Choosing my poison

While we were in our class today near D.C., a couple of my friends and colleagues were sweating out hearing from family in the Atlanta area. It seems there was some nasty tornado action in their home neck of the woods.

Here on the West coast, we have the occasional earthquake and the remote possibility of a volcano blowing its top.

Hm-m… They have twisting cauldrons of freakishly strong winds that can tip over buildings, pile up cars and trucks and drive wheat straws through telephone poles. Not to mention they might harbor witches. We, on the other hand, get the occasional unplanned roller coaster ride.

I don’t believe I’d like to trade.

Learning at the gym

There’s an old saying to the effect that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.  And while I agree with the sentiment, I’m not convinced that all learning has to be an intellectual pursuit.

I learned a few things at the gym recently, so I figured it was high time for another list. I wracked my brain trying to come up with an impressive title and I think I found one. I’m going to call this latest list “Things I learned at the gym.” Catchy, no?

So, without further falderal, I humbly  present…

Things I learned at the gym:

·         Until you start to sweat, you’re just playing around on some expensive machines.

·         Never sit on the bench in the locker room and try very hard not to think too much about why.

·         It’s all about reps, not impressive weights.

·         It’s not useful to bring drinks you don’t consume. Dehydration is a bad thing.

·         Stay away from the big guy in the tan shirt. Pretty sure he had chili for breakfast.

·         Don’t care how sexy you think you are; a sweaty butt crack viewed from behind is just not right.

·         I need to thank the guy (or gal) who invented the elliptical machine. Then, I’ll kill him (or her).

·         Take your own music. Twenty-something gym employees have no taste.

·         You truly need to relinquish your pride if you’re going to lose weight. You can’t grunt and sweat and look good all at once.

·         Certain areas of the anatomy do not do well with the combination of sweat and friction.

·         When you try to impressively swing the bar up on the curl machine without remembering to select any weight, it comes up really quickly and you can hit yourself in the neck with the bar.

·         Hurting is good.

·         At the gym, I’m nowhere near the smartest person in the room. For the foreseeable future, this is where I belong. 

Photo revulsion

So, there’s a news bit making the rounds just now about the creeps who use your own webcam to spy on you at home, work, whatever. They send a seemingly innocent e-mail which has electronic nasties on board and allows them to see anything within range of your own computer cam.

I don’t need to do a rant about how wrong this is. Or about what I think we should do with the creeps we catch. I’ll just say that the six years Luis Mijangos got for spying on women this way was on the light side, in my view. I’m thinking something along the lines of shredding and compacting would have been more appropriate but then, what do I know?

Several news sites have offered the standard advice such as putting black tape over the camera port when you’re not using it, turning off the computer when not in use, and closing the lid.

I have a better idea. Send me ten bucks and I’ll send you a color glossy photo of me wearing only a Speedo. Tape that photo to the inside back of the chair at your computer station so that when you’re not actually using the computer, any creepozoids who hack in will be treated to the site of my largely naked bodkin in heroic living color.

Admittedly, this does not prevent them from committing that first cyber trespass. But I believe I can confidently predict they will only hack you once. And if enough people treat these guttersnipes to surprise views of Planet Michael, they may just get sick of trips to the eye doctor and give up. Better yet, if they’re in a public place when they catch the first virtual glimpse of my loveliness, it’s possible their screams will bring the police, and they might be caught in Mikus flagrante!

Plus, I’ll be wealthy. See? Win, win, as they say.

But you have to move fast – with my newfound dedication to improving my bodily contours, Planet Michael is going to recede faster than the ice in Glacier Bay. And once that baby’s gone, ‘tain’t coming back, know what uh mean?

Security

I watched some of the inauguration coverage today. I don’t generally watch the speeches because the text will be available by tomorrow and I’d rather read it. But I like the pomp and protocol of the trip from the Capitol to the White House particularly.

What captured my attention was not the President or his spouse. They seem like good people to me and I voted for him. But I don’t find it riveting to watch them walk slowly down the street. That’s something even I can do.

I always watch the members of the protection detail. I’m especially fascinated by the two guys who station themselves a couple steps behind and just to the outside of the protectees. These guys aren’t in a position to wrestle bad guys to the ground and they don’t even seem much interested in the crowd or the buildings along the route. In fact, while I watched, they spent most of their time focused on the Obamas.

I have to conclude that these are the folks whose job it is to put their bodies in harm’s way while shoving the Obamas into the Beast, as they refer to the presidential limousine.  Watching them calls to mind the image of Agent McCarthy ‘making himself big’ in order to act as a human shield for President Reagan. Which of course, he did, taking the hit for his boss.

Where do we get guys and gals like this?

As the media focus variously on the President and the congress and what might happen in the next four years and what the speech really meant, I’d like us each and all to spend a moment streaming good thoughts in the direction of all the nameless people who put everything on the line today so that the rest of us could watch the pageantry.

Home from the holidays

If you have a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, your chances of survival are somewhere around 7.6%. If you have a smart, experienced doctor who listens to her patients and thinks about what they tell her – and if you’re scrupulously honest with her – your chances of actually having that heart attack go way down.

Some of you already know that I spent the day and night after Christmas last having a cardiac stent installed in my left anterior descending cardiac artery. That would be the one they call the “Widow Maker.” It was a life-saving procedure that probably rolled back the clock on mortality mine by a significant factor. 

Turns out the ol’ left anterior descending was worse off even than the stress echocardiogram  had indicated. The term they used to describe it was “95% occluded.” But I’ve seen the film, actually watched the film being recorded and I gotta tell you that “95% occluded” is probably an understatement. I watched the process of this artery going from damn near useless to positively surging with beautiful, oxygenated blood flow. And I’m here to write about it.

The procedure itself was fascinating and I felt much better almost immediately. Having to stay overnight in the hospital bed, measuring my “output” for the nurses’ amusement and eating food that validated every joke ever told about the stuff were collectively awful. But the procedure itself was actually riveting and – dare I say it – kind of fun. I really enjoyed watching the video feed as they fed this catheter through my blood vessels and approached the heart.  I could see the same four screens the docs used to guide their work and it was so cool!

I have to admit it got somewhat less cool when the cardiologist and the physician’s assistant said, unpracticed and in perfect unison, “Oh, wow!” At this point they went into whisper mode and I could pick out the words “…think we should continue?”

Anyway, it all went well, they put in the stent and I’m feeling better than I have in years. Funny how you don’t know how much you’re hurting until you stop kicking yourself. I’m enjoying my trips to the gym and trying hard to avoid eating the wrong foods. And life goes on – literally.

I’m tempted to write a much more contemplative piece revolving around my mortality and this recent near miss. Perhaps I will. But just now, I know a few things for sure and I’d like to share them with you.

I didn’t cancel a doctor’s appointment even though I was busy that week and really needed the work time. I’ve postponed lots of medical appointments over the years but I sure am glad I went through with this one. At this time of year, postponing would likely have meant putting the appointment off for several weeks – probably longer than I had.

Even though the appointment was just a medication check-in, my doctor took the time to ask me what else was going on in my life, and she listened to the answer. So when I said I was ramping up my weight loss program and particularly that I was starting a serious workout program, she asked me to hold off on the strenuosity and ordered a couple tests. And I listened. And I had the tests.

I have to let this simmer awhile before I write a more personal piece. The cardiologist said I had weeks, not months. It could well have happened at 40,000 feet over North Dakota. A month ago, time was not my friend. Now, I have years. That’s worth some thought before I write about it.

 I love you guys. Please, if you don’t have a GP like Anne Bankson, get one. And when she asks you a question, answer it honestly. And then follow the doctor’s advice.

Not all wedgies are funny

So, I read on the Internet, that magical  repository and purveyor of all things inexplicable, about this punk who does assaultive things to people and then posts videos of his activities on the Net. Hugging strangers  or doing walkovers on trees wearing only tighty whities may not be all that bad. But kissing women he doesn’t know when they’re asleep on the beach is more than a bit sketchy.

Jumping on a stranger’s back while wearing a bunny costume may seem harmless and funny until you think about the feeling you’d have if you were the unsuspecting jumpee. And particularly if you had a back problem. Or for that matter, a fear of six foot bunnies (would that be Harveyphobia?).

But this latest thing I hope we can all agree should earn him some jail time. He lurked outside a local theatre and came up behind – literally behind, in this case – his intended victims and gave them wedgies.

And not just regular wedgies or even Atomic Wedgies. If I understand the media reports and embedded witness statements, these were full-blown Schroeders. For the uninitiated, a Schroeder is to a wedgy as a nuclear weapon is to a firecracker. We’re talking potential for permanent damage here.

I’m glad the jerk was arrested for battery. He should be. And his punishment should be commensurate with the crime. I guess that makes me something of a grump in some eyes. So be it. He’s victimizing strangers with his sophomoric pranks and making them the butt of cyber jokes. This is bullying in wholesale.

This kid's pranks and the thousands of followers of his postings play into the degradation of civility that’s a feature of the new culture. I hope he outgrows it. Alternatively, I hope the cameras are running when he fails to notice the mammoth, unamused husband or boyfriend a few feet away from his next victim.

There is hope for him, by the way. In a video interview after his arrest, he allowed as how his arrest was warranted and perhaps in future he’d try to concentrate on jokes with himself as the prankee. Perhaps he’ll glean some personal growth out of this.

The real tragedy is my realization of how jaded I’ve become. Because, while I won’t look him up on the Web, I do have to admit to a bit of curiosity. And that’s just wrong.

Irena Sendler

My buddy Sindy shared an account on FB that got me thinking in several directions. It’s the story of one of the many unsung heroes in our world. Irena Sendler (originally Sendlerowa and you’ll find her listed both ways, depending on where you look) proved particularly adept at sniffing the wind and getting ahead of the gathering storm when she made and implemented plans for rescuing from the Warsaw Ghetto some 2,500 children from among the crowds targeted for enslavement and death by the Nazi hate machine.  That she did so at grave personal risk makes her efforts all the more laudable. That she has remained largely unsung in the public arena is an oversight of immense proportion.

Many of the articles concerning Irena Sender– including the one circulating on Facebook – have side agenda. And the FB account, while correct in thrust, is not entirely accurate as to details. For a good nutshell of the story without too much editorializing, follow this link: http://www.auschwitz.dk/sendler.htm. Beyond that, you’re on your own.

A few comments from Brer Michael…

Several posts in various online nooks and crannies bemoan the fact that Sendler never received the Nobel Peace Prize. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Nobel Prize. It is a political instrument used by the Committee to further their view of how the world’s business should be carried out. These five Norwegians only accept nominations from persons and organizations within a very prescriptive band of interests and looking over the nomination rules, one might even foresee a certain degree of inbreeding in the process.

That Barack Obama and Al Gore won the prize on the basis of (as presumed by certain of the chroniclers you’ll find) less stellar or courageous accomplishments than others who were never so honored is  in fact very much in keeping with the thrust of Nobel intent. And the fact that Elie Wiesel – clearly one of the most deserving persons ever named  – received the award had as much to do with current events and world politics at the time of his nomination as they did with celebration of his formidable and tireless efforts on behalf of the downtrodden.

Another thought: The article posted through FB begins with opining that this story is proof of evil afoot in the world, then as now. I suppose that’s true enough, but we need only listen to the words of Irena Sendler herself to find a more glass-half-full reading of history. My own reading is that a glass that is half full or half empty must by definition be both. Putting that argument aside, we can take some comfort from Irena when she says, “No one ever refused to take a child from me.” The foster parents and convents that took in these children assumed great risk themselves.

We should honor all these people. After all, celebrating the thousands of private individuals who served as station masters or conductors on the Underground Railroad, in no way detracts from Harriett Tubman’s hard-earned renown. And so it is, it seems to me, with Irena Sendler. Celebrate her but not with the hangdog attitude that only she stood up to the horror. Certainly, all the stories of history can be told from various angles, but the evidence that good people have generally prevailed is manifest, even in our day.

Irena was not without formal honors. She has been recognized by Jewish groups and most recently by the four high school students who filmed Life in a Jar. But she did not seek accolades, and was not entirely convinced of her own record of heroism, “I could have done more,” she said. “This regret will follow me to my death.”

Getting down to bidness

I’ve finally given up on the idea that watching Biggest Loser and occasionally feeling guilty about the apple fritter I’ve just eaten are likely to yield the weight loss for which I yearn.  I know, sounds like it should have worked, yes? But several scales – including the calibrated one at the doc’s office – claim that my gross tonnage remains, well, gross.

I spend a lot of time at the gym these days.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.

I pretend I’m watching the TV mounted on the treadmill. Of course, I’m not really. And no, I’m not watching all the third-my-age hard bodies strolling back and forth in front of my machine. Well, not only the hard bodies, anyway.

The gym, especially after the holidays when max guilt herds the tubbies in for at least a month or so, is a parade of characters. The muscle men and the ponytail-and-spandex crowd seem to have retreated off stage for the moment, leaving behind basically two demographics: the truly dedicated who are here year round come what may and the newly, temporarily motivated.

Some of the temporarily motivated will tail off by mid-February but some will catch the health bug and find a new home there. I try to figure out who will make the cut but since only time will prove I’m not myself one of the temps, I try to be very gentle in my calculations.

Truth is, I hope we all make it. Me, the guy with the gut his tee won’t quite cover, the mom who’s never lost the baby weight, the young guy who can’t get over 2.0 on the treadmill and the young gal with the great smile and the lollipop butt. I’d love to report to you in a couple years that my buddies and I from the Class of New Years 2013 are the healthy veterans welcoming a new crop of frantic hopefuls.

Meanwhile, you truly can observe all sorts of characters at the gym. It’s a fun place. It’ll be more fun when I no longer carry the equivalent of a bag of Ready Mix with me as I work my way through the machines.

Wish me luck.

No, screw that, wish me discipline.

It's possible I'm a chick

I’m sitting downstairs next to the shelf unit on which we’ve arranged our collection of DVDs. Along the top are TV shows one of us loved enough that someone else gifted the boxed sets: Friends, Gilmore Girls (bluch!), West Wing (yowser!), Band of Brothers. We’ve all the Harry Potters and a wide range of musicals, although the latter collection was seriously reduced when Daughter One moved to the Least Coast, taking her DVDs with her.

So far, so good. But then, I start looking at the single movie titles, pausing over my favorites.  It’s not long before I realize there’s a certain discomfiting theme emerging. I mean, I love Runaway Jury and Inglourious Basterds and Sleepers and Das Boot  (but only the original German with English sub-titles). I’ve watched The Great Escape several times over the years and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas kills me just to look at the title. Sling Blade will always remain a fave – “You gonna eat them taters?” Kills me. No pun intended.  Hotel Rwanda and The Pursuit of Happyness moved me.

But as I started to say, the movies that I could watch over and over all seem aimed at a demographic with which I’m not really comfortable identifying. Love Actually and Under the Tuscan Sun and 27 Dresses and Mr. Holland’s Opus make my ‘A’ list. As do My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Letters to Juliet, Phantom of the Opera and My Girl. I suppose Always is somewhat manly owing to the fire-fighting scenes, but including The Notebook on my list probably does little for my struggling self-image of studliness.   In fact, if we put all my absolute favorites in a stack and then brought a REAL MAN into the room, he’d probably ask who’s been watching the chick flicks.

I don’t care. I like the stories I like.

I guess it’s possible I’m a chick.

Just, please don’t tell anyone.

News for the new year?

A new item popped up in my e-mail yesterday. Normally I just delete and block unwanted e-mail but this one claimed to be from the Washington Post so I checked it out.

In case you’re interested, here are some of the ‘news stories’ that are important for me to read, according to the WP Social Reader:

1.       Gun shows face new scrutiny after school shooting (I hope it’s true but will believe it when I see it.)

2.       Former Rep. Giffords visits town of school shooting (So she has had time to recover enough to make this trip but we’ve done nothing in the interim to make this visit unnecessary – we ought to be collectively ashamed.)

3.       Holiday sales decline shows Nook losing its niche (I love my Nook and it fills my niche quite nicely, thank you.)

4.       Pregnant Kim Kardashian angry at Kris Humphries for dragging out divorce  (Why on earth would anyone care about this and what have we come to when the WP considers it news?)

5.       Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie secretly got married on Christmas Day: rumor (Are rumors news, even rumors about such august eminences as these two?)

6.       Kim Kardashian’s Motherhood Guide (Naw, too easy…)

Judging by the photo of my daughters linked to this ‘news feed,’ I’m guessing ’twas our good friends at Facebook who have thus invaded my email. This is one of myriad reasons why I am seriously considering closing down my Facebook page.

Now, all I have to do is figure out how.

Good Shopping

Daughter Two will be flying down to Nicaragua soon to work on a development project related to waste stream management. Considering the weather and locale, she needed to purchase some items that aren’t part of her usual travel ‘go’ bag.

Mary wasn’t able to accompany Two on a necessary shopping trip today but since I’ve been a bit under the weather the last couple weeks, I relished the prospect of taking a walk at shopping speed. So, Two and I dropped my brother and sister-in-law at the airport and headed over to an outfitting outfit in search of the stuff she needed to complete her outfit.

Now, I’ve been hearing for as long as I’ve been married about this concept of ‘good shopping.’ I’ve scoffed at the idea and Mary and I have joked about it innumerable times. But after today, I may have to eat some of the snarky comments I’ve made from time to time regarding the validity of the term.

In an hour today, Two and I gleefully removed three items from her must-get list. Really good rain boots at a clearance price, camping towel and a new backpack, again at a killer price. Stuff. Important stuff that she wouldn’t have had time to get otherwise. We came home with a feeling of accomplishment and thriftiness that I haven’t felt in a long time.  Two was happy and relieved that she had the items she desperately needed, I was happy to have made her happy on a budget.

And of course, upon arrival home, I immediately announced to Mary that we’d just engaged in some Good Shopping.

And she grinned, because she knew I’d learned something today.