A Strange Occurance

We have a porch at the side of our house where we like to read, eat a meal and sometimes take a nap. In the winter I usually put together a good sized cage which we call the Winter Palace. I put the chickens there where it is easier to feed them, collect the eggs and take in their antics. I was late putting it together this year, just getting the walls up late on the 23rd. Sometime that night a group of little people set up house keeping right there on our porch. I couldn’t believe it. Not only were they short, they were oddly dressed, some kind of like royalty and others like peasants or shepherds or something. Anyway they claimed there were no rooms available in all of Seattle, if you can believe that. They didn’t seem to offer much trouble so I let ‘em stay. They tied their ass out in the backyard which was fine with me cuz I didn’t want a bunch of donkey dung to clean up along with the chicken manure. And then the next night in the wee hours of the morning my wife and I were woken up by some neighbors singing religious songs; on and on and on with the alleluias at the top of their lungs. They must have been pretty drunk to be making that much noise at that hour, but I will say they sounded pretty good and whoever their lead soprano was, she has a voice that is out of this world. But that’s not all. In the morning we found out that a woman among the little people had actually had a baby in the night- no OB, no drugs. no nothing for her. Right there on our side porch. You can imagine our amazement. Well I must say the baby is a calm little fellow. Doesn’t seem to mind the chickens throwing straw in his face or even kicking him right out of his bed from time to time. I don’t know how long they intend to stay, but I guess not too long. One of the men, a guy named Joe, said they’ll be leaving soon. Going to Egypt. Go figure.

Year End Letter 2011

2011 might be the year I lost my memory. I have been trying for about a week to recall something of what transpired without much success. On the other hand maybe nothing actually happened.


In letters of condolence to friends who have lost a parent, I have sometimes suggested that the deceased person lives on in his or her progeny. I guess one’s DNA does so literally. I realize now that for some of us the “living on in one’s children” can commence even before reaching one’s own end. Thus it is with us now. Much of our lives and therefore our news is that of Nat and Meredith.

Mere bore a son in March. As a second born, Marcus Patrick Reinhart, has the advantage of an older brother to lead him through the early stages of life and to absorb, to some degree, the attention of surrounding adults thus leaving Marcus to develop on his own. He’s doing nicely. In the same week he was born his parents bought a house in their new hometown of Charlottesville VA where they moved in late spring due to Paulie’s work. Except for oppressively humid summers and 3,000 miles of separation from Seattle, Charlottesville seems like a great place to live. Their other important news is about next year. This year they learned that in January Paulie will deploy to Afghanistan as a civilian employee of the Defense Department. Naturally we are somewhat worried for his safety, but the real regret is his absence, especially from their 2½ year old. He’s a great dad and Theo will surely miss him. They have all come here for the holidays. Mere and the boys will stay on until July. They were also here in this past summer and we were back in VA three times. To their grandparents the boys are really dear little fellows.
We see Nat, Tracy and Phoenix on a regular basis. Their lives are absorbed in dealing with Phoenix’s autism. They do a great job. We are on the periphery lending a hand as much as possible. As with all kids his long term future is unknown, but his diagnosis is real and for Beth and me at least it is still difficult to accept. He is almost always pleasant and fun to be with and he is very easy to love.

We are basically well, though some components are showing wear. Beth continues her weekly walks to town, several miles over a serious hill and she is quite good at solving Sudoku puzzles. I continue my activities of the recent past, but even slower. A treat for me this year was to go with our neighbor, Simone, to an open audition for the TV show, The Amazing Race. We thought we did great, but since we have not had a call back I guess you will not be seeing us on the air. I also had the last great afternoon of my life when a young woman who was doing an oral history of the Arboretum came and listened to me talk for 3 hours and 17 minutes. She even feigned enough interest to ask some questions - and she was good looking. I like to think about it and when I do I try to forget the fact that she was getting paid.

Following are titles of my blog posts this year, along with an indication of the content. If I had any interesting thought or idea you would probably find it here.

Cultural Voyeurism (The Super Bowl)
A Pretty Good Rat Trap
Rat In A Trap (A picture)
Why My Wife Is Pissed Off At You Guys (A puzzler submitted to the Tappit Bros.)
Here’s An Idea (International policy)
Here’s An Idea (Continued)
33 Flavors, Ha!
The Story of Crumpled Anna (Fiction)
The Application (Somebody else’s)
The Debt Crisis
Here’s Looking At You Babe (Curious stuff)
Is Democracy Viable These Days
The Rest of the Story (A rental story)
All Water Is Not The Same (Everyday life)
To Forget or Not To Forget, Is That The Question? (911)
Advice (Financial)
To Text: An Unhappy Consequence (A cranky rant)

To Text: An Unhappy Consequence

Really.  How the hell did we get saddled with the word text as a verb?

How do you pronounce the third person singular?  He, she or it texts.  Does that rhyme with Tex or Texas? 

To this problem there's a nexus
Every day my daughter texts.

Is that how it is said?

I believe that there are some languages that have only the present tense, maybe Aluete or French or something.  Unhappily in English we also have a past tense which in the case at hand leads us to

Yesterday my son texted (?) me five times.  How are you supposed to say that?

I wonder how this has worked out in Spanish where there are two past tenses.  How do you suppose that works? 

Present tense (if text happens to be an er verb):

Yo texto

Tu textes

Elle texte

Nosotros textemos

Ellos texten

Past tense (if its an ar verb):

Yo texte or textaba

I can't go on. Not even sure these are right.  But I'm pretty sure the verb to text is going to vex us for a long time.

Advice

It's quite common for my wife and me to receive dinner invitations from purveyors of financial advice.  Since these events are generally at pretty nice restaurants it is also common for us to accept.  Since I have a pretty strong conviction that it is unwise to pay for anything as ephemeral as financial advice we have never availed ourselves of anything more than the dinner.  Such a dinner about a year ago led to the composition of the following paragraphs.

Thank you very much for dinner. It was easily the best I’ve had since I quit eating animals about two years ago. I must nevertheless decline your offer to help manage our assets. On the other hand I do have some advice for you. I offer it in descending order of importance.

Quit your job and find a new one that is done on your feet, preferably outside. Millions of years of evolution prepared homo sapiens to be hunters and gatherers. For only 10,000 years have we even been stationary on the land and for only about 100 years have most of us been professional users of desks. We are evolved to work outside, on our feet.

Get an average bike and really good rain gear. Leave you car at home as much as possible.

If at all possible reconcile with you wife. I’m confident that splitting up was the most costly thing you’ve ever done in both monetary and personal terms.

Live within your means, humble though they may be in your new job, (see above). If you must own a car, let it be a very modest model.

Place any financial assets you have in a no-load fund that tracks the S & P 500 and forget about it. The “forget about it” is the most important part.

I will conclude by expressing my deep respect for three things I am aware that you have accomplished. I would be proud to say that I had done any of, playing division one football, getting an engineering degree or flying a jet plane. I wish you the best.


The letter was never sent.

To Forget Or Not To Forget, Is That The Question?

Never Forget! 

What does that mean?  I mean when a person puts it on a poster, or T shirt, or bumper sticker, what is he or she meaning to say? 

It might mean, do not forget the sacrifices of the first, and second, and third responders.  I can buy that.  But I have the feeling that it also means, never stop hating the perpetrators, and their kind.  Or never stop feeling damaged.  In these cases I'm not so sure this is good advice.  Wouldn't it be better to just get over it if you can. 

I think I'll look for a bumper sticker that says, "Forget!"

I'll put it on my bike.

All Water Is Not The Same

I had finished brushing and was moving on to step two in my oral ablutions. The floss, in its nearly new plastic dispenser, was in its usual place, a small basket at the extreme right side of the medicine cabinet. When I opened the mirrored door I saw that it had migrated, as it occasionally does, to near the bottom of the collection of small items that share the basket, making it a little tricky to get a good grasp on. As I tugged it out from its surroundings, with fingers grown clumsy with age, I dropped it. Onto the counter top it fell, dribbled off the end, careened off the toilet tank and landed in the water waiting, exposed below. Did I say it was nearly new? It wasn’t easy consigning 39 yards of perfectly good plastic ribbon to the trash, but there’s water, and then there’s water. If I hadn’t, there’d be no more kissing for me – ever.

That, dear children, is why the toilet seat has a lid.

The Rest of the Story

On March 27th of last year I posted a note about renting our little cottage in the University District and described three candidate couples.  I did not report that ultimately I chose the bike riding woman with the semi-monk boy friend who was away on a six week silent retreat.  She had stayed nearly an hour looking over a place that can be adequately evaluated in 10 minutes or less.  My reason was that I found that she would have been the hardest to turn down.  She seemed to want the place the most.

It was not a bad choice.  E and B stayed about a year and a half, paid their rent on time, and left the place as near ready to rerent as any tenant ever has.  There was however one little matter that makes this update blog worthy.  Quite often if I am going to be entering a rental space to do some chore while the occupants are not present I will say in a very cute and charming way, "Hide your marijauna plants, I'm going to be working on the X today."  It's not much of a line, but I've said it to quite a few renters over the years.  In fact it turns out that I once said it to E, although I had no specific memory.  On the next to the last day, just before they departed, I asked if I had said something like that and indeed I had.  We had a good laugh at that point, in my case imagining,  and in their case recalling, just how that line went over.  You see, as was only revealed by the state of the house at their departure, the little cottage had actually become quite a little farm for the past year or so.  Remember the long long period of scrutiny on the first visit?  Ah so.  Maybe I am missing a bet by using this place as a residential rental.