Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the Noon-day Sun ... or so someone said. Last Quarter men maybe respect fewer boundaries, still. I took off this week to go down to our home on a bay in a backwater town in Virginia. I was recovering from Special Victims' Day and the virus that my grand-daughter's cohort bestowed upon me when we left to the South and still bronchial now that I'm back.
The plan was to repair the bulkhead that Hurricane Sandy and the Good Lord had left in a state of disarray. Oh, the bulkhead, itself, hadn't been breached ... it was still holding the soil and sand back from being reclaimed by the greatest Goddess of them all, the Sea. I call, in this case, the Atlantic Ocean "the Sea" following a tradition that I suspect arises from a fear of recognizing that all the seas and maybe all the inland seas and lakes and rivers are part and parcel of one enormous conglomerate multi tentacled Goddess who spreads her parts over and around "all" -- too big to imagine and always waiting to reclaim what is rightly hers and hers alone. The Psalmist said: To God is the Earth and all that it contains. From the little child building her or his sandcastles near Her to the maybe 3 Billion trusting Souls who imagine they can live in proximity to her, all eventually get their wake-up call ... I had a friend who years ago wrote something he called, as I now recall.
Our History in the Sea:
Marinated Humanity
Now, I'm many things but not ... at least not "officially" ... a tradesman carpenter. Oh, my Father made certain that I could plumb and cut wood, almost at the same time. He trained me in saying nothing about the fact that his table saw was not quite electrically grounded, giving the user an occasional reminder of its power and preparing me to think it was silly to bother to run up and down stairs to shut off electricity at "the box" just because one was changing a receptacle that carried as much danger, I suspect, as a young woman with a cardiac patient on a hot Summer night. "Just watch what yer doin'," he would say, "just watch out."
Bullocks! Older Folk (maybe it's just Older Men ... retired Pater Familias types) feel they can fix anything. Give 'em a power saw, some hammers, sundry other tools, the right kind of nails, a lumber yard and enough extension cords or batteries to reach the job and they're off like oversized "Bob the Builders" ready to fix the World. They think it through mostly in their heads ... some calculations. 'Hell, the only difference between a hack and a carpenter is that the carpenter knows how to fix his mistakes' ... oh! and is 30 years younger and has a couple of indentured sons to carry on the tradition.
Anyhow. Humility is a good thing -- even if typically the last guest to arrive at a party. I got through about a third of the job ... enough to work with some smaller storms and left the other two thirds for next month ... when my back and knees and elbows and feet heal from all the little wounds accumulated in a couple of days of crawling and sawing and hammering on my little 70 foot long sea-wall.
Blessed are you God, King of the Universe, who bestowed upon me a partner who says "enough." One of the many names different religious folk have bestowed upon the Divininity is "Shaddai" which is taken by most commentaries-exegetists to mean "He who said enough" to the Universe ... she'Amar dai l'Olam ... "enough!" to the world that He created. Creating, to these folk, not only involves a plan but a vision about when, to quote the partners of fools such as I, "Enough is enough."
Any case, I allocated today back home in Philadelphia to write a paper for presenting later this week to a bunch of theoretical types coming to listen to an old man wearing a different kind of tool belt.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Killers in Kilts and Tutu's
Some days back was -- I think it was designated -- Special Victims Day at our youngest grandchild's Nursery School. Invitations were pretty and sent out weeks before, explaining how important we Older Adults were in the lives of our grandchildren -- indeed, how special. How sweet! The teachers and administrations were asking a bunch of older folks if they wouldn't like to spend the morning with a bunch of adorable 3-5 year old nose pickers who would lovingly offer up their bacterias and viruses via a method of effusive hugging ... usually, with charge.
At this particular event, once we arrived at the school, we were and, indeed, each grandparent in turn would be targeted for the weaponized versions of some of the nastiest diseases known to mankind. Direct from the stockpiles of all the bellicose nations of the world, I suspect, botulisms and pneumonias and Streps and killer flus are mixed together in a lethal oleo and slathered on the clothing of these little Typhoid Mary's and Max's who are then loaded into midevel catapults from which these little rockets are propelled into the arms of the unsuspecting Last Quarter Players as they enter the MZ (Militarized Zone) .... a place which is loaded up with surfaces and innocent looking armaments made by Lego and Crayola ... especially for the occasion.
Everyday difficulties -- such as finding it tough to stay asleep for a decent amount of time -- will, within days, be augmented -- "for your sleeping pleasure, Grandma and Grandpa", with the kind of upper respiratory hacking that drives the sinus block of the heart into a panicky arrhythmia and the lungs into spasm. I am in no condition to pretend like I was ready for the Center for Disease Control epidemiology clusters in plotting the trajectory of my or other such diseases, but it seems likely -- and just perhaps a blessing -- that death typically follows within days. Truth be told, I don't recall from previous Special Victims Days with our older grandchildren if the fallen are buried in individual private interment ceremonies or if my Comrades were buried in a Mass Grave.
I'm certain that comely invitations will follow.
(If I, perchance, am among the survivors, I will provide details on the progression of this disease and its accompanying delirium as soon as I'm discharged from the Infectious Disease Floor of our local teaching hospital and seen fit to rejoin the general population. My Physician indicated that it was too late for immunization which must be done via sterilization of one's children at birth to prevent the growth of spawn-carrying spawn. Too late, I suppose, to sterilize my 47 yo child, ayah?)
Ha-chewww!
At this particular event, once we arrived at the school, we were and, indeed, each grandparent in turn would be targeted for the weaponized versions of some of the nastiest diseases known to mankind. Direct from the stockpiles of all the bellicose nations of the world, I suspect, botulisms and pneumonias and Streps and killer flus are mixed together in a lethal oleo and slathered on the clothing of these little Typhoid Mary's and Max's who are then loaded into midevel catapults from which these little rockets are propelled into the arms of the unsuspecting Last Quarter Players as they enter the MZ (Militarized Zone) .... a place which is loaded up with surfaces and innocent looking armaments made by Lego and Crayola ... especially for the occasion.
Everyday difficulties -- such as finding it tough to stay asleep for a decent amount of time -- will, within days, be augmented -- "for your sleeping pleasure, Grandma and Grandpa", with the kind of upper respiratory hacking that drives the sinus block of the heart into a panicky arrhythmia and the lungs into spasm. I am in no condition to pretend like I was ready for the Center for Disease Control epidemiology clusters in plotting the trajectory of my or other such diseases, but it seems likely -- and just perhaps a blessing -- that death typically follows within days. Truth be told, I don't recall from previous Special Victims Days with our older grandchildren if the fallen are buried in individual private interment ceremonies or if my Comrades were buried in a Mass Grave.
I'm certain that comely invitations will follow.
(If I, perchance, am among the survivors, I will provide details on the progression of this disease and its accompanying delirium as soon as I'm discharged from the Infectious Disease Floor of our local teaching hospital and seen fit to rejoin the general population. My Physician indicated that it was too late for immunization which must be done via sterilization of one's children at birth to prevent the growth of spawn-carrying spawn. Too late, I suppose, to sterilize my 47 yo child, ayah?)
Ha-chewww!
Monday, October 21, 2013
Interesting Times
Full of disappointments of sorts. It's a sentiment that I don't typically appreciate. Maybe I don't put a lot of store in the reliability of the outside world. I would like to think of certain others in my world as being all that good stuff ... true to their word ... dependable ... faithful to jointly agreed upon tasks ... all that stuff. I remember my father saying "promises, promises, promises!" There was some humor about it. Don't rightly know and didn't seem appropriate to ask about the topic .... to what was he referring? The reliability of his bedroom? the reliability of his bowels? implicit promises he imagined coming home a father of three after WWII? Who knows. People die and take their secrets with them. They (those "people" ... whoever the Hell "those people" are?) will often explain their thinking for the decisions they made or the things they said.
As I sit in this office, now, I can recall both overly friendly and outrageously hostile visitors. Those who thought me a Saint and those who imagined me to be a Devil. Of course, none who live on the extremes get the complex humanity of any Other -- me, included. I not so many years ago wrote a lengthy piece on what I considered health to be ... more or less, the relative capacity to recognize just how complex certain others are -- those near and dear to us, mostly, but others, as well. They have relationships with their families and loved ones ... they have, even, idiosyncratic relationships with their own thought and both their theoretical and divine gods. They have their own sadnesses and the word "they" is dispassionately reductive. The very fact that they have these complex internal lives makes them different, one from the other. Those who emphasize the "they greyness" of others, fail to see those those differences ... fail to differentiate others, except, perhaps, as they meet one's needs or fail to.
Yesterday, I attended two meetings, one at night with M and the other, in the afternoon, with our youngest child, Mother of half our grandchildren. The afternoon meeting was a theoretical one ... a meeting about theory, that is. My daughter shares a profession with me ... oh! and, sometimes, an office. The presenter had something to say ... it was fine. She had some interesting ideas and was reporting on some of the methods she had employed in her work.
The evening meeting was one called to discuss the prospects for continuing another meeting that had been going on weekly for 30+ years. Recently, attendance had been poor. While when we started attending 16+ years ago, their was a healthy sanguinity about each meeting, more recently it seemed that the old blood was a bit anemic and the new blood was regularly absent or late. There was a voiceless Collie and a "half a poodle" there to keep me going ... they became my security blankets as it became clear that the vote would be to move away from weekly meetings and that, like everything else, this group's future was in question. "This too shall pass."
I thought about the poem I have quoted frequently in these notes ... Stanley Kunitz's The Layers .... that admonishes us all to "live among the layers and not upon the litter." Still, I hold firm to my wish that things would remain the same ... that parents would never die, that armistices would be forever, that lovers would hold tight forever, that siblings would play with each other long after the cows come home, and that groups would never lose their vitality. I hold to those desires even if that wish comes with a recognition that all things must pass -- as George Harrison, I think, opined and that I'll never be privy to what my Dad had in mind when he voiced his own humor-laden disappointment with his plaint: "promises, promises, promises."
Stanley Kunitz
As I sit in this office, now, I can recall both overly friendly and outrageously hostile visitors. Those who thought me a Saint and those who imagined me to be a Devil. Of course, none who live on the extremes get the complex humanity of any Other -- me, included. I not so many years ago wrote a lengthy piece on what I considered health to be ... more or less, the relative capacity to recognize just how complex certain others are -- those near and dear to us, mostly, but others, as well. They have relationships with their families and loved ones ... they have, even, idiosyncratic relationships with their own thought and both their theoretical and divine gods. They have their own sadnesses and the word "they" is dispassionately reductive. The very fact that they have these complex internal lives makes them different, one from the other. Those who emphasize the "they greyness" of others, fail to see those those differences ... fail to differentiate others, except, perhaps, as they meet one's needs or fail to.
Yesterday, I attended two meetings, one at night with M and the other, in the afternoon, with our youngest child, Mother of half our grandchildren. The afternoon meeting was a theoretical one ... a meeting about theory, that is. My daughter shares a profession with me ... oh! and, sometimes, an office. The presenter had something to say ... it was fine. She had some interesting ideas and was reporting on some of the methods she had employed in her work.
The evening meeting was one called to discuss the prospects for continuing another meeting that had been going on weekly for 30+ years. Recently, attendance had been poor. While when we started attending 16+ years ago, their was a healthy sanguinity about each meeting, more recently it seemed that the old blood was a bit anemic and the new blood was regularly absent or late. There was a voiceless Collie and a "half a poodle" there to keep me going ... they became my security blankets as it became clear that the vote would be to move away from weekly meetings and that, like everything else, this group's future was in question. "This too shall pass."
I thought about the poem I have quoted frequently in these notes ... Stanley Kunitz's The Layers .... that admonishes us all to "live among the layers and not upon the litter." Still, I hold firm to my wish that things would remain the same ... that parents would never die, that armistices would be forever, that lovers would hold tight forever, that siblings would play with each other long after the cows come home, and that groups would never lose their vitality. I hold to those desires even if that wish comes with a recognition that all things must pass -- as George Harrison, I think, opined and that I'll never be privy to what my Dad had in mind when he voiced his own humor-laden disappointment with his plaint: "promises, promises, promises."
The Layers
Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many
lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
On a More Serious Note
Relatioinships in whichever Quarter of Life can be playful, in situations such as those I was thinking about yesterday .... bedroom play and dialogue between partners. Playfulness may be among the highest order of interactions in which important or not-so-pressing desires and "needs" are being requested. In general, intertwining threads of wishes and needs become matted ... and painfully, confusingly locked in! Some things feel like needs, even though they are desires and maybe ... just maybe ... carefully delineated distinctions between the two (desires and needs) are impossible.
All this is played out in the dyad ... in the two person relationship ... in the marriage ... between the lovers ... in the parent-child bond .... in friendship ...
To my way of thinking, two of the most fundamental transactions in a dyad are (1) "the request" and (2) "the sharing of either a thought or a feeling." I feel like talking briefly about both, this AM. Let me say that differently. I am imagining that some people are reading this posting ... not too many ... some handfuls, perhaps. I further imagine that I am in some sort of relationship with each of those readers. I wouldn't be writing these notes ... maybe 40 times a year ... if I didn't want to be heard by each of you. What I'm trying to say is that (1) a request is, perhaps, a special form of or interconnected with (2) "the sharing of a thought or a feeling" and -- notably -- I have a wish to be heard by you.
In any case, let me begin with the request. A asks B: "would you do c?" The requested act can be as simple as "would you make me a cup of tea? or coffee?" or "would you hold that door for a sec?" It can be far more complicated: "would you make love to me, tonight" or "would you speak to me with a bit more kindness." In the "good relationship," it seems to me, there is, at least the following:
..... something of a balance between the sums of requests coming in both directions;
........ no ticker measuring that balance and no pressing interest in such a calculator;
............ a preponderance of times when the answer is "sure" or "coming right up;"
.................. rarely a snapping back;
..................... an ability for the requestor to tolerate delay; and
........................... a lack of "snarkiness" (to Philadelphians? "attitude") in the requestee's response.
In the vast majority of situations, the request is perceived by the requestee as an opportunity and by the requestor as a desire until such time that the requestee either refuses or complies with less than a sense of full-heartedness ... without a "you bet" or somesuch. At the moment the 'tug from the other end' (saying, essentially: 'I really don't want to.') is experienced, the requestor begins to experience their desire as a need. Now, it's likely and not a bit unreasonable to assume that the newly experienced need is not for what was originally requested but rather for the sense that someone out there wishes to fulfill their desires. And, by the way, as the shadows of the Fourth Quarter grow longer, the urgency for someone who might fill such requests grows stronger and more urgent. Times a'wastin', as the expression goes.
This brings me to the implicit request to be heard ... to have another 'listen up' to a particular thought or feeling. Here, I've been witness to a number of derailing responses that leave the requestor ... the one who wishes to be heard ... ready to replace the hurt thus felt with an outstretched Divine arm bearing a sharpened sword. The following come to mind in no particular order of their degree of hurtfulness or snarkiness:
... A symbolic turning away, indicating disinterest;
...... A summary changing of the subject, as more or less another indication of disinterest;
......... A suggestion that the one who wants to be heard has misunderstood the situation;
............ Changing the subject;
................ A summary solution (eg, 'if you would only etc'); or
.................... A speech.
In each of these outcomes, the requestor -- of deed or ear, whichever the case may be -- is likely to take that dive into the darkness felt by someone with an unmet need ... lost in the woods or in Macy's at Christmas ... feeling as if they never will find their way home. I find myself thinking that Children (who don't understand) and Old Folk (who feel they don't have time) feel this sense of being lost deeply at this moment when desire turns to need.
I suppose that was a sufficient Sunday Morning Sermon.
Bye!
All this is played out in the dyad ... in the two person relationship ... in the marriage ... between the lovers ... in the parent-child bond .... in friendship ...
To my way of thinking, two of the most fundamental transactions in a dyad are (1) "the request" and (2) "the sharing of either a thought or a feeling." I feel like talking briefly about both, this AM. Let me say that differently. I am imagining that some people are reading this posting ... not too many ... some handfuls, perhaps. I further imagine that I am in some sort of relationship with each of those readers. I wouldn't be writing these notes ... maybe 40 times a year ... if I didn't want to be heard by each of you. What I'm trying to say is that (1) a request is, perhaps, a special form of or interconnected with (2) "the sharing of a thought or a feeling" and -- notably -- I have a wish to be heard by you.
In any case, let me begin with the request. A asks B: "would you do c?" The requested act can be as simple as "would you make me a cup of tea? or coffee?" or "would you hold that door for a sec?" It can be far more complicated: "would you make love to me, tonight" or "would you speak to me with a bit more kindness." In the "good relationship," it seems to me, there is, at least the following:
..... something of a balance between the sums of requests coming in both directions;
........ no ticker measuring that balance and no pressing interest in such a calculator;
............ a preponderance of times when the answer is "sure" or "coming right up;"
.................. rarely a snapping back;
..................... an ability for the requestor to tolerate delay; and
........................... a lack of "snarkiness" (to Philadelphians? "attitude") in the requestee's response.
In the vast majority of situations, the request is perceived by the requestee as an opportunity and by the requestor as a desire until such time that the requestee either refuses or complies with less than a sense of full-heartedness ... without a "you bet" or somesuch. At the moment the 'tug from the other end' (saying, essentially: 'I really don't want to.') is experienced, the requestor begins to experience their desire as a need. Now, it's likely and not a bit unreasonable to assume that the newly experienced need is not for what was originally requested but rather for the sense that someone out there wishes to fulfill their desires. And, by the way, as the shadows of the Fourth Quarter grow longer, the urgency for someone who might fill such requests grows stronger and more urgent. Times a'wastin', as the expression goes.
This brings me to the implicit request to be heard ... to have another 'listen up' to a particular thought or feeling. Here, I've been witness to a number of derailing responses that leave the requestor ... the one who wishes to be heard ... ready to replace the hurt thus felt with an outstretched Divine arm bearing a sharpened sword. The following come to mind in no particular order of their degree of hurtfulness or snarkiness:
... A symbolic turning away, indicating disinterest;
...... A summary changing of the subject, as more or less another indication of disinterest;
......... A suggestion that the one who wants to be heard has misunderstood the situation;
............ Changing the subject;
................ A summary solution (eg, 'if you would only etc'); or
.................... A speech.
In each of these outcomes, the requestor -- of deed or ear, whichever the case may be -- is likely to take that dive into the darkness felt by someone with an unmet need ... lost in the woods or in Macy's at Christmas ... feeling as if they never will find their way home. I find myself thinking that Children (who don't understand) and Old Folk (who feel they don't have time) feel this sense of being lost deeply at this moment when desire turns to need.
I suppose that was a sufficient Sunday Morning Sermon.
Bye!
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Raucous Pillow Talk (from the Crypt)
Halloween got nothin' on the travails of Playing in the Fourth Quarter. Maybe Halloween, Deis Sanguinis and all other such holidays are, in the end, ways that the young deal with the terror of growing old. Who's to say?
For better or for worse -- "in sickness and in health" -- older folk do much of the same things in the bedroom that younger folk do. Perhaps, the drama of it all is somewhat diminished. The prospect of some Redd Foxx having a myocardial infarction while on top of some younger woman and finally meeting Elizabeth may put the damper on some synchronized horizontal aerobics but, from the reports I receive even after some men cannot remember the difference in purpose of Lunesta and Levitra, activity continues.
I have run into many -- for me -- fascinating conversations reported from the bedroom.
..... One couple, long married, were watching the 11 o'clock news that can easily be more disturbing than Dr. Shock. The talking head was reporting on the number of sex change operations and as they caught each others' glances, they broke out into uproarious laughter ... recognizing, without a word shared between them, that they had both momentarily considered whether the other might have started out with different plumbing.
.... Another couple got caught up in comparisons. They were both having chronic joint pain but she kept stressing how no back pain could compare to childbirth or even to menstrual pains. He accused her of going with the Obstetrics Card ... They ended up in a tickling match. She started it, he assured me, by making comparisons.
..... Many have told me about uproarious encounters when intercourse was interrupted by cramps. Cramps in the Last Quarter can, indeed, occur in all the striated long muscles of the legs and arms and also in the shorter muscles in the chest, neck, jaw, ... you name it. Frankly, I don't know that young couples can integrate the humor of it all ... .... moving towards release and then a shot outa the blue ... "I GOT A CRAMP ... OH, NO."
..... While young men and women fail to, older folk seem to be able to take in stride interruptions to the sexual response ... penises or vaginas or energies that just give up.
.... A number of older men (gay and straight) have admitted that everytime they hear a Cialis commercial in bed, they secretly are lusting after that 'dangerous four hour erection' and, as one man said to me "when I finally have my 'erection lasting more than four hours' as the commercials tease or promise or whatever they're doing, I intend to tell not only my Doctor but to barge into the emergency room announcing my sticky little problem and the messianic era, all at once."
Maybe old folk have TV's in their bedroom just to drown out the noise.
For better or for worse -- "in sickness and in health" -- older folk do much of the same things in the bedroom that younger folk do. Perhaps, the drama of it all is somewhat diminished. The prospect of some Redd Foxx having a myocardial infarction while on top of some younger woman and finally meeting Elizabeth may put the damper on some synchronized horizontal aerobics but, from the reports I receive even after some men cannot remember the difference in purpose of Lunesta and Levitra, activity continues.
I have run into many -- for me -- fascinating conversations reported from the bedroom.
..... One couple, long married, were watching the 11 o'clock news that can easily be more disturbing than Dr. Shock. The talking head was reporting on the number of sex change operations and as they caught each others' glances, they broke out into uproarious laughter ... recognizing, without a word shared between them, that they had both momentarily considered whether the other might have started out with different plumbing.
.... Another couple got caught up in comparisons. They were both having chronic joint pain but she kept stressing how no back pain could compare to childbirth or even to menstrual pains. He accused her of going with the Obstetrics Card ... They ended up in a tickling match. She started it, he assured me, by making comparisons.
..... Many have told me about uproarious encounters when intercourse was interrupted by cramps. Cramps in the Last Quarter can, indeed, occur in all the striated long muscles of the legs and arms and also in the shorter muscles in the chest, neck, jaw, ... you name it. Frankly, I don't know that young couples can integrate the humor of it all ... .... moving towards release and then a shot outa the blue ... "I GOT A CRAMP ... OH, NO."
..... While young men and women fail to, older folk seem to be able to take in stride interruptions to the sexual response ... penises or vaginas or energies that just give up.
.... A number of older men (gay and straight) have admitted that everytime they hear a Cialis commercial in bed, they secretly are lusting after that 'dangerous four hour erection' and, as one man said to me "when I finally have my 'erection lasting more than four hours' as the commercials tease or promise or whatever they're doing, I intend to tell not only my Doctor but to barge into the emergency room announcing my sticky little problem and the messianic era, all at once."
Maybe old folk have TV's in their bedroom just to drown out the noise.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Everyday Hubris and Quotidian Victories: it's all Greek to me!
I suppose Playing in the Last Quarter is no so different than playing in any other Quarter .... losses and victories.
Fourth Quarter Hubris comes in many forms. I, this weekend, discovered a particular form. A grown child calls with a leaky bathroom faucet on a pedestal sink. For the uninitiated ... a pedestal sink is one in which the plumbing -- in all its grand connections -- has been hidden from sight ... oh! and from reach. Hubris is well described by the old guy jumping into his roadster with a bag of tools in order to make it impossible, perhaps, to ever get into that roadster, again? Balance, harmony, sanity and the Greek's sophrosune takes the more elegant form of giving your grown up child the name of a plumber.
Oh, my aching back.
There are, however, daily victories. Each day, as I make my pear-orange-lemon-apple-spinach-celery-cucumber-pepper juice, I peel the lemon to keep the bitterness of the rind out of my couple of quarts of juice that will follow me through the day. I've become so much more proficient in not repeatedly dropping the lemond as I'm stripping it down ... and neither dropping the cucumber nor the pear as it loses its skin.
Ah, Howard! Savor the small victories and give up plumbing and you'll get to drive with M ... with the top down on sunny Autumnal days ... without crying in pain!
Fourth Quarter Hubris comes in many forms. I, this weekend, discovered a particular form. A grown child calls with a leaky bathroom faucet on a pedestal sink. For the uninitiated ... a pedestal sink is one in which the plumbing -- in all its grand connections -- has been hidden from sight ... oh! and from reach. Hubris is well described by the old guy jumping into his roadster with a bag of tools in order to make it impossible, perhaps, to ever get into that roadster, again? Balance, harmony, sanity and the Greek's sophrosune takes the more elegant form of giving your grown up child the name of a plumber.
Oh, my aching back.
There are, however, daily victories. Each day, as I make my pear-orange-lemon-apple-spinach-celery-cucumber-pepper juice, I peel the lemon to keep the bitterness of the rind out of my couple of quarts of juice that will follow me through the day. I've become so much more proficient in not repeatedly dropping the lemond as I'm stripping it down ... and neither dropping the cucumber nor the pear as it loses its skin.
Ah, Howard! Savor the small victories and give up plumbing and you'll get to drive with M ... with the top down on sunny Autumnal days ... without crying in pain!
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Another Day in Paradise
It was a pretty good day .... I wouldn't say that "disappointment" was its theme but it was, certainly, in the air. I'm not even certain that I get (that is, understand ... as in "I get it") disappointment ... as an experience. One becomes excited, I suppose, by the potential for something great and something else happens .... something not so great. In Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story, it's of the dramatic variety. Tony is about to fall in love with his beautiful Maria when he begins to sing:
Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!
Poor fella ... he does fall in love and then another cannonball comes through the sky and whacks him dead ... like a commercial for RAID ... the bug killer ... "kills 'em dead!"
I'm not particularly prone to "why now" or "why me" experiences and, still, disappointment seems to be a universal experience that applies quite canonically to the Fourth Quarter of play. My early morning visitors brought disappointment in love and wanting some guarantees of the future. M and I then went to a study group we've attended since 1997 that is dying out. There's a meeting next weekend that will potentially discuss the morbidity of this once thriving group which yesterday had a hard time approaching a quorum ... indeed, it was just that day's leader and us for quite some time. Disappointment? I suppose.
The day was OK. I spent a couple of hours trying to make the path to my office a bit more accessible. It's been about 35 years since my sons and I order cubic yards of sand and Portland and laid beds for a roughly hundred foot mostly brick path ... two sets of steps ... well, the details don't matter. But after all these years, nature has intruded in the form of ivy and Rhodies and trees and it was time to get out the chain saw. That was fine even if visitors still need to maybe walk a little sideways on one part of the path and even if I have to bundle up the cut up limbs, today. Needed to carefully cut up some sliding book cabinet doors for one of my kids ... that was fine, though one cut was initially seriously mis-sized ... middle-age brain freeze. 21.875 became 16.875" ... like I've lost the ability to keep numbers in my head. Recut. Brought them over and diagnosed some plumbing problems.
It was not being able to get up from the floor after looking behind the sink pedestal that was perhaps most disappointing. It's curiously humiliating or ... oh, disappointing! not to be able to return to vertical without assistance. Could still be there, I suppose, if my son-in-law hadn't acted as a crane ... taking both my hands and returning me to walking position.
Last Quarter, aye?
Then for the icing on the cake. M left the bed in middle of night. Went back to sleep after realizing her absence thinking that she must be uncomfortable; I found out that her knee became intensely painful during the night after two days of being nearly pain-free. I dreamt (brief outline of same) that we had purchased a new home and the painters and plaster-folk were finishing up when I noticed that M had ordered faux-antique finished furniture. I didn't like it ... kind of dark crackled finish but didn't want to show, well, my disappointment. 'Anyway. What was wrong with the old furniture?' I kept my feelings to myself when I came downstairs to find M in considerable knee discomfort. Her treatment hadn't worked and I was in what turned out to be a brief arrhythmia. Indeed, this week my improvement on new anti-arrhythmic drugs was interrupted by two lengthy events and this mornings maybe 4 hour one.
Lookie, here. I keep saying that Playing in the Last Quarter ain't for the feint of heart.
You betcha. And, still, writing this brief entry saw the end of this arrhythmia. Made some non-cheese-based Pesto on Friday ... think I'll eat the leftovers on some crackers and then go buy a new faucet for my daughter.
As for West Side Tony? I suppose one can't expect life to be other than disappointing if one allows oneself to be convinced to go to rumbles, too often. It's bound to -- at least occasionally -- disappoint.
Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!
Poor fella ... he does fall in love and then another cannonball comes through the sky and whacks him dead ... like a commercial for RAID ... the bug killer ... "kills 'em dead!"
I'm not particularly prone to "why now" or "why me" experiences and, still, disappointment seems to be a universal experience that applies quite canonically to the Fourth Quarter of play. My early morning visitors brought disappointment in love and wanting some guarantees of the future. M and I then went to a study group we've attended since 1997 that is dying out. There's a meeting next weekend that will potentially discuss the morbidity of this once thriving group which yesterday had a hard time approaching a quorum ... indeed, it was just that day's leader and us for quite some time. Disappointment? I suppose.
The day was OK. I spent a couple of hours trying to make the path to my office a bit more accessible. It's been about 35 years since my sons and I order cubic yards of sand and Portland and laid beds for a roughly hundred foot mostly brick path ... two sets of steps ... well, the details don't matter. But after all these years, nature has intruded in the form of ivy and Rhodies and trees and it was time to get out the chain saw. That was fine even if visitors still need to maybe walk a little sideways on one part of the path and even if I have to bundle up the cut up limbs, today. Needed to carefully cut up some sliding book cabinet doors for one of my kids ... that was fine, though one cut was initially seriously mis-sized ... middle-age brain freeze. 21.875 became 16.875" ... like I've lost the ability to keep numbers in my head. Recut. Brought them over and diagnosed some plumbing problems.
It was not being able to get up from the floor after looking behind the sink pedestal that was perhaps most disappointing. It's curiously humiliating or ... oh, disappointing! not to be able to return to vertical without assistance. Could still be there, I suppose, if my son-in-law hadn't acted as a crane ... taking both my hands and returning me to walking position.
Last Quarter, aye?
Then for the icing on the cake. M left the bed in middle of night. Went back to sleep after realizing her absence thinking that she must be uncomfortable; I found out that her knee became intensely painful during the night after two days of being nearly pain-free. I dreamt (brief outline of same) that we had purchased a new home and the painters and plaster-folk were finishing up when I noticed that M had ordered faux-antique finished furniture. I didn't like it ... kind of dark crackled finish but didn't want to show, well, my disappointment. 'Anyway. What was wrong with the old furniture?' I kept my feelings to myself when I came downstairs to find M in considerable knee discomfort. Her treatment hadn't worked and I was in what turned out to be a brief arrhythmia. Indeed, this week my improvement on new anti-arrhythmic drugs was interrupted by two lengthy events and this mornings maybe 4 hour one.
Lookie, here. I keep saying that Playing in the Last Quarter ain't for the feint of heart.
You betcha. And, still, writing this brief entry saw the end of this arrhythmia. Made some non-cheese-based Pesto on Friday ... think I'll eat the leftovers on some crackers and then go buy a new faucet for my daughter.
As for West Side Tony? I suppose one can't expect life to be other than disappointing if one allows oneself to be convinced to go to rumbles, too often. It's bound to -- at least occasionally -- disappoint.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Twenty One Hundred
I was driving with M to our produce store to procure a week's worth of vegetables and fruit for our daily dose of juices ... Spinach, Kale, Cucumbers, Celery, Peppers, Apples, Oranges, Lemons, Kiwi, Pears, whatever else strikes our fancy and some ginger for a buzz. We haven't joined the juicers who live on juice, alone, but have added maybe 1-2 quarts of juice daily to a modest diet. And while it seems to help, I certainly don't feel like I could make it into the next Century ... I'll take a decade or two and be grateful to anima mundi for the ride.
We were at a light and a blue Honda Civic came lithely around the corner ... not quite screeching its tires. It was driven by someone half our ages or less and he seemed to be having a good time. The light changed and we went through the intersection onto a street of single family houses, uneventfully. Just as we did, however, it struck me that I/we don't get to know what life will be like in the next Century. As it is written somewhere in Psalms ... "You get 70 years and if you're a warrior type? 80 years."
I know. There are futurists and seers and predictors. There are those who calibrate and measure the chaos of the past and establish plot-lines for how the future will look.
But the truth? We just don't get to know whether those single family houses will go Bauhaus or if in vitro fertilization will replace the playful sexual play of yesteryear with Woody Allen's Orgasmatrons for a kick or if the houses that I passed on the way home from the fruit store will be "beachfront" just after I and my progeny become vague memories held by a few.
Yeah! And truth be told, the way this game of life is playedeven with all its vitamins and juices ... plain and simple? it's none of my business. Thus is life for Players in the Last Quarter.
We were at a light and a blue Honda Civic came lithely around the corner ... not quite screeching its tires. It was driven by someone half our ages or less and he seemed to be having a good time. The light changed and we went through the intersection onto a street of single family houses, uneventfully. Just as we did, however, it struck me that I/we don't get to know what life will be like in the next Century. As it is written somewhere in Psalms ... "You get 70 years and if you're a warrior type? 80 years."
I know. There are futurists and seers and predictors. There are those who calibrate and measure the chaos of the past and establish plot-lines for how the future will look.
But the truth? We just don't get to know whether those single family houses will go Bauhaus or if in vitro fertilization will replace the playful sexual play of yesteryear with Woody Allen's Orgasmatrons for a kick or if the houses that I passed on the way home from the fruit store will be "beachfront" just after I and my progeny become vague memories held by a few.
Yeah! And truth be told, the way this game of life is playedeven with all its vitamins and juices ... plain and simple? it's none of my business. Thus is life for Players in the Last Quarter.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Postscript
Throughout our little 175 mile trip, a melody was haunting me. Was it Patti Paige. Couldn't exactly remember the words, though the tune, at least a few chords of the melody, was there. Something about "Take away the glass/It will bring no relief/Only heartache and grief/Take away the glass." I did what any modern Soul does and Googled and Yahooed and Bing-ed and came up with nothing.
Ode to "the recesses of my mind."
Ode to "the recesses of my mind."
The Strangest Place of All
This Monday morning, I imagine that Memory may be the strangest place of all. It was the weekend, I suppose. M is still struggling with back and knee pain, Indian October Summer was well in place, and the roadster was all gassed up. What the hell! A temporarily crippled lady and her aging and balding (well, "bald" may be closer to the truth) husband of 48 years mounted Nachamu the car and headed up North from Philadelphia into the Lehigh Valley, the expanse of Pocono foothills and valleys just beyond Allentown, PA. Hadn't been up there in quite a while. The road was the road we used to take to my sister's restaurant up in Sullivan County, New York. I think we both would have liked to travel but M's back wouldn't have made the round trip.
It was as if the various roads and the look of the little towns were sufficient to set off memories.
Lumberton (or was it Lamberton) brought back images of New Hampshire which we left in 1974 to come to Philly even before our third child was born. I would spend part of the weekend retrofitting sliding doors for some of her built in bookshelves in which her three kids (one nearly 15 and the almost 10 year old twins) could hide some of their games when not in use.
The passing of Rod and Gun Club meets in Carbon County .... the changing leaves .... the corn fields .... the corn fields, in particular, fired up parts of my brain not fired for quite a while. From Summer 1954 to the end of 1956, my parents moved to Toledo from Brooklyn. I expected the midWEST to be more like the Wild West ... Cowboys and Horses ... but found, instead a lot of cornfields. On some Sundays (don't know how many), the family (Parents, 4 kids and a dog) would drive for miles on roads that passed through the cornfields to buy Dairy Queen soft ice cream. Could picture the pooch slurping his, now after nearly 60 years ... my youngish parents ... the three sibs who are now all grandparents ... and me ...
The road back was along the Delaware canal and had different memories. A trip to take two young adolescent boys up to camp maybe 35 years ago ... how they hated that camp. Trips to visit a friend who lived up there not far from the canal. Memories of that relationship souring ... maybe the only friendship I can recall ending uncomfortably. That brought back earlier memories, still, from Graduate School days in the 60's ... guess I should've known even then that his envies would end up in great discomfort for us both and in him acting out these envies.
We stopped in an Inn for lunch ... one that we passed many times ... 'an Inn not before taken.' There was a 1957 Olds convertible parked outside the restaurant, apparently related to the 1955 reunion going on inside for Central Bucks High School Class of 1955.
Bunch of Old Farts, if y'asks me. A couple of years from Playing in Overtime.
I know. Nobody asked me.
We got home not much after 2:00 and ended up having dinner with Ruthie and Miltie who we've also known since Graduate School Days in the mid-late 1960's.
More memories. Wonder if GuntherDog has memories, too. Ah! It's 5:08 AM ... chances are he's gotta pee and we all remember what that's like.
It was as if the various roads and the look of the little towns were sufficient to set off memories.
Lumberton (or was it Lamberton) brought back images of New Hampshire which we left in 1974 to come to Philly even before our third child was born. I would spend part of the weekend retrofitting sliding doors for some of her built in bookshelves in which her three kids (one nearly 15 and the almost 10 year old twins) could hide some of their games when not in use.
The passing of Rod and Gun Club meets in Carbon County .... the changing leaves .... the corn fields .... the corn fields, in particular, fired up parts of my brain not fired for quite a while. From Summer 1954 to the end of 1956, my parents moved to Toledo from Brooklyn. I expected the midWEST to be more like the Wild West ... Cowboys and Horses ... but found, instead a lot of cornfields. On some Sundays (don't know how many), the family (Parents, 4 kids and a dog) would drive for miles on roads that passed through the cornfields to buy Dairy Queen soft ice cream. Could picture the pooch slurping his, now after nearly 60 years ... my youngish parents ... the three sibs who are now all grandparents ... and me ...
The road back was along the Delaware canal and had different memories. A trip to take two young adolescent boys up to camp maybe 35 years ago ... how they hated that camp. Trips to visit a friend who lived up there not far from the canal. Memories of that relationship souring ... maybe the only friendship I can recall ending uncomfortably. That brought back earlier memories, still, from Graduate School days in the 60's ... guess I should've known even then that his envies would end up in great discomfort for us both and in him acting out these envies.
We stopped in an Inn for lunch ... one that we passed many times ... 'an Inn not before taken.' There was a 1957 Olds convertible parked outside the restaurant, apparently related to the 1955 reunion going on inside for Central Bucks High School Class of 1955.
Bunch of Old Farts, if y'asks me. A couple of years from Playing in Overtime.
I know. Nobody asked me.
We got home not much after 2:00 and ended up having dinner with Ruthie and Miltie who we've also known since Graduate School Days in the mid-late 1960's.
More memories. Wonder if GuntherDog has memories, too. Ah! It's 5:08 AM ... chances are he's gotta pee and we all remember what that's like.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Coincidences? Karma?
In the end, I suppose, I consider the series of events that all seem to surround aging and that seem to be coming in waves during the past few days to be little else than a coincidence and related to the simple fact that when we're Playing in the Last Quarter we are intermingling with other Old Farts more often than before.
This weekend, a neighbor walked by as M and I were trying to get into our roadster and limping. "Two knee replacements and one of them didn't seem to have worked."
M, herself, has been struggling with the results of her slip and fall, this Summer, a torn bicep, and PDJ (Pervasive Degenerating Joints .... [not certain you'll find PDJ in Medical Books but lemme tell ya ... its all over the place if you jaw enough with Older Folk]).
Tuesday night's meeting of a bunch of old healers was disquieting. One of the older members (average age is over 75) is getting even more confused and certainly more belligerent. In the Old World, I envision such folk sitting in the Town Square and shaking their canes at passersby and kids playing ball in the street.
Then, last night's meeting of group that meets to discuss how we can help "Older Adults" stay in their homes without going Bananas, Bonkers and Bullocks ... or is that Bullox? (Like Castor (Oil) and Bullox ... the great constellations of the Late Evening Sky ... I mean THE LATE EVENING SKY!) We're putting together a Leaf Raking program ... and maybe a Snow-Shoveling program .... volunteers coming from the community to help their less vigorous neighbors. ... Suddenly occurred to me: I shouldn't volunteer for this program ... like, Howard ... I mean ... you're on the wrong side of 65. They're gonna find you motionless and frozen at the end of someone's driveway. Someone may think you're a coat-rack or something .... inert with one arm clutching your chest and the other reaching for a response from God.
And then there was the visitor to my office who was distressed by being 57 ... 'Even if I get better ... isn't my life over ... I'm 57.'
You know. The Fourth Quarter doesn't begin till 60 and some of us do hope to be Playing in Overtime before we forget where we hid the Ginkgo Paloba, get escorted home by a police cruiser, and can't tell the difference between Lunesta and Livitra.
Actually? It's been a pretty good week. Hope M is feeling better soon and GuntherDog doesn't abandon us both on some ice floe in the Arctic Circle.
This weekend, a neighbor walked by as M and I were trying to get into our roadster and limping. "Two knee replacements and one of them didn't seem to have worked."
M, herself, has been struggling with the results of her slip and fall, this Summer, a torn bicep, and PDJ (Pervasive Degenerating Joints .... [not certain you'll find PDJ in Medical Books but lemme tell ya ... its all over the place if you jaw enough with Older Folk]).
Tuesday night's meeting of a bunch of old healers was disquieting. One of the older members (average age is over 75) is getting even more confused and certainly more belligerent. In the Old World, I envision such folk sitting in the Town Square and shaking their canes at passersby and kids playing ball in the street.
Then, last night's meeting of group that meets to discuss how we can help "Older Adults" stay in their homes without going Bananas, Bonkers and Bullocks ... or is that Bullox? (Like Castor (Oil) and Bullox ... the great constellations of the Late Evening Sky ... I mean THE LATE EVENING SKY!) We're putting together a Leaf Raking program ... and maybe a Snow-Shoveling program .... volunteers coming from the community to help their less vigorous neighbors. ... Suddenly occurred to me: I shouldn't volunteer for this program ... like, Howard ... I mean ... you're on the wrong side of 65. They're gonna find you motionless and frozen at the end of someone's driveway. Someone may think you're a coat-rack or something .... inert with one arm clutching your chest and the other reaching for a response from God.
And then there was the visitor to my office who was distressed by being 57 ... 'Even if I get better ... isn't my life over ... I'm 57.'
You know. The Fourth Quarter doesn't begin till 60 and some of us do hope to be Playing in Overtime before we forget where we hid the Ginkgo Paloba, get escorted home by a police cruiser, and can't tell the difference between Lunesta and Livitra.
Actually? It's been a pretty good week. Hope M is feeling better soon and GuntherDog doesn't abandon us both on some ice floe in the Arctic Circle.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
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