Tag Life

Walk This Way…or That

Michael 6 Comments

I haven’t done a “Today is…” post yet this year. Well, I did Presidents Day which really isn’t but you already know that, and I alluded to Groundhog Day a day or two before. But those are real days especially the latter which is as real of a day as you can get. What I haven’t done a “Today is National Purple Plastic Paperclip Day” type post. Well today is the day. Today is…oh! I can’t decide!

I’ve been having a problem with indecision lately. If you’ve been reading for more than just a couple weeks you can tell. Having gotten through the first 4-1/2 years with one blog design and the second style making it almost 6 whole months, I’ve gone through three schemes in four weeks looking for my voice. It’s out there somewhere. This could be it. But even that uncertainty is nothing like the dithering I’ve gone through to pick out today’s day.HMNI

Economists call it “Consumer Glut” when you are faced with multiple choices of essentially the same item. According to an article I read recently, there are 30 varieties of Tide liquid laundry detergent. That’s among 25 different brands of detergents. All of them right there on your mega-mart shelves. All just waiting to be taken home to wash your clothes. No wonder you actually come across people in the supermarkets standing in aisles staring. Just staring.

I had the same problem today. No, I wasn’t staring at 700 soap bottles trying to pick one. I have been trying to decide between two very auspicious observances to hail in today’s post. I suppose you could say my problem is actually more akin to Buridan’s Donkey rather than Consumer Glut. After discounting such notable notables as Panic Day, Name Tag Day, and Get Over It Day, I still had to choose from two.

World Kidney Day should be a natural for me. I am one of the one in ten worldwide affected with kidney disease. Not only am I one of the 748+ million people with kidney disease, I also get to be one of the lucky 2 million to have reached End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant. It’s estimated that in the U.S. alone over $48 billion is spent on chronic renal disease. While 100,000 patients are on the kidney transplant waiting list only 20,000 kidney donations are made annually. Unfortunately for me and 747,999,999 or so others, kidney disease doesn’t go away. It can get better or it can get worse but it always is. So it would be in my best interest to publicize World Kidney Day.

But just as the donkey stood on that field I was trapped; trapped between the benevolence of World Kidney Day and the deliciousness of National Meatball Day. How can you not savor an entire day devoted to those scrumptious orbs of palatability? Whether beef or pork or chicken or lamb or all of the above, whether smothered in tomato sauce or sausage gravy, whether on a bun or nestled atop a mountain of spaghetti, there is nothing more mouthwatering than a piping hot ball of gastronomic love. Don’t let the name fool you. The best meatball emporiums will also serve those luscious little globes made of cod, shrimp, crab, rice, and beans and cauliflower. As one who spent years being told to get in shape I was delighted to have these flavorful rondures as my model when I proudly said “Round is a shape.”

So that’s the dilemma: to be kind to my kidneys or true to my tummy. I know what you’re going to say. Don’t panic. You’ll get over it.

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

PS – Don’t forget to move your clocks ahead this weekend. If you do that sort of thing.

Spare Change

Michael Leave a comment

Saturday evening I was in the car and spun the dial on the radio. Figuratively, that is. What I really did was touch the SCAN button but how pretty of a picture does that paint. The dial landed on the beginning of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” The original.  steamBy Steam. From 1969. If you don’t know it or any of its copycatters, check it out here.

See, it’s a real song. A whole song. Not just a chorus you hear at baseball games after the pitcher is pulled.

I thought while listening (I can multitask) “God, I hated that song.” And then I went on to think more while listening more (still multitasking more) “Hey, hey, that’s not a bad song.”

I really did dislike it then and I even disliked more (or stronger) Banarama’s 1983 knock-off. But back to the sixties. I disliked Steam’s greatest hit though I shouldn’t have. If you’ve paused reading this post to check out the above noted video you’ll know why. That was me back then. Dressed and groomed pretty much in the form of… well, in the form of whoever they are. Steam wasn’t even a real group but one of those fake front bands to stick a name on a label when a bunch of studio musicians happen across a catchy little ditty some record producer thinks might make a few bucks. And that was me in high school. A fake front. Not quite nerd, not quite popular, not quite athletic, not quite stylish in my long collared, puffed sleeved, vested, flaired, and not quite straggly look. Somehow, like Na Na Etc Etc, I endured well into the 21st century.

Probably it was because of the changes that we made and/or were subjected to that we endured as well as we did. Na Na shifted from catchy little ditty requiring greedy producer to be popular to catchy little hook requiring bored baseball park organist to be popular. I’m now quite stylish.

The moral of the story is be true to what you are now, but be ready to change. Just in case.

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

(Video by kenwaman via YouTube)

Five Minutes Wait

Michael Leave a comment

If you don’t like the weather just wait five minutes. It’ll change. How many times have you heard that, said that, or wished that? Unless you maybe live on St. Lucia not during hurricane season. Around here those five minute changes are actually getting fairly commonplace. It’s sort of scary sometimes. Let me take you through 48 hours of last weekend.

Friday morning followed a couple warmish days for February north of the 40th parallel. With temperatures expected to be around 40 degrees at midday we had just completed a week of daytime highs in the 50s and 60s. At wakeup time it was about 54 degrees. We should have expected it to be closer to 24 degrees but a warm week happens just as often as the cold week.

It shouldn’t have been unexpected. The forecasters actually predicted warmer weather. Even though over half of the month to date had been at or below average for February, the half that was higher was high enough to predict that this month would be the warmest February on record. Days and weeks and months of weather being any but what’s expected are expected around here. A warmest February on record didn’t get the global warming proponents any more excited than the coldest February on record in 2015 got the global warming opponents excited. We’ve come to learn to expect the unexpected. (Trite, but descriptive.)

Anyway, Friday I woke up to 54 degree weather and a morning forecast of it getting warmer. Indeed, by 1:00 it had breezed past (with calm winds) the previous date record of 70 degrees on its way to a high a few hours later of 76 degrees under clear, sunny skies. I got to see none of this being locked away against my will at the dialysis clinic. When I emerged from their binds a bit after 4:00 in the afternoon my car thermometer confirmed I was living in a parallel city that should have been occupying the Southern Hemisphere. As pleasant as it was I could honestly say I didn’t like it and wished it would change.

You see, I wanted it to change because it is still winter. As much as I have been less tolerant of colder days as I have entered my older days I still want seasons. If I didn’t enjoy a few weeks every year of rain and new growth flowers in the spring and falling leaves and brisk mornings in the fall and even cold and snow in the winter, I’d move to St. Lucia. I also wanted it to change because there a hockey game was scheduled to be played outside Saturday evening. Who wants to see outdoor hockey in mid70 degree weather. I don’t even like to go to baseball games when it’s that hot. Not to worry. God is a hockey fan and He’ll take care of it I told myself. It took a few more than five minutes.

Saturday at wake up it was the same 54 degrees that greeted me Friday morning and at 1:00 in the afternoon the weather service was still recording temperatures in the 50s. But then (probably because I was outside rather than chained to a medieval medical machine yet dressed like I was outside the day before) the temperature took a dramatic plunge. An hour later it was ten degrees colder, another hour another ten degrees and by 4:00 as I was finally home and changed into more appropriate clothing for February weather, February weather returned with a gusto (and with wind gusts approaching 40mph).

At 6:00 when the gates opened for the game the temperature had dropped to 36 degrees and snow flurries were flitting in the glow of the high intensity lighting. At face-off the recorded temp was exactly 32 degrees. And all was right with the world.

Sunday morning I woke up to the temperature at 26 degrees, a drop of 50 degrees in 40 hours. Maybe a little chilly for some but according to the weather people exactly average for the date.

Exactly average. How unimpressive is that? But it’s ok. If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes.

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

Oil’s Well that Ends Well

Michael Leave a comment

There’s a new ad on TV for Country Crock margarine that makes note of that it is made from plants. I never thought about it that way but, yes, margarine is made from plants in that it is made from some vegetable oil and indeed, vegetables are plants.

Now this revelation didn’t have much of an impact on my life. (And to be honest, neither did the ad but I really can’t bad mouth ads much more in these posts as most of you know that advertising is my daughter’s bread and butter and that it’s probably ad money that will determine if my retirement village (and/or nursing home) will have an all-season pool and hot tub. (Probably not the nursing home.) In fact, I basically put it out of my mind as soon as that ad gave way to the next ad when uppermost in my mind was how many ads until the show comes back on.) (But, as so often, I digress.)

I really hadn’t thought at all about margarines and oils coming from plants until I was cleaning the kitchen counters and took a good look at the array of oils hanging out next to the stove. A couple of olives, a corn, a canola, a nondescript vegetable, a few favored with basil, thyme or some other herb, and one in an unlabeled bottle that I didn’t even remember pouring or flavoring. (Tasting it didn’t help much so it became the one eventually discarded making me feel good about having undertaken that whole particular chore.) But all that did make me think about where all these oils come from.

Olive and corn are pretty self-explanatory. But what is a canola? And just what vegetables are in vegetable oil? Since I also as so often have that kind of time, I looked them up. Canola is kind of scary in that it’s a genetic manipulation of rapeseed and those aren’t the kind of words you want in a sentence describing what ingredients you used in supper. Vegetable oil has no standard makeup but most have palm oil. Coconuts come from palm trees so where does palm oil come from? Apparently from a palm tree that doesn’t grow from a coconut which technical grows up to be a coconut tree.

Once I was done with the oils and moved onto the spices it didn’t get any better starting with old fashioned pepper. I have black, pink, and white. It seems that two of the three, black and white, come from the same plant which also gives us green and red (but not the red pepper that ends up as crushed red pepper – that’s a chilI which are the source of the peppers you slice, stuff, or otherwise turn into or in to tasty meals). The pink is some other plant all together. I got pretty confused by then and forgot what plant but I figured I really didn’t need to know.

Seeds opened up a whole new can of confusion. For instance, did you know about the caraway seed? It’s also know as Meridian Fennel and Persian Cumin, two spices that taste nothing alike. And it’s a relative of parsley even though they don’t look alike. But cilantro which grows from coriander seed does look like parsley but they aren’t related. Who know?

The whole thing made me happy I mostly stay out of that corner of the kitchen when I’m not cooking.

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

Looking Back

Michael Leave a comment

Sometime toward the end of last year I mentioned the Real Reality Show Blog turned five years old. That happened on November 7 but I didn’t get around to mentioning it until much later that month. Shortly after that it became December and life got turned upside down for me. Again. I ended 2016 two days shy of actually being home from three separate hospital stays during the last month of last year. Hanging around for so many days in a hospital bed leaves one with only so many things to do. Read. Watch TV. Work a crossword puzzle or two. Roll over on top of the nurse call button. Think about life.

I hate thinking about life. Here’s why. Why is because thinking about life interferes with life. While I was lying about wondering “what had I done to deserve this” I got to thinking of life and the life I specifically had last year.

It started celebrating the end of the holiday season in a strange place. For the first time in 29 years I wasn’t in my old, wonderful house with a Christmas tree in every room highlighted by the 12 foot job under the cathedral ceiling of the natural wood finished sun room. And worst of all, I didn’t have all 37 of my nativities displayed. That’s because for the first Christmas after 29 years I was celebrating it in a miniscule one bedroom apartment so I could move about and function better in my new “challenged,” – screw that, make it disabled! – state. But then but the end of the year I got used to those not that miniscule quarters, I got used to working around the complex, I got used to hanging out at the pool, I got used to my new neighbors, and I missed those, that, and them when I wasn’t there in December.

In April I turned 60. I didn’t think anything of it. But for some reason my sisters thought I should have a party to celebrate that milestone. I look at milestones for birthdays years like 16, 21, 30, maybe 50, definitely 75, and by all means every year from 80 on. But I figured, why not. At least I knew I’d get a more extravagant meal than I was planning for myself and maybe even cake. Now, it happened that the last party I had thrown for me to celebrate a birthday was indeed at 30. (Hold that thought.) The selected venue for last year’s event had a guest limit of 25.I got to thinking how I was going to limit a guest list to 25. I pulled out my address book and mentally started drafting explanations to those who wouldn’t make the cut. After much serious review, and even more serious reflection, I handed my sister a list of 22 names. Thirty years previous there were three times that many people on hand to commemorate my becoming a thirtysomething. Had I or anyone got around to hosting a 50 year party I could imagine at least one guest for each lived year. Now, I couldn’t scrape up two dozen friends to watch me move another year closer to Medicare. And then the day came and those few all showed up and I realized these were mostly the same people who were around to see me turn 16 and a few years later, 21, and would have been among the crowd at 50. Friends. Old friends, close friends, real friends. Friends who saw me move not only from year to year but from trials to successes to failures to challenges to successes to every high, low, dull, and exciting phase of life. My life. And I hope they’ll all be there for 75, 80, and every one from then on.

Sometime in August I was at a routine doctor appointment. One of those that you get ready for a week before by going from lab to x-ray to CT to have as much of your insides available for the doctor to review as your outsides when you get there. She looked at the numbers and then at me and then back at the numbers and declared that I had a year, maybe, before my kidneys would go the way of so much else in my insides and I’d need the use of a dialysis machine to do what comes naturally to most others after a couple of cups of coffee. She was off by just a little. About 8 months. It was, in fact, while I was thinking all this in the hospital sometime in early December after I had been transported back to my hospital room from the dialysis unit after the second or maybe third of what would become a new thrice weekly event for me. But it wasn’t that much later that I reminded myself that the reason any doctors were even looking at lab and x-ray and CT scan results for the state my kidneys was that 15 years ago I was diagnosed with a pretty rare, chronic condition that feeds of internal organs like kidneys and if they found just the right treatment for me I had a 37% chance of living longer than three years. Somehow they hit it right and I was one of the lucky ones who got at least 12 more years so I could have a birthday party in a non-milestone year and all I had to do now was give up a dozen hours a week that I wasn’t doing anything with anyway and maybe make it to 75, 80, and a few more after that.

See, those are just a few reasons why I hate all this “looking back.” It just ends up finding the silver lining instead of dwelling on the uncontrollable like human beings are supposed to do. And it means I spent the entire 500th post of the RRSB talking about me. Instead of talking about the me you got to see in the past 500 posts. I guess I’ll do that next time.

Hmm. Five hundred. Not as compelling as 75, or 80, or all the numbers that come after that. But I bet somewhere there’s a word for that.

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

 

Shower Power

Michael Leave a comment

Yesterday I had more fun naked than I’ve had in years. I took a shower. Talk about good, clean fun!

To many of us, pretending to be the recipient of an automatic car wash might not seem to be epitome of carnal satisfaction. But I had just been released from an 8 day stay at one of the cleanest places on Earth, a hospital. And boy did I feel grungy.

I am not at all unfamiliar with America’s health care system. For almost 40 years it provided me my pocket change as I toiled on the provider side and for almost 4 years it provided me a place to hang out and spend said hard-earn pockrt change on the patient side. I am very aware, and very appreciated of the advances it has made. Technically, that is. Humanly, maybe not so much. Consider the following.

With modern imaging they can see tiny slivers of our insides down to the 32nd of an inch in detail almost better than lifelike. They can see with sound. My surgeon worked to delicately open my abdominal cavity, clean and repair the offending parts, and then put me back together using a camera through a couple of holes not much bigger than one made by a flu shot needle. Yet when all of that was done I was left to recover in a room with a TV the quality almost as good as a 1960 portable set with rabbit ears wrapped in aluminum foil. (Ask your granfather. He’ll explain.)

I was attached with the necessary wiring so my pulse, heart beat, breathing, and temperature could be monitored from a station 80 feet away. But the aforementioned television was controlled by a remote that contained only Power, Volume Up/Down, and Channel Up/Down buttons. This in a housing that also held the Nurse Call button and, for some reason, a button to set the room lights to three different brightness levels. All that looked much too alike.

And of course, unlike even the smallest movement towards improvement the silly remote has provided to the patient since I started my career those years ago, the one thing that hasn’t changed at all is the hospital gown. The famous see-through garment with non-sleeves that nobody can get their arms into, a neck fastener reminiscent of a backward bow tie, and all in an indecent package that only makes it 80% of the way around your body. And of course the remaining 20% is not on the side.

Yet given all this, on my return I was not overcome with the urge to finger my high tech remote, triggering the high def TV and the surround sound, grateful for work done to keep me going for another 4 to 40 years. It was to strip off those clothes that completely covered me and bask in joy of hundreds of gallon of hot water pouring over me, drenching every pore, soaking every personal nook and cranny. Thank all that is holy that one imorovement we’ve never had to endure is the restorative power of water.

It was enough to make me want a cigarette.

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

Everything I know about being a gentleman I learned from Hockey.

Michael 3 Comments

When I was at the hockey game this weekend I got to thinking how much as a society we can learn from hockey. Yes, the sport that is the butt of the joke “I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out,” is the same sport that can be our pattern for good behavior.

Stay with me for a minute or two and think about this. It started at the singing of the national anthem. I’ve been to many hockey, baseball, football, and soccer games. Only at the hockey games have I ever been in an arena filled with people actually singing along. Only at the hockey games are all of the players reverent to the tradition of honoring the country where they just happen to be playing even though they come from around the world – Canada, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Finland, even a few Americans.

A decent dose of nationalism notwithstanding, hockey has much to offer the gentility. Even those fights. Or rather any infraction. If a player breaks the rules he is personally penalized for it. Ground isn’t given or relinquished like on a battlefield, free throws or kicks aren’t awarded to the aggrieved party like victors in a tort battle. Nope, if you do something wrong you pay the consequences and are removed from play for a specified period in segregation from the rest of your teammates. No challenges, no arguments, no time off for good behavior. Do the crime. Pay the time. In the penalty box. Try doing that to a school child who bullies and you’ll have some civil liberty group claiming you’re hurting the bully by singling him out.

Hockey is good at singling out people but in a good way. At last Saturday’s game the opposing team has two members who had previously played for the home team. During a short break in the action a short montage of those two players was shown on the scoreboard screens and they were welcomed back by the PA announcer. And were cheered and applauded by the fans in attendance. There weren’t seen as “the enemy.” Rather they were friends who had moved away to take another job and were greeted as friends back for a day.

While play is going on in a hockey game play goes on in a hockey game. Only if the puck is shot outside the playing ice, at a rules infraction, or after a goal is scored does play stop. Otherwise, the clock keeps moving and play continues. Much like life. If you’re lucky you might get to ask for one time out but mostly you’re at the mercy of the march of time. Play begins. After a while play ends. If you play well between them, you’ll be ok.

The point of hockey is to score goals. Sometimes goals are scored ridiculously easy, sometimes goals seem to be scored only because of divine intervention. Most times, goals are a result of working together, paying attention to details, and wanting to score more than the opposing team wants to stop you from scoring. There is no rule that says after one team scores the other team gets to try. It all goes back to center ice and starts out with a random drop of the puck. If the team that just scored controls the puck and immediately scores again, oh well.

Since we’re talking about scoring, the rules of hockey recognize that it takes more than an individual to score goals. Hockey is the only sport where players are equally recognized not just for scoring goals but for assisting others who score goals. Maybe you should remember that the next time someone at work says you’ve done a good job.

handshakeThe ultimate good job is winning the championship. The NHL hockey championship tournament is a grueling event. After an 82 game regular season, the top 16 teams (8 from each conference) play a four round best of seven elimination tournament. It takes twenty winning games to win the championship. That’s nearly 25% as long as the regular season. It could take as long as 28 games to play to the finish. That’s like playing another third of a season. After each round only one team moves on. And for each round, every year, for as many years as the tournament has ever been played, and for as many years as the tournament will ever be played, when that one team wins that fourth game and is ready to move on, they and the team whose season has ended meet at center ice and every player on each team shakes the hand of his opponent player and coach, wishing them well as they move on and thanking them for a game well played. No gloating. No whining. No whimpering. Only accepting.

So you goto a fight and a hockey game breaks out. It could be a lot worse.

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

 

And now, the start of the story…

Michael 4 Comments

Let me start right out of the gate and say this post is going to be a little different. Not much humor, useless trivia, or sarcasm in this one. Depending on how long you’ve been following this story you might know that a couple of years ago life was interrupted by a bout with cancer. It seems that for so many today, cancer is just an interruption. Cancer strikes this celebrity, that athlete, or this actor and they recover, return to their former lives with an even greater performance, voice, or achievement.  For me, cancer was maybe more than an interruption. But one thing it was for sure, it was inevitable.

Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with one of the rarer immune system abnormalities. Not one of the many rheumatoid conditions that today have so many wonderful drugs advertised on TV so you can get back to golf, fancy restaurants, delightful carnivals, volunteer work, or unashamed workouts from high energy spin classes to meditative yoga. Nope, the one I got wasn’t even in researchers’ microscopes looking for a sometime-in-the-future remedy. Treatment for me meant high doses of prednisone and immunosuppressive agents once used in the early fight against cancer. I knew from the start that over several years the treatments themselves could cause problems like renal failure, heart failure, liver failure, or the cancers they were initially developed to treat. I also knew from the start that left untreated, over several months my condition could cause problems like death and dying.

I chose Door Number One.

Then three years ago I found out I had cancer. I knew that I most likely wouldn’t come out of it with an even greater performance, voice, or achievement. For me it wasn’t that one thing I had to overcome. It was just another thing in the yet increasing number of things that had happened, and will continue to happen to me.

Over the years I’ve had so many pieces of me removed, replaced, or rebuilt that I could give Lee Majors a strong run for the Six Million Dollar Man title role.  Over the years it’s gotten harder to say if the latest ache, pain, or procedure is due to the condition or the cure. Last week I spent a day in an outpatient surgery unit having an artery and vein in my right arm tied together to form an entry and exit site necessary for dialysis. It was inevitable and got me thinking about that cancer diagnosis from three years ago.

By then I had already been given about a dozen extra years since choosing Door Number One. In those 12 years I had gotten to see my daughter graduate high school and college and discovered the difference between being a father and being Dad. I had met new people who I would never forget who before I could never have ever imagined. I had earned national recognition in a field that itself is rarely recognized. I had earned about a million dollars, spent about a million and a half, and probably would do it the same way all over again.

The more I think of it, the more I think how lucky I am to have gotten to that cancer diagnosis. I got to hear a doctor tell me that I had a potentially terminal condition long before I had cancer. By the time I heard a doctor tell me “You have cancer,” (though more delicately than that) I had 12 years that I wouldn’t have had if I had chosen the path that didn’t include the possibility that treatment might cause cancer.

I wish everyone who ever has to hear a doctor say “You have cancer,” (hopefully more delicately than that) all the best things that life has in store for you. And although I can’t argue that having cancer is ever one of the best things that life has in store for you, there really are some things worse than having cancer. Sometimes, even not having it can be worse.

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

 

Life Needs a Soundtrack

Michael Leave a comment

Do you know a problem with real reality? There are no clues to what’s coming next. Life needs a soundtrack.

Watch any movie or television show, even the so-called “reality” shows, and you see that they all have musical accompaniment. It’s quite clear when someone or something is to be happy, sad, humorous, suspenseful, romantic, mysterious, thrilling, or chilling. Just about the only time the background is silent is when the director intends for extreme drama. Even commercials have background music. Everything from auto insurance to male erectile dysfunction therapy has an associated tune. Why can’t we.

It sounded like a good idea when it popped into my head. Heaven knows there’s enough music up there. I’m always mentally humming a tune, a jingle, a theme. How hard would it be for that to be amplified and spill out around me so I know for sure what mood I’m in – not to mention everyone else who might be in the area?

It’s hard enough to get through a day without being misunderstood. Think of all the relationships that could be saved if there was a full orchestra ready to turn despair to hope, hope to thought, and thought to action. Imagine the peace people could experience if daily routines were spiced up with a bluesy southern anthem or smoothed out by a soft jazz composition. Think of your daily commute to the tune of a driving chorus instead of the tune of blaring horns and mufflers in need of repair.

If you really want to explore this idea, can we consider making life a musical? On second thought, I don’t know if I can handle a sudden eruption of song and dance while standing in line at the deli counter. “You’re the ham that I want. Ooo, ooo, ooo honey,” doesn’t run trippingly off the tongue even if you are looking for that tasty lunchmeat. No, just a soft background perhaps of Dave Matthews Band’s Pig song.

Like I said, it sounded like a good idea when it popped into my head.

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

Odds On Favorites

Michael 3 Comments

The PowerBall and MegaMillions jackpots have been up again.  The Super Bowl was just a little while ago and word has it that in Las Vegas you really could bet that the first score would be a safety.  Around here everybody is betting on whether the weather will ever rise above freezing again.  What do these things have in common?  They all have odds of winning, or in the case of the last one, not freezing.

Once upon a time we took statistics to determine odds and what’s significant and what isn’t.  In fact, He of We recalls an assignment that required the fledgling statistician to determine the odds of him or her passing the course.  That was cruel but the odds weren’t all that bad.

When the PowerBall people reconfigured the number of numbers available to draw, the odds of winning went from something like one in a gazillion to one in infinity.  Yet people still win.  That got us to thinking.  If you stop to think about what are the odds of something happening the odds are pretty good that you will end up with a headache.  Don’t even think of gambling.  Just think of life.  What are the odds you’ll get to work on time every day next week?  What are the odds that you won’t slip on an icy sidewalk?  What are the odds that you’re next paycheck will be in the bank before you next have to fill up your car’s gas tank?  Everything has a chance that it will or will not happen.  Not that it might or might not.  It either will or it will not.

That led us to a most profound revelation.  The odds of anything happening are 50/50.  Or even of not happening.  Everything in life boils down to a 1 in 2 chance.  Either it will or it won’t.  It doesn’t matter if some world class statistician determined the odds that the first play from scrimmage in the Super Bowl would result in a safety were 6,000 to 1 or that the odds that Finland will win the women’s hockey gold medal in the Olympics are 16 to 1. There’s a headache starting to happen.  There are only eight teams in the women’s tournament so shouldn’t the greatest odds be 8 to 1?  It doesn’t matter.  The real odds are 50/50.  Either they will win or they will lose.

So now that we’ve shared our profound revelation with you, you can bet with confidence on next year’s Super Bowl, this year’s Olympics, or tomorrow’s weather.  Everybody deserves the good odds and you can’t get much better than 50/50.  Actually even that can be reduced to some pretty good odds.  Either you will or you won’t.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?