zoned out on his explanations and sped through them on my own. The gist was that the case had not a luggage tag (which I thought was required), and the claim check tag was rendered unreadable by the security personnel who forced the case open, but within was one of my business cards. Here I wondered if I had unknowingly been cast in a new crime scene drama for prime time TV and if so, would I be paid scale even though I didn’t (and still don’t) have an Actors Equity card.
At this point I really just wanted to get off the phone and see if I pushed the two visitor chairs across from my desk together would they be comfortable enough for a quick midmorning nap. I cut to the chase and asked, just hypothetically, since they got this thing opened, what did they find therein besides yours truly’s card. I expected to hear the litany traveler detritus that we all relegate to checked baggage but instead heard, “a pair of shoes size 11, a white necktie, two paperbacks (I don’t recall the titles if they had been mentioned) (I remember the shoe size because it wasn’t mine), and a money clip.” Apparently it was in the clip’s firm grasp that was my card along with the receipt for a restaurant where someone had lunch the previous afternoon, a folded tourist map of the Las Vegas Strip, and an unused return ticket for an airport shuttle service. None of the itemized contents interested me although I could have used a white tie and I told my caller this. Not about the tie though.
“So, for the record, you’re saying that you don’t want to reclaim your property.”
“No, I’m saying it’s not my property,” probably while stifling a yawn and continued, “but if it makes you feel better, I don’t want reclaim whoever’s property you have there.”
“Very well sir, then” the soon to be though he didn’t know it yet unemployed luggage owner tracker downer said, “have a good day.”
A couple days later I was out shopping and picked up a white tie.

Sad Sack, Seemingly

Michael 4 Comments

At first I was somewhat despondent. I have Resting Bitch Face and the only male counterpart reference is so vile sounding that I won’t even repeat it here. On sure, some people call it Bitchy Resting Face and you can consider “bitchy” to be gender neutral but let’s be honest here. Bitchy is as gender neutral as flight attendant. No matter how forward thinking you are, in your head that person is still a stewardess. Sorry. That’s just the way it is.

So now that we have that out of the way, back to my problem. I will be any number of things, even some of them unpleasant. I have been any number of things, even some of them unpleasant. But I will not be a bitch. And I certainly will not be that other vile thing! So I began my search for a more acceptable, maybe even gender neutral since that’s all the rage now term for this condition. And here’s what I decided.

There’s is no such thing! Oh sure there are some of us that in our resting state don’t smile at everybody like a demented psychopath. That’s because we are not demented psychopaths. And unless you are a demented psychopath, you are not walking around with a constant grin plastered across your face either. Nobody is. Except for maybe the occasional demented psychopath. But for the everyday any old normal person, spending some of your time, most of your time, in a state of “This is me, not doing anything,” is RBFnormal. Everyday normal.

Anyway, the Resting Bitch Face is a myth. It could be an urban myth but it is just as mythical in suburban and rural areas so I’m going to call it just a plain myth. Right up there with Scottish lakebound sea serpents, cold climate residing evolutionary missing links, and honest politicians. Of any party. Worldwide. Ever. And that includes that one not in office too. Any office. Worldwide.

The Resting Bitch Face myth has been perpetrated on the public by the publicists of celebrities caught by paparazzi in their natural facial expressions shared by the entire world when they aren’t thinking of anything in particular. A sort of normal, not much happening state of mind transitioned to the facial muscles and outwardly displayed as “Yep, this is me doing nothing just like any old normal person.” In order to make it appear that their clients are not just any old normal people, the publicists came up with Bitchy Resting Face lest you start asking hard questions in social media like “What’s wrong with her (or him)? She (or he) just made 45 bazillion dollars on that last movie that wasn’t even funny and 10 of those dollars were mine! She (or he) laughed all the way to the bank; she (or he) should still be smiling about it!” And if you should ask that question, now someone can reply, “Haven’t you heard? It’s Resting Bitch Face (or Bitchy Resting Face for the ‘or he’s’).”

The only problem with that is that, unlike designer sunglasses, monogrammed jeans, or logo-festooned cell phone accessories, the PR teams couldn’t license that face. Everybody has it. That’s what got them in this in the first place. But then, being what they are and all, the publicity cadre did it again. They knew soon the more fanatical fans (is that redundant?) would adopt Resting Bitch Faces (or Bitchy Resting Faces for the ‘or he’s’) as their own default facial expression. Not that they didn’t already but now had a name they could use in their social media accounts. The fans then could proudly claim to have the same condition as their favorite unsmiling objects of their fanaticism. The only way to differentiate the real celebrities from the celebrity wannabes was in accessories. Everybody has a face. But not everybody has $59,000 sunglasses. Nor can just anybody afford $59,000 sunglasses except for those who recently made 45 bazillion dollars. But everybody could afford (sort of) $175 knockoff sunglasses. And thus, the ultra-designer sunglasses industry was founded.

Now I already own sunglasses that I got at the dollar store. So when first I was despondent about my at rest appearance, I now no longer exhibit outward signs of unhappiness. Actually, if I had exhibited outward signs of anythingness I wouldn’t have even started this post, but once I rationalized the actual absence of any such condition marked by outward signs of nothingness falsely identified as anything, my outwardness took on a decided somethingness. One great big smile from pocketing $174 in change.  🙂

 

I Got Nothing

Michael 7 Comments

When I sat down to write this post I realized that I really didn’t have an idea for this post. Not that I had one and forgot which I’ve done and have written about. Not that I had a bad idea for a post which I’ve probably had more times than not but wrote about anyway. Not that I had an idea but had written about several times already and even I knew that one more time wasn’t going to be a good idea. No, when I say I really didn’t have an idea, I really didn’t have an idea.

It’s been a decent enough week. I’ve felt well so I used some of that energy and did some shopping. Most of the time a good shopping trip will end up with fodder for a good blog post and sometimes just the act of shopping ends up blogworthy (which I’ve also already written about fairly recently). This week’s shopping was pretty much that. I went shopping. Bought a couple of shirts, some kitchen stuff, a canister of that newfangled spray on sun-screen. But it was all fairly normal. No weird sales signs, no clueless sales clerks, no inappropriately dressed fellow customers. Well, there was that one lady in the bathing suit with a cover-up masquerading as clothes. How could I tell there was a bathing suit under what outwardly appeared to be a cover-up? Maybe the dripping water that trailed her like an ill-trained puppy. But since I’ve done more than a couple of posts on fashion rules for the real world I couldn’t see putting yet another together at the expense of the nonfashionista and her screaming need for attention.

Since the last post I’ve spent a lot of time at the pool. I’ve switched from morning walk to morning swim at least on non-dialysis days for my exercise. In fact, it’s worked out quite well for me. Last summer, actually last summer, last fall, last spring, the summer before last, and so on and so one and etc. I’ve spent most of my exercise energy on walking. Also covered in several posts. But since I’ve started on dialysis I’ve been slacking on the sidewalk shuffle. If you’ve never had dialysis I’ll add in my prayers tonight that you never have to have dialysis for one of the things they don’t tell you when they stress that you’ll only spend 7% of your week on the machine is that you spend about 40% of your week recovering from that time. Walking just a mile or two the morning after dialysis isn’t just out of the question, it’s not even a question. Period. But swimming seems to be a different animal. I’ll swim a lap or two then climb out of the pool and rest in a comfy lounge chair under the morning sun. After a few minutes rest (ok, after about 20 minutes rest), it’s back in for some water calisthenics. More rest, more laps. More rest, some wading. I get exercise and a killer tan without having to stop for a rest when I’m a quarter mile from the nearest park bench. But hardly blogworthy.

And we’ve had Father’s Day. It’s the rare holiday that goes by without a mention of it by me. I’ve even invented my own holidays just to get a post idea. Maybe not invented but certainly given more weight to National Name Tag Day than even its proponents did. But everybody knows about Father’s Day. Not much I could add to it. I could talk about my gifts but they wouldn’t hold your interest as much as mine. I could talk about dinner and the fabulous glaze we came up with for the grilled salmon but then when the cook book comes would you still buy it? Or I could talk about how we narrowly escaped the severe weather than muscled its way into the festivities just as the grill was cooling. But how many weather posts can one blog present?

No, I just have to own up to up. I got nothing. So if you were expecting to find something here to pique your interest, go to the search page and plug in your desired topic. Chances are you’ll get something back. Till then, I’ll try to work on something more substantial for Thursday.

Have a great week!

 

Unsubscription of the Day

Michael Leave a comment

Before there were jokes of the day or meditations of the day there were Dial a Laugh and Dial a Prayer.  If you were feeling down you could call for a smile or an inspirational pick me up.  Now we can enjoy inspiration in our inboxes every day by way of a joke, recipe, song, home decorating tip, deep discount air fare, fashion accessory, sports trivia, or even a prayer of the day. No need to wait until you need help dealing with life, life’s little boosts come to you. Directly. At no charge to you.

The thing about free anything, particularly something free that you can get every day of every week, is that they end up costing something. But not you. To you the subscriber the most expense you incur is the time it takes to scroll around or to read the ads that come with the daily encouragement. No, this isn’t a rant about ads. Ads are fine. I like ads. Ads will buy my old folks home space someday. Ads make the world go ‘round. And it’s because of this that I had this thought pop into my head three weeks ago.

What popped was “Really?” and what made it pop was “If you want to continue receiving this email, please click here.” The email in question is one of the ubiquitous OTDs. The question was, “Really? Well that’s a new one,” which I guess really isn’t a question but literary license and all that. What it definitely was though, it was a first. Usually you have to do almost anything you wouldn’t want to do in front of your parents to get out of an email subscription that you once actually asked for. If you are lucky enough to find among the message’s fine print a link to unsubscribe it usually takes you to a series of questions verifying your unwise selection (You are about to have your name PERMANENTLY removed. Are you sure you want to do this?) then respond to several confirming emails with links that take you to more veiled queries regarding your decision making and ultimately your sanity. Nobody lets anybody go from a subscription list. Those are the numbers that advertisers live by. They are literally the lifeblood of the OTDers.

So when I saw this email, this special email sent separate from the daily delivery of inspiration, I knew it was an experiment in the making. If anything, one would have thought that the email would have said that they needed to confirm their list and if I no longer wanted to receive it I should respond, but this was a whole new bag of beans. (Look, somebody has to make up new idioms and someday when “bag of beans” is old hat you’ll be able to say that you read it first.) Personally, I didn’t care if I got that daily gem or not so I didn’t “click here.” About a week later I got another email reminding me that I hadn’t yet responded to their previous inquiry and if I wanted to keep receiving their pearls of wisdom I should “click here.” Again I didn’t. Now two weeks after that I’m still getting my daily missives.

Well the joke is on them. I’m getting what other people have to actually go out and ask to get and I didn’t have to do anything for it. How’s that for pulling one over on them. Hehehe.

 

Hi, Confused to Meet You

Michael 8 Comments

This weekend a seminarian came to our church to start his year long spiritual internship as it were. At the end of the mass he stood on the altar and after introducing himself he said, “I’ll be at the back of the church and would like to meet all of you personally . I won’t remember all of your names but over the next year, I’ll try.” If it had been me saying that I would have made it “I won’t remember any of your names but over the next year I’ll forgot the couple that I accidentally had remembered. And it will probably at the absolute worst time.”

You see, of all the billions of data that I’ve committed to memory over all the years that I’ve been exposed to data, I can remember almost all of it, from every important work piece to the most useless of useless trivia. Except names. I tried all of the memory tricks. Use somebody’s name three times in the first 10 minutes of being introduced. Associate the name with some physical characteristic. Build a mnemonic that describes where and Forgotwhen you met that person. None of it worked. I even tried doing what I did to remember the billions of data that I did remember and is rolling around in my head. I just remembered. But it seems I’ve never been good with names. Why, it took me almost 4 years to learn my own mother’s name. And that’s most surprising since almost everybody’s mother’s name back then was Mommy.

So how did I manage to go through life with such a disconnect from the most personal of other people’s personal information? I guess I always had cheat sheets around. While in the army, everybody wore their name above their right pocket. As long as I didn’t mind to appear to be somewhat not all quite focused I could pass my eyes over their collar looking for rank, down to their pocket for surname and in one almost smooth motion would greet Captain Hook. In the hospitals and other medical facilities everyone wears name badges. Except for the few who inexplicably wore their identification cards on the hems of their shirts or jackets it was easy enough to spot the picture card and zero in on the name. At the college the entire clinical faculty was into wearing white jackets with their names stitched above the breast pocket. Except me. I didn’t care much for wearing consultation jackets while standing at the front of a lecture hall. It struck me as the same useless gesture as those who wear scrubs in a hospital yet never move from their desks in the administration wing except to go home.

When I didn’t have a visual cue to jolt me into name recognition I relied on the old standby. Everybody became “sir” or “ma’am.” Actually, that worked out quite well in my career ladder climb. People to whom I reported liked that I call to them with such politeness while everyone else junior to them tried to feign familiarity by beginning each conversation with “Well Bob,” or “If you have a minute Sue.” As I rose to have more who reported to me I continued with “sir” and “ma’am” and endeared my staff to me with my gentility while other department heads routinely referred to their crew as “the minions of 4 Central” or some similar certainly meant to be cute appellation.

So, my advice to you if you should ever become a seminarian assigned to your pastoral learning experience and don’t think you can remember everybody’s name before your year is up, do what I did. Don’t try. Make them all sirs and ma’ams. They’ll appreciate the courtesy. Or, you can just think of them all as useless trivia and you can probably commit a few billion names to memory. Just don’t let the pastor find out.