I'm back to "feeding" some mouse/mice. Back to the Havahart ... Filling it with food and coming back to finding the food gone with no obvious sense of gratitude ...
Mildred ... Will you just shut the door and let me catch you and send you out into the Winter!?
Maybe, that's part of Playing in the Last Quarter ... accepting that there will always be more mice.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Good News?
I don't know how to separate Good from Bad News ... but after posting about Morte de Mortimer, I found one of his friends alive and well in one of the Havahart traps and set a very frightened him/her Mouse free in the Wild. It was certainly a Mouse ... big eyed ... adorable. May s/he go on to a long life of avoiding cats somewhere out of my office and home.
I'm starting to feel vaguely religious about this whole matter. They say many people find their way back to Faith in the Last Quarter. I do not know whether Mortimer did or not.
I'm starting to feel vaguely religious about this whole matter. They say many people find their way back to Faith in the Last Quarter. I do not know whether Mortimer did or not.
A Public Confession: Mea Maxima Culpa
Mortimer the Mouse is dead. I killed him.
After a week of trying to bait two different Havahart traps that allow a homeowner or office denizen to catch a so-called pest and return him live to the Wild, Mortimer kept taunting me with each of my visitors, last night. He would come out of wherever he was making noise and run about and scamper back into hiding. He was feasting on peanut butter and crackers each time he would successfully foil the Havahart trap.
I could say that it was "Death by Cop" as they call it in the TV shoot-em-ups. But truth be told, Mortimer and his kin were doing what they had been doing forever ... finding shelter from the Winter's cold and I was doing what Colonialists have done, forever: claiming this home and office as my own and killing anyone who got in my way.
I don't know much about Morty (who may have been a Magdalene). I don't know if he was a Father ... of course, he was some Mouse's child. Actually, as I said yesterday, he might've been a vole. But it was me who went out to the hardware store where they sell chemical weapons and brought Mort to his end. RIP, Good Buddy!
Alas. I have met and known too many people who are unwilling to accept what my youngest child's Nursery School teacher told her many years ago: "when you walk or drive, you're often stepping on bugs and killing them ... know that! ... think about that." Edith Post was a very smart old lady. I'm not speaking about original sin but the ongoing everyday sins of living. The folk I've known may be divided (perhaps, this is too simple) into two categories. First and not so uncommon are those who cannot imagine doing harm to others, though they do see when others harm them. Second is a group who may even think about causing pain to others. In my work with kids and their parents, I have found that the "innocent" group ... those who simply cannot imagine hurting or wanting to hurt their kids, do indeed hurt or even abuse them. Then there are those who betimes have fantasies or images of hanging their kids by their toes and whacking them with the core of a roll of paper toweling or worse; they tend to not abuse their kids.
Ah! The non-thought is Father to the deed, as one of my visitors claimed was the most important thing he learned from me. (Or that I learned from him!)
Sorry Mortimer! If we meet in some better place at some better time at "the Inn at the end of the road*", I owe you one! Maybe I'll tell you about a relative of yours in the Winter of 1973 ... We called him Harvey Wallbanger and worked out a way to save him .... many times.
* (I think Alexander Woolcott's or GK Chesterton's eulogy for the other or for Dickens ... can't recall)
After a week of trying to bait two different Havahart traps that allow a homeowner or office denizen to catch a so-called pest and return him live to the Wild, Mortimer kept taunting me with each of my visitors, last night. He would come out of wherever he was making noise and run about and scamper back into hiding. He was feasting on peanut butter and crackers each time he would successfully foil the Havahart trap.
I could say that it was "Death by Cop" as they call it in the TV shoot-em-ups. But truth be told, Mortimer and his kin were doing what they had been doing forever ... finding shelter from the Winter's cold and I was doing what Colonialists have done, forever: claiming this home and office as my own and killing anyone who got in my way.
I don't know much about Morty (who may have been a Magdalene). I don't know if he was a Father ... of course, he was some Mouse's child. Actually, as I said yesterday, he might've been a vole. But it was me who went out to the hardware store where they sell chemical weapons and brought Mort to his end. RIP, Good Buddy!
Alas. I have met and known too many people who are unwilling to accept what my youngest child's Nursery School teacher told her many years ago: "when you walk or drive, you're often stepping on bugs and killing them ... know that! ... think about that." Edith Post was a very smart old lady. I'm not speaking about original sin but the ongoing everyday sins of living. The folk I've known may be divided (perhaps, this is too simple) into two categories. First and not so uncommon are those who cannot imagine doing harm to others, though they do see when others harm them. Second is a group who may even think about causing pain to others. In my work with kids and their parents, I have found that the "innocent" group ... those who simply cannot imagine hurting or wanting to hurt their kids, do indeed hurt or even abuse them. Then there are those who betimes have fantasies or images of hanging their kids by their toes and whacking them with the core of a roll of paper toweling or worse; they tend to not abuse their kids.
Ah! The non-thought is Father to the deed, as one of my visitors claimed was the most important thing he learned from me. (Or that I learned from him!)
Sorry Mortimer! If we meet in some better place at some better time at "the Inn at the end of the road*", I owe you one! Maybe I'll tell you about a relative of yours in the Winter of 1973 ... We called him Harvey Wallbanger and worked out a way to save him .... many times.
* (I think Alexander Woolcott's or GK Chesterton's eulogy for the other or for Dickens ... can't recall)
Thursday, November 7, 2013
My Friends from 1994
(Follow-up on Mortimer the Mouse)
Yesterday, I jumped up on my bed
And heard a scratching overhead.
Had I heard this sound before
Perhaps a’scratching on my door?
Ghosts of road-kills from the past?
I got down from my bed real fast.
I fell upon a cold hard floor
And scurried fast right outside my door.
There they were six feet or more
Rockie Raccoon and his sister Lenore.
Coons you’d never chance to feed last
Whether in the attic or on your grass.
So now I’ll sleep a’standing on my head
While Rockie and Lenore scratch in my bed.
The Peripatetic Animal Phobe Home Alone
Yesterday, I jumped up on my bed
And heard a scratching overhead.
Had I heard this sound before
Perhaps a’scratching on my door?
Ghosts of road-kills from the past?
I got down from my bed real fast.
I fell upon a cold hard floor
And scurried fast right outside my door.
There they were six feet or more
Rockie Raccoon and his sister Lenore.
Coons you’d never chance to feed last
Whether in the attic or on your grass.
So now I’ll sleep a’standing on my head
While Rockie and Lenore scratch in my bed.
Can You Afford to Lose Some Battles?
I guess one of the things Eriksons Eight Conflicts of People at different stages of Being doesn't emphasize is the need for a bit of humor in losing some battles here and there. Maybe it was recent ... maybe not .... a visitor did leave a door open to my waiting room on one of our recent cool days ... those looking down the road-just-ahead ... the Road to Winter. Apparently Mortimer the Mouse or Wilhelm der Vole et familia decided to take up residence in my office and home ... maybe hearing that Ft. Lauderdale was getting crowded or that Voting Rights Acts were being abridged in their usual vacation spots in America's South.
Any case, I did what any card carrying Mouse-Lover would do. I ordered live-traps from Amazon. I now have one that needs a squirrel sized mouse to set it off ... the Sylvester Stallone of Mice. And I have another adorable little one that is especially made to entice one's free-loader in to have a piece of peanut-butter-on-cracker, setting off a trip platform which shuts a door. Now I understand some old expressions, like:
Gotta build a better Mouse trap ...
Smarter than the average Mouse ...
And why Jerry almost always outsmarts Tom (Tom and Jerry Cartoons). In 1994, I wrote a bit of doggerel about Rocky Raccoon and his Sister Lenore who had taken up temporary residence in my attic and, now, I've become the great benefactor and feeder of Mortimer the Mouse who has/have figured out how to not trip the door by (maybe) leaping over it with joyful abandon and who seem to love peanut butter on his or her or their crackers. I could be a nice guy and go for the full treatment: peanut better and STRAWBERRY jelly ... Hey, PB&J for all!
Any case, I did what any card carrying Mouse-Lover would do. I ordered live-traps from Amazon. I now have one that needs a squirrel sized mouse to set it off ... the Sylvester Stallone of Mice. And I have another adorable little one that is especially made to entice one's free-loader in to have a piece of peanut-butter-on-cracker, setting off a trip platform which shuts a door. Now I understand some old expressions, like:
Gotta build a better Mouse trap ...
Smarter than the average Mouse ...
And why Jerry almost always outsmarts Tom (Tom and Jerry Cartoons). In 1994, I wrote a bit of doggerel about Rocky Raccoon and his Sister Lenore who had taken up temporary residence in my attic and, now, I've become the great benefactor and feeder of Mortimer the Mouse who has/have figured out how to not trip the door by (maybe) leaping over it with joyful abandon and who seem to love peanut butter on his or her or their crackers. I could be a nice guy and go for the full treatment: peanut better and STRAWBERRY jelly ... Hey, PB&J for all!
Monday, November 4, 2013
By the Last Quarter, they all apply.
| Position First Appears | Immersed in a Basic Conflict | And continues into later years. | Fulcrum on which the Position Balances or Fails to Balance |
Infancy (birth to 18 months) | Trust vs. Mistrust | Last Quarter | How much can I trust/how much do I need to mistrust ... my legs to walk, my hands to hold, my fingers to button, my heart to not succumb to leaf-raking in the Fall .... my spouse to hang in there and for either of us not to become rancorously bitter. |
Early Childhood (2 to 3 years) | Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt | Last Quarter | How much can I do things for myself or think I need to do things, without help or even feel that "help" is no more to be offered. Comfortable resolution leads to feelings of autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt. |
Preschool (3 to 5 years) | Initiative vs. Guilt | Last Quarter | How much do I find excuses for not engaging the world. Success in this stage leads to a sense of ongoing meaning and purpose. People who force the issue, end up doing damage and feel guilty. |
School Age (6 to 11 years) | Industry vs. Inferiority | Last Quarter | Here, it's easy. It's connected to the previous position. I do better if I feel that my engagement (prev. position) with the world is well done. Indeed, there are lots of ways to get up and go. |
Adolescence (12 to 18 years) | Identity vs. Role Confusion | Last Quarter | Am I just a grandpa? a grandma? a pensioner? an old fart? Or do I develop and befriend a sense of who I am. |
Young Adulthood (19 to 40 years) | Intimacy vs. Isolation | Last Quarter | Young adults need to form intimate, loving relationships with other people. Success leads to strong relationships, while failure results in loneliness and isolation. |
Middle Adulthood (40 to 65 years) | Generativity vs. Stagnation | Last Quarter | Adults need to contribute in a manner that outlasts their own too brief stay in Life. By the Last Quarter we've contributed kids (for better or for worse) and whatever we did at work. Success leads to accepting new adventures ... Failure to endless repetition. |
Maturity(65 to death) | Ego Integrity vs. Despair | ?? | (I've never believed that Erikson's last stage added much to the previous ones. Maybe he was thinking: I just gotta hold it, together. |
I've been saying for the past couple of years that gettin' on is neither for the feint of heart nor for anyone but the bold to energetically engage. I'm comfortable with the idea that many folk would produce different sets of basic conflicts that follow us through life. I suppose this has the imprint of my own conflicts. How else could it be?
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Last Quarter Alienation
I spent the past three days mostly at a meeting of people with interests similar to mine and -- in the large -- folk within 15 years of my age. I suppose I did these calculations at those moments when the threat was greatest that I might look disinterested. I suppose I heard about twenty talks over the three days and five of them (there I go calculating, again) I found annoying, boring, or "kinda-silly." That's pretty good, I suppose. Three quarters kept my attention and one quarter gave me time to either think a bit about my own stuff (relationships, the arthritis that has just appeared in my right hand, the visitors to my office that I would be seeing at that moment if I weren't in some Sheraton Hotel conference room, why the conference planners weren't arranging for coffee ... ) ... my own disgruntledness.
Ah! Disgruntledness in the Last Quarter. That's not exactly what I'd be talking about on the third day of the meeting when it was my turn "to share wisdoms," but that was part of it. I was going to show a half hour of a film about a Belgian high school student who was very different than most of his peers ... lacked social-cuing skills ... like verbal pragmatics ... knowing when to enter a conversation and how to filter out extraneous information which is so much a part of communication and to "get the message" through the garbage that accompanies it. The Director/Screenwriter had written it in response to a kid from Brussels who in those circumstances suicided. (Movie is called Ben-X).
I was to using it as a metaphor to help me understand the way difference was negotiated in the communities to which I belonged .... a number of which not untypically are plagued with infighting and splits. Such thoughts, I believe, must also relate to my own sense of adolescent alienation and I was gonna (and did) talk of that, as well.
Speaking is strange. Not untypically I and those with whom I've discussed this have a parallel conversation going on in their minds ... well, maybe not exactly parallel to the conversation at hand. Like right now, I am thinking, paraphrasing an old song: 'The Autumn leaves upon my lawn ... the Autumn leaves ... need be raked' (I could go on ... I'll resist the temptation). But back to the feelings of alienation.
This AM it occurs to me that while this sense of not being comfortably situated in a group is, indeed, typical in the high school years, I see it more and more among my confreres in the Fourth Quarter. Someone (Erik Erikson) said that if one fails to feel a sense of giving back in the 60-Death years, the result is despair. I don't recall how old he was when he wrote about these stages of being that he described ... each stage potentially dominated by a central conflict, but it occurs to me more powerfully than before that these conflicts are present at every such stage (Erikson agreed but it hits me more so as I negotiate his Last stage).
Maybe I'll list all the conflicts he postulated when I write next and think about how each new one brings the older ones along. (Parallel conversation? thinking, at the moment of his early childhood conflict: 'Trust vs. Mistrust' as I say, for today ...)
Bye.
Ah! Disgruntledness in the Last Quarter. That's not exactly what I'd be talking about on the third day of the meeting when it was my turn "to share wisdoms," but that was part of it. I was going to show a half hour of a film about a Belgian high school student who was very different than most of his peers ... lacked social-cuing skills ... like verbal pragmatics ... knowing when to enter a conversation and how to filter out extraneous information which is so much a part of communication and to "get the message" through the garbage that accompanies it. The Director/Screenwriter had written it in response to a kid from Brussels who in those circumstances suicided. (Movie is called Ben-X).
I was to using it as a metaphor to help me understand the way difference was negotiated in the communities to which I belonged .... a number of which not untypically are plagued with infighting and splits. Such thoughts, I believe, must also relate to my own sense of adolescent alienation and I was gonna (and did) talk of that, as well.
Speaking is strange. Not untypically I and those with whom I've discussed this have a parallel conversation going on in their minds ... well, maybe not exactly parallel to the conversation at hand. Like right now, I am thinking, paraphrasing an old song: 'The Autumn leaves upon my lawn ... the Autumn leaves ... need be raked' (I could go on ... I'll resist the temptation). But back to the feelings of alienation.
This AM it occurs to me that while this sense of not being comfortably situated in a group is, indeed, typical in the high school years, I see it more and more among my confreres in the Fourth Quarter. Someone (Erik Erikson) said that if one fails to feel a sense of giving back in the 60-Death years, the result is despair. I don't recall how old he was when he wrote about these stages of being that he described ... each stage potentially dominated by a central conflict, but it occurs to me more powerfully than before that these conflicts are present at every such stage (Erikson agreed but it hits me more so as I negotiate his Last stage).
Maybe I'll list all the conflicts he postulated when I write next and think about how each new one brings the older ones along. (Parallel conversation? thinking, at the moment of his early childhood conflict: 'Trust vs. Mistrust' as I say, for today ...)
Bye.
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