"der Fledermaus"

Alas! I'm feeling much more like "DeFlated Maus" ... than der Fledermaus! No wind under these  bat-wings, today ... Anyhow ... Nothing like Strauss's Bat ...  Feeling, I fear, the Burn of the Fourth Quarter. And a burn there is to this getting on in years crap.

It wasn't GuntherDog showing his age or M's surgery or helping with her recovery that got to me ... just, I fear, the years ... my years. When I began these postings 3 years ago, it seemed kinda funny. "Playing in the Last Quarter! Yeah! I can do this forever." Well, today it feels like "not forever."

Two nights ago, had dream that included a house being blown off the shore ... under water. That's it. I am temporarily underwater. Wonder indeed, how Bernie Sanders keeps up the pace of running for POTUS. 

Bernie ... You're my hero. While all these clowns (excluding the Gov of Ohio) 

are playing seventh grade taunts, you just keep up a pace made for younger folk ...

and with a kind of Old-Guy-from-Brooklyn verve. 

Verve and Nerve ... 

that's the Old-Guy-from-Brooklyn RIGHT STUFF! 

Trump can't decide ifhe likes support from David Duke! 

Rubio intimates that Trump has a small trumpet! 

Huckabee is afraid to challenge Trump for ... well ... for being Trump! 

Cruz is getting off on spreading rumors!

And poor Dr. Carson ... can't tell what he's up to.

Considering the pace Sanders is keeping up, he'd be better off having a Cardiologist on stage for the debates rather than a Pediatric Neurologist ... just in case. Ben is better for the Nymph Infants on stage ... the Phucking Babies ... they could use some neurosurgery ... maybe a rostral leuchotomy ... hey, maybe a lobotomy? Trump, Cruz and Rubio playing in new release of the Living Dead!

But me? Little things are energically-speaking, bankrupting me, these days. Showed and discussed a movie (Radio Flyer) about child abuse, yesterday, to a bunch of friendly clinicians? ... came home tired. And the little stuff that I'm not supposed to sweat:

• Did the laundry? I fretted to myself about turning shirts inside out.
• Garbage day? Again!
• Peeling a Winter Squash? Maybe I need to sit down.
• Time to wake up, today? As my Hungarian Mother would say: Yoy, Ishtinem!

Any case ... I have every belief that I'll get my Old-Guy-Brooklyn-Mojo back ... but not today! Today, I'll have to live vicariously through Bernie! Hillary is likely to beat yer ass but ... yer all I got ... 

Go, Bernie, go!

The Naive Blogster!

For some years, now, I've -- at least from time to time -- been haunted by a tune and some lyrics from, I think, the 50's ... the 1950's. Something like:

Take away the past

It will bring no relief

Only heartache and grief

Take away the past!

The tune is pretty fresh in my mind but The Google -- as I've heard some of my older confreres call the search-engine that has supplanted the Funk n' Wagnall's -- has failed me, this time. Old Man Freud suggested that neurotics "suffer from reminiscences." Well, maybe, not just neurotics.

I do, as a therapist, get to accompany people on their reappraisals of their own lives. There are times, certainly, with denizens of the Fourth Quarter that I have shared my sense that we all do, indeed, suffer from our appraisals of our selves, our accomplishments and even our relationships. I find myself dealing with a sadness that I indulged my interests ... many of my interests. Scriptural Texts, Mathematics, Teaching, Administration, Psychoanalysis and Writing have collectively joined to take up much of my time since the 1960's (not the 1970's which we call the 1960's!), alongside Husbanding and Parenting ... and for the past two decades ... Grandparenting.* I wonder about the balances that I worked out or that fortuitously or infortuitously worked themselves out over the first Three Quarters. I don't fret much about it and it has been, for me, a pretty good ride. 

Still, I suffer from disappointments. I think I mentioned this in a blog posting during the last election cycle. I suspect there is a universal experience that relates to a fantasy that in my mind plays out as:

I thought I had that problem solved.

As a trivial example ... M and I live in an old house that once was a Presbyterian Widow's Home. We've been here for 37 years. While in some sense, we own the house ... in another way of thinking we are more like Landed Immigrants and/or Temporary Residents. We have a sort of Green Card which allows us to play house. Frankly, the mice have a more permanent lease and every so many years they appear and make that more obvious. I think it was a Bedouin who I once heard saying that the Middle East quibbling over who owns this or that land is pure silliness. His ancestors had been occupying the Middle East just about forever.

Ach! It's not the mice, though, that tickles my mind, this morning. I was thinking of my curious thoughts about our toilets. We have maybe three times as many toilets as we have butts to sit on them ... if you don't count GuntherDog, anyway ... and he -- mostly, anyhow -- is an outdoor plumbing kinda guy. Any case ... I grow up in a family where my Father fixed our stuff and, I suppose, felt it was among my tasks in life to fix them ... raised as I was at Papa's knee.

I never quite learn. Each time I fix a toilet, I imagine that it's fixed for good; and each time, I experience disappointment when the next time comes and the flush/ballcock valve or flapper or wax seal or ... gives up the ghost and requires attention. I get over it ... I do!

More seriously, though, and every four years, I get to deal with other psychic shit. I'm referring to the neurotic disappointment I feel when I realize that my belief that certain things in society have been corrected -- once and for all, so to speak -- was fool's gold, at best. M and I shoulda learned by now but we haven't. We sit and listen to Cable News pundits (who call themselves "pundants," for some inexplicable reason) describing a grotesquerie of madnesses in the newest cast of characters from a bad Charles Adam's Horror-Comedy. 

Can it be that one of the presidential candidates says 

horrible things about Mexicans and considers general 

policies that act against a religion that represents 25% 

of the World's population?

Can it be that another one of the presidential candidates 

advertises support from two guys who speak of hunting 

those members of my .02% religious tribe who might 

not accept his messiah or another who advocates 

executions for gay folk?

Can it be that still another one of the presidential 

candidates openly says that a Muslim can't be 

President of the USA?

Can it be that yet and still another one of the presidential 

candidates sees nothing wrong with taking a million dollars 

in speaker fees from a company that the taxpayers had to 

bail out after really nasty and dangerous business practices?

Can some candidate who offends and insults and 

says -- more or less -- nothing actually be leading 

the polls in his party? A common school yard bully 

and rabble-rouser?

And can it be that a mixed race President can be 

treated with such contempt for 8 years? 

Any case ... Toilets are not fixed forever, the flow of political shit seems to show no signs of easing up and my Psyche seems to fight against both of these realities.  And still, this sometimes naive guy is surprised/shocked that all this wasn't fixed -- once and for all!

By the way ... In the name of full disclosure ... Like the other readers here who have endured more and much more than 60 years, I have lived under the administration of some ten Presidents. For me? Obama has been the first with whom I have been able to identify. A guy who thinks well ... a married  guy, like me ... a dad ... and unlike many of our Presidents, he seems to keep his trousers buckled when appropriate. 

* Grandparenting? Among the more strenuous Synchronized Olympian Sports!

"Who Can I Turn To? When Nobody Needs Me?"

It was more than 50 years ago that M and I went to see Anthony Newley and Cyril Richard do their magic on Broadway. I can't recall whether we ever saw Stop the World or whether "Who can I Turn To" is in Stop the World or Smell of the Greasepaint; Roar of the Crowd. With my memory as it is, these days? it could be in neither. 

Any case ... Stop the World? ...  Story of Littlechap, from birth to his death. Poor fella has one reaction to more or less everything:  'Stop the world!'  I sometimes think I know what he means. For him? Being born, going off to school, working as a tea-boy, and marrying the boss's daughter, after getting her pregnant ... each time screaming: 'Stop the World.'  Not quite so common in the Sixties as today, this out-of-wedlock pregnancy thing ... not sure the expression still exists in the Oxford English Dictionary ... I think it went the way of carburetors. Littlechap works for her Dad taking care of wife and two daughters. He keeps looking for a woman, tho, that will make him happy. He does becomes rich and famous ... runs for public office. When he's old, he gets it ... what Ecclesiastes said ... that most of life is bullshit except for relationship (Ecclesiastes' 'love of a woman')  what he always had—the love of his wife— was more than enough to sustain him. The writer of Ecclesiastes added: Fear of God! After Littlechap's wife dies, he is watching his daughter give birth to the son he never had and gives himself over to Death to save the little guy. Sad story. Sadder than Walter Mitty and ... with great music! 

The play I'm certain we did sometime in early 1965 was "Roar of the Greasepaint." Maybe "who can I turn to" was there. In any case, Anthony Newley's stuff was on my mind in the middle of the night listening to M struggle with the pain from the knee replacement. I think I've been averaging a couple of hours each night of sleep ... enough to sustain me. Maybe I'm learning to appreciate what is ... like Littlechap or Cockey, in the later play. Sleeplessness does give me time to remember songs ... I do a lot of songs in the middle of the night and have most often over the past several quarters arisen with "A Song in My Heart." I have, I suppose, my own little i-Pod of songs recorded ... religious ones, silly ones, Broadway tunes and crooning Croons. I think I must have them on some special kind of unconscious Shuffle that picks an appropriate melody to match the latest events ... residue from the day's madness (if you follow Freud).

It's been more than a month since I sat here writing about "gittin' on in the Last Quarter"  ... last time was day after M's first post-surgical trip .... 6+ hours in the car followed by considerable pain. Progress is slow with these surgeries and my nursing duties continue. To paraphrase Delmore Schwartz, With Last Quarter Comes Responsibility. Maybe Achebe Chinua had it right: Things Fall Apart!

Any case ... "I will be back."

Facing the Moosic and Other Puny Puns

Memories of a recent multi-generational jaunt ... 300 miles round-trip. Twelve year old twins, one of them particularly into "I discovered boys." Two Grandparents ... the Wordy-Nerdy One and the One with a Gnu Knee. Daughter of the Older Ones and her Husband, the Philosopher of Ancient Greek, the Father of their Three Kids. Their Oldest one is in China ... Woulda been nice to have her on board.

My Son-in-Law is driving. Realistically? He drives better than I do but kinda drives up peoples' butts ... His reaction times, undoubtedly, are better than mine but driving in the Middle row of seats is less than fully relaxing. I say nothing; after all, his reaction times are, indeed, much better than mine and multi-generational drives -- any way you look at them -- are a bit of immortality. John Donne chastened Death to "be not proud" because a day would come when Death, itself, would die:

Death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die.

I'll take the immortality of driving through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with M and one strand of our immortality present-and-accounted-for. Half way to our destination, we pass by a town visible  through the left window of the van ... a town built mostly in a valley but slowly creeping up the hill ... a suburb, I suppose, of Wilkes-Barre ... a town named Moosic. This is -- what once was -- coal country until mining, itself, went the way of all Creations. We pass by the 6,000 or so Souls with their more than a thousand stories ... little frame houses. I think: Each one? A story. Each one? A family trying to figure it out ... whatever it is.

My son-in-law comments that when we return later in the afternoon, we'll have "to face the Moosic." I think to myself ... 'maybe it was named after that sickie, Bullwinkle!' My daughter chose a quick-of-tongue hubby. I think his take on artificial turkey-baster insemination was: "A sperm is a terrible thing to baste." Ouch!

We drive on past a dozen or more similarly sized and situated towns ... tucked in between the hills that undoubtedly hide many other such ... There was even a town named Jermyn ... again, I think to myself a bit of driving silliness ... the Germans maybe think correctly that the World is a bunch of Burgs and Bergs ... and the odd Burger. ... Ach! My humor gets no better, as I age.

We were traveling to see a little parcel of land on a large pond/small lake in Honesdale, Pa. During the Depression, my Paternal Grandfather would leave his wife and kids in Brooklyn or maybe they were living in Knickerbocker Village in the refugee ghetto of Manhattan each Sunday and drive with others in a truck to get work for the week in Honesdale. Coal was still necessary in the Depression. In the Sixties, a fellow Graduate Student, Jack, would fill me in on how the culture of Wilkes-Barre was connected to the silky stroke he had with a cue on a Green 4.5x9 foot table. I guess by the 50's, regular work in the mines -- however dangerous -- had been replaced by a bar and pool-hall on alternating corners of his childhood home. 

Moosic ... Jermyn ... Honesdale ... Wilkes-Barre ... full of homes ... each with its own stories ... essentially, none of which I know. I pass them by with my own story ... part of my family's story ... another reincarnation of the unfolding fractals that maybe render Donne's poesy reductive.

Hey! I'm just drivin' along in the Last Quarter of Life. As it turned out, the parcel of land was next to a pond that was being scheduled for draining sometime pretty soon. 

We opted for a late breakfast. Kinda nice.

Rest in Peace, Pretty Girl -- Y'did Real Good

The Last Kindness ... Digging a grave for one we loved. My parents died quite a long time ago and, today, it was Pretty Girl's turn. M and I have been taking care of her for months ... long before M's surgery. Recently, she stopped eating and drinking and had dropped to something like half her weight.  Years of climbing up on the counter and doing tight-rope walks by the sink were over. The past few days if I would sit with her on the floor, she'd edge up to my lap ... raspy breathing ... sounded like congestive heart failure ... the Vet had agreed a few months ago and we opted to work on the infection on her leg and the respiratory one with antibiotics and steroids. Worked for a couple of months ... then, she crashed. Half-blind, dizzy, listless and not eating or drinking, now, for two days.

Pretty Girl was a Southern Belle. Our middle child or his wife ( I can no longer recall) called one day some 15 years ago. "There's a pink-eyed pretty white cat being chased by dogs in our yard. We tried bringing her in and Yasha (their cat) vetoed all efforts. Y'wanna come and take a look?" Richmond, VA is about 250 miles from Philadelphia but who could turn down an offer to visit our second Grandchild (and only Grandson). There was little doubt that she was a cat. Somewhat stand-offish but interested. C-A-T. Driving home, we decided to call her Pretty Girl Freud and came to call her just Pretty Girl. We never knew how old she was ... but certainly a pre-Millenial. She was not particularly interested in Shayna Rosa the Wonder Dog or Munkacz the Cat ... and liked to be petted by her Peeps for no more than 10 or 15 seconds before her claws came out.

Still, Pretty was interested. She'd spend her days looking out windows and sunbathing. C-A-T! When we'd come home from being out, she'd toddle down the stairs and show off her bounteous beauty. That was about it. Then, about ten years in, Pretty Girl got friendly. We never knew what had changed ... some sort of Feline Epiphany on the Value of Relationship. Our oldest Grandchild, S, came over this morning with her Mom, our third child, to say good-bye before the Vet came over to bring peace to the Old Lady. S and Pretty had a special relationship, as did our neighbor who would visit when we were away. I had been outside digging the grave, when S with her gentle touch for animals from Cats to Cows arrived. M and I were both lost in tears. The funeral, an hour later, was similar ... M and I saying good-bye to Sweet Pretty.

I suppose it's not all of us Last Quarter Players but most of us do have friendly animal ghosts from our first Three Quarters ... Dogs, Cats and others who have walked with us. And, so .... 

IN MEMORIAM

 Our first dog, Kazimierza Kuratowski von Mardanoff was a female Bernard.  At the time, I was assisting the retired head of the Polska Akademie who was visiting in the USA. I had agreed to chauffeur him on a speaking tour in exchange for his mentoring me -- 65 years his junior -- on the history of Polish Mathematics ... on the History of Topology which he more or less began with Janiszewski and Sierpinski in the earlier part of the XXth C.  Prof. Kuratowski asked that we name our dog after him. "Children? They've been named in my honor many times ... but never a dignified dog."

Kaz mothered our young sons and, as she came as a puppy, helped our oldest with his hesitancy around dogs as she grew from maybe 15 pounds to ten times that size. It was typical to find our two toddlers curled up like puppies sleeping against her belly ... protected by the boundary created by her big legs. Kaz had ten pups of her own. One, Karol Borsuk, stayed with us for nearly a year, though Kaz finally whacked her with her paw when at 9 months she tried to nurse. Kaz was, indeed, a Saint ... and a Living Ghost for both M and I.

 Hans who we would learn was a Gretl was to be given by the Art Teacher to a student in a school I ran for disturbed adolescents. The student played hookie that last day of school and Hans returned home with me. It took M ten minutes to warm up to a cat; she had no previous contact with cats. M was 8 months with our third child. While Kaz died following a Gastric Torsion at 6, Hans lived to be a very old lady, indeed.

 Schreber was a male St. Bernard and very protective. We took him to a Doggie Shrink who suggested that we castrate him. As soon as the Doc said that, Schreber took his right paw and covered his eyes. We thought it best to leave his testicles where God placed them and introduced each new stranger to him with the loaf of bread trick: meet the stranger at the curb and have them feed Schreber a piece of bread at-a-time until they were in the door. Job done! Best Friends Forever. Schreber did still have difficulty with anyone wearing fur. M's Sister came once wearing a fur collar. Schreber, who stood 6'5" tall when on his hind legs, went for her neck. He missed. At ten, Schreber passed quietly in the night. I have warm memories of coming home and him elevating himself ... paws on my shoulders ... and licking my face. What a guy! And off-campus and away from his protectorate, he was a sweetheart. You did Good, Schreber.

 During Schreber's tenure, a hungry fat-cat showed up at our back door and stayed. Charcoal Grey with a little splash of White and a Big Appetite? We named him after a part of Hungary and mispelled it as Munkasz (pron. Mun-Kotch). He was no mouser and one resident-visitor seeing a mouse run across the kitchen floor screamed: "Do your job!" But Munkacz had no aggression in him and thought the mouse just fine. He lived to be an Old Fat Man ... and much beloved.

 After Schreber died, M and I did the unthinkable: we drove by an SPCA, an animal rescue with a child in the back seat. Never do that! Our youngest took her best shot at "please, please" and won. Shayna Rosa, our first Mutt, was in the car. Shayna taught us all about inclusiveness and a great deal about love. Each new animal to come home was initiated into family life by Shayna. She brought Munkacz and later Matyos (who our son brought home from Vienna) down from their hiding places on the third floor. Shayna had it all figured out. She would sit at the bottom of the staircase and go up maybe two steps a week until she could sit with the new family member on the third floor and, eventually, come down with them. Initiation complete. We renamed her Shayna Rosa the Wonda Dog.

 Shayna lived a long time and during her tenure we brought another Bernard Puppy into the fold ... Mitzvah for our daughter's 13th birthday. Shayna took on the role of Mother to the Pup ... and continued those functions throughout Mitzvah's life. Mitzvah was a ditz ... and a ditz with a seizure disorder that finally took her from us. Shayna's altogether too thorough cleaning of Mitzvah had our older son calling them the Lesbian Dogs from Hell. Shayna was no ditz, though. She had for years sat under the piano while this cat or another would walk across the keys. Shayna would howl like the Diva she was. When her baby, Mitzvah, died, Shayna went into mourning and stopped her singing for thirteen months -- maybe the mourning period in the World of Dogs. Shayna lived on. For two years after she died I had the thought, each time I opened the front door, that Shayna would be there ... and a sadness when the obvious reality returned. When that ghostly presence eased and three of our grandchildren were with us for a year, we relented to rescuing GuntherDog from a Kill-Shelter in Kentucky. But ... I've talked of Gunther a great deal in these notes.

  There were other animals, as well. When our own spawn hung out with us, they typically came with their livestock. Winnie-Cat visited for a Summer and Schmookie came from the Middle-East ... a Persian from Jerusalem. Havi the Dog lived with us for a year. I'm pretty certain that I've forgotten some ... certainly, the rabbits and the rodents have been omitted but, then again, they aren't the bearers of love that dogs and cats are.

*****************

I needed to remember, today, much as I needed to do that kindness in accompanying Pretty Girl to her rest. Rest in Peace, Pretty ... Y'did Real Good!

Just a singular last thought ... I've known lots of therapists ... have trained Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers and others and I have great admiration for many of my teachers, students and colleagues. Still, I would recommend a change in language. 

Therapy Dogs and Cats? They should rightly be called Therapists.

Those people who pretend to have the love that our Dogs and Cats have? I would call those pretenders People Therapists to distinguish them from the Real McCoy!

Aftermarket Parts

It's three and a half weeks since M had the surgery. Lot of pain remains and the move from walker to cane is happening in its time. Isaiah said in his language: בעיתא אחישנה ... a paradoxical phrase "In its time, I will hurry it." The medieval commentaries waiting for better times, themselves, argued that if the People were Worthy, Better Times would be Hurried Along by their god. If not, they were Screwed ... Waiting in this Exile or Another. Frankly, I always liked Malachi's view that the Better Times would be recognizable by the fact that the Generations would learn to treat each other with dignity and kindness. והישיב לב אבות על בנים ... and the Hearts of the Parents would be returned to the Children and vice-versa or else all kinds of shit would rain down from Above. 

Well, I am pleased to report that M and I have survived these first 25 days, in spite of the possibility of antipathy between Nurse and Patient. The Nurse's humor has been accepted as just that and the Nurse has accepted that the Patient's recovery will, indeed, come "in its own time."

For instance:

Last night, M didn't much sleep but at 2:50 reported a Dream in which I (aka Nurse Hatchet) invited some 60 people over to a Superbowl party, including my now-long-gone Mother-in-Law. I hadn't bought enough food and nothing was ready. Nevermind the fact that in the first 3+ Quarters of life, I've never attended a football game ... and she had ... with her Dad who died nearly twenty years ago. See. I told you she gives the Nurse a C-!

I responded with:

I love you in spite of your growing list of aftermarket parts. (ISYGLOAP)

Maybe that's among the major accomodations required for being married to the same unreasonable person for Fifty+ years: 

Take things personally, if you like, but never seriously;

Be Almost Always Agreeable (Triple-A Rating -- describes me to a T 😇);

When your spouse asks for something easy -- just say "yes;"

Do stand-up, even when you're horizontal; and, always, I say always ...

Give your Primary Other the Presumption of Good Intentions.

It has been -- dare I say -- an experience not without its blessings. The surgery went fine ... Mother and New Knee both doing well. Terri and Ya'aKov, Ruth, Carol and Jon, Dov and Barbara, Ralph and Deb, and Reba and David brought over foods for us to eat; and JR brought a box of Chocolates. Our kids brought lots of foods and our eldest grand-spawn brought a Vegan Cheese Cake. Good stuff and full of kindness and love. Sickness does come along with the possibility that you'll learn that others do love you. Or, if you're a schmuck (sorry, Donald: a Schlonnnng -- god ... what a schmuck he is!), you'll misread it.

They don't believe I can cook.

No, Howard, they're just being kind and loving.

M and I went out 5 times, including our anniversary on Tuesday, two snacks, a trip to visit our friends, Milt and Ruth, and a trip to Dr. Frankenstein's Office; I managed to work; PT's, OT's, RN's got in without being mauled by GuntherDog; we watched a couple of bad movies and one good one; we ate pretty well; and Life is Good, if full of pain.

As to that pain? M reports hers being mostly down to a 3 on a 10 point scale and she's moving towards OTC pain-relievers, though walking obviously adds to the pain considerably. Moi? M told me not to do some work in the office, advice which I ignored and I managed to inflame my carpal tunnel but the new floor in the office is done and, most importantly, my noncompliance didn't inflame M. 

And Global Warming is grand ... Temps have been in the 60's and 70's.

The moral? 

One can still Play in the Last Quarter 

even with its expectable forays into discomforts and pains.

Carpe Diem, Baby!

I say: Love thine Enemy (Matthew/On the Mount)

2015 is closing up shop. Those reading likely remember Young Simon and Garfunkel's rendition of Silent Night played to a wartime background. We likely remember, as well, the song from HAIR ... "Three Hundred and Fifty Six Viet Nam captured." And South Pacific's "You have to be taught to hate."

The cacophonies in our heads are different, these days. One of the Prez Candidates -- the Cruz Missile -- talks of "Carpet Bombing the Shit Out of Them." He should try some Dulcolax and see if he can get relief some other way. Another makes fun of people and excuses it as an antidote to Verbal Kindness or Christian solicitude or what the Jews call גמילת חסד (g'milas chessed) and the Muslims have a name for it, as well, ra'ufun rahirn. I have no doubt that Buddhists and Bahai's and Hindus and Sufis have similar mandates for the faithful. This latter Clown (above) calls it Political Correctness.

But, as I leave the year, I know that there are parts, too, of my aged Self that cannot meet ideals. If nothing else, my dreaming mind (my unbewusste, in Freud's lingo) tells me otherwise.

It was just last week that I dreamed that I had Forrest Trump the Simpleton in a choke hold and broke his neck. I was then left holding him and realizing he had flesh  like the Pillsbury Doughboy ... white and untoned flesh without substance. I woke up amused. Maybe more? I woke up pleased. 

I don't kill even if I recognize a shadowy part of my mind that realizes that, as an animal, I have the capacity to hate and maybe even to kill ... and, need I add, a capacity to not kill.

God. The day before the one on which nearly 2 Billion people celebrate the birth of a baby and buy, if they have the means, for their own babies gifts to tell them just how much their birth meant and means to them ... On such a day, I confess a selection from my Sins of Hate.

Dear God ...

I have hatred in my heart for those who gratuitously murder.

I have venom for those, like Jeroboam ben Nvat, 

who would not only Sin 

but bring others to Sin.

I have contempt for anyone who would seek to disturb a suckling at its Mother's breast.

I revile those who would dare disturb that Mother in her ministrations.

I resent those who abuse children and innocent animals,

or who abuse me, for that matter.

I have loathing for all who would put "a stumbling block before the blind 

or who would curse the deaf."

I find abominable those who seek to humiliate others

with their obsequious bullshit.

I have contempt for all who would seek profit from others' pain.

I have no stomach for those 

who while and by denying their malevolence towards others,

do them great harm.

Dear Sleeping God who has forgotten Me and My Fellow Creatures ... Let me rouse you with my confession. 

The non-thought is, truly, Father to the Deed. I am no Prince of Peace ... 

I am full of anger and rancor and resentment for those who hurt others 

and, yet, my hatred, itself -- even here and now in the Last Quarter of my Life -- 

must sully your Creation ... just as the actions I hate do. Forgive me! 

I have a sign on a kitchen cabinet in the original biblical script that I teach to my grandchildren:

..... בנפול אויביך אל תשמח

In the falling/failing of your enemies, rejoice not.

And in his stumblings, let your heart not revel. (somewhere in Proverbs).

Aspirational goals, only? I suppose so ... at least, considering my Dream of doing-in the arguably Foulmouthed Philandering Fool who would be Leader of the Free World.

Good that Dreams are just that ... Dreams.

Merry, Merry!