Auschwitz

I just finished reading Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees. And I suppose you might wonder why.

We’ve previously established in these posts that there are many more books to read than years I’ve available for their reading. And it’s not like I don’t already know a great deal about the Holocaust. I do.

So why another tome about this horrendous period in humanity’s frequently sordid past? Why not read of more palatable topics?

Because of a dread fascination with how this came to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really not interested in the motivations of the Nazis (and others) who perpetrated this massive horror. I’ve known since I was small that there is evil afoot in the world. Evils like ignorance and avarice and ambition and cowardice and sociopathy, all of which played heavily into the formation of the Nazi psyche.

I can’t say it doesn’t bother me that there is evil in the world. There is and ever shall be. But Elie Wiesel reminds us that it is the enabling of evil through the inaction of bystanders that allows evil to find outlet through such atrocities. And Rees’ book, through reliance on interviews with perpetrators, survivors and bystanders, goes further than other sources I’ve seen in explaining how this was allowed  to happen. 

Why did the Danes save 95% of their Jews and the Poles almost none? How did it happen that the citizens of ‘modern’ European countries so readily accepted the persecution of their neighbors, of the Romani people and communists and disabled children and the mentally ill and, and, and…?

I was actually going to go much farther with this but I think I need to leave it for now and spend more time thinking before I continue tapping out my thoughts. Sorry if this seems unfinished because of course, it is. I’m pretty sure I’ll never have an answer to this question but I’m also pretty sure I’ll never stop asking it.

An exchange...

...heard while waiting for the cross signal at the corner of 3rd and Pike.


Young (man?) dressed in a combination of plumber butt chic and wino layers: "What are you looking at?"
Tourist, absolutely deadpan: "I'm not sure..."

A list for midsummer

I took a little walk at lunch time today and it turned out to be a great day for noticing. It’s so nice when you’re jammed with work and can only take a few minutes to step outside and then the experience even for a few minutes is so great! And of course, I had my short term memory (my little notebook) in my shirt pocket, as always.

So without further falderal, might I present for your entertainment and edification….

Things you would have noticed had you been with me at Westlake Park at 12:09pm today (and were paying attention):

·         The most incredibly, indelibly blue sky;

·         A young guy with dreads getting a ticket from two bicycle cops for skateboarding on the sidewalk;

·         Ping pong games in progress on two tables;

·         A plethora of fake service animals (which chaps my hide but what the hell);

·         Buses coming and going;

·         The hot dog stand that never has a line but always has a customer at the window – gotta try that one day;

·         A young woman asking me to move so she could take a picture;

·         People eating bag- and takeout- and vendor cart- and leftovers-in-containers-lunches;

·         A singer with his guitar under the busker canopy – Dude, you gotta sing louder than that if you want tips;

·         Other people watchers, perhaps watching me – or you;

·         Kids on the big climbing toy;

·         Bums, as always;

·         Folks at the info booth answering questions for tourists;

·         A chess game with the huge pieces and lots of watchers and one young woman who clearly didn’t understand that quietly offering advice to one of the players is just…NOT…done…;

·         A group of students in a tour group staring at everything and everyone;

·          A young shirtless guy playing Chopin (I think) and then Fur Elise under the canopy and people walking right on past as though that’s not unusual – which, in Seattle, it’s not;

·         The illegal food cart guy looking nervously at the cops as they strolled up, until they ordered lunch;

·         And at least one other thing that I noticed but can’t recall because my short term memory notebook is flimsy and my hand tremor was in rare form today. An archeologist couldn’t decipher that scrawl.

Decluttering

I can’t imagine what mental aberration caused me to collect a sufficient cache of office supplies to go through several degree programs without ever taking another trip to Office Depot.

For example, I’ve two cartridges for my laser printer, not counting the one I just installed. When you consider that I go through a cartridge about once every eighteen months, I’m thinking this qualifies as overkill. Especially when you consider how freeking expensive the damn things are.

And for those times when I want to produce my documents manually, I’ve maybe a hundred pens (after sorting out the ones that have dried up and the ones I need to take back to work), and a few dozen unsharpened pencils. I like pencils and use them a lot, so there are also mebbe forty sharpened pencils of various lengths sitting about in various drawers, boxes, organizers and end tables.

Plenty of college ruled paper, assorted notebooks and portfolios, colored paper and construction paper and just plain paper – you know the drill.

My collection of souvenirs of various travels and relationships, of which I am genuinely fond, is overwhelmed by random stacks of guidebooks, brochures, etc. that I brought home from home shows, fairs, conventions, conferences and vacation destinations. We could heat the house for a week in the dead of winter with all this worthless wood fiber.

Can you tell I’m on a decluttering campaign?

Does anyone have a lighter?”

Summer fun

Bro and Sis-in-law are up for a visit and at the same time, we brought Daughter One home for a few days of seester time with Daughter Two. Pulled off the surprise of the year and I’m feeling very manly about my fatherly craftiness. Yowser!

Pat and I did the Fat Salmon paddle Saturday, serving as human buoys for the open water swim race. It was a good time and a good workout. An unusual (for this lake) wind-driven set from the East meant lots of chop and reflex wave action from the shoreline along which the course was laid out. A high number of swimmers tending (sometimes veering) off course, the kayak windcocking in the weird chop, a few of the kayakers fairly clueless newbies all added to the fun. All in all, more of a working day than the relaxing paddle these things usually are. But it was a great return to the water after a long time dry.

Sunday evening was Bjornbecue night. Bjorn is the best griller in the known world! Patty’s beans and Pat’s guac added up to a serious culinary score.

We did the tourist thing in Seattle yesterday – Pike Place, waterfront, seafood, the fishing fleet, the view from the bluff, there and back by monorail, all standard Seattle stuff. Made more enjoyable by the fact that for Pat and me, a lot of this is old home week.

Today will be taken up with a leisurely paddle through the Arboretum. Later, some thrift shop shopping, perhaps a trip to the falls, some easy hiking… Meanwhile, the Seesters will separate from us old folk to have a day of whatever seesters do before One gets back on the airplane in time for a pickup rehearsal for her dinner show.

All in all, this is a good week. One of those visits no agenda except to enjoy each other.

Family time.

An upcoming visit

Me Bro is coming for a visit later this week and I can’t wait! I mean, I knew I was anxious but today my anticipation really clicked into high gear.

I was on a road trip for work today and for once someone else handled the driving, freeing me to watch the scenery. And what scenery! If you’ve never driven along the Sound from Everett to Bellingham, then I’m sorry, you just haven’t lived.

There are more possible put-ins for a kayaker than you can shake a paddle at. Several large rivers empty into Puget Sound along this drive and I can’t wait to check them out. Steamboat Slough should be a fun paddle. The Stillaguamish River provides a welter of tributaries, and the Skagit makes some wild switchbacks in and among the tulip fields before making its sprint to salt water.

Pat wants to revisit Lake Easton and I’m game, so long as he doesn’t plan to get recompense for a certain, er, accidental nudge that left him swimming in snow runoff water a few years back. (Accident, I swear!)

We’ll probably spend some time on Salmon Bay or Lake Union closer to home, but I really do hope we’ll wander up the inland coast a ways.

Oh, and we have that outing to Mount Rainier. Yowser!

So much to see, so little bro time in which to see it.

Curly Abel

On this Independence Day as it approaches 8:00am, I find myself drinking coffee in a comfortable chair while an old movie plays in the background, doing my best to avoid getting off my butt and actually, you know, getting going on some chores.

I really do want to get to the housework, mostly because that’s the only way to be DONE with housework for another day, but this idea has been roiling about in my subconscious for a couple of days and it came together just as I awakened this morning. Or perhaps this is what woke me up.

Today being July 4^th, I see lots of evidence of what passes for patriotic fervor in this country. Don’t get me wrong - the tone of that sentence should not be construed as indicating I eschew love of country. I believe it’s a natural part of our culture and perhaps even embedded in our DNA to cherish from the inside out – children, then spouse, then self, friends,  neighbors, community, state, country…. It’s how we form our allegiances.

I’m no different.

It’s how we express those allegiances that seems sometimes to set me apart even from those close friends and family who have helped form my world view.

I don’t much care for flag waving. I will never make a pledge of fealty to a piece of cloth. That doesn’t mean I don’t love this country or that the photo of the Marines raising the flag on Suribachi fails to tweak my emotions. I’m just not into flags. Sorry, Sheldon!

I don’t trust in any god simply because I can’t accept direction from an entity whose existence I doubt in any form yet described by the various religions. But that doesn’t mean I believe I am an example of the highest intelligence ever in the universe. I accept a power greater than myself – I simply see no point in trying to define a god according to humanly needs and wants and superstitions.

 Therefore, I see as specious any attempt to join the attentions of an ill-defined and most likely imaginary supreme being to the assumed best interests of a country that is deeply divided over such simple matters as gun control and a woman’s right to the sanctity of her own corpus.

Don’t get me wrong, those of you who are tempted to pray for my soul when your knees hit the hardwood this evening. I neither condemn nor scoff at your most deeply held beliefs. I wish I could accept as Truth one of the religious constructs and thus come to believe that all will be sorted out in the end. But belief for me is based on accumulated evidence as filtered through one’s own screening mechanism, which is in turn formed of experience and learning and yes, even for me, deeply held even if unacknowledged superstitions. And my filter finds the existence of a definable god unlikely.

I don’t believe that the firing off of pyrotechnics necessarily prompts any emotion connected to the afore-mentioned love of country. For me, it’s just a good show and one best left to the pros, so please don’t set off your flying bombs over my roof. (Besides, it scares the bejeesus out of our dogs, so July 4^th has for years been an event celebrated primarily by staying home with the canines, feeding them doggie downers and trying to keep them calm. My furry buddies are petrified of your explosives. So please just stop.)

Enough of what I don’t believe. I am – and I suspect this applies equally to many of you – an odd amalgam of what I know versus what I like to believe, of what I’ve seen and heard, tempered by what I hope to be the case.

As a young man, I put on my country’s uniform as a dedicated and hopeful volunteer when most of my friends were desperate to find ways to avoid the draft. Then just a few years later, I took off the uniform forever as a registered conscientious objector. And forty years down the road of life, I still couldn’t tell you which ‘me’ was true.

I’ve voted in every election since 1972, excepting some local frays into which I declined to insert myself, and with  my voting record in front of you and no other evidence, I would defy you to confidently identify me as Democrat, Republican, or other.

In short, I don’t easily align with views in which I can’t personally find the value. But please don’t take my failure to wave a flag as evidence of a lack of love of country. I do love my country but I celebrate it in my own way.

There’s been lots of loose talk of late about heroes. We seem to take the term lightly and I wish we didn’t because it leaves a void of available descriptors when someone acts truly heroically. So I won’t call my friend Curly a hero. I’ll just tell you about her.

 I came across Emma “Curly” Abel years ago when Mary and the girls and I were on a road trip around the country. As we passed through Broadwater, Nebraska, one storefront caught my eye so abruptly and surely that I insisted we stop and take a photo. (For those of you who’ve read this story before, I’ll just hope you agree it bears repeating.)

The Broadwater Library demanded my attention because it was a splash of fresh color in an otherwise fairly dusty little town. It stood out in a way that made my head swivel and I just had to cross the street to peer in the window.

 

 

                             The library was charming and when I got home from our trip, I did a little research. The librarian was Emma Abel and she had taken it from a tiny reading room to a fully functional – even if still tiny – bibliotheque. I saw a computer and shelves of books and a reading area and it was all neat, attractive fresh.

 Fresh, in this tiny town of 160 souls.

Curly built this library. Secured the space, got books from the state library association, a computer from the Gates Foundation, Internet access, carpet, paint. And for six hours each week, the children of the farms around Broadwater had a place to come. Into their isolated world, she brought – the world.

So anyway, I put a posting on our family’s then-website about Curly and her library. And years later I blogged about her. I’ve never forgotten her. But yesterday, while I was thinking about the holiday now upon us, I got to thinking about what really says ‘America’ to me. And I thought of Curly.

When I contacted her those years ago, she was entirely unimpressed about my admiration for the work she’d done. And if you Google her, you’ll quickly learn that she was a regular gal. Church member, Cub Scout leader, 4-H mentor. She worked at a hardware store and lived her life.

And brought the world to the children of Broadwater, Nebraska.

Emma Abel doesn’t get a whole lot of mention in our national annals. If you do Google her, one of the first photos that will come up is the one I took of the library. So, how famous could she be, right? But she is America to me.

This evening, while the yahoos fire off their bottle rockets, I’ll be home calming the dogs. And I’ll think of Emma Abel.

 

 Emma “Curly” Abel, April 27, 1929 – November 16, 2007

Sunday paper

The Sunday paper is more Mary’s thing than mine. Most weeks go by without my touching it except to toss it along with the other accumulated recyclables into the bin by the garage.

It’s not that I don’t like reading the paper but rather, I just don’t like reading this paper. The Seattle Times has for a long time been one of my least favorite media channels, partly because it’s Seattle-centric (okay, I get that) and partly because its editorial positions leave me cold.

One of the things I like about frequent business travel is that in most of the hotels I visit, copies of USA Today and whatever the locals read are there for the taking. I enjoy the expanded view of national issues and events that only a newspaper offers and the local papers are invaluable in helping me understand the region in which I’m working or teaching.

Anyway, this morning dawned cool and breezy, a lovely morning and after feeding the mongrels and making coffee, I asked Mary for a quick look at the front page – the Times in bed being something of a ritual for mi esposa. And I thoroughly enjoyed what followed.

I read the long, lead article on the growing marijuana industry in newly-pot-legal Washington State. And let me just say this about that - $60.00 for an eighth ounce makes me wonder just how much more potent is the current crop as compared to the fifteen-for-a-three-finger-bag weed that was passed around on Tuesday evenings during Monty Python at Lance’s house gatherings?

It was fascinating, actually. And worrying. I’d no idea how big the business of toking had gotten. And the combination of big money and psychotropic  drugs is, as I say, worrying. I learned a lot from reading the article.

Another piece highlighted the efforts of a black IT techie to bring more blacks into the tech world. I put that one aside to read more in depth later and you may well hear of it again in this blog. Fascinating.

The obits were of interest mostly for the sake of confirming that most of the recently departed were older than moi by at least ten years.

I really did enjoy the morning spent reading the paper. But I’m not likely to make a habit of it. Much as I prefer paper books to electronic versions in my NOOK, the electronic reader is here to stay. And I find myself progressively less enthralled by news of current events and the devolving political scene than by TED Talks and blogs on topics of particular interest to me.

The demise of the home delivered ‘paper’ paper is the fault of folks like me who’ve stopped subscribing and thus make the medium less attractive to advertisers. I get that.  But I’m not inclined to read a generally unsatisfactory rag just to help keep an industrial anachronism alive.

I’ve moved on. And this morning, I was reminded both of what once was (the in depth article from which I actually learned something) and what has come to be (most of the articles were not of interest and not well written).

Sorry, Times. You’ve lost me. And we can both agree that’s a shame.

Indolent

Lazy, slothful, inert, sluggish, inactive, torpid.

I do believe we’ve found a one-word description for Odin the Large and Lazy.

Indolent.

I came across this word whilst reading Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen uses lots of words like indolent, words that are still around but not very commonly used. Most of them I understand well enough to let the flow of the thought sweep me along. But indolent, I’d always thought I understood but had never actually checked. And it was critical to understanding the plot device of the moment.

So this time, I looked it up. (Turns out, I was right, by the bye. Sniff!)

I looked up indolent. And immediately thought of Rachel’s favorite canine.

As I write this, he is stretched out on his dog bed about six feet from my right foot. Thoroughly engaged in enjoying whatever doggie dreams are flowing through his walnut. And other than breathing in and out, and that only occasionally, that’s about all he’s doing. Inert is pretty much spot on, descriptively speaking.

It’s not as if he didn’t come by his break time honestly. He had a busy day. He studiously observed me having morning coffee, then stood guard (okay, laid guard) while I swept and vacuumed. While I was putting up the molding in the family room, he was in constant standby and while I steamed the kitchen floor, it was he who ensured that no birds, squirrels or raccoons invaded the backyard.

He had a hard day. Ever vigilant. The fact that he discharged most of his duties from a prone position in no way detracts from the magnitude of his exertions.

His fatigue is manifest.

He deserves the occasional sojourn into indolence.

Self-disclosure

I try very hard to be judicious in avoiding intermixing what I do for a living with my private writing, for several reasons. First, I have to be very careful not to let the thought police at my company think they have the right to edit my personal blog. Then there’s the fact that I teach in this area and I’m careful to separate what I believe and choose to put in these musings from what I know to be true and am willing to advocate for as a laborer in the field. And of course, I spend my work days and way too many of my non-work days on this topic, so it’s nice to use this blog to explore other thoughts.

But tonight, I find myself thinking about self-disclosure of disabilities.

I had a long conversation recently with a young women who is struggling with the idea of telling her boss and the folks at a local college about her learning challenges. It’s a big decision in her mind because while she is dependent on accommodations to test into her master’s program, she is fearful that sharing this information will make an unenlightened admissions counselor doubt her ability to succeed. And it’s a fairly selective admissions process. (I should interject here that I work with LOTS of people in her chosen field and she would be a natural.)

The other side of her dilemma is that she hasn’t discussed her problem with her boss, even though both the boss and the company for which they both work would most certainly be very supportive of her aims. The problem is that she told me. And I can’t help her without sharing information she provided me in confidence. And of course I am barred from violating this trust by both law and probity.

This is a frustrating place to be and one in which I find myself all too often. Folks living with disabilities are frequently reticent to open up about their challenges due to deep-seated fear of discrimination. And the sad truth is that this is a very reasonable fear. Even well-meaning (but ignorant) people will unintentionally discriminate against people living with disabilities. For example, there is a gentle tendency to discount people we see as somehow less – less capable, less discerning, less…whatever. We so generously give folks the ‘benefit of the doubt,’ and it’s that doubt that’s so damning.

Less well-meaning folks openly discriminate against folks living with differences. And many of them – a couple of VERY well known movie stars and several politicians come to mind – are in a position to cause loads of harm. It’s very difficult for a person with a cognitive or learning disability to be brave when people around him are cracking up at Ben Stiller’s much publicized ‘retard’ jokes.

It’s ironic that if all the people living with physical, mental, or emotional challenges fully self-disclosed, a lot of the discounters would find that they have already been working with, next to, among folks with all sorts of disabling conditions. And they do so quite successfully on the down-low, which only demonstrates that disability is an attribute, not an identity. And in the vast majority of cases, a simple accommodation can make all the difference. And for many of our co-workers, there are accommodations in pace that we never recognize as such, simply because of language – we never identified this person as having a disability.

It is one of the best things I can say about this country that people like me are employed specifically to help level the playing field. It’s one of the gravest indictments and saddest failures of our society that it’s necessary for anyone to do what I do, originally as a volunteer and now, for a living.

A friend and colleague likes to say that meaningful employment is one of the greatest social programs. And I believe she’s spot on. Without a job, we feel disconnected, cast loose, excluded and unwelcome. A job brings not just a salary and benefits but inclusion, validation, an opening into the circle of life. And employment, or not, is frequently a fertile field for expression of our prejudices. People should be hired or not according to their ability to do the job, given appropriate training and reasonable accommodation.

We struggle with that word reasonable and well we might. But some decisions should be easy. Some folks can’t work around fluorescent lighting. Or sudden loud noises. Or strong perfumes. Others might require swing room for a chair or simply permission to stand and stretch every twenty minutes or so.

A person with some types of learning disabilities may need to be able to pace their intake and many times this can be accommodated simply by allowing the person a little extra time, such as by adjusting their work schedule, etc.  In production situations, the entire accommodation may be accomplished solely by altering the arrangement of the work area. Or raising or lowering the work surface.

Yes, there are folks who need fully supportive chairs and special computer stations in order to work and we should accommodate those needs, as well. I knew a guy who was a combination front desk and phone attendant, human resources clerk and payroll specialist for a small company on the Oregon coast. I spoke to him fairly frequently over several years and it was not until I went there in person that I realized I had been working with a guy who spent his days in a fully supportive motorized wheelchair with sip-and-puff controls. It hadn’t made any difference because I’d not been aware of any difference between this guy and the other faceless folks I’d dealt with by phone and e-mail. And having met him, it still made no difference.  Because he did his job and did it well.

This guy was a vital contributor to his company and his boss made clear that they would have been in the deep water without him. He was utterly competent. Also utterly dependent on certain technological aids to, well, do just about anything.

The thing is, at most companies, this guy would never have been hired. Because neither most hiring managers nor this guy himself could have foreseen how very little it would cost to hook him up with the tools he needed to do his job.

And the knowledge that this is so frequently the case, accompanied by the entirely human fear of rejection, is what prevents this young woman from coming out from behind the protective veil of privacy.

I don’t blame her. But I hope I can help her change her mind.

Sorry for the silence

Been doing some other writing of late. Can't say I didn't warn you.

This is not goodbye

I lost another friend recently. His name was Farley Mowat and I learned a lot from our association.

He wasn’t a member of my family and I never met him. But he had a way with his writing that opened worlds for me.

Children of the Deer allowed this pasty white suburban kid learn about the Inuit and also about social justice – or rather, lack thereof. But for whatever reason, it would be years before I would again share time and attention with Mr. Mowat.

I believe it was my brother who talked me into seeing the movie version of Never Cry Wolf. It helped that Charles Martin Smith played Mowat in the film but it was the story itself that grabbed me. So within the week I had found a copy of the original book without the movie edits and read it overnight. And the conversation was renewed.

This book was and remains controversial among wildlife naturalists, conservations and especially ranchers whose image of wolf predation were at odds with his findings. And maybe they have some good points. But anyone on any side of the discussion would have to admit that Mowat forever changed that discussion. Never again will the Big Bad Wolf mythology define our view of this long misunderstood and irrationally feared mammal.

Mowat did his research without tracking devices or fancy datasets. He simply went out and lived among the wolves in their own range. And noticed. With neither assumption nor prejudice. And then he turned his observations into a book that is both accessible to non-scientists and undeniable to the scientists themselves.  

Somewhere in my used bookshelf pruning I came across a much-thumbed copy of The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Missions of a North Atlantic Salvage Tug. A veteran of the Sicilian Campaign during World War II, it would have been understandable if Mowat had simply cranked out his own war memoir and then moved on. Instead, he chose to chronicle the wartime exploits of oceangoing salvage tugs and the heroic people who crewed them.

Mowat told real stories about real life. In real language. I could not have learned what I did through him by reading any other writer.

 Believe it’s time I looked up some more of his books.

It's a dog's life?

At least, I’m hoping that’s the case because if this isn’t a dog’s life it’s mine, and I don’t want this to be mine.

I speak, of course of the chore(s) attendant upon maintenance of canine cohabitants, of which we have two fewer than Sherree but still, that’s two more than we would need to have should I decide to retire from dogitude, or to be more blunt, servitude to or for dogs.

I have been home for a bit over an hour as I write this. Home being the term I like to use rather than referring to my evenings here rather less kindly but much more accurately than I might. Such as if I called evenings in this place, say, my second job, the chore fest or simply, my indenture.

In this little bit more than an hour I have neither eaten nor consumed liquid refreshment. I have changed from my day job clothing to my evening servitude ensemble which consists of clothing that I don’t mind getting covered with dog detritus. Doggy floss. Hair.

The dog hair of which I speak is easily identifiable as such using visual criteria:

·         It is not silver, therefore not mine;

·         It is not auburn, therefore not Mary’s or Two’s;

·         It lies about the floor in clumps great and numerous, as this is – you guessed it – shedding season.

So my evening thus far has been taken up with vacuuming dog hair, brushing out the dogs’ coats which is not that much fun since neither dog is much in favor of the process, emptying the vacuum cleaner and of course, providing water for the dogs who have let me know with both stance and expression that being brushed is thirsty work.

How did the canine come to be our best friend? Or is it just that we’re their best friends and we go through a self-defensive transference in believing they return the favor.

I love my daughters’ dogs. But I also love Sherree’s dogs and they have the advantage of being at Sherree’s. When daughters leave home, dogs remain.

Shedding.

And begging for stuff.

Snakes don’t shed. Oh, wait, yes they do. Nastily.

Damn.

A Saturday morning

I find myself sitting in the big easy chair, sipping my coffee and killing time until Mary returns from her Saturday morning walk with her sister. We’ll be working on home projects together today, so this is my moment to stop and ponder.

(Ponder, ponder, ponder…)

Okay, enough of that.

With Two home and lots of good projects to finish, not to mention me bro and his wife coming to visit next month, this promises to be a great summer. There will be cookouts and day trips and projects and paddling and much, much chatting.

Odin the Large and Lazy is sprawled out less than six feet from my feet, intent on not having to be intent on anything. The ‘intent’ side of things is well in hand thanks to Zoey the Small and Annoying, at her watch station just outside the back door. The world is safe from pesky crows and marauding squirrels so long as Zoey is on the job. Which of course frees Odin to do what he does best, which is nothing at all.

Last evening, we had dinner with Two and one of her school / Theta friends. It was a great time and with Two going to college on the other side of the continent, we don’t pass up opportunities to meet her good friends. So this was a really special evening.

One continues to expand her opportunities. She’s living the dream even as she makes necessary adjustments. We’re so proud of her!

Life continues to be good.

Some thoughts de Joe

A friend to whom I’m distantly related by a combination of blood and marriage and who I wish I’d met earlier in life because he’s truly a great guy has been blogging as he undergoes treatment for cancer in his tongue, with which some of you are already unfortunately familiar. (Deep breath…)

Joe has been blogging regularly to keep us up to date and this one really touched me. So, entirely without Joe’s permission but trusting that he won’t sue me for infringement of emotion, I thought I’d share this with you. He has displayed both courage and grace and I just thought you might appreciate hearing from him.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Given the Choice. . .

Once again, I want to thank everyone for their kind words, cards, and letters!!  And, yes, there have been those delightful articles of physical mail, delivered by a uniformed government employee.  There's still something special about opening those, no matter how old I am. . .

But, I have to admit that while I certainly appreciate the accolades, I am also humbled by them.  Yes, I think that I'm handling the situation with as much strength and grace as I can muster, but no more than any one of you all would if you had to.  And that's one thing we must all remember, to never sell ourselves short, but that that's a different story for a different day. . .    But as I first remember saying to people ten years ago, when my son David was going through his ordeal with this deadly disease, that we never know how much we can handle until we have to, at which point we are often astonished.  Neither then, nor now, do I recall getting a choice in the matter.  "Gee, Monty. . .  That car is really cool and that trip sounds way cool, but I'm going to go for the potentially fatal disease and its attendant pain and suffering behind door number three. . ." 

I will admit this freely - I am a major weenie and had I been given the choice, I would have definitely opted out. . .  But, since there was none, I will meekly submit and continue to cope to the best of my meager abilities.  And, believe me when I tell you this - I have no doubts that any one of you would step up to whatever vile situation you may find yourselves in.  But. . .  I'm going be way, way happier if I never get the opportunity to prove that I was right about that.  In this case, ignorance IS bliss.

Peace and love to one and all!!!

Joe

Daughters follow up

I’ve just finished a heavy travel rotation (four of six weeks, including three Sundays on the road) and it is so good to be home on a three-day weekend!

Lots of work to do but none of it will be for Work. Two is home for the summer, since her internship at Microsoft will take place only a few miles away. We’ll have plenty of time to visit without the usual vacation flurry of trying frantically to fit everything in. Time to talk without agenda. Time to notice without having to look too hard. Time for its own sake.

One has just started a dinner show, her first paid gig outside Disney and her life continues moving forward. I could do without the fact that said life is playing out three thousand miles away but what the hell.

Working on the house unhurriedly. One particular project we’ve put off the whole twenty years we’ve been here. Just in time to start thinking about moving to our retirement location.

Life continues to be good. I’ll write more soon. Just now, it’s about relaxation, not narrative.

One and also Two

Daughter One is approaching a crossroads and facing up to it admirably. While she continues as a seasonal Disney performer, she has taken an additional paid role in dinner theatre. She’s just moved into a new living arrangement that promises to be infinitely more stable and home-like than some past accommodations. She has purchased her first car in her own name and is thinking seriously about the road ahead.

My longtime buddy Sindy followed a similar (while entirely different, just trust me that this makes sense) path. I remember visiting her several times while on various leaves from the Navy and I caught brief glimpses of a progression of roommates and gigs. Sindy never seemed to lose sight of her end game even as the end goal shifted in response to changing conditions and new experiences.

Things have worked out well for Sindy and she is one of my most beloved and respected life friends. She could serve (and I believe in many ways she already does) as a role model for One and other young women who are facing both the intersection and the divergence between life plans and life experience.

One is doing well and we will continue to watch her life unfold. And I have learned – admittedly somewhat belatedly – that watching is pretty much all a Dad can do at this point. That’s okay; One’s doing well and she’ll be fine.

Daughter Two is finishing her last finals and will be home Thursday night. For the summer. She has an internship within a few miles of us, so she’ll be staying here.

Any parent understands the great good thing that has fallen from our sky. We get to spend relaxed time with our daughter. No ceremonies to attend, no tourist stuff. We’ll have time to just be together and let the conversation go where it will.

Since Two will be graduating this time next year and we can’t predict where life will take her, this could well be the summer we look back on with fondness and longing. And I intend to make good use of it.

How, you might ask?

Mostly, by just sitting back and noticing. Two has lots of friends to connect with and of course, her internship will be a full time job. She’ll be working on applications and senior thesis and all the other capstone stuff that a rising senior needs to get done.

This is likely our last chance – for awhile, anyway – to recalibrate our knowledge of our daughter, to watch her be her and reset our vision of who she is and might become. And I intend to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Most of what parents do is provide a basis for the child to grow into themselves. Beyond providing food and clothing and giving guidance that may or may not be accepted, our major contribution amounts to acting as a launching pad. And Two is pretty much launched.

All we can and should do at this point is watch and learn and enjoy the time with her. And that’s precisely how I hope to shape my summer.

Creature of habit

In response to a flurry of tail wagging, sub-vocalized whoofing and hard staring, I hauled my carcass out of bed this morning and trundled downstairs to feed the canines. After seeing to their needs – and ONLY after seeing to their needs; they can be quite insistent at 7:00am on a Saturday – I started a pot of coffee. With luck, I could get the coffee maker going before the dogs finished inhaling their kibble and ran for the back door, intent on heading outside for their morning exercise in fluid adjustment.

This scene has played out substantially as described above most days for the past however many years. Weekends I’m up an hour or more later than on weekdays. Sometimes Mary beats me to the draw. But for the most part, this is the routine for the first fifteen minutes of my day.

I was struck this morning by the extent to which I am a creature of habit when I happened to glance into my empty coffee cup. It’s one of the ones my daughter gave me and I tend to use it a lot. In the bottom of the cup into which I gazed – gazing into bottoms of coffee cups being entirely consistent with my usual frame of mind and level of consciousness at this point in the process – was a pattern of scratches.

I realized the pattern was made by my spoon as I stirred in the sweetener and fat free milk. Same fixings every day and now I came to realize, the same stirring method. The circle of scratches, concentric with the inner wall of the cup, is defined by the distance between two parallel lines, one tangent to the outer curve of the spoon and the other bisecting the curve of its tip. The scratch circle is surrounded by innumerable increasing radius curves, each beginning as a tangent to the central circle.

Each of the radial scratches proceeds in a counter-clockwise direction. So it would appear that my right-handedness dictates that my coffee stirring habit is as predictable as my dog feeding routine.

If you look at my airline carry-on bag, you’ll always find two ball point pens and a yellow (or occasionally light blue) highlighter in the center sleeves of the front zipper section. The same set of cords, connectors and other accessories is always to be found in the well section, each in its own zip lock baggy to avoid entanglement. I generally carry a small baggy of spice drops for use in combating airplane dry mouth and my Nook is ever in the same pouch.

Before this takes on any more of the all too familiar patina of boring prattle, I’ll move on. Kindly stipulate that for any of the most common everyday activities in which I engage, there are repeating patterns that the discerning observer might record. That is, assuming anyone in their right mind or otherwise would care to observe my daily life patterns at this level of detail.

Today, I am recovering (please, Gawd, I AM recovering) from a nasty cold and so won’t be accomplishing any of the physical tasks I’d planned for the weekend. I’ve some work to get done on a lesson plan and I’ll do some writing later. Some house cleaning if I can overcome inertia and perhaps I’ll sort through…well, you get it. Sick day stuff.

Tomorrow I fly again to Eastern Washington to lead a workshop at one of my favorite non-profits. Then I’ll spend a day working with the folks at another non-profit. This too is part of a life pattern, although in a more macro sense than my morning routine.

Both macro and micro, the patterns of our lives vary in response to outside influences, both predictable and un. But for the most part, it’s the patterns that provide the background and the context of our lives.

I’m working on changing some of those background patterns of late. Less sugar and fat in the food, less food for that matter. More exercise. Less TV and more reading and writing. You know the drill.

I’m working on a project that may well serve as the capstone of my salaried career. I’ve hopes –possibly unreasonable, but oh, well – that the book I’m finally writing will be a capstone in a more personal realm. And of course, in the most personal sense, Daughters One and also Two are the ultimate capstones.

I wonder if the Hawthorne effect will kick in regarding my coffee stirring protocols. If I look at the bottom of my cup in a few months hence, will the scratch pattern be altered? I dunno. And I probably won’t check; at coffee-stirring time of the morning, I’m usually not all that analytical.

I like my habits as they are. They are a framework about which I don’t have to think much and they allow me to comfortably proceed with my intentional life without worrying about too many upsets. When I set up to teach on Tuesday, I can reach for my pointer without looking down. I will be sipping coffee tomorrow morning before I am consciously aware of being awake. And having fed the dogs and swilled my coffee, I will get on with my life.

Which for the moment, I am enjoying immensely.

A little quiz

Question: What do the following items have in common?

·         A 3-wheel electric scooter,

·         A training tool for a soccer player,

·         A skate sail, and

·         A butterfly life cycle experiment.

Answer: They can all be found for sale on page 4.
Page 4 of what, you might ask? And well you might.

I have always wondered about the sales magazines you find in the seat back pockets on airplanes. So last trip, I brought one home. Which is of course precisely what the airline marketing people hoped I would do.

I gotta wonder how they choose the things they sell in these airplane magazines. I mean, is there a really big market among people riding airplanes from Salt lake City to Seattle for lighted zip lines, robotic grill cleaners and cameras designed to let you see what’s behind you when rowing or riding? Bug zappers and golf accessories must also be desirable items for this particular high flying demographic.

For the discerning air shopper, these good folks offer computer mice shaped like race cars (eight models), complete sets of award-winning chef’s knives, and a combined paper towel holder / cell phone charger. Talk about utility! They also offer all sorts of furniture sets, baseballs signed by folks I’ve never heard of, security locks for interior doors and anti-slouching harnesses.

I’m looking very closely at the party cups, the fake fire hydrant (seems like a dandy gift for our dogs) and the Bar exam quiz game. The little gondolier who will troll around my pool singing three different Italian songs seems like a swell buy at $59.99 (swimming pool and 4 AA batteries not included).

I buy ALL my topiary plants via mail order from airline magazines. I’ve heard that everyone in the nursery industry has great respect for the quality of topiaries from Delta Airlines.

Oo-oo-oo-ooh! I hadn’t even seen page 39 but now I’m jonesing for an ultimate micro suede furniture protector. Oh, babay! Gotta get me one! And a garden fountain shaped like a peeing little boy from page 51 (to go with my topiary, doncha know). And to round out garden mine, some fake monkeys and lions might be just the thing.

Kansas City steaks, the massage chair and the new bathing suit will have to wait until next order, I fear. I have to get these things into the house on the down low a small pile at a time, lest Mary clue to my airborne shopping habits before my collection is complete.

Nobody tell, okay?

Oh, WAIT!!! The voice activated R2D2 robot for only $199.95!?!?!?! I hope they don’t sell out before my trip to D.C.!

Think she’ll notice?

Leaving a legacy

Boy, that title sounds foreboding, does it not?

I might have called this one something like “Building for the future” but that tastes even more ‘blech’ than the title I chose. So, mebbe I should just make a start and trust that the theme will work itself out.

I am a matrixed employee, meaning I work for more than one boss and in fairly different areas. One of my bosses is a colleague and friend of approximately my age and with somewhat similar medical misadventures in the not distant past.

She and I have both spent some significant alone time self-examining the fact that while we have some good productive years ahead (so we hope, anyway) the ones behind are by far in the majority. So for each of us, the concept of what we will leave behind looms large.

In his 70s, Ray Bolger did a stage routine in which he talked about this sort of thing and he ended the bit by tossing his hat behind him to sit on the stage in the narrowed circle of the follow spot while Bolger retired off stage right. It was this incredible mute statement of ‘leaving something on the stage’ that had even moi in tears. I guess there’s a bit of this feeling in my own current focus on the coming, finite professional years.

By the bye, this one isn’t going to build to any profound thematic point. I’m just sharing feelings with you today.

Anyway, my boss and I are working together to shape certain teaching / training activities, melding my regional approach to her overall national approach in an effort to make certain that the best possible content is made available in the most remote parts of the country. When, where and as needed.

We’re reviewing and learning from all sorts of media, delivery, lesson planning, channels, topics and sub-topics. We’ll be compiling, chunking and coordinating themes and pieces of themes. Stealing shamelessly from people smarter than us and gently fending off the determined contributions of some others.

It’s a big job and one that I enjoy immensely. In the next three weeks, I’m bringing some of the resulting work product to conference sessions, on-site teaching and training and in-person mentoring and I am scared as hell. If you care about this job, the worst possible outcome is that you fail to bring the participants something of value. They’ve trusted you with their time and attention and if you owe them anything, it’s to bring them something of value. And unless you’re entirely self-impressed, as you begin the teaching swing, it’s impossible not to harbor the occasional thought of “Who the hell am I to think I have something worthwhile to offer these people?”

Wish me luck.

(And stop whining – I told you there would not be a whiz-bang finish!)

Negative advertising

Build.com has an ad running on TV just now that is truly disturbing.

Okay, so I find most current advertising campaigns disturbing for a range of reasons but this one really promotes a negative approach to life.

This guy is seen in a series of homeowner fix-it situations. First he has a wobbly ceiling fan and when he contemplates fixing it, his wife says he should just chuck it and buy a new fan at Build.com. So, then he’s working on a leaky faucet and again she suggests replacement over repair. The theme continues, including the stinger at the end in which the now-savvy homeowner sees a neighbor repairing a path light and suggests – you guessed it – tossing it in favor of  buying a new lamp from our favorite distributor.

The explicit message is that it’s easier and faster to just throw away any household item that needs repair.

Forget that this speaks to the worst (largely accurate) image of Americans as wasteful, lazy over-consumers. Or that the commercials promote tossing easily repaired items. Forget that many Dads in many corners of the globe would gladly repair any of those items in exchange for enough food to feed their kids for just one day.

These are really disgusting ads. Please do not patronize Build.com. They deserve our censure and in the commercial world, censure means silent phones and empty in- boxes.

(By the bye, if you want to know how to fix any of these items, call me. Build.com is not only socially irresponsible, they’re basic premise is just plain dumb. In every case, fixing the existing item is orders of magnitude simpler than removing the old and installing the new. If you want ‘faster’ or ‘easier,’ and certainly cheaper, fix the old one.)

Book thievery

I saw the movie version of The Book Thief on a flight from somewhere to somewhere else and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I decided to read the book upon which it was loosely based. I say loosely because so much was cut out to make the story movie length that they really aren’t the same story at all.

I don’t like spoilers so I won’t do anything remotely resembling a review here. I’ll just say that they each deserve to be considered separately.

Watch the movie first. Then when you read the book, the added characters, plotline and theme will make the story new for you. Reading the book first might make the movie pale in comparison and that would be a shame, because the script, direction and acting are all fabulous.

But do get around to reading the book. Marcus Zusak makes me just want to give up writing – that is, assuming I could spend the time thus saved reading books this good.

List for contract law

Things I noticed from the back of the room (during a two-day course on contract law)

1)      That guy up there has really planar ear lobes

2)      Not all bald spots are created equal.

3)      At least three people think you can’t see them texting if they do it under the table.

4)      I am the first person to know when they bring in the afternoon cookies.

5)      Several people took an extra big cookie for later.

6)      The guy with the muscle shirt isn’t really using the fitness center across the hall; he’s just going in and out over and over to see and be seen.

7)      Plumbers aren’t the only people with unfortunate southern exposures.

8)      The instructor knows who’s nodding off long about 2:30pm.

9)      One woman has what I believe is a hairpin hanging from her hair.

10)   And one man has a badly frayed collar.

I am not entirely consumed by contract law.

Constitution unconventional

My brother and I have had some interesting conversations these last few years (okay, decades) regarding politics. ‘Interesting’ being quite a mild modifier, considering the volume and passion attached to some of our discussions.

Sooner or later, if you love your bro, you make a decision: either stop talking politics or find a way to talk politics without polemics. And after a few false starts, we’ve decided to take the latter tack. In service of which, we intend to hold our own constitutional convention. Only two delegates will be in attendance, representing only ourselves. Oh, and the unnamed but real (in our minds, anyway) throngs whose fundamental beliefs and best interests we represent.

Instead of arguing about this candidate or that Supreme Court decision, we’re going back to core values. If it was up to us to frame a constitution, what would we include? And this will not be merely a collection of idle musings.

We’re going to actually write the thing.

And I’m excited about this project.

Damn, I’m a nerd!

Friends in pain

I’ve never been particularly affected by my own pain. Not emotionally, anyway. But it’s difficult for me to watch someone I care about hurting.

I don’t mean this in an altruistic sense. It’s just the way I am. I can be a major pain in the ass when I’m hurting and I have to suppose that’s driven in some way by subliminal worry. But I don’t really feel afraid so much. I don’t think about the what-ifs except in the sense of planning for family.

I guess I’m helped by having something I can do. I can consult with doctors, plan for my own course of treatment, talk to Mary about where stuff is located (again, just in case). But I don’t know how to handle a friend’s pain. Or a child’s.

When Two shattered her elbow, there were things I could do. Be there. Care. Get her things. But I couldn’t do a damn thing about the most important part – her pain. Her worry.

Our friend (Mary’s bro-in-law) Joe is going through chemo / radiation for tongue cancer. As did our friend Larry. Can’t imagine what that’s like and for this reason, I am scared for him. Not for the possibility of mortality. The biggest ass who ever lived was able to pull off dying. That we can all do.

But what Joe’s going through and what Larry went through earlier is NOT something we all do. It’s a particular bit of nastiness that reached out to them. And I’m scared for them. Make that, relieved for Larry and scared shitless for Joe.

I wish I could do the Green Mile thing for him. Be his sin eater and make it all better.

I can’t. But I wish I could.