I Live Here, Now

I was looking at pictures on Facebook this evening. I saw a posting by my buddy Sindy of her and some old friends dressed up in costumes for something or other. And some great shots of my grand-nephew, Wyatt.  Last night I was looking at Daughter Two’s volleyball videos. I could go on.

These photos spanned at least 35 years (sorry, Sindus!) and through those years, we were all relatively safe. We had food, shelter and clothing and we haven’t had to worry about ice ages or invaders or plagues.

I was born in a when/where that afforded me everything I could possibly need to turn effort into success. I was educated to the limits of my ability to absorb. And while I’ve been taxed, I look at the paved road that comes right to me house and I’m pretty happy with the bargain.

Life is good.

Let It Snow

It’s snowing again and I for one love to see it. I’m just back from Idaho Falls, where snow was thick on the ground everywhere but it’s not that usual to see it this late in the Seattle area.

After picking up Daughter Two from an engineering conference at the U this afternoon, we stopped by the Arboretum where we’ve spent so much great time paddling around. Lots of float ice and it was frustrating that my shoulder prevents me getting out on the water. Lovely to look at, though.

I wasn’t able to blog much this week due to travel without my confuser (I’m not allowed to blog using my work machine and I didn’t want to carry both of them).  I’ll do better in the coming days and weeks.

Meanwhile, let it snow!

End of an Era

This Thursday, the space shuttle Discovery is slated to ‘slip the surly bonds of Earth’ one last time. The six crew members flew in to Cape Canaveral today to make their final preparations for the flight. When Endeavour launches in April and finally, Atlantis in June, the world will change for us a little bit.

When I was a kid, I received a book for Christmas that described all the great things we were eventually to do in space. I imagined myself as an astronaut, exploring worlds then unknown.  When my parents got me a football helmet, they might have been less than thrilled to see me turn it into a spaceman’s headgear. Footballs were sub-orbital bodies and therefore, not of much interest to a future spaceman.

I watched with rapt attention the Mercury, then Gemini and finally Apollo missions that took us to the moon and back. Eventually, this goggle-eyed boy grew up to work at a company that made critical parts for some of the shuttle missions. I couldn’t help staring at the parts that would help put the Hubble telescope in orbit with something approaching awe.

Kids who read the same books and Popular Science articles as I did grew up to be the engineers and physicists and chemists and life systems technicians and pilots who populated the programs that once had seemed so far away and yes, improbable.

My own children grew up in a world in which humans had been to the moon and our probes to other planets of the solar system. They don’t recall when space exploration was an ‘if.’ For them, it’s always been a matter of ‘next.’ 

I recall when a manned launch made front page international news, when we brought TVs in to work so the employees could watch and everyone’s tummy muscles would tighten as we collectively willed the vehicle aloft. Nowadays, I doubt that one American in twenty knows how many humans are currently in space or when the next launch is scheduled to occur.

It’s a part of the natural order of things that the extraordinary becomes commonplace through repetition. That which once thrilled us no longer causes raised eyebrows.

What I’m wondering tonight is what the next wonder will be. What will amaze and thrill our children? I believe the problems they’ll face will be, as has always been the case, mostly terrestrial.

How will they feed, clothe and especially, educate the world’s population? How will they provide clean water and medicine at the fringes of society? How will we offer the same opportunities to a child of the inner city as we provide for children in affluent suburbs?

It seems to me that humanity’s greatest achievement will come when we gain the same excitement from building affordable housing here on Earth as we do from building a space station.  

Memory games

Things I don’t recall:

·         Just what I was thinking when I bought my first car.

·         The last time I could see my toes without bending forward (yes, I know I can change that).

·         What I was thinking in the last seconds before I noticed the red lights in my rear view mirror.

·         What the bathroom looked like before we remodeled it.

·         How to work quadratic equations.

·         The capitol of Bolivia.

·         How our last argument started.

·         Precisely where I set down the camera right before it was stolen.

·         Who it was who said (insert any number of cool quotations).

·         Ever being afraid on an airplane, even in horrible weather.

·         Ever being comfortable on a roller coaster, even in great weather.

·         Why I wore what I wore during high school (pictorial evidence abounds).

·         Very much French, speaking of high school.

·         Whether I’ve already watched this movie, which is why I’ll get twenty minutes into it before realizing how much it sucked.

·         A really bad day with Mary.

·         A really good day without Mary.

Our Educational Enterprise

I’ve been involved in education most of my life.  From Mrs. Beagle’s kindergarten class at good ol’ Lake Hills Elementary, through eight years of penguin school, samplings of seven colleges and universities, various professional courses…  You get the idea.

Throughout my life, there has never been a question of quality educational opportunities being there whenever I was ready. And I knew I was fortunate but I’m not sure I ever knew just how fortunate.

I’m just in from business travel and too tired for a long piece tonight. But I wanted to take this moment to share that I saw Waiting for Superman on one of my flights this week and it was a transformative experience. I hope to write intelligently and soon on the subject of equitable access to education. But just now, I’m still processing.

Stormy Weather

Flying into D.C. the other afternoon, we went through some serious wind conditions. I’m not just talking Winnie The Pooh blustery here. I mean, I’ve been through typhoons on a Navy ship and I don’t recall that being much more exciting. It was SO cool!

That plane was rockin’ and rollin, hopping up and down, jinking this way and that. My chin and belly made a passing acquaintance as first I was compressed like a Jack in the Box on the updrafts, then stretched to about twice my usual length as the plane dropped out from under me.  I don’t know why I enjoyed it so much, since I’m not a fan of roller coasters, but it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.   

It’s possible I was actually giving voice to my delight, as evidenced by the fact that several of my seat mates looked at me like I was a crazy person. I don’t know why they bothered glowering at me. Their disapproval might more profitably have been directed at the woman a couple rows ahead of me who failed to keep her lunch in the bucket. (Which, by the bye, was actually kind of amazing; I’ve never seen anyone actually throw UP before.)

Some folks just don’t know how to enjoy the simple pleasures.

Too Blah To Blog

I'm in a hotel room with really sketchy connectivity and not a lot of good ideas after a day of beatings...er...meetings.
Why is it that when you get out of a whole day of meetings with people you respect but with whom you frequently disagree, your decompression pain is proportional to the extent of your ability to admit you're not always right?
Why doesn't everybody just see my point and do things my way?
We'll pick up the blog thread tomorrow.

Valentine's Day

I won’t be home for Valentine’s Day.  I won’t be home with the woman with whom I’m spending my life. I even have to post this a day early because I won’t be near a computer until Tuesday. But that’s okay.

Our journey together isn’t about cards and flowers and chocolates. We’ve been together going on 25 years including courtship.  And in that time, we’ve shared a few things.

We bought our first house together and moved cross-country and bought our second house, which we’ve been fixing up ever since.

We’ve raised two daughters, which is of course shorthand for innumerable joys and jobs and moments of triumph and terror.  We shared nights up with sick babies, and trips to the emergency room and first steps and last bottles and cute quotes and less cute messes.

We’ve worried over jobs and bills and whether to (insert life decision). We’ve driven around most of the perimeter of the country and flown back and forth too many times to count.

We’ve shared meals and a bed and chores and births and deaths and time together and times apart.

There was the time we got caught in a downpour on a dark highway with no lane markers and broken windshield wipers.  And the time we got so immersed in our conversation, we drove over thirty miles in precisely the wrong direction.  But we always made it home.

We’ve shared and continue to share a life. And I can’t wait to see what’s next. So we don’t need to be together on this day for the day to be special. They’re all special.

I love my wife and she loves me. But perhaps more important, we truly like each other. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mary!

P.S.: Yes, I did buy her a bouquet of flowers - what, am I stupid?

National Politics

Referring to the popular uprising in Egypt that led to President Mubarak’s ouster, Sarah Palin reportedly said: "We want to be able to trust those who are screaming for democracy there in Egypt, that there is a true sincere desire for freedoms. And the challenge that we have, though, is how do we verify that what we are told, what it is that the American public are being fed via media, via protesters, via the government there in Egypt in order for us to have some sound information to make wise decisions on what our position is."

I’m pretty sure what my position is. I cannot wait for Sarah to run for President.  Since Pat Paulsen passed away, we haven’t had a really funny joke candidate.

I want a bumper sticker that says: “Sarah Palin…naw, too easy.”

Thirty-two Shots In Fifteen Seconds

One troubled guy with a handgun and a big clip killed six people and wounded fourteen others.

I don’t want to hear any more from the NRA about defending our right to bear arms. I don’t want to hear Palin exhorting folks to reload or see any more of her ads with a target superimposed over her policital enemies (bet Sarah wishes she could take back the one with Congressperson Giffords under the crosshairs).  I don’t want to hear about having to pry guns from cold, dead hands.

I especially don’t want to hear the fantasy that handgun ownership has anything to do with self defense.  Just read the news. Look at the stats. Compare the number of suicides and murders to the number of crimes stopped by private citizens using handguns.

Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were both shot by unhinged loners while they were being protected by large numbers of the best trained and most heavily armed bodyguards in history. Sorry, but the self defense argument is just a non-starter with me.

I don’t want to hear the addled mantra that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  Yes, this person killed people because he was off his rocker. But he was able to kill and wound so many because he was able to pump out bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger. And he had a thirty-one round magazine that would have been illegal until 2004.

Three men took the shooter down and a sixty-one year old woman prevented him from reloading. In less than half  a minute, he’d been pinned to the ground and disarmed by untrained, unarmed, ordinary people who did not themselves hesitate before stepping up to stop this horrendous attack.

Bill Badger, Roger Sulzgeber, Joseph Zamudio and Patricia Maisch are all heroes. They did what we all hope we would do but can’t know until the time comes. Their time came and they didn’t hesitate.  

But for twenty of their fellow citizens, it was too late.

He’d already fired thirty-two shots in fifteen seconds.

Reinventing Myself as a Jock

So, it looks like I have a torn rotator cuff – whoohoo!  Now, it’s not fer sher until I go see the orthopedist and he confirms it with imaging. But Dr. Anne did some pain, strength and range of motion work and it’s lookin’ good! Yeah!

It matters not one whit that I actually injured the wing lifting the rain roof back onto the dog run during storm repairs.  What does matter is that shoulder injuries including rotator cuff strains and tears are among the most common kayaking injuries. And I am a kayaker, as I’ve already established through internet postings galore.

See where this is going? After 57 years of being a nerd, suddenly I’ll be a bonafide athlete! And soon, with any luck, I’ll have a really ugly surgical scar to nail down my new persona! I’ll be right up there with gymnasts and major league pitchers. And – get this – the ortho doc I’m going to works through a sports medicine clinic. I wonder how many business cards they’ll let me take?

Cross your fingers for me that this won’t be resolved through long and painful physical therapy that leaves no marks. Why do the pain if you don’t get the gain, I always say.

I am SO going to buy some muscle shirts and ratty thrift shop sweats and start scratching my nether regions at inappropriate times.  And maybe change my sunglasses for cool shades. Oh, the places I’ll go…

Blogging Block

I have some significant computer problems tonight, owing to the irresponsibility of an unknown stranger who believes it's cool to put out software designed to screw up other people's machines. What kind of an anal orifice thinks this is funny?

(Did I say that out loud?)

Procrastination

Mary suggested to me today that we should go through the house room by room and make a list of the tasks we have to complete to have the house be finally, finally finished. I allowed as how I thought this was a good idea.

We do have a lot of loose ends to tie up, projects not quite finished, some not yet begun. But once we’re finished, we’ll finally be able to live like normal people. We’ll mow lawns and blow out filters and occasionally make a minor repair. But for the most part we’ll be done, done, done.

I used to come home most evenings and spend an hour or two advancing one of our home improvement projects. But at some point, I started procrastinating. If I hadn’t, we have been done some time ago.

But I figure if I have a list to work to, I’ll be able to track my process and feel a sense of accomplishment. I’ll become energized again, and soon enough, we’ll have the house we always wanted. I just have to get up and make the list.

Tomorrow, maybe...

A Royal Wedding

The news today carried the nth photo of the royal grandson and his betrothed looking happy and charming and as always, well coifed.  I confess to having found the photo and others like it utterly uninteresting.

This is not to say that I wish the happy couple ill or that I don’t think marriage a good thing. It’s worked out pretty well for yours truly. I simply don’t know why anyone outside of England would find this wedding to be of any particular interest.   It’s not like either of them has ever done anything notable.

On the other hand, the magazine racks are full of covers proclaiming Hollywood divorces, the latest in cosmetic surgery and the latest foibles of grown men who make millions playing children’s games. Someone killed someone else, another person cheated a whole bunch of third party someones, children were abused or ignored, and half the world hates us for being rich, for being mongrels, for being infidels and too often, just for being. So maybe a touch of royal worship isn’t the worst story in the world. But still, is this news?

I think we can do better. I think there’s lots of news worth printing. Try these:

·         A band named “Flame” tours the world, demonstrating to music lovers that disabilities do not have to be defining. The band members daily deal with their Down syndrome, autism, blindness, cognitive deficit and cerebral palsy. Do a search and check them out.  You’ll be uplifted and ashamed at your own little aches and pains.

·         As I write this, a group of students from the Sammamish High School Amnesty International Club are hosting Jamnesty, a concert to raise money for four human rights charities.

·         Yesterday, a young woman named Ellye, intent on doing her best at an audition for Eastman School of Music, holed up in an empty restroom at JFK to practice her flute one last time. Just in pursuit of excellence.

·         Another young  woman named Courtney, not yet recovered from serious and painful abdominal surgery, takes time to encourage her cousin in her school pursuits and to thank her parents for, well, being her parents.

·         Around this world, millions and millions of moms and dads got up this morning before they’d like, went off and spent the day working at jobs they might or might not have found enjoyable and then came home and immersed themselves in feeding, bathing, coaching and tutoring their children. Because that’s what parents do. And tomorrow morning, before they’d like to be awake, they’ll get up and start the cycle over.

·         Somewhere in the United States, a young man or woman is lying awake, unable to sleep because tomorrow morning (s)he reports for military training. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with America’s wars. What matters is that year after year, young people choose to put themselves between their country and danger. And I honor them.

There is news worth printing. It’s just way too seldom that we print it.  

Chores

I like to sort household chores into three categories: things I don’t want to do, things I’m determined not to do, and things she’s going to make me do anyway.

Wish me luck.

The Lake

I gotta go back to the bus.

Driving home tonight was an exercise in frustration. And not because I was cut off, flipped off or turned off by any of the other drivers. The road wasn’t icy, traffic was unaccountably light, the truck hummed along while I listened to NPR on the radio.

The problem wasn’t that anything untoward happened or that conditions were less than optimal. In fact conditions were perfect. For sightseeing, that is. And there I was behind the wheel, coerced by the combined imperatives of self-preservation and social responsibility to utterly ignore the incredibly calm water of Lake Washington, with Mt. Rainier rising in the background.

I gotta go back to the bus.

Losing Face (And Not Much Else)

I gave in and called my doctor’s office today. Truth be told, I should have made the call weeks ago. The shoulder has really been giving me fits and I’m way past the point of hoping it will heal by itself.

I’m not afraid of doctors, mind you. In fact, ours has a decent sense of humor and she really listens to her patients. Our doctor before her was the same. Mary and I have had a run of good luck in the primary care physician arena.

I don’t dread being poked and prodded, manipulated, photographed inside and out, starved, stabbed or stapled. It doesn’t bother me to have medical apparatae put in me, on me or over me.  I am sincerely curious about all the cool toys the docs have to play with. And I’ve never been very body shy, although I’m not an exhibitionist, either.

What bothers me is The Look. You know the one. The “yeah, sure you’re going to take the tonnage off - who do you think you’re kidding” look. People at work and old friends can be counted on to pretend I look great and sometimes even suggest without cracking a grin that I look like I’ve lost weight.  But not my doctor.

My doctor is the one person in the world who keeps a record of my abject failure in the area of body mass.  And I actually pay her to disapprove of my lack of progress.  It’s like being the only kid who doesn’t have his report ready and then being called on first. And then doing it again. And then doing it again.  I’ll take invasive exams over The Look any day of the week. I’ve been getting The Look from my doctor and from her colleague before her for several years now and it’s really getting old.

This is where the hurting shoulder comes in. Logic tells me I have to get it checked before it gets worse. It’s not like I want to live without a working shoulder joint. Unfortunately, getting it checked out means taking my shirt off in front of my doctor which will lead, tragically, inexorably, to The Look.

So, dear readers, I throw myself on your tender mercies. Anyone know how I can calve off about, say, forty pounds by 2:00pm Tuesday?