What a pleasant morning! I didn't encounter any flag burnings, gay people undermining the institution of marriage or improvised explosive devices today. Normally on Capitol Hill, you can expect all of the above on any given day.
Wait. Got it wrong. Don't have to worry about IEDs because of cuts to Planned Parenthood. Sorry, but I find politics complicated.
My mother always said: "Admire not the ways of the capitalist, for he makes his money on the broken backs of the workers." Hmmm. Or maybe it was Marx. Whoever.
I'm none-the-less impressed by Warren Buffett for giving away most of his enormous bank to the Gates Foundation. It's not like he's building libraries like Carnegie. His name won't go onto a malaria vaccine. His donation probably isn't without some ego, as reported. That might make this gift a unique one, and therefore, unbearable. I wanted some back slaps when I gave some ducats which probably never reached the Hurricane Katrina survivors. I probably did better with the Tsunami donation. Money was probably better spent there. I digress.
Buffett has put his legacy into the hands of another which is unusual in our world. Here are his random thoughts from one of the articles in today's NYTimes: "A market system has not worked in terms of poor people;" "I don't believe in dynastic wealth" for those "members of the lucky sperm club." He also gets upset with his brethern at his country club when its members complain about welfare mothers getting food stamps "while they are trying to leave their children a more-than-lifetime-supply of food stamps and are substituting a trust officer for a welfare officer."
Buffett is participating in a practical, do-gooder welfare: foster successful businesses and redistribute the accumulated lucre toward a higher, democratic good. Another over-simplification but accurate enough for the likes o me.
I am not certain that making a committment like Buffett has is made easier because he's got a zillion dollars or hangs at a country club. In a news cycle dominated by the sacred cluster of cells, gay marriage bashing, Katrina victims readying for Round Two, and did I mention the march of democracy in Iraq, Mr. Buffett's decision reminds me of the founding character traits that might get us out of these ugly messes. Yes, he rates a "Mr." from me now although he'd probably be quick to wave that title off as well.
I can finally report that after overhearing little kids talking about goblins, ghosts, aliens, etc, I overheard a young man (ten years old?) on a different wavelength. He was trying to convey his excitement about realizing that the government must make a lot of money in taxes! His mom looked a bit perplexed.
If the NSA were listening, maybe they could hook him up with a scholarship to Camp IRS this summer. Or Camp IMF or Camp FED. I believe that children are our future! Bernanke can't last forever.
Since my new employer is a drug-free company, I had to take a drug test yesterday. It's not clear why employers do this. I'm not operating heavy equipment, driving school children around, or determining the lucrative bonus of a CEO. But, I am a team player so I peed in a cup.
It's been years since I've done this. Over a decade at least. I assume that I'm leaking because my new employer is a union shop. (Yes, I'll probably join a Union. This means that at any time, I might bust out with a proud, neo-socialist jingle. My apologies in advance.) Which really brings me to what struck me as a pecular progression in the whole collection process.
In the old days of drug testing, the most labs had little urine confessional windows so you could do your business in private -anonymous- say your penance, and be absolved of drugs. Something like that.
Then there was a period of aggressive attendance. Their interest was in your entire mission (from launch to splashdown) which meant that they'd watch your magical docking with the cup.
In this most recent occurance, I went into a bathroom with the water turned off, peed into a cup (the only constant in this urinical history) and then brought the cup to a happy woman tech. She then poured my efforts into two separate plastic tubes, labeled them and made me initial them.
Somehow, I found this process a bit disconcerting and a little too cheerfully 'hands-on.' I didn't expect to find myself in a high-school lab run by John Waters. Don't ask, Don't Tell might not be a good option for the military. But I think I'd rather dispense with this nonsense, work with junkies, forgive their occassional excesses and keep my urine to myself.
Today on the bus, two women speaking Spanish were discussing writing on a piece of paper, folded in half. It was filled with sentences in English followed, I assume, by some type of stenography. Was it English into Spanish shorthand? Or Spanish into English into Shorthand?
The sentence that caught my eye: "It causes me pain to speak."
Stayed up way too late last night. The culprits were a couple of writing projects and the first Godfather movie.
I woke up at an obscene late hour and stumbled to the local coffee hole with my New York Times to protect me. Got a cup of joe, maybe a goodie and sat down to read my paper. I am cherishing this ritual since I expect to be working soon. Each sip, ink smudge and surly barista glare are precious to me. Especially on a morning that nearly starts in the afternoon.
As I removed the rubber band from my rolled up paper and unfurled it, a lovely beetle sauntered out from the inside of the pages onto the table as if this were the next stop on his own personal bus route. He was one of those plain guys with a very cool antennae array that could probably receive 500 channels. What a delight! He had no hesitation as he left the paper. Just walked across the table and onto his next transfer point. A pastry, perhaps.
Although I often feel transported by my morning newspaper ritual, it's rarely so literal for me as for my insect pal.
My 48th birthday was a sweet, low-key affair with good wishes, rest, Mexican food and cloud watching.
My friend Janeen sent this explosion of flowers via some magical delivery service that was able to thwart my normally secure building. This bundle appeared tucked into my doorstep and made me very happy.
I then spent a few minutes taking a bunch of photographs which made me even happier. As my computer hard drive can tell you, I enjoy taking pictures of flowers, just like my dad. Maybe making pictures of flowers is one of the next genetic steps for the Fetchko line. This year Norm gave our family the gift of knowing my dad's passion for flowers. He transfered our parent's honeymoon home movies to DVD. We were surprised that the films were as much about flower fields of Florida as their newlywed doings. What a comfort to know that his flower obsession continues in Mary Jo and me.
My father spent his brief life with his hands in the earth, growing plants. He made it into his 33rd year. That's it. I am now 15 years beyond that date. I know that part of me held my breath until my 34th year. Exhale. Slowly.
What is possible in my next 48 years? I hope that I am blessed to live well, long and strong. Maybe in 48 years taking pictures of flowers, drawing or painting them will be considered an ancient art form. I'll be seen as a misguided, yet loveable old coot. Who doesn't want to be a old coot? It's not even clear when I'll be ancient. I'm inspired by my long-lived relatives and their ferocious passion for life.
One life goal is to be able to bend over and place my hands flat on the floor like my Gram well into her 90s. A better one is to spend as much time as I can with my sisters and brothers, friends and family. Another is to play in a band with an Ah-Cor-Deen. Any fool knows that you can't have a band without one. That'll be the night gig. I'll spend the day napping, carousing, and working on some floral scheme.
Get your requests in now and I'll get working on them. All you have to do is supply the flowers! I'll bring the paint or the pixels and you're welcome to sit with me whenever you want. I'd like that.
What do you call those thingies? The beaded hangers that hold up a shower curtain in the best hotels? The package says that they are rolling shower curtain rings. Got to be a better name that that.
So I spent a ten spot for those hangers that have the ball bearing tops that theoretically speed the shower curtain along its rod. Quite a stretch but I've been curious about whether they work for many years. I broke down the other day at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Yes, Bed, Bath & Beyond. Get over it.
I rationalized this exciting purchase because I had to switch out my dingy old liner but my weakened claws couldn't deal with the cheap plastic fasteners. So I had to break them off with pliers, thus destroying them and opening my world to the possibility of new hangers.
Sorry, but I should have revealed this sooner: the hangers are great! The metal whoosh is very, very satisfying. It tells me that I've brought ease and precision to my mornings. Plus, the ball bearing count in my little abode has gone through the roof. More ball bearings- good. The only thing more satisfying would be some kind of kelpy rope that would hold my sea-ivy curtain aloft. But then again, does kelp come equipped with ball bearings? Case closed.
After sleeping for 19 of the past 24 hours, I admire the bear's ability to move, let alone leave the cave and lumber down to the berry store. Nature is the man! Unlike me, the typical bear doesn't have a remote so he can switch on Morning Edition to ease into his wakefulness. For those of you wondering, NO, I don't typically sleep like this. But I've turned to the wisdom of the self-help book and it told me to.
The book reassured me that it was normal to be tired during times of emotional stress. The book also said that it was okay to sleep as much as I need to. The book made sense. Since I have psychic boo-boos a-plenty, sleep should equal healing. A couple of weeks of interviews, cat sitting, thievery, chatting with the ex and all forms of brain-usin' have exhausted me. So, sleep, my beauty!
The same book suggested that I mix in some physical activity to balance out the sloth. So I did a bunch of sit-ups this evening which made my neck crack. I will never figure out how the neck bone connects to the gut bone, but it does. One of my favorite things is to feel the ridges of my abdominal muscles that I'll never see again. They are in there, doing their thing, under a gentle field of fat. See, just like the bear, I have tucked in some extra grub to tide me over.
Of course, I can't say whether I need all this sleep. Could be that I'm making some diet and exercise mistakes. Whether it's a mistake or not, I find solace in the idea that I participate in natural processes. Perhaps not as magnificent as migration or volcanic eruption, but just as necessary.
I don't know what the bear gets out of this deal. More vacation time than a Frenchman? Sacre Bleu! What do I get out of this sleep indulgence? At the very least, a more relaxed me on my way to Victrola for a great cup of coffee in between my dreams. "Huzzah" is right.
I've made it official: the thieves stopped my blog. That's a convenient but false explanation for the lack of blogging over the past week. The folks who took my car, took only my car, not anything else. Well, the stereo deck in my car, but nothing else. Why didn't they steal the lucrative airbags? Or if they lacked that know-how, they could have jacked the battery? They probably just needed a ride somewhere and decided on the stereo as a parting gift. Thankfully, for me, these were not pros who would have stripped Hernandez (yes, that is his name) down to his carcass.
They left a present for me: a cosmetics bag with a driver's license, a bottle of water and a lighter. The amazingly prompt Seattle police sent an officer with an evidence bag to squirrel away the stuff, to my delight. How often do you get to say "evidence bag" in your everyday life?
After a few weeks in the shop (damage to the ignition column), H will be good as used. The car's eleven years old and in good shape. I would have been disappointed to have to replace him. We've seen a lot of good miles together. I am very lucky to have it back, relatively undamaged and untarnished. My goal was to drive Hernandez another 100,000 miles and the game is afoot. You might note a lack of anger or histrionics in general over the missing car. Just didn't happen. For some reason, my innerds were willing to stick to the manual during this process.
First, I believed that I had just misparked the car. I dreaded the razzing about this more than having my car stolen. There, a tiny window on my warped perspective. When the police left a message on my machine saying that they found the car, near my house, I clutched until she said that the car was undrivable. YES! That's what I wanted to hear!
Second, after I filed the report, I believed the claim that most cars were recovered in a few days. Okay, I'll wait a few days until I start to think about not having my car back. Just as I was thinking I should consider renting a car, I got the recovery call.
When I walked the two blocks to inspect the car (thoughtful of the thieves to park in Zone 4: no parking ticket!), I was happy to have Hernandez back. My greatest emotional reaction came when I was the cigarette lighter: did those creeps smoke in my car? Whew, don't think so.
My vast readership has noted that I've been blogless (Oh, Doctor!) for a while now. I am so easily untracked and that is far more upsetting than amateurs joyriding in my car. That is a loss that I have a serious quarrel with. I've been working on working, interviewing, outlining the project with Norm and did I mention the cats?
Every life has tribulation (that sounds grand) and even the cats aren't enough to pin my inconsistency on. The problem is my own internal traffic cop. The guy who, when the traffic signals get knocked out or overwhelmed, makes sure that there are few backups and every vehicle gets to where it needs to go with efficiency. The sharp whistle, the crisp hand signal generate an authority and discipline that most of us welcome. Having someone sort out the traffic snarl is necessary. My guy wigs out in some situations. When there is more than one car. When the cars are all Roll Royces. When my ex-wife is revving her engine. When Nuns are using the crosswalk.
He and I have been in training, making progress. On light days, his gestures and decisions are fluid, balletic. On heavy days, he is a work in progress.
I am a bit embarrassed to leverage my experience with the excellent Seattle Police into a lesson for myself. But I'll take them where I can. Turns out the theives didn't stop the blog, I did. My own internal traffic guy jammed me up. But the reports are that traffic is again flowing along all major arteries.
I faultered on traffic management and I wanted to blame the thieves for my shortcomings. But I can rightfully and gladly blame the thieves about my car. But I seem to have learned that there are alternate routes.
Pride is not a straightforward drug. The dosing guidelines aren't really as clear as they could be. In fact, just what was in that bottle?
I've pointed the finger of pride at myself this week. What merited this charge? I thought that I'd find my way through the thicket of loss cleanly, without scrapes, pricks or tangles, disregarding Ecclesiastes or at least the Byrds. Ha! Good one! For some reason, I had my linear hat on (describe that headgear in 10 words or less) and began to believe that since I felt A, that led to B. Now that B's on the table, here come C. A all gone. Craziness. Cloudiness. Bad craziness.
My evaluation was arrogance. Some silly thinking made me immune to a natural, jagged, healing process. I thought that those rules didn't apply to me because I, what? What could it be that I thought would justify that belief? Sounds likely, eh?
I don't think so now. I don't think that the culprit was pride. I'm not confident that I can explain this clearly. What I was calling pride or arrogance was a smoke screen. I think it was fear that I had named "pride." When I called my self out, I defaulted to pride, or arrogance.
However, I don't this it was pride. My working theory is that I pushed forward not out of supreme overconfidence but because of fear. Fear of what? Hard to say. Of being with me and finding out about me? Of all the silence that has entered my life? Of real change? Who wants to admit that they are afraid? Pride sounds better. A lot better. It's a classier mistake too. It's great being able to say, "I Blah blah blah, Pride, blah blah." Aren't I humble and open, not unlike a holy man?
Nope, I'm not completely naieve. The connection between overconfidence and insecurity has been a concept to me for some time. Apparently not a concept that I was willing to fit onto myself. I continue to find that my empirical (who knew that the buddha and Hume had so much in common?) approach helps me see what's in front of me. In this instance, I recognized fear, not pride, keeping me on the run. Most spectacular is that this attention (mindfulness!) has led to a gaudy dismantling of some long-held misnamed emotions. Never suspected that I could do this.
What do I lose and gain here with this terminology ju jitsu? That will take some time to consider but I might not have to do much other than just feel it. I bet it will feel like I'm in tune, not out of key.
I have a revived appreciation for all the hours I spent with the philosophy folks, making distinctions. Life is tricky enough without thinking that fear is pride. Props to me (good pride?) for looking into this scary place.
"Theories" or "schemes" always follows "crackpot."
I'm more of a hair-brained scheme kinda guy but I do indulge in a crackpot theory now and then.
The current one is that my landlord sneaks into my apartment and uses my mouthrinse.
I've been using this minty liquid blowtorch for a while to see if it made any difference in my oral hygiene life. Probably not but it is fun to imagine a million tiny Robert Duvalls on my tongue making napalm comments.
If Tom is sneaking in and using my mouthwash, I have accepted it. My initial reaction was a sense of displacement that I'd uncovered such a paltry little secret. I've grown used to the idea now and wish him good oral health. Who am I to begrudge him an illicit minty pleasure?
Somehow, photos of flowers help me talk about difficult subjects.
I like many like to think of my self as a tolerant, if not accepting, person. Yesterday, I saw a lovely confusing thing.
In my lifestyle-rich neighborhood, there was a family which consisted of two dads, and five adorable, excited little kids from all over the racial map. Really sweet, bright people that make you feel good just by looking at them. Also, God bless them for having five five-year olds at the same time. All having fun as a family.
What gave me pause? I was sitting to them and cocking an ear because I like to listen to little kids talk. The surprise was that one of the guys was "dad" and the other one was "mom."
Can that be good for the kids? Honestly, I don't know. I have no idea. They seemed like outstanding little persons with two vibrant, loving parents so they're probably going to turn out great, not just fine. In a world where having two daddies is known, maybe "dad and mom" is the next step. I liked having the set. Why shouldn't these kids have them too?
My 48th birthday was a sweet, low-key affair with good wishes, rest, Mexican food and cloud watching.
Maybe making pictures of flowers is one of the next genetic steps for the Fetchko line. This year Norm gave our family the gift of knowing my dad's passion for flowers. He transfered our parent's honeymoon home movies to DVD. We were surprised that the films were as much about flower fields of Florida as their newlywed doings. What a comfort to know that his flower obsession continues in Mary Jo and me.
One life goal is to be able to bend over and place my hands flat on the floor like my Gram well into her 90s. A better one is to spend as much time as I can with my sisters and brothers, friends and family. Another is to play in a band with an Ah-Cor-Deen. Any fool knows that you can't have a band without one. That'll be the night gig. I'll spend the day napping, carousing, and working on some floral scheme.
Somehow, photos of flowers help me talk about difficult subjects.
