.
What follows is the text of our annual letter minus certain personal remarks that embellished most of the individual transmittals.
On February 27 Meredith gave birth to Theodore Christopher Reinhart. This certainly swamps all other events of the year. He’s a big boy; currently 95th percentile in height and 75th in weight. He and his mom and dad have been with us for the past 5 days and he’s doing fine, crawling all about, pulling to stand, making faces and guttural noises. He’s generally very jolly except when it comes to sleeping. Somehow in a complete reversal of his genetic make up, he is not such a great sleeper. He’s been sleeping in our bedroom while here in order to give his folks a few full nights of rest. Now we are ready for the same. Meredith has surprised herself and others with a previously unrevealed gift for child care.
The family continues to live a bit in limbo in Arlington VA. They would prefer to be in the Northwest, but both have good employment in the East and this is probably not the time to be walking out on a good job.
Our darling Phoenix (son of Nat) continues to inspire in us all the love a grandparent could possibly feel. We get to see him at least weekly and often more. He loves to laugh and when he does his flashing eyes and dimpled smile light up the room and our hearts. Through the first four years of his life he was virtually never naughty and he certainly never felt the sting of a hand on his backside, (unlike his father). But about a month ago he learned that naughty can be fun. He has been employing this new found wisdom with some regularity for a few weeks, and presenting his paternal grandfather with some philosophical problems.
The poultry population around here is up to 5 chickens and now, due to some caring friends, 2 ducks. As predicted by Meredith several years ago, none has yet called Beth grandma and until they do they continue to live outside. FYI chickens appear to be substantially smarter than ducks. Roosters are not allowed in the city, but one of the ducks is a drake and he and his partner were at it this morning on the pond. Could there be ducklings in the spring?
We are personally in good health and comfortable in all important ways although age continues to nibble away at us and we are aware of the fact. In fact it is in my mind just about all the time. Any substantive thought that may have occurred to me this year is buried within the drivel of this blog. http://www.anecdotesandmusings.blogspot.com
We send our best wishes for the new year to you and yours.
Paul and Beth
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Crime and Punishment
.
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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!
**************************************
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?
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!
**************************************
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?
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Plumbing Error # 96
.
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.
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.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
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.
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.
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