Tag Life

Those Were The Days

Michael 1 Comment

I’ve been spending the past several evenings watching Bond, James Bond movies going all the way back to the first offering from 1962. I was reminded, happily reminded, of how courteous people were back then. Everyone dressed well, everyone said please and thank you, everyone treated each other with respect. If I hadn’t lived through it myself I would say this was a romanticized version of mid-century life, but it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t where I lived and that wasn’t London, or New York, or Kingston, Jamaica. Nor was it spent in high class casinos, private clubs, or Caribbean resorts. It was a dinky little steel mill town in Western Pennsylvania and people still dressed well, said please and thank you, and treated each other with respect. If it had been sunnier more days than it was it could have been the set of Leave It To Beaver.

I was just about to type that the movies are part of a month long festival of sorts courtesy of the Starz/Encore networks. That’s not quite true. The movies are indeed part of a month long Bond, James Bond celebration airing on the Starz/Encore channels but they are there to see courtesy of myself by way of my monthly cable bill. And I think that is part of why I miss those original days of Bond, James Bond. No, the cable channel wouldn’t have paid for my movies back then. We all know there wasn’t cable then. Movies were at the theater. Where you dressed for the day out, said “please” when asking for a ticket and “you’re welcome” in response to the “thank you” the cashier would cheerfully tell you. Where the movie, popcorn, soft drink, and bus fare to get there and back could be had for the dollar bill mom gave you and let you keep the change. Today that 1962 fifty cent movie is included as part of my $140 monthly cable bill. And I have to provide my own popcorn and drink.

MarqueeThe last time I went to a Bond, James Bond movie at a theater it cost me $9.50 and when I passed over my $20 bill I got a ticket, the wrong change, and a “there ya go.” When I pointed out the error I was rewarded with the insipid “my bad.” At the concession stand I spent $7.50 for a soft drink, the required purchase to redeem my FREE POPCORN! coupon, during a wordless transaction other than my “small popcorn and Sprite” at its beginning and my “thank you” at its conclusion. (I’m still not sure why I thank the seller when I purchase something. Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

Even ignoring the almost 27 fold increase in the monetary outlay, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Oh it wasn’t unpleasant. Nobody tried to pick my pocket, the crowd in the cinema was mostly quiet, and I didn’t spill my sticky soft drink onto my lap. Conversely, nobody said “excuse me” as they climbed over the lady in the row in front of me to get to the only seats that would satisfy them, nobody apologized for knocking the sticky soft drink into the lap of the unfortunate lady who was climbed over, and almost everybody dashed out of the theater as if someone actually yelled fire at the movie’s end. The niceties that were there in Those Good Old Days weren’t there and probably will never return.

If you should be unfortunate enough to ever mention this, particularly if you ever mention this to someone whose only experience with those late-50s early-60s days were through old movies or syndicated reruns of the Beaver, you may be rebuked for your naiveté and wistful but obviously wrong recollection of a time that wasn’t. But for me it was, they were, and it still is not a bad thing to aspire.

And now I have to run to the store and pick up popcorn for tonight’s showing. If I’m lucky, I might find a coupon.

 

Give Me a Break

Michael 2 Comments

Everything starts to run slower every now and then and can be fixed if you unplug it then plug it back it. Even you. This sage advice is brought to you by the people who marketed the first home computers way back in the dark ages, like 1970something. That it’s still true today isn’t surprising. That you need to unplug even from unpluggedness isn’t something I would have before imagined.

When I was working I always looked forward to time off. Not a day or a weekend. Not a week around the holidays when you worked harder at cooking and cleaning and then celebrating and recovering than you did before taking the time off. Real time off. A week on a beach on an island that has spotty cell coverage and Wi-Fi is something you ask when questioning the use of the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. That kind of time off.

If you’re still of working age I strongly urge you to consider using some of your time for actual time off. Even if it is just a day or a weekend, make it a day or a weekend of unpluggedness. Maybe you can use it to come up with a better word than unpluggedness. Lexicologists excepted. And if you’re still working then by all means take a break from not working.

Here’s my logic. As I said, when I was working I looked forward to my time off. I also looked forward to going to work. Yes, I was one of those people who loved my work. I didn’t mind if I was in early, worked through break times, worked late, worked extra, or covered others. Preferably not all in the same day but if it happened I still made the best of it. But even though I was doing what I loved I wasn’t going to be fooled into believing that sampler waiting to happen “when you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life” resembles truth. Doing anything well, even something you like, takes work. That’s how you get good at it. And work, even at doing something you like, is tiring. Exhausting even.

You need that break from work to recharge so you can do it again. That’s why so many companies have a “use it or lose it” policy regarding vacation time. No, it’s not so they can work you to death and then not give you what (you think) you’re entitled to. They have it so you’ll be forced to take time because so many seem to think that by denying yourself time off you’ll make it look like you’re such a great worker they can’t do without and you’ll never get let go. Actually, not taking time off only means you get burned out, end up doing a half-assed job, and get let go. That’s why I insisted those who worked in my department took their time off even if I had to schedule it for them myself. That’s also why, having managed to work myself up to a position of getting rewarded with 5 weeks of available time off each year I took as many of them as I could, often within a day or two of all five weeks. It might be why I enjoyed what I did. Because I took the time to recharge. Even when I was just starting and got all of two weeks vacation, between taking time off for the holidays and family activities, I always tried to take a couple of days off to just be off.

Now that I’m not working every day should be a holiday, right? Well, not so. You know that not working was not originally my idea. Those guys called doctors as well as those body parts called mine got together and decided it was better for my health, wellbeing, and continued living to start taking time off on a more or less permanent basis. Not working has not been fun, and I was sure it was because I wanted to work.  Ah, but I was wrong.

Perhaps at the beginning of not working, not working was not fun. But I’ve been not working for 3 years now. I should be used to it. Used to it I am. Enjoying it I am not. That is until I “took time off” from being off and started doing new things out of the routine that I had established in lieu of working. It really doesn’t matter what the routine is; what matters is that it is a routine. It was going to work at not working. But in the last 2 months I took a break from that. I didn’t a adhere to the routine, and I feel more refreshed, more positive, and more anticipating of returning to, you guessed it, my new old routine.

If I can keep taking some time off from myself like that more often, I might get used to this not working thing.

 

Fire Sale

Michael 24 Comments

If your house was on fire and you could carry one thing out of it with you, what would it be? A question like that has been asked for ages. In philosophy classes, on psych papers, over drinks at happy hour, in bible groups, at marriage counseling. It should be getting easier to answer. Or maybe not.

When asked the question, in public the answers all sound very altruistic. My baby. My pet. The picture of my long dead parents, long suffering spouse, long loved child. In private we’d probably say, grab the tablet, CD, or memory stick with all our family financial info and maybe the one with pictures too if possible, or the purse or wallet with driver’s license and the credit cards because who wants that replacement hassle right after the house burns down. No! Get the phone!

I really was thinking about this recently. If I could save just one thing, what one thing would I want above all that I may risk my life to get?

My grandparents might have had a really hard time answering. Both trunks of my family tree started their branches in this country during World War I. Although not yet the depression Era as far as the United States was concerned, the European bank scare of 1914 had a dramatic effect on the Italian economy and its people. When they emigrated they took their distrust for banks with them. If it was of value, it was in the house. A fire would be devastating to the future of the family unless all of the children, 12 on my mother’s side, were old enough, big enough, and strong enough to each bring at least one item with no room for sentiment.

By the time my parents were contributing boomed babies to the landscape, the American economy was on an upswing and even middle class families had nest eggs that could be proudly secured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Up to $10,000 per depositor at the time. Like now though, nobody but the very rich had $10,000 nest eggs. But they still didn’t trust everything to the banks. Safety deposit boxes were for rich people. Personal treasures and savings bonds purchased almost painlessly through the Payroll Savings Plan were secreted in a strong box, itself cached away at the back of a linen drawer, the bottom of a cedar chest or top shelf of a closet, or among the pantry items in the newfangled built-in kitchen cabinets. In case of evacuation, a responsible adult, probably the dad, was in charge of collecting the canned collectibles, while another adult of authority went after more sentimental treasures.

My generation was the tween of generations. Everything from the first half of my life is on paper, the last 2 or 3 decades could and does fit easily on a flash drive. I have a strong box but other than my passport almost nothing in there is irreplaceable. Almost nothing else in there is probably worth trying to replace. If I was running from a fire I have to pleasure of knowing that I could grab all the sentimental items like the picture album filled with a record of the daughter’s formative years and perhaps a cherished bobble head.

But wait! I should go get that passport. I doubt I’ll be doing much travelling in the future but just in case I win one of those crazy on line raffles for an all-expense paid trip to Iceland, I’d hate to have to decline because I’m waiting on replacement documents proving who I am and what I look like. So that settles it, pictures, passport, and a cherished bobble head.

My essentials

My essentials

Oh no. But wait again (he says somberly). Forget the albums. Forget the bobble head. Forget the passport. (I’m going to have to find a more readily reachable place for that.) I forgot even more essential, if not sentimental items that I have to have. I have them with me all the time so I sometimes don’t consider that I actually have to carry them for them to be with me all the time. One is my cane. I can walk without it. For about 20 or 30 yards. About 50 to 100 feet depending on the day. That might get me as far as across the street from the theoretical blaze, but unless I’m planning on camping there forever, or unless I want to live the rest of my life 100 feet at a time, I better grab the cane.

That still leaves one hand free. Why not snag that cherished bobble head? Well…this a little personal. So much so that I don’t even tell people what’s in the bag I always have if someone who even suspects that it’s anything other than just a small day bag should ask. It’s a small bag but it’s huge in what it means to me.

You might recall from two posts ago that I am pretty much running on spare parts and that some of those parts actually are performing functions they were not originally designed to. And they require some help. That ever present bag carries the external pieces my spare-parted body needs to perform some otherwise routine internal functions. Yeah, that’s more than a little cryptic, but let’s say I can’t go but about 6 hours without it.

So. Two hands. Two things I sort of need more than pictures, bobble heads, or even passport. It looks like for me, like it was a couple of generations ago, there’s no room for sentiment.

Now I’m curious. What would you carry out?

 

Unpriortizing

Michael Leave a comment

I wrote today’s post in a state of righteous indignation. I would proof it but if I did I’d probably start to feel bad and change this phrase or that word so I don’t offend anybody. It’s not much of a gift but it certainly is a curse. So I’m not going to proof it and hope all the words are spelled correctly, the grammar is recognizable, I keep my comma usage appropriate, and most of the tense agrees. If I screwed up anywhere, sorry about that. If I do happen to offend you in my state of righteous indignation, sorry about that. This was about pleasing me this time. I know. Unconventional at best. Sorry about that, too.

Unprioritizing

Three things happened that I read about in the paper last week. And one thing happened that I did. They all have something in common. The three things I read about were that the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a preschool is eligible to apply for and receive a state grant for playground resurfacing, announcers for Great Britain mass transit stations have to begin announcements with “Good afternoon” or “Good evening,” and my state’s legislature recessed but passed a budget on time. The one thing I did was I locked my car in the Walmart parking lot. What do they have in common? None of them made any sense.

The state assembly recessing with a passed budget is both true and false. It’s true in that they did pass a “budget” before the July 1 deadline, unlike roughly half of the states’ legislatures held to a similar requirement. And they were more than happy to include that little tidbit in the press releases announcing the passed “budget.” The problem is that the “budget” is only the spending part of the plan. It should be called a spending plan but then they would have to stick around until they came up with a way of paying for everything they plan on spending. So they changed the name, or the rules, so they along have to pass the spending part by the budget deadline. I haven’t worked for a couple of years but when I did I had to submit my planned revenue, and how I was going to achieve that revenue before I was even allowed to start thinking about how I was going to spend that money. Even doing a home budget, I have make the money I want to have next month before I can spend it. Isn’t it time that we hold our governments to the same standards we hold ourselves? Oh, in case you’re wondering, no, they didn’t pass the revenue bill before adjourning.
Source: Any newspaper in Pennsylvania

The mass transit operator Transport for London has instructed its staff, and rerecorded their automated announcements, to use gender neutral terms and phrases like “Good morning everybody” rather than “Ladies and gentlemen “ so everyone will feel welcome. I’ve never been on a London subway train but if it’s like any of the ones I have been on in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or Washington DC, or any of the surface transports in hundreds of different cities in several different countries, hearing “Good morning everybody” isn’t going to make me feel all that welcome. Making certain I get off the train with the same amount of money in my pocket as I got on with (which didn’t happen in Washington), making certain I get off with the wallet that I had when I got on (which didn’t happen in Philadelphia), making sure I actually know where to get off by having station announcements that match the station names (which doesn’t happen in Pittsburgh), or making station announcements at a volume that is audible and understandable, or at all (which never happens in New York) would make me much happier. If you do want to call me something, I don’t want to be just a part of “everybody,” I sort of like being called a gentleman. Shouldn’t I get to feel welcome also?
Source:  The Independent, ESI Media, July 13, 2017.

So what’s wrong with an organization that cares for children receiving grant money? Because it’s Lutheran. Opponents said if they received state money it would violate the separation of church and state. The Court ruled that not giving them the opportunity to apply for such grants is a violation of their right to freedom of religion. What doesn’t make sense about that? Nothing doesn’t make sense about the decision. What doesn’t make sense is that the Supreme Court has to listen to arguments about that. What are the opponents afraid of? That the children while riding a swing will decide they believe in God, or that nature is a cool place to play, or that the teacher is a fun person, or “look, a bird!”? The First Amendment has only 45 words. Isn’t time we stopped second guessing what they meant when they wrote them?
Source: Catholic News Service, June 30, 2017.

I know, I’m getting old and turning into a cantankerous old coot. It’s one of the benefits of having been able to hang around for enough years that I actually have cantankerous in my vocabulary. It  makes me scratch my head and ask,” What’s wrong with the picture? These pictures, even? What are the priorities here? Making sure we don’t influence children in their lifetime journeys toward if, how, or when they may want to worship some supreme being? Or not? Or making sure children don’t get hurt when they trip on a pothole in the playground? Being certain that we don’t offend some group of people who aren’t certain if they are being offended until some other group might think they are being offended so we pick our words so carefully we barely recognize that there are actually people in the group? Or being certain we get our passengers to their destinations quickly and safely? That we follow the letter of the law and adhere to all deadlines and instructions or that we keep our power to change the definition of deadline or that which is deadline dependent? Or that we do what’s right and honorable and don’t spend money we don’t have, especially when it’s not our money anyway? I have the answers. But nobody is asking me the questions.

Oh, what does locking my car in Walmart’s parking lot have to do with misplaced priorities? It was the convertible. With the top down. And the alarm off. I know. I’m getting old and….. ok, I’m just getting old.
Source: Me.

 

Looking Good

Michael 6 Comments

I’m going to do something today that I usually don’t. I’m ranting. Well…not exactly ranting. A rant implies wild and impassioned speech. I may be passionate about a bunch of stuff but I’m not wild. I’m not even undomesticated. So I’m not exactly ranting but I am upset. Maybe even a little annoyed.

I just read a post – no, that’s not true either – I just read two-thirds of a post, supposedly to make me, as one with a chronic illness, feel magnanimous towards those who have the nerve to say to me,  “You look good.”  Apparently before I had the benefit of the sensitivity of whoever wrote that drivel, err…. that post, I was supposed to be bothered, irked, and/or insulted by that comment. Really?!?

Yes, I have a chronic condition. Three actually. If you’ve read this for a time you know I have kidney disease and am on dialysis (and the specific target of the aforementioned post). I am also told that I am a cancer survivor though one really never survives as much as finds a way to eliminate its immediate danger. For me that meant the physical removal of the cancer and along with it two and parts of third internal organ while now still learning how to live without otherwise vital body parts. The third is a one of those rare diseases that is so rare you don’t even get to see commercials on TV for drugs that might or not might not improve my chance at a normal life. Instead that one has been kept at bay for 15 years or so by a relatively dangerous drug regimen that probably helped me join the ranks of the first two chronic conditions that I mentioned but at least it kept me alive long enough to develop them. Anyway, when someone tells me that I look good I say thank you. Apparently I’ve been doing that wrong.

If I read the part of the article that I read correctly, I read that first I should consider that the person who is telling me how wonderful I appear doesn’t mean anything insensitive by it. He or she probably doesn’t know how painful and depressing my ailment is. Ailments are. Next I should consider exactly how well I know this person. Perhaps some people are mistaking my healthy appearance for a healthy appearance because they don’t know the full extent of my painful and depressing ailment. Or ailments. Then I should thank them for their thoughtfulness but gently remind them how painful and depressing my ailment really is. Are. Is. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do after that because that’s when I threw my tablet across the room. (After making sure I was aiming it at a very soft pillow. I might have been annoyed but I’m not crazy.) (Not even wild.)

So, since I was unable to finish that drivel, err…. that post, let me tell you how to respond when someone comes up to you, whether or not you have a chronic condition, and whether or not he or she does, and says, “You look good.”  Say thank you and repay the compliment.

By that way, you’re looking pretty good. Have a nice day.

13 Reasons Challenge

Michael 3 Comments

Just about everybody is familiar with the book and TV show “13 Reasons.” Some like it because it brings teenage suicide to light. Some hate it because it celebrates teenage suicide. Some abhor it because it’s just another way to exploit something, anything in the news.

Last week I was trapped in the rabbit hole and came up at a site where a young woman in Australia has taken a completely different direction from the show. In her blog terrymcnude.wordpress.com she says, “Instead of the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself, (we have to move on from that) and ask ourselves, what are 13 reasons why you’re happy with your life.” She then challenged others to find their 13 Reasons, pass them on, and encourage others to do the same.

While there are so many words being spent every day on all that we’re sure is wrong and unfair in the world, here’s a chance to spend a few on what’s right in yours.

So, I’m going to take that challenge and find the 13 Things that make me most happy and challenge you to do the same and then challenge all those who you share yours with to do likewise – on so on and so on.

13 Things That Make Me Happy.

  1. This is so easy it’s almost cheating. My No. 1 Thing that makes me happy is a daughter who seems to like me, too. Can’t say more than that.
  2. Just as easy is No. 2, having two siblings who are close and caring and never too busy to help with anything, anytime, anywhere.
  3. Having a small but strong group of friends.
  4. A walk in the morning without rain.
  5. Listening to piano-centric jazz. Thank you David Benoit.
  6. Stanley Cup Hockey!
  7. Christmas decorations.
  8. Cooking something without a recipe, sometimes even without a plan, and it actually tastes good.
  9. Spring when I sit outside intending to read but end up staring at the flowers.
  10. Top-down drives in the summer through back country roads.
  11. A good murder – the fictional kind, not one that ends up on the evening news.
  12. Pizza. (I never met a pizza that didn’t make me happy, except one with pineapple maybe).
  13. Being done with dialysis. Maybe someday that might move up in the list when I can actually be done with dialysis. But for now, 3 times a week I’m at my happiest when they pull those needles and they say “That’s it, you’re done for today.”

That’s it, those are mine. Now, are you up to the challenge?

 

Happy Birthday! (Offer valid in the continental United States only. Void where prohibited.)

Michael Leave a comment

Last week was my birthday (thank you) and among the cards, letters, and gifts I received a plethora of greetings from a host of retailers than I have bought from. They were all particularly generous. For example:

One restaurant would be happy to celebrate with me by offering me a free dessert! (Offer good for any single serving dessert item up to $5.00 with entrée purchase, guest must pay any sales tax, cannot be combined with other offers, not redeemable for cash or gift card.)

Another restaurant was celebrating my special day by giving me a free entrée (with the purchase of a second entrée of equal value or greater value, dine-in only, excludes daily special, maximum value $19.99).

Yet a third was willing to part with 25% off the regular price of any breakfast to ring in another year for me (as long as I also bought a beverage, didn’t select any combo meals, stayed away from the breakfast buffet, didn’t dine on Sunday, and spent less than 8 dollars on my choice, otherwise my maximum savings was capped at $1.99).

And still a fourth eating establishment was going to remember my special day with a full 10% of the total check for me and as many guests as I care to include in this raucous fete (excluding alcoholic beverages, market based priced items, pasta and salad bars, discount not to exceed $10.00).

Among the non-food offerings, an e-retailer wanted to commemorate the day of my birth with free shipping on any on-line purchase (minimum $34.99, enter code at checkout).

Or another on-line or in-store savings just for me during my special birthday month of 10% OFF ALL MERCHANDISE (excludes designer, clearance, super-saver, or special purchase items, plus sales tax and shipping, must present coupon at time of purchase, no facsimiles accepted, please enter special 15 character code (“selected just for you!”) before check-out for on-line purchases).

Even the state lottery got in on the festivities offering me a dollar off any $5.00 instant game (coupon expires 30 days after printing).

At least Publishers Clearance house wanted to celebrate with me by offering me a special extra chance to enter their sweepstakes on my birthday only for a prize I may have already won with no purchase necessary! (Don’t ignore this opportunity being made only to special individuals born this month like you!)

And you thought that gift card from Aunt Ella was impersonal.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

 

Happy Early Father’s Day

Michael Leave a comment

Earlier this week someone told me how much she thought I look like my father. People always say family folk look like each other and most of the time the resemblance stops at having the same number of eyes and ears. I don’t often look at myself so I’m not a good gage if I even have eyes and ears but I do look at my father every day. On my refrigerator is a picture of my parents at a dinner some 20+ years ago. I don’t know if it’s the last picture they had taken but it is the last picture of them that I have.

Yesterday I looked at the picture then I actually looked at myself in the mirror and darned if I don’t look like him. It helps that we’re not too terribly far apart in ages, his in the picture and mine in the mirror. And it doesn’t hurt that he was always looked a bit younger than his age and I a bit older. But there he was, in my mirror, looking back at me.

When our resemblance was mentioned I remarked that I wish I could be like him rather than look like him. He was a remarkable person, in that he really deserved to be remarked about. Born the year that World War I came to an end he grew to be tall-ish, strong-ish, and with a year round tan courtesy of the fire and heat of the steel mill where he worked for 45 years. Until I came along he was the sole male in a house filled with women. He worked, he prayed, he played, he hobbied, he hubbied, he befriended anyone he met. He served country and community, but always it was God and family before all else. I have very few specific memories of things we did because it seemed he was always there. Rather than a specific memory I have one long memory from childhood to manhood.

He retired the day I got married. You hear so often that poor old Mr. So-and-So just retired and then died within a year yet he managed to get another 26 years out of life after becoming a gentleman of leisure. I don’t think he figured he would have lived as long as he did. He developed diabetes in the early 1960s when people died of the disease and had a few other bumps along the way after that. But it wasn’t illness that makes me think he lived longer than he expected. I think he figured that anybody who was born in a year that ends in something-teen probably won’t be around when the year’s first two numbers change. But stick around he did. Long enough to travel, long enough to see, play with and make a grandfather’s impression on my daughter, long enough to endure my mother’s various redecorating ventures, long enough to see her beat her own demon cancer. And long enough to make it just past his 88th birthday and almost to his 56th wedding anniversary. If you do the math you see that he was a little on the late side for marriage in mid-century America. I think he waited to make sure he would get it right.

Over the years he taught me how to be me. But exactly when or how I couldn’t say. When he died I can honestly say I didn’t lose my father. I lost my dad.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

 

What’s In a Name?

Michael 2 Comments

I once read that the two most common ways a person will select an alias are turning his first name into a last name while picking a very common first name (thus John Doe becomes Bob Johns) or picking a famous person’s name then shrugging off the similarity (“Well, this is the first time we’ve had Johnny Carson stay with us,” is replied to with HMNI2“Yeah, I get that a lot.”). The problem with these is that they don’t work well for women. While Peter can become Peters and Jeffrey turns into Jeffries, what’s Melissa supposed to become or who would believe Mary Catherine unless she was wearing a habit. Why I was researching aliases is the topic for a different post.

Well, have no fear. I have the perfect manner for a person of the female persuasion to disappear into the ephemera as easily as her male counterpoint. You probably have seen this since it has been floating about the Internet in one form or another since at least 2011. Everyone has six names. Those are:

  1. Your real name
  2. Your soap opera name: Your middle name + the street you live on
  3. Your Star Trek name: First three letter of your last name + first two of your middle name+ last 2 of your first name
  4. Your superhero name: The color of your shirt + the item to your right (or left if you prefer)
  5. Goth name: “Black” + the name of one of your pets
  6. Rapper name: “Lil” + the last thing you ate

Thus George Bush (one of my favorite aliases (aliai?) becomes:

Herbert Bizzell (of course I meant Daddy Bush (really),
Bushege,
Gold Shredder,
Black Millie (we may have to work on that one), or
Lil Peanut Butter depending on the  particular alias requiring circumstance

So you see, this is not only a terrific party game but also an amazing alias break for all opportunities. Going to a night club and don’t want your significant other to find out. Have no fear Melissa Elizabeth Mainlady of 123 Elm Street, Elizabeth Elms will be your wing woman. Gong to Comic con and prefer your law office buddies don’t find out. Maielmel will cover the registration fee. Yes, the possibilities may not be endless but they should cover almost any possible alias requirement.

So now, speaking of researching aliases…oh yes, that’s a topic for another post.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?

 

Desperately Seeking Closure

Michael 1 Comment

Did you draw your mother’s ire when as a kid you left (or if you still are a kid, leave) the door open when you came in from outside? Or let the refrigerator hang open? Or had an array of dresser draws intrude into your room, socks spilling onto the floor? Well, I didn’t. Not back then. Oh, I wasn’t perfect either. I probably had a door stay open to the elements on an urgent run from outdoor playing when all the trees were taken. (What can I say? The rest of the neighborhood kids weren’t perfect either.) But now I’ve turned into a man with seemingly not enough strength to get a cupboard door closed all the way.

If you were to look into my kitchen after I cooked up a good healthy breakfast you would find the refrigerator closed but not quite completely, the silverware drawer open, the cabinet where the oatmeal resides with its lid half-cocked not shut quite all the way, and the dishwasher where the used plates and tableware have been carefully placed quite uncarefully left ajar. Certainly the cabinets where the plates and glasses are stored would be similarly left agape except that those items are stored in racks on the counter. There are even times when the under-sink cabinet chemicals remain unshielded when I take the time to wipe down the counter after enjoying my healthy if a bit harried morning meal.Door

This carelessness isn’t restricted to the kitchen. In the bathroom drawers and doors are more likely to be open than closed upon entering. (I am good about lowering the toilet seat. Years of living in predominantly female households will do that.) In the bedroom the dresser drawers are almost always opened just a crack. Somehow even the roll top on the desk that now qualifies as my longest lasting relationship never quite makes it all the way to the writing surface, even with gravity helping along my now apparently feeble shutting action. The front door manages to get closed but on a nice day with the patio in use that door stands as great a chance of being as open during the night as it was during the day since I’ll often go to bed and simply forget there is a door there. (Note to potential local burglars, there’s nothing behind that unlatched entrance worth taking except perhaps the aforementioned rolltop desk which is much too heavy for one person to handle. Especially if that one person has a strong desire to maintain a certain level of stealth. And baby making ability.)

This failure to get doors, drawers, and other front pieces into their fully secure positions can’t be age related, can it? Certainly it’s not because I forget to secure the offending openings, patio access notwithstanding. I’d not think it’s a strength issue since I seem to do well enough with car doors which are certainly heavier than veneered particle board cabinet doors. I’d say perhaps it’s a laziness thing but does it really take any more effort to push a drawer that last quarter inch than not? Could it be that I’ve developed this propensity to leaving things standing open sometime after adolescence and just had a sufficiently active adulthood that I didn’t notice I was leaving doors and drawers open until recently now that I have more time to hang around the not closed openings? That seems doubtful in that you would imagine at some time I would walk into a hanging drawer front or notice the milk had soured from a refrigerator left open for an entire week’s worth of work days. No, age doesn’t seem to be a factor here other than one of coincidence.

I think the culprits are the house fairies that I had been hoping would have shown up during those years of weeks’ worth of work days to do things like clean the counters and match the socks tossed haphazardly into the dresser. They finally got around to me on their list of houses to work on and when they got here found that everything they had been dispatched to do is now being dealt with. Since house fairies are notoriously reticent to leave a place once they have been assigned, they are obviously looking for something to do, cook, eat, write, or wash, and they leave the room within which they are so searching somewhat hastily upon my entrance. The doors and drawers are left open just a smidge because, let’s be blunt about it, fairies don’t take up that much space and can get in and out of places through just a crack. That clearly explains the cabinets and dressers and even the desk doors and drawers that seem to never make it completely closed.

There. I feel better about it already. All except for that patio door business. I think I might have to take the blame for that one.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?