Thanksgiving Day

In this land of plenty, where almost everyone gets all they need to eat and a great many get a great deal more than they need to eat, wouldn't it make sense to count our blessings with a day of fasting rather than one more day of gluttony?

Crime and Punishment

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C and P I

The Crime: Literary Pretention

The Punishment: Required to read Crime and Punishment

C and P II

"Virtue is its own reward." Some old Greek I suppose.

Crime and Punishment is its own punishment. Me.

Fifty pages to go.

So After 40 Years What Are You Going To Talk About

The kitchen. About 9:00 AM. Pancakes are being prepared.

Spouse #1: I know you don't share my interest in science, but I just want to tell you that my BM this morning weighted exactly one pound, abstracting from any measurement errors.

Spouse #2: Listen. I was a science major. That is not science. That is obsessive self absorption.

Spouse #1: I used the before and after body weight method of calculation.

Spouse #2: Get out of here!

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When I was in my twenties, a time when people who had established relationships in college were getting married, I heard the story of a guy who, a certain time after his wedding was in the bathroom, when in came his wife who sat down on the toilet and relieved herself. The husband told this tale with the remark that that was when he knew the honeymoon was over.

The connection between these two stories is the absence of embarrassment associated with what is rather private speech and action. People say and do things in front of a spouse that they would never say or do in front of anyone else. How long does it take to reach this level of candor and shamelessness? Does it ever get to 100%? As I ponder the question I can think of two things that I have not shared with Beth. Will I at some future time? I don't expect either to come up and I don't expect to bring them up.

I guess the title should have been, What Won't You Talk About After 40 Years?

Plumbing Error # 96

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The digits comprising the numbers 10 through 99 when contemplated not as values, but merely as paired lines offer a variety of implied or suggested ideas. Consider the number 10 in which one half is a line that is straight from one end to the other while the other half follows a continuously curving course that has no end at all. The two lines are polar extremes, but as they are linked in a single number, they bring to mind the Asian idea of yin and yang, opposites contained in one whole. All the coupled twin digits, 22, 33, 44, etc. but especially the parallel ones of eleven, suggest symmetry and teamwork among equals. The set of circles that form the number 88 makes what in all the other two digit numbers is a duet, into a quartet and congers thoughts of common sets of four such as the points of the compass or a very good poker hand. To a degree they also accomplish the curious effect of making a square out of circles. Both 52 and 25 have a certain contrariness to their two component parts, being similar shapes in inverted juxtaposition. The reader who chose to dally further in this line of thinking would no doubt find other examples, but I will quit by pointing out the lovely harmony, even intimacy suggested by the number 69. The two parts nearly embrace. (More so in fonts other than this.) The author is aware that his observation in this case is not original. Be that as it may, there it is, the most harmonious of the double digit numbers. Transpose the digits and the feeling is reversed. Harmony becomes discord and affection, disdain. In the number 96 something is awry, not as it should be. It is no doubt from this discordance that plumbing error number 96 takes its name.

Plumbing error number 96 is that mistake in which the plumber connects the hot water line to the cold water fixtures and the cold water line to the hot water fixtures. The author knows not if any reader will ever commit plumbing error number 96, but he herewith provides a pictorial solution to the problem, just in case. He happened to have the picture in his camera.

Correction For Plumbing Error # 96

Working To Perfection

As Monsieur Voltaire so sweetly and succinctly pointed out, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Fortunately in some fields of work perfection is not required. The extreme example is hitting a baseball. There are people earning a million dollars a year for hitting a ball and if they manage to do it successfully on 30% of their times at bat, they are stars. It would seem that, averaged over the full profession, civil trial lawyers must succeed only about 50% of the time, as for every winner, there is a loser. I believe psychiatrists do pretty well financially, though I’m not sure I ever heard of anyone being cured of anything by his shrink. I find a lot of comedians are just not that funny and people are allowed to write on blogspot for free without limit, even if no one ever tunes in to see what they have to say. Need I mention weather forecasting? Computers? Software? Web sites? How about financial advising where I suspect practitioners earn more for producing less benefits than even baseball players. Yes, I think there is a fair amount of imperfection going around.

Still, probably in most fields of work a pretty high level of performance is expected. Clothes that shrink, shoes that blister, cars that stall, are taken back. A portion of the lawyers mentioned above practice their trade on behalf of dissatisfied medical patients. (A neighbor recently told me that when he went in to get a knee replacement his wife wrapped a piece of tape around each leg. On one was written the word doctor. On the other she wrote lawyer. When the doc saw it he went and got his camera and took a picture.) Double entry bookkeeping is a system in which every transaction requires two notations which when summed up over all the transactions for all the accounting period, must balance out. Failure to do so indicates that some error has been made and it must be hunted down and corrected. In bookkeeping perfection is the standard. Which brings us at last to plumbing.

The job of the plumber is water control; the nice clean water coming in and the sour nasty water going out. The place of the sweet water is within a system of pipes that brings it to the point of use. It is supposed to stay within the pipes until it reaches its time and place of use at some sink or toilet. It is not to slip away prematurely. The plumber makes that happen. The route of the pipes from the single line that enters the house to the various points of water use is circuitous, maybe even tortured. The line undulates and bifurcates and copulates (couples) and includes gates (valves). In the case of copper pipe, at each such turn and coupling and division the ends of two pipes are soldered to a fitting that holds the pieces together. Here again we have a case where perfection is required. It does not do to have most of the joints water tight. They must all be so. 100%. Working conditions are not always ideal. Sometimes the fitting to be soldered is in close proximity to a flammable object like a floor joist, or some wiring. Sometimes it is impossible to see the back side of the piece the plumber is working on and he must work by Braille. Sometimes the work space is cramped and it is hard to point the torch or hold the solder in the right spot. And finally the required perfection is complicated by the fact that there is no way to check the individual joints until the whole system is connected and the water turned on.

The lazy optimist does not make a good plumber. The lazy person never wants to do more than the minimal required and the optimist tends to think that what has been done has been done right. He melts on a little solder and assumes that’s good. When he thinks he’s finished he doesn’t double check to be sure he actually did every joint or that he actually connected the hot water source to the hot water faucets and not say, to the toilet or back yard spigot. He just turns on the water. No, the lazy optimist is not well suited to plumbing. He should stick to blogging. But the stubborn, cheap, lazy optimist would never call a plumber. Plumbing is not that hard.

Luck: what you get that you don't really deserve

Good:

Take mine for example. I have had three pieces of luck so good that it was all I needed to have a very nice life. One was the house that Beth and I bought in 1970. It was pretty run down and the neighborhood was such that the insurance companies would not have provided coverage were they not required to do so by the State. When a few years later all over the country people began to appreciate the advantages of city living and the gentrification of urban neighborhoods took hold, in Seattle that phenomenon began on our very block. After just a few years what we thought of as a temporary abode became a modestly valuable middle class residence. As well as sheltering us in quite a nice way for forty years, it has facilitated some great living experiences away from Seattle by earning rental income and several times serving as trading stock. This house also fostered the development of some of our most cherished friendships. I regard this as mostly a lucky purchase because if it had been based on some superior wisdom or vision we would have bought a lot more houses on this block as they were selling for $65,000, $75,000 and $80,000 over the years. Another piece of life shaping good luck was being born in the late 30's, about eight years ahead of the baby boom. This timing has kept me out of any wars, ahead of a booming demand for places at college and then in the housing market, and yet allowed me to enjoy the benefits of Novocaine, (and more recently Percocet), the Internet, cell phones, etc. I've lived my adult life during a great age for middle class Americans. But of course my best luck by far was marrying Beth. It was luck in the sense that at the time I proposed I had not even the shadow of an idea of the ways in which she would improve my life. I didn't know what my life was to be so how could I have foreseen the ways that she would make it possible? Specifically what she had was a psychoclogical fortitude and practical adaptability sufficient to remain married to a guy who in his late 30's decided that it wouldn't really be necessary for anyone in the family to work full time. In those days being the wife of a stay-at-home dad was not only a financial challenge, but a social one. The term stay-home-dad did not exist, but the term dead beat was well known. Men who didn't shoulder the task of providing financial support for the family, didn't get to have a family. It was her psychological strength and remarkable adaptability that allowed me to live the off beat, self indulgent way that I have.

Bad:

It seems to me that serious bad luck comes mostly in the form or financial troubles of some sort and health issues, including accidents. There is no end to the stories of awful misfortune that have befallen people. I thought of recounting one such tale at this point, but it's not really necessary. We all know plenty of tragic stories. We even know them from within the body of our own family and friends. But I can't resist a little taxonomy of bad fortune. There is death. Worse is death with pain. Worse still, death with pain, at a young age. Worse still, all this happening to your own child before your eyes. But even that is not the worst we can imagine. Suppose all that were to happen and you actually had some kind of role, some error of commission or omission that contributed. Most of the misfortune that one suffers is not the worst imaginable. Usually it is not too hard to think of someone else who has suffered worse. My real thought here in this post is a musing on the chance of avoiding serious bad luck throughout one's life.

If you live to something like the age of 80 there are about four generations that might matter. Your parents, yourself and your spouse, your children and your grandchildren. If it is your family's way to stop at two, then there would be about ten people whose misfortunes, if they are serious, might really mar your life. With the myriad of bad things that can and do befall people: illness, financial ruin, addiction, accidents, and so forth, I think it is the very unusual person who manages to get through 80 years without some personal taste of tragedy. Hardly anyone really.

A Fight I'm Glad to Miss

It’s good to be smart, right? There’s no down side is there? There’s a down side to being taller. On average tall people don’t live as long. It takes more resources to sustain a tall person. As a species we’d probably be better off if we were all a foot shorter. But if everyone were somewhat smarter, wouldn't that be unambiguously good? I think so. Even for the people who are already pretty smart. It’s probably true for our dogs as well. I can’t think of any downside to having the dog population be smarter. Cows, I don’t know. Maybe cows should just be left as they are. And as for rats, we certainly don’t want them to be any smarter. They’re too smart as it is.

How long do you think it will be before those pretty smart people who are messing around in the human gene pool will be able to make new off spring smarter? A hundred years? That doesn’t seem implausible to me. Isn’t that a direct extension of having the capability to fix the genes that predispose people to cancer or sickle cell anemia or many other genetically linked maladies? Once we can alter our genes to make us more healthy, won't we be close to being able to make ourselves smarter, or stronger, or blonder or whatever? To return to a very old allegory I think we have already reached out and plucked the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (you could think of that as the age of enlightenment), and we are steadily moving that fruit in the direction of our lips. Once we have learned how to remake our species according to our own likes and dislikes, then we will truly be God-like, whether that God be real or simply supposed by many people to be real.

For a couple of decades there have been stories about the angst of parents feeling that the path to an Ivy League education now begins at preschool. Miss the correct feeder preschool and kiss that Harvard education goodbye. Imagine the fight there is going to be over deciding whose kids get to be born really smart. Of course there will be plenty of God fearing folk in this country who will oppose such genetic manipulation, but once the Chinese have the capability, then the national defense argument for us to do it too will be pretty forceful. Will we have a market based solution? Will the opportunity to have smarter kids be something one can or must buy? Can human society work if everyone is a genius?

Let’s suppose my grand children will be breeding in 30 to 40 years. I don’t think it will be their problem, but the fight may have begun in their lifetimes.

I'm sorry great great grand children for what you are in for, but at least you won't have to worry about getting cancer.

Thoughts In Anticipation of the Arrival of Guests

Hardwood floors are just so great. No matter how much you sweep and vacuum and push your swiffer around and around, there is always a little bit of detritus left. It is there to keep you humble.

Gifts From My Mother

Last night at a dinner party the story was told of a 3rd grade parent conference at which the teacher said, in front of the child, "I've given up on him." This appalling remark reminded me of a similar, but opposite incident in my own life. When I was in the 2nd grade I accompanied my parents to the conference where I heard my teacher say something like, Paul is a smart little boy, but he doesn't work very hard. I repeat this with the observation that 54 years of mediocre performance since that time have not been enough to disabuse me of the idea that I am OK. Shame on the other teacher who disparaged her pupil. But perhaps my open house experience was not as influential as I suppose.

A few years ago when my father passed and we sold our family home, I retrieved a large box of items accumulated there during my years of growing up. Included therein was an autograph book that had been given to me by my cousin when I was in about the fifth grade. I had taken it around and got a certain number of the people in my life, mostly my classmates, to write something. Typical was the one from Lloyd Hannon, to wit, "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Monkeys like you belong in the zoo." But there on about page 12 was an entry from my mother.

I have praised my mother's cooking from time to time over the years, pointing out the truly great value of growing up at a table that did not create unrealistic culinary expectations for later in life. In fact my mother was such a cook that when I got to places like college and the army, I just couldn't understand why the other guys were bitching about he food. It didn't seem that bad to me.

What my mother, who read Mary Baker Eddy, but never a page of Dr. Spock, wrote in my autograph book was, "I'm so happy to have a boy who is so good and kind to everyone. Always remember 'God is love' and you are his reflection".

Perhaps in addition to a palate trained to not expect too much, it was my mother who gave me the gift of a resolute, if illogical, sense of self worth.

Keeping Up In The Race To The Gutter

The genteel reader may wish to skip this post.


A letter to the editor

Dear Editor:

In the June 22 issue of Newsweek I came upon an acronym which was unfamiliar to me. Suspecting my ignorance was age related I emailed a couple of younger friends. When they explained what MILF means I CFB it.

Paul Gibson



For the uninitiated MILF apparently means, "mother I’d like to fuck." It's a compliment.

Talking to Strangers

1. A few years ago, upon her return from school one day, Beth reported that a youngster in her charge had said to her something like, "What? Do you just talk to anybody?" I think he was about 9. What she had said and to what stranger she said it, is lost in the mists of time.

2. I was recently seated at the Alki Bakery enjoying a fine vegetarian sandwich when I noticed two women meet, greet and then sit to eat. One of these had a great body. A few years ago I would have meant by this that she was a busty number, but now after a couple of years of humility training, and particularly this last quarter under the tutelage of a guy who is a competing body builder I mean that her stomach was flat, her bottom sagged not and her neck and shoulders, which were nicely revealed by the scoop neck blouse she wore, had every sign of a person who spends serious time in a gym. She was not under fed. She looked firm and strong. It might be that this look was simply a genetic gift except at her age, perhaps about 40, it seemed more likely the result of a lot of hard work. Earlier in the day I had seen a man wearing a tee shirt with the words, "This working out thing isn't working out." I'd say he was running about 265 and any muscle there was was well disguised. I spent the rest of my lunch wondering if I should say something to the woman about how well working out was working out for her. I went through a number of variations on how I might express my admiration without seeming like a sleazy old man, including beginning with a characterization of my marital status which I think is reasonably sound. In as much as I like talking to good looking young women (a cohort that now extends at least to age 45) I had a lot of difficulty sorting out my motivations. How much of this was an impulse to compliment something I actually admire and how much of it was a pitiful old man thing?

About half an hour later I came upon a guy walking up Jackson St., near Quest Field. His tee shirt sleeves rolled back from biceps approaching the size of cantaloupes. His thighs stretched the material of his pants. As I biked past I said, "Nice biceps".

"Thanks."

I suspect they represent a lot of work."

"You know it."

That's all the complimenting I did that day.

3. A couple of days ago I rode up to a red light and as I sometimes do, stopped. It was a Monday and tacked to the utility pole were two or three signs from the weekend announcing garage and yard sales. Also waiting at the light was a man about 50, well dressed in a shirt and slacks. It was near Green Lake where a big majority of those on the street are wearing some sort of athletic apparel. It's a long light. After a moment I said to him, "I could have a sale. My sigh would say 'Junk Sale'". He stared straight ahead.

A Photographic Anecdote

in which the author goes to the store for some staples and finds a useful item on the way home.



As explained elsewhere all the things you really need are out there on the road someplace waiting to be picked up.

If Cows Could Talk

If cows could talk and you asked one to speak to you of God I wonder if she would reply that in the bible (the cow bible that is,I follow the Queen Elsie version here) it is written, "So God created cows in her own image and in the image of God created she them."

And if so you might say, "What????? You think God is somehow like a cow?????"

And the cow might reply, "Well what do you think, that God is somehow like a man, Her most flawed creation of all? Ha!"

"Well do you think cows are God's greatest creation?"

"No. Of course not. Her greatest creation was indirect. First she created grass. Then she created cows and gave them extra stomachs so that they could digest the grass and turn it into milk. Then, in order to make up for the mistake of creating human beings at all, she used that poor flawed beast to create the best thing ever which is, of course, ice cream."

It's 11:00 PM. I think I'll go have a little right now.

Someone should tell Nancy Pelosi that one of her tits is hovering about 1/4 inch from the wringer

Of the preceding nine Speakers of the House, dating back to Joe Martin (1953-55), six have ended their careers under the shadow of scandal, or in one case (Tom Foley) losing his seat while actually being the Speaker. This does not include Trent Lott, who was Senate Majority Leader, or Wilbur Mills who was merely Chair of the Ways and Means Committee.

"Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make proud", or something like that.

The Fly

Today, at the age of 70 years, 10 and 2/3 months I caught a fly. Out of the air. With my hand. When you think about it, it's a little sad.

He must have been a pretty old fly.

Blame

I was startled this morning when it occurred to me that there was a time when the most embarrassing thing about the Bush administration was the Enron scandal. Can you remember back that far? Wow.

But my point here is not that George W Bush led an administration so bad that, what was once thought to be a huge scandal, is at the end, barely remembered. My point is rather that the blame goes beyond Mr Bush himself. I don't think at the time of his candidacy George Bush was an unknowable character. The attributes and predispositions which led to the fiasco of his administration were knowable in 2000. The sad and undeniable fact is that he was elected, sort of. For sure the second time. So who else is responsible? Certainly the annointers of the Republican party who gave him the nomination. And then there are the Supremes who overlooked their usual and long standing position against federal courts interfering in state issues, to dictate the outcome of the Florida voting process. And finally there is the national electorate. We got him because we wanted him, or, for the rest of us, because we didn't do enough to not get him. It's a sobering thought.

Vocabulary II

As words go, is highfalutin, highfalutin?

Vocabulary

I've just finished reading quite a good book entitled "1491". It is a survey of contemporary understanding of the peoples of the western hemisphere at and before the arrival of Columbus. The two main ideas are that there were a lot of people here at the time, most of whom perished due to the introduction of diseases for which they had little immunity and that in many ways native American culture equaled or exceeded that of the old world. Though I enjoyed the read, the content of the book did not inspire this post. The vocabulary did. This book is peppered with words that I did not know. I was so struck by the number of such words that around page 100 I began writing them down. Between there and the end of the book there were 21 words that I had never heard of. Crazy words, wild words, highfalutin words. Here they are with definitions where I could find them in my nine pound dictionary.

Pederasty: sexual relations between two males, especially when one is a minor
Coruscating: emitting flashes of light, sparkle, scintillate
Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part
Perduring:
Gawped: staring with the mouth open in wonderment
Bedizened: dressed or adorned in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner
Lacunae: gaps or missing parts as in a manuscript, series or logical argument
Plashing: gently splashing:
Longueur: a long and boring passage in a literary work
Plonk: inferior or cheap wine
Numinous: spiritual or supernatural
Ziggurat: a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower
Palanquin: a passenger conveyance, consisting of a covered or boxlike litter carried by means of poles resting on the shoulders of several men
Rebec: a renaissance fiddle
Imisserate:
Fissiparous: reproducing by fission
Expatiated: enlarged in discourse or writing, made copious in description or discussion
Toft: the site of a house and out building
Bedizened: same as above. The author used the word twice, once near the beginning and once near the end.

I am quite bewildered by this situation. Am I lacking in vocabulary? Are these ordinary words that most people know? Or is the author so erudite that he doesn't realize he is using words most people don't know? Seven of these words were not recognized by the spell check program I ran them through. Consider the word gawped. It seems gaped would have sufficed and been more widely known. Should I be offended by the author's showing off or actually impressed? He apparently did know the word. Surely he didn't, at that particular point in his manuscript, decide to go to his thesaurus to look for an obscure synonym for gaped. But if not from his thesaurus, then where did he get this word? If he read it or heard it, then that means that there is someone else who once chose to say gawp instead of gape. What is our author reading? The mind boggles. And what about the editor of this book? Wouldn't this linguistic chest pounding have elicited some cautionary remark and if so, doesn't it mean that the writer self-consciously persevered? Would dinner with this guy be a great time or a pain in the ass?

Theodore

What can be said about Theodore? He is nothing more than a smallish bag of protoplasm. Well, actually for his age, not so small. As I get it his activities are ridiculously limited, being eating, peeing, shitting, crying, sleeping, and just recently smiling. This is a small repetoire. Oh yes, he also bats at colored objects he sees hanging above his head. Oddly the one he does the most, sleeping, is the one he doesn't do enough. That is, I believe his mother would like him to do more of it at certain times. He has some talents of a passive nature. He rides in his stroller and car seat. He has ridden the metro and spent time at the Smithsonian Institute and other locales in our national capital. He has submitted himself to viewing by quite a few friends and family, even sharing his apartment on a nearly continuous basis through out his life. He's been to a hockey game, and though he is mostly indifferent to it, he tolerates photography. Without question his greatest talent, so far displayed, is holdability. He is extremely holdable and when he is held he fills the holder with feelings of vast affection, soaring dreams, and profound amazement. At least that is my experience with him. That's about all he does.

There is still one question about his future. Which will be faster, his slap shot or his airplane?

An explanation

Those readers who have received year end letters from me know that my wife is a patient person, inordinately supportive of whatever amendment it is that provides for unfettered written expression. There have been no postings here for some time because most of the reveries that are the birth places of these entries have been of a sort that Beth would prefer went unreported. She is entitled to have her wishes respected.















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Baby Doggerel

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Listen to me. Listen to me.
Nine pound six is what I be.
Member of fraternity,
Gender of paternity.

A Poem of Expectation

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What'll you be, what'll you be
Little baby in DC?

I can't wait 'til you see me
When I hold you on my knee.

Gifts and Giving

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Forgive me, but some ideas are just so brilliant that they require boasting.

Some gifts are obligatory, others are not. Unfortunately it is likely that most gifts are of the obligatory sort, like birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and now I guess Valentines Day. What's next, Columbus Day? I'm sure the national office of the Chamber of Commerce and Hallmark Cards are jointly working on a reason why it too should be honored with a gift. As a person who has a lot of trouble with obligations of all sorts, I have long thought that the spontaneous gift, the gift that is inspired by the giver's recognition of the perfect complementarity of the gift and giftee, is a far superior gift. Maybe this is just the rationalization of a cheap and lazy man.

I must admit to a bit of pride in some of the measures taken to meet my gift obligations over the years. Early on there was a wry note written to my father explaining how, despite my honest intent and sincere wish to honor his birthday by cleaning up his basement work area, not even Hercules could actually accomplish that task. By far the most frequent recipient of a last minute, not-from-any-store type gift from me is my dear wife. These gifts have been of three general types: the gift of an item owned by me and hated by her, which once gifted can be removed from the premises, (a certain lawn chair was the first in this category), the gift of exclusive use of a previously shared item. A couple of years ago I gave her the controller that commands our bedroom TV. It now bears a note that reads, "This controller belongs to Beth Gibson. If your name is not Beth Gibson put it down immediately." And finally of course there is the gift of improved future behavior which can be given by anyone who has not always behaved perfectly in the past. At the moment no example comes to mind, but I know I have used this and in fact it can be a great gift.

Beth's birthday is in October. One year after I had honored the day with one of the above type gifts I was soundly scolded by a great friend whose husband once gave her a surprise Jaguar automobile for her birthday. On Christmas eve that year I walked through a lovely snow storm the two or three miles to our nearest mall and there at a very nice ladies store I bought a red satin night gown. This night gown was worn for about twenty minutes on the night of the 25th and then returned, by Beth, on the 26th.

I'm getting close now to the point. Yesterday I believe I made my most inspired gift. It was not obligatory. It was spontaneous, thoughtful, of impressive value to the recipient, and best of all, not only painless to me, but in fact liberating. Yesterday I gave my wife my hair. Not all of it actually, but all above my mouth, in ascending order, mustache, nose, ear, eye brow and head. It's now all hers to do with as she wishes. And she has wishes, as I do not, which was always somewhat troublesome for us. But no more. One more step toward marital Nirvana.

A Troubling Paradox

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For at least four and a half decades I have loathed the prospect of being old. About four and a half days ago I realized that I have a deep wish to live a long time.

Is this completely vacuous? Is there anything at all being said?

When at age 26 I wrote my suicide note I apparently did't realize that I wanted to live a long time, or perhaps I thought another 39 years was a long time. However when, in 2004, I skipped gaily right through the appointed year I didn't remember that my time was up and it wasn't until last week that I realized that even now I want a lot more. But I still don't want to be old, ever!

My wife was right, right?

An Overheard Remark

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It was Friday morning and I was at North Seattle Community College undergoing humility training in the company of a bunch of 18 somethings. I had just finished with Futility 101, aka Yoga, and was heading to Humiliation 300, aka Body Conditioning, when I chanced to overhear one student say to another, "My friend is having a 90's party tonight...."



Any reader who does not get why this is worth posting is too young to be reading this blog.

A Bumper Sticker I Wish I Had

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IT'S NOT MY AGE. I'VE ALWAYS DRIVEN LIKE THIS.


I have recently come to realize that in the realm of interpersonal relations, I am at my absolute worst while driving a car. I am impatient. I am judgmental. I am defensive in the personality sense; not in the driving sense. And I can, if provoked, become demonstrative of all of these qualities. What sadly is new, is that I have become particularly sensitive about my age. I think that I am in fact about an average driver, which means of course that from time to time I screw up, sometimes to the point of drawing some kind of reprimand from one or two of my fellow drivers. The last couple of times this has happened I have discovered that my own somewhat testy response to a raised finger or whatever, is in part due to my thinking that, seeing my white beard and crinkled face, the other guy thinks that my screw up was due to my age. NOT SO. I HAVE ALWAYS DRIVEN LIKE THIS!

The Inauguration

Part I: Overcoming Bigotry

I take it that the national party that we had on Tuesday was, for our black citizens, a celebration of the accomplishment of one of their own, and, for white citizens, a celebration of the fact that we are not as bigoted as we feared we might be. (Oh yes, there was also that part which was the celebration of the return to Texas of Mr. G W Bush.) Now if we can just keep President Obama alive for a term or two we will have accomplished a good thing. But there is something else in the realm of overcoming bigotry that I have not heard mentioned. For me it is actually just about as good as the election of Mr. Obama.

In 2008 we elected as Vice President a professing Catholic, and here’s the important part. Nobody seemed to notice his faith. In the election of 1960 the religious faith of the winning candidate got roughly as much attention as did Mr. Obama’s ancestry this time. That Joe Biden’s Catholicism was not worth mentioning is an indicator of true progress. (Actually I think John Kerry is also Catholic and the fact that I don’t know for certain proves the same thing, except of course that he didn’t get elected.) Over the course of 48 years apparently the fact that a candidate may be Catholic has become utterly irrelevant. So we pat ourselves on the back over the good, but partial accomplishment of electing an African-American. We will know that we really have arrived in the year that we elect a cross dressing atheist and nobody thinks those things are worth mentioning. Imagine that time.

Part II: A Curious Result

On Sunday, two days before the inauguration, I sent the following email to about a dozen people in my address book. These are people I think of as friends. It was sent with only honest and open minded curiosity. It was certainly not intended to be confrontational or to give offense.

Greetings:

This message is going to everyone who I know to have voted for John McCain, or who I think might have. As you know the capital is all atwitter with preparations for the inauguration. However it is certain that the euphoria does not spread to every person in our country. I find myself very interested in how the McCain voters are feeling about all of this and I'd really appreciate it if you would trouble yourself to let me know. In fact if you would like to send this request on to others who might like to chip in that would be fine with me. I've written some questions, but please feel free to write anything you want.

(Questions deleted)

Here’s the curious part. I got one answer. Here I sit, bewildered.

First conversations - first time events

It is obvious that everything that has ever been talked about had to have a first conversation. Maybe there was once one along these lines.

"Honey, I’m home."

"Hello dear."

"You should have seen what I did today."

"Oh, what was that dear?"

"I did a painting in the sand."

"You mean a drawing with a stick?"

"No, no. I found a place with really white sand and I made that nice and smooth, and then I poured some black sand over it to make a picture. I call it sand painting."

"Sand painting? How did it look? Did it look like anything? Since when have you been an artist?"

"Well it was a little rough, but someday I think some real artists will do beautiful things in my medium."

"How long were you doing this?"

"Oh, a couple of hours I guess."

"I suppose you want me to go see it."

"Oh no. I’m sure it’s gone now. It only lasts ‘til the first wind or rain."

"So you spent two hours doing a sand painting that has now been washed away."

"Yeah. I wonder if I should try to patent this."

"I wonder if tomorrow you should try to find a job."



If you are not familiar with sand painting and would like to learn about it go here. See especially the Tibetan and Modern Culture portions.

gobble gobble

Man Attacked By Rogue Calories: The Victim's Own Words

I often tuck into a few calories just before I tuck into bed. About a week ago, following my usual routine, I drifted past the refrigerator on my way to sleep. I did have a spoon in my hand – a teaspoon, a little tiny teaspoon. I did open the freezer door. This however, is where my responsibility ends. I often do these things. I peer in. I do a little visual grazing. If I do taste something I maintain complete control. Last week was different. It may have been related to an attack about an hour earlier by some salty chips dripping cheddar cheese that managed to penetrate my slightly parted lips. At the time I didn't recognize that this was merely a softening up sortie, probing for weak spots and implanting little sprigs of gluttony that would later sprout like weeds. Anyway I was just poking about in the freezer compartment when suddenly from within a cylindrical container there came forth hordes of calories; some in brown uniforms, others in white. They just kept coming and coming. I couldn't stop them. The scary part was the way they forced my hand to move the spoon back and forth between the container and my mouth, over and over and over again. They showed no mercy and laughed as they shed their peppermint particles all over the alimentary landing strip that is my tongue. It was just horrible.

Later, as I roused myself from my stupor and rose from the floor up onto my hands and knees, I saw the empty carton lying nearby. On the outside was printed, "Simone's I Scream." Really.