Tag Life

I Firmly Dissolve

Michael 2 Comments
The new year is already more than a week old and I haven’t published a new post yet. I should be swiftly and severely punished for this. Or not. I pick not. I tried to write. Really I did. But I’ve been busy. I’ve been doing my spring cleaning, clearing out the herb garden, and ordering candy corn. Yeah, my chronology is a little disheveled. And I mix metaphors in my spare time too. 
 
Jan9Something I haven’t done yet this year, besides writing until today, is I also have yet to resolve anything. But hey, that’s the norm for me. I won’t even think about “New Year’s Resolutions” until sometime in March. I may not do anything then either but I will give it a good think. My resolution of years and years ago not to make New Year’s Resolutions in January (which I am proud to say I have kept quite well thank you) did not have the universal impact I was hoping for, encouraging others to likewise temper their plans for self, and often world,  improvement as each year begins. I see by delaying my first post of 2020 for 9 days I’ve gotten here too late to see many people who forged ahead with New Year’s Resolutions on January 1 adhering to those grand plans. How can I tell? Well…
  • You don’t “spend less time on social media” if you are posting to Instagram you doing things without your phone in hand.
  • “Eat healthier” is more than picking a non-GMO and gluten free beer for your weekly binge. (Is that even a thing?)
  • You do not get credit for “being nice to everybody” for adding 🤫 to end of a Twitter rant in which you call anybody a blithering idiot. (Yes, even exes and politicians) 
  • Getting up to find your remote does not mean you “take more walks.”
Surely there are some still resolving successfully even 9 days in. To you, congratulations! To the others more representative of my examples, well, at least you think you tried.
 
Look, it’s a new year and in another 357 days (leap year, remember) it will be another new year then yet another and so on and so on and so on. The only resolution you really need to make and keep is to do your best to make it to your next chance to resolve. Or not. 
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Happy Old Year

Michael 2 Comments
Movie goers who are certain they don’t make ’em like that any more, like me, often find themselves wishing for 1946 again. The Big Sleep, Razor’s Edge, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gilda. Those were some of 1946’s bigger box office pay days. Oh yes, there was that big box office flop, It’s a Wonderful Life. 
 
Oh to relive 1946. That’s just what Sheila Page played by Joan Leslie gets to do in 1947’s Repeat Performance. In a heavily reworked version of the 1942 William O’Farrell novel, Sheila gets to relive 1946 from New Years Eve to New Years Eve. Well people had been reliving past cinematic lives for a while, particularly around the holidays, the previous year’s Capra classic being just the latest. Ah, but this one had a twist. Sheila doesn’t just watch her past life like Ebenezer Scrooge or George Bailey. Nor does she dream or imagine what a do over might get her the second time around. She gets dropped right back into her previous year with the full knowledge of the happenings of her first go at it and her plan for rewriting the script. 
 
Surely you’ve said to yourself a time or two “if I could only do that again” or “I wish I could have that day back.” Without revealing any more of the tale if you should want to see it for yourself* you probably can figure out that things aren’t going to go as planned. Obviously she didn’t live her first shot at 1946 in a vacuum and she isn’t going through version 2 alone. That’s the trouble with wishing for a redo, everyone else comes along too. Whether you want them or not. And there’s no guarantee that even if you could do your part differently that with everybody else adjusting and refining the end result won’t be the same.
 
My 2019 was not a banner year for me. If you’ve been reading these posts for a while you know that. If you are new just read the last posted kidney transplant update and you’ll get an idea of what I did on my summer vacation and it didn’t involve Disneyland. So if I had a chance to repeat this year would I leap at it? 
 
I think I’ll take a crack at revising things in the new year. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if we could dispense with today and tomorrow. I’ve already had enough of 2019.
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*The 1947 movie Repeat Performance was lost until very recently. There are plans for a DVD and BluRay release. It is currently available in Turner Classic Movie’s on demand listings. There is a newer movie of the same name from 1996 that was a completely different story, perhaps even more obscure that the one lost for 70 years. Don’t be fooled by that. In 1989 NBC released a remake of the 1947 film as the made for TV movie Turn Back the Clock starring Connie Sellecca in the Sheila Page role as Stephanie Powers. That movie should not be confused with the 1933 comedy offering Turn Back the Clock which involves people reliving past lives but they were having a lot more fun than those that came in William O’Farrell’s novel released 9 years later which became the source material for the 1947 and 1989 movies. And you wondered why I wouldn’t want to redo a year. They can’t even get redoing movies right and that stuff is made up!
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Seeing Isn’t Believing

Michael Leave a comment
It’s been a busy past couple of weeks. What days haven’t been spent at doctor appointments have been spent at dialysis,  then last Friday I made an unplanned trip to the outpatient surgery unit to have my fistula opened. Something I’ve taken note of on all these trips is how the view has changed on the same roads since the beginning of this month.
 
Thanks to the miracle of arbochemistry, and my decision to take residence along the hills and mountains of Western Pennsylvania, I’ve been treated to the increasingly colorful forests that can be seen from almost any road between here and there in the area. 
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Of course you do know that those oranges and reds that we wait for each fall are always in the leaves. We can’t see them in July because there is so much chlorophyll in the leaves that only its green is visible. As the air cools and the light fades less chlorophyll is produced, the camouflage is lifted, and those vibrant fiery colors come out of hiding. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean those colors weren’t there last month. Don’t believe me? Ask your favorite tree.
 
Leaves aren’t there only things that hide all their colors. Across America Election Day is fast approaching. “Off year elections” it’s called. Some states are fortunate enough to have Governor or state house and row office elections this year. In a couple weeks here in Pennsylvania, like many states, all we will have to vote for are county, school district, and municipal offices. 
 
I haven’t seen one ad, recieved one post card, or heard one news story for any local office even though local government is the one that most closely touches people’s lives. But everywhere campaigning abounds. Just not for this year. There are all kinds of news about what’s coming up in a year and a couple weeks. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing though. As the campaign seasons change, support becomes cooler, and somebodies’ dreams fade, their veneer will be replaced by what was always there, just hidden from view by large quantities of camouflage. It could turn out to be quite fiery. How vibrant may be a different story.
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Just the Facts Ma’am

Michael 3 Comments
Welcome to Columbus Day 2019! The holiday everyone loves to hate!!! Personally I’m not thrilled with any holiday outside of Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. All the others are just excuses for anybody who works for the government to get an extra day off.
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Columbus Day is also the holiday everyone loves to demonstrate their knowledge of “the facts.”
  • Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America, Amerigo Vespucci discovered it, that’s why we call it America.
  • Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America, Leif Erikson discovered it 500 years before either of those Europeans.
  • Nobody discovered America, there were already people living here!
  • Columbus was a criminal, slave trader, tyrant, and probably didn’t like dogs.
All sort of true (except maybe about the dogs) and all sort of not true, or at least inaccurate. If you’re looking for who actually first landed on the American mainland, whether North, South, or Central, that probably was John Cabot (surprise!) who landed in modern Canada in 1497. Columbus didn’t reach the South American mainland until his third voyage in 1499, and Vespucci landed in South America in 1500. Although the Vikings were known to have reached what is now Greenland as early as before 1100 their presence on mainland America has not been clearly documented before the 16th century. Columbus’s crimes are well-documented, but in 15th century Europe everybody who ran afoul of royalty would be accused and convicted of something, many of those some things quite routine for the rest of the populace.
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20191014_152221The “fact” most people seem to get the most mileage from is that Columbus could not have discovered America because there were already people living here. Again true, there were people living here, but then not true because that’s not what a discovery is. That would be like saying Neil Armstrong discovered the Moon because when he landed on it there were no people there. Of course the discovery of the Moon happened hundreds of thousands of years ago when the first eyes looked to the sky one night and saw a a big round, bright object. It isn’t whether people were here or not, it was a discovery for the Europeans because they did not know that this “it” was here. That discovery led to greatest period of trade and colonization that the world had seen yet or since.
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But of all the facts, suppositions, non facts, and inaccuracies, the one of most importance today is this – you can stop wondering when the mail is going to come.
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Plan, Check, Do

Michael 2 Comments
  In the very nearly eight years that I’ve been sharing my sometimes questionable mind with you I’ve rarely brought up religion. Maybe a half-dozen times and then probably just at Christmas or Easter not that I’m only Christmas or Easter religious, but it’s not a topic I often speak or write about. Today there seems no escaping it, not that it needs escaped from of course.
   Unless you live in a world devoid of internet access and by virtue of you reading this we know that’s not true, or unless you have been out of the country this week and even then you probably still reached back with that internet access that we know you have, you’ve gotten to read about the newest controversy, that is how dare Ellen DeGeneres sit next to President George W. Bush and at a baseball game, a social event even, of all places.
   If you should happen to be scrolling through the archives here you know we’re approaching the one-year anniversary of the mass murders at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, the deadliest such event at any religious setting.
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   I’m sure you’re now asking yourself what do these two events have to do with each other? Less than a year ago people were posting all over social media how we have to love one another, respect one another, live in harmony with each other. In the past few days some of those same people had commented how could someone like Ellen socialize with someone like George W. knowing his past and their differences? And they did it with less than loving, respectful, or harmonious words. Ellen’s initial response to the comments that you don’t have to agree with someone to like him or her or even to be civil to that person or group of people was met with even more outrage. And then a post or two later whether on Twitter or Facebook or in the comments section to a news article, those same people we’re counting the ways they were going to commemorate the Tree of Life tragedy with love and respect, and in the spirit that we are all the same and belong together.
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   It takes so much more than words whether spoken, printed, or typed and sent into the interwebs. It’s the action that matters. No matter if you are agreeing, disagreeing, clarifying, or condemning, some true action is needed if you’re expecting change. Or even love and respect.
   I probably would have just read all of the posts, become frustrated at the consistent contradictory reactions of people, then had a second cup of coffee and let it be forgotten before the day’s end. But then that’s where religion snuck in. It was right there in front of me in today’s Gospel, “…ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open to you.” (Luke 11:9) These three are interconnected, not independent. It doesn’t stop at ask.
   If you’re having trouble thinking theologically, consider the business maxim, “plan, check, do.” Ask is step one, it’s the plan. What do we want? Do we want to live in harmony? Do we want to punish somebody for past offenses? Do we want to love our neighbor? The second step you seek, or checking the plan. How do we get what we want? How much do we need to be happy? How severe should the punishment be? Can we get away with just liking our neighbor? And then you have to act on it. You have to knock on the door and announce how you will do your plan. Sometimes that plan means you have to change, you have to be more in tune with others, you have to love more. It’s not always going to be the other person who has to adjust to be in harmony with you. In fact, more often than not the one doing the work will be you.
   So whether it’s being civil to someone, loving your neighbor, or rethinking past times when you’ve been less than those, now is probably a good time to plan, check, and do.
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Food For Thought

Michael 2 Comments

It’s time to clean out the refrigerator. For me it’s that time every time this time of week. I’ll be getting ready to cook.

Perhaps I should start in the middle. When I was in the hospital, because of why I was there my sister naturally was also in the hospital. That took two members of my immediate family out of daily activities including, among other things, cooking. The other two spent much of their time at the hospital while were inpatients, limiting their available time for daily activities including, among other things, cooking. But friends and other relatives eased that burden by creating food chains or meal trains. When it became evident that I was destined for a much longer than anticipated hospital stay and recovery period, those friends and relatives along with friends of relatives and even relatives of friends presented us with the modern equivalent of hot casseroles, gift subscriptions to meal services. So many in fact that this Sunday we will be preparing the last of the gifted meals.

We in this case are my daughter and I. We’ve been spending a day a week almost every week since mid-June, first in her kitchen now in mine, preparing the following week’s meals. This is hardly unique. Much of the working world preps and even pre-cooks the upcoming week’s meals. Even when I was part of the working world I would do some manner of advance preparation. Then it was often a matter of my daughter and I chopping, seasoning, arranging, and storing in a suitable cooking vessel that day’s dinner before I went off to work and she to school each morning. Sometime after her return in the afternoon she cookrd and plated as I dragged myself in from another day at the rat races. (I always bet the #7 rat to win the 7th race by 7 lengths but he never came in.)

So you see, meal prepping is in our blood, or at least on our resumes. Little things like my daughter’s own entry into the working world and my entry into the limited lifting and standing world, coupled with the fact that we no longer live in the same house, make daily prep pretty inconvenient. But the once a week plan has really made life much easier for me.

Something else it’s made me is it’s made me think how fortunate I am to have a daughter who is willing to give up one of her two free days each week to spend with her father. It’s also made me realize that if there are a few others like her out there maybe this world isn’t destined for global annihilation as soon as the last of the Baby Boomers leaves it. The few hours it takes us to chop and season, arrange and cook, store and clean up make for some pretty quality time. And so does the eating and sitting and chatting and re-bonding after.

A family dinner really is a gift. Even a bunch of them all at once.

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The Fruits of Our Labor

Michael 2 Comments

Hello! I would say “Happy Labor Day” but to those who know the origins of the day that would be just as offensive as wishing those who understand the meaning of that spring holiday a “Happy Memorial Day.”

I wonder if even the organizers of big labor know why we have today. Last month a new group voted to be represented by a labor union in their quest for more equitable treatment in the workplace. Those were the local librarians. They are now represented by, and pay their dues to, the same union protecting the interests of that other maligned worker, the part time graduate assistant. No, I’m not making this up.

According to the U. S. Department of Labor, “Labor Day is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” Noble sounding. Actually Labor Day is a commemoration of when 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York on September 5, 1882. They weren’t looking for lower deductibles for their health insurance or a guarantee 5% raise every year without a corresponding 5% increase in productivity. They were protesting 12 hour workdays over 7 day work weeks with preteen co-workers. They were protesting violence in the workplace ending in deaths of employees and employers over working conditions that would have resulted in their deaths anyway. They were protesting not having a life while at the same time not making a living. They were truly under appreciated, maligned, and frankly endangered.

Please take a moment today to pray for those killed in the 1800s so 59% of the American workforce can have today off with pay. Just don’t try to return a book to the library.

(In case you’re wondering, the union representing graduate assistants and librarians – the United Steel Workers. I guess even union officers have to find creative ways to continue living the life to which they’ve become accustomed.)

 

What A Dump

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that time again, the time when if you don’t pull the mental chain your brain will back up and then you’ll have to get out the big plunger.

Misunderstanding

You’ll recall my recent discussion on non-dairy butter, not the concept but that the package read “butter.” Not “plant butter,” not “soy butter,” not “butter tasting butter substitute,” but “butter.” I guess I have a wider readership than even I could have imagined. Shortly after that post – ummm – posted the ACLU filed suit against Arkansas claiming the state’s new labeling law stipulating that only meat can be called meat, only milk can be called milk, only rice can be called rice, and presumably only butter can be called butter violates the manufacturers’ of the ersatz products free speech. Hmm. Now this is just a thought, but if American chicken and hog farmers actually came up with green eggs and ham and attempted to market them as “broccoli” and “kale” would that same ACLU step in to protect them?

Although I don’t like it and have said so, there is no stopping American stores from running back to school sales in July. I’m sorry but in my mind that is just way too early. And I’ve been one of those parents with a calendar on the kitchen wall crossing off the days until those kids go back to school! But I get it, it’s a once a year marketing opportunity and they have to make hay, or money, while the sun shines. But now I have a real issue with those stores. Two days ago I was in the local supermarket and at the end of the “seasonal” aisle where all the back to school items were located was a big display of Halloween candy. Come on now!

This morning a man was stopped at the local airport for carrying a loaded gun in his carry on bag. It was the 23rd such seizure this year. Today is the 210th day of 2019 so a little more frequently than once every 10 days somebody is trying to sneak a gun into the secure area of the airport. Ours is not a particularly large airport with about 400 departures a day. I can’t imagine what TSA agents at a big airport find. I said those people carrying weapons are trying to sneak a gun past security. They claim they “forgot” the gun was in their carryon or they “had it when they were at the range last week.” Did they really? Did they really bring their travel carryon to the range last week? The gun confiscated this morning had 14 bullets in the clip, the clip in the gun, and an additional bullet in the chamber. Doesn’t seem like something one could, or should “forget.”

The lawyers at Publishers Clearing House are really good. You’re not going to see them okay an ad that calls margarine butter, I mean that says “You are a winner!” No, they say you could be a winner or you might be holding the winning entry. They ain’t gonna get sued for stretching the truth. I got another one of those mailings last week. Not from PCH. From the dealership where I bought my car and have it serviced. That would be Car #2, not the daily driver although the last letter I got was in reference to my everyday vehicle. Car #1 is a ten year old Chevrolet Malibu and earlier this year the dealer sent me a notice that it was time to “exchange” that car for a new model. I agreed with them but when I went over to swap keys and registrations they really wanted me to exchange money for a new car! I knew all along they weren’t serious but I had to go over for a state inspection anyway so I thought I’d see how much I could get out of them. Not much it turned out. Last week’s letter was from a different dealer about a different car. I know it’s a marketing tool just like back to school sales in July but the letter says they need cars like mine to “fulfill special used vehicle requests.” This particular car is not a 10 year old Chevy. It’s a 20 year old Mazda Miata with not quite 31,000 miles. I bought it from this dealer and they have serviced it since it was in the internal combustion engine equivalent of diapers. They might very well have a request for such a car. But when they say “We would like to exchange your 2000 Mazda MX-5 Miata for any new or Certified Pre-Owned Mazda from our inventory,” I doubt their sincerity. But as fate would have it, Wednesday I have a service appointment there for that very car. I know just the new Miata in their inventory that would make a dandy exchange!

I feel better now that I held my occasional brain dump. Thank you for tolerating me. I’d be happy to exchange your new reading for my old writing any day!

Miata

I Wish I May…

Michael 4 Comments

You’ve seen them. Perhaps a newspaper feature article on a local 100 year old, or a minor celebrity suddenly experiencing the harder side of life after having been diagnosed with an incurable (or even a curable) disease, or maybe even an ad for a home care agency home hospice program. What is it that that you’ve seen or heard or read? That earnest looking and sounding unfortunate soul baring his or her life to the camera, reporter, microphone, or ad agency saying “my one last wish, my most hopeful dream, the one thing I’m most looking forward to, is dying in my own bed. It’s what keeps me going.” Well I’ll tell you right now, if you ever hear me utter such nonsense just shoot me where I stand. Unless I’m standing in my own home, then take me across the street or at least out back first.

How bad does your life have to be that the only thing you’re looking forward to, the one thing you want most out of that life, your biggest dream for yourself, is to be dead. Yes, when you die in your own home you end up dead. Something we all realize we will someday be but something most people would not aspire to, brain-addled suicide bombers notwithstanding.

I don’t know what I want most out of my life. I know what I want out of my life most but those aren’t the same thing. My biggest dream probably depends on what’s annoying me most on a particular day. Too many therapists, too many phone calls, and way behind on sweepstakes entries – I dream of the solitude of an uninhabited (except for me, select guest(s), and a killer bartender) island. Too many healthy meals too many days in a row – pizza from a pizza shop known for as many toppings (please, pineapple is not a pizza topping under any circumstance) as one can humanly get to stay on a pizza crust.

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Not only does “die in my own bed” sound way too dramatic for the average Jo or Joe, it’s quite unfair to those who share that home or are expecting to have it on the real estate market next week. Dying in life (I’m not sure how else to phrase that) isn’t like dying in the movies. Most people don’t smile, say goodbye to the assembled group of friends and family, then nod off just as the last relative passes by. There are noises, smells, and often a lot of movement before and after the fact. There’s cleaning up to do and people to call like in the absence of home hospice, 911. I’d rather have understaffed nursing personnel handle the dirty details or more frankly the cleaning detail, than a loved family member. Of course if you are really annoyed at your family that day, well, who am I to judge?

If someone was to put a gun to my head and say I must come up with my one greatest wish or I’d get it right there I’d probably say to live at least one more day. It seems so much more wish worthy. I wonder if under the same circumstances those with that burning desire to die in their own beds would as calmly as they could, tell the gunman, “So, can you drive me home first?”

Halt! Who Goes There?

Michael Leave a comment

I had all sorts of stuff I was going to ramble on about but I lost my complete train of thought when it was pointed out to me on last week’s post that the moon landing was JULY 20, not JUNE 20. I am so mortified. I can only imagine what you think of me. Alternately I can only imagine that nobody actually reads this drivel. Either way, it’s no wonder why I never saw anything celebrating its anniversary and I’m very sorry for misleading everybody.

Now on to today’s drivel. I know it had something to do with standing in doorways. I remember that much because I have a constant reminder of blocked doorways. You see, I’m not home right now. I was discharged from the hospital 2 weeks ago but I’ve been staying with my daughter at her house until I am strong enough to be back on my own. I’m getting there but every couple days when I think I’m making progress I have dialysis which beats me up like a nogoodnik beats on a shamus in a classic film noir. Sorry, I digress. As I was saying, there is a constant reminder there of blocked doorways and it goes by the name of Jingle, a part pointer, part husky, part bull dog, part Yeti 3 year old rescue who is convinced he is a 3 year old human. Except…

Except a three year old human you can deal with when every time you enter a room he bounds around you and stands in the doorway looking up at you mentally asking if this was the room want to go to, is it, huh, huh, is it. A three year old dog, who really should know better, not so much. A three year old human can be reasoned with, and barring reasoning he can be lifted and moved out of the way. A three year old multi-mix, especially one exceeding your lifting limit sevenfold, not so much. A three year human someday will grow into a four year human and then five and so on and so on and if today you don’t get your point across eventually he will understand probably when he is the one tripping over an impediment to room entry. A three year old canine living statue, who will only grow into a four year old living statue and then five and then so on and so on, not so much.

So I have this reminder it I’m not sure what the big story behind it is. I’m sure it was quite profound and may even change your outlook on the world around you. If I should remember I’ll jot it down somewhere and write a proper post about it. But not on July 20. That date is taken.

JingleAndPenguin

Jingle and Penguin