The ugly wife

(Note to reader: Don’t know why I didn’t post this one at the time – last summer – but here it is now.)

So, I’m sitting in the waiting room of a Ford dealership in Schiller Park Illinois at about 7:15 this morning, waiting to find out if I need to spend a few grand on my transmission before I can start the 2300 mile drive home. Now, you might think my mood was kinda low, given the circumstances. And you would be right, except for a news item that changed my day.

There were four of us within earshot when a story came on about some guy who is suing his wife for divorce on the basis of fraud. It seems that the morning after the wedding night was the first time this schlub had seen his beloved without her makeup and he was displeased at the revelation.

Hmmm, I say.

But my waiting room posse said more than hmmm. In fact, the other man and woman waiting for their bad car news and the cashier behind the counter all broke into riotous laughter. After a beat, so did I.

Sometimes, other people’s problems sort of make your own recede into insignificance. And that poor woman’s problems makes my broken car seem less important than a hangnail.

The real question here is not how this idiot managed to get to the marriage bed before he decided he didn’t like his wife’s looks. The real question is how she got to the marriage bed without noticing what a slug she was marrying.

Anyway, not that I am one to revel in the problems of others but I do have to admit this was the most jovial waiting room experience I can recall.

More great quotes

“The smile that followed made the sun look like a fool.” Toni Morrison, Paradise.

As you might deduce from the title above, I had intended this to be a discussion of some of my favorite quotes. But I didn’t get past this one by Morrison. I am staggered by her ability to capture a thought so perfectly in so few words. So I’ll stop here.

“The smile that followed made the sun look like a fool. “

Wow.

Two women

              There are many people I’ve come to respect over the course of my life. For diverse reasons I find them exemplars of some aspect of what I suppose I’ve come to consider ‘right living.’ Marilyn and Barry for how they came through Christopher’s death and in spite of their loss found a way to make life good for their other children. Anne for redefining herself on her own terms.

              Joe is facing terminal illness with grace and humor, while Elaine remains the perfect partner for a man who will be gone too soon but for the moment is very much still here.

              Mary for too many reasons to list here, and many of them too private. Rachel for finding friends by being a friend.

              Sherree for persevering, all the while providing foundation for Naomi and always a kind (or frequently, goofy) word for someone who needed it.

              All of these and more have contributed to my life in ways that I could not have predicted, didn’t ask for, but without which I question whether I could have become myself.

              I’m thinking of two such people tonight, each a friend in her own way and each a special contributor to my life. What they have in common is that each of them set out to find her dream, to fashion a life around a central theme that was uniquely her own.

              Sindy was always going to be an actor and sure enough, she is and always has been. Her life in theatre has followed the ragged course that life defines for you even as she kept her nose ever pointed in the direction of her dream. There were sidesteps and roadblocks and other passions but never did she give up on her need to be herself, a self that needed to be played out - at least in part - on the boards. She is well along in her journey now and recently has returned to the core, acting with friends old and new and expressing herself through her chosen medium.

              Angela also dreamed of the life dramatic and charted a course no less serpentine than Sindy’s. There have been successes and setbacks and just now she finds herself at a crossroads, faced with the choice of taking one path or the other, or perhaps blazing a new one of her own. I take great pride in her achievements but even more, my chest swells at her striving. She shares with Sindy the single-minded passion for her art that ensures, even if it’s not always her job, it will always be somehow entwined in her life’s work.

              Sindy’s life didn’t follow a straight line. News flash – neither has mine. Or Mary’s or Sherree’s or those of the many people I respect and care for.

              And so far, neither has Angela’s. And that’s okay. Because she has never given up or given in and I’ve no doubt she will get there, wherever ‘there’ is.

              Lives aren’t supposed to follow straight lines. The only true requirement is that they must be lived. I respect these two women for living their lives. Their lives, shaped by circumstance and events, knocked occasionally off course by the actions or inactions of others. But in the end, their lives.
              We could all stand to live more for ourselves.

A cemetery

On a low hill above Tea Creek outside Milroy, PA is a cemetery. The oldest section is closest to the road, which accounts for my noticing it.

I must have driven past hundreds of cemeteries over the years but this one caught me, made me find a wide place to turn about and come back. I parked at the end of the farm drive next to the cemetery, waving to the Mennonite woman who paused briefly in her chores to glance at me quizzically.

The rows of headstones were lined up perfectly like folding chairs at the school play. Perhaps it was this detail that I found most compelling. Or perhaps it was the age of the headstones, some with the carvings no longer much resembling letters and words but still clearly inscriptions.

This is a respected place, a place cherished by someone who has kept the grass nicely trimmed around each stone and the stones themselves all upright and aligned. In perfect rows all facing down slope toward the living people below. The dead are perfectly positioned to watch the processions of the living on the road below, going about their lives.

The first real play in which I ever appeared was my eighth grade production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. I was to have played the part of George except I was too tall for Nancy who was playing Emily, at least according to Nancy’s mom who was a big wheel in the parish and made a federal case of the height difference to Sister Verona… (intake of breath) but, let’s not go there (sniff!).

Since I first read that script, I’ve been affected – one might say, haunted – by the cemetery scene. The idea of the dead sitting in their chairs watching and commenting on the world of the living, the people who don’t really understand. The ones who can’t really understand life so long as they remain caught up in it.

Today, just outside Milroy, PA I finally saw that scene as Wilder must have seen it. It was magical.

I’ll sleep well tonight

You get a good rest, too.

A list for Chicago

              An “Architectural Tour” of the Chicago aboard an excursion boat on the Chicago River with Daughter Two yielded the following list of observations:

I so love spending time with my daughters.

There are lots of tall buildings in Chicago

To the top of none of which I shall ever venture.

Irish skin burns easily.

I am so glad I brought my hiking boots, in which I need to spend a lot more time, you know, actually hiking, if my now complaining muscles are any indication.

Many cool bookstores are to be found here, but none to compare with the Portland Powell’s (Sorry, Chicago…).

I could never live here but it sure is a cool place to mosey around.

Daughter Two is as big a sucker for dogs as is One (witness one Cleo).

A father and daughter should never get so wrapped in their conversation that they totally ignore the GPA lady until they realize they’ve been driving for an hour in the wrong direction.

Whys and wherefores

I’m sitting here on an overcast morning wondering at how I came to be here. Certainly, my view could have been quite different.

Instead of gazing out on a lawn needing its second mowing of the season (already?) and a glorious profusion of cherry blossoms and the decrepit shed we’ll finally tear down this summer, I could have been looking at... what?

This window could have been the more elegantly framed fenestre of a wood paneled study instead of the vinyl-coated factory framed double-pane on the outside wall of bedroom-cum-office. Or it could have been the high and narrow clerestory designed to permit entrance of light but only a slight view of the sky from my prison cell.

Could have been.

And of course, between those two extremes reside an infinite array of could-have-beens, not all glorious but neither all desperate.

There were those in my early years who thought me destined for the university and the life of the academic, and those today who wonder where I went off course. I’ve no good answer except, here I be.

At one time I saw my future as an author and now find myself instead (and joyously) a writer. ‘Author’ was never important enough to shoulder aside the writer in me.

I didn’t always see myself as a father and certainly not as a Dad, so how did I come to deserve those appellations, to the extent that I can be truthfully considered deserving of the honor?

I suppose I could have been a politician but even if elected to some middling office I would have been a poor one. Besides, earning the support of voters turns out not to be such a noble feat, judging by current events. I’ve earned the trust of the two dogs that sleep at my feet as I work and therein resides my pride.

Through accident of genetics I was born with a mind that could have learned many different things. And to a family that put those things within reach.

Could have beens.

I chose this life, I suppose, although I can’t recall the juncture at which the path leading to this desk before this window became settled.

I’ve friends, not so many but each one good and true, the family that I would have hoped for under Rawls’ veil of ignorance, and abilities and interests that fill my days with satisfaction.

You won’t find me complaining.

Even so, looking out this window as the breeze freshens and the cherry petals begin to fall, I can’t help wondering what might have been.

A non-poet's thoughts on poetry

There is poetry to be found
In the unexpected view
Of the mountain over still water.
In unrestrained
Laughter at a shared delight
Poetry may be found.

 Do not seek poetry

From this mind and hand –
I am no poet.
I take no interest
In meter or rhyme;
Of Angelou’s talent and craft
I am bereft.

 But not deprived,

For I easily find poetry
In the lives of friends,
In the triumphs of daughters
And in forgiveness for my faults.

I need not struggle to make poetry;

It is here to be found.
I’ve only to notice
And be thankful.

 

(It's Sindy's fault I did this one.)

Thanks

I love you for reading this. I really do.

Not for the thrill it gives me to watch the hit counter and know that people chose to drop by, although I guess honesty demands that I admit that’s part of it.

I love you for the choice. At this moment you could be running out to the store or reading about the latest political eruption or any of the other things with which we occupy our minds when we are neither working nor doing our laundry.

You chose to be here for this brief moment of time. And if you’ve been here before, as have most of you, it is clear by now that you’ll find nothing earth shattering in this lonely column. It’s just life. My life and my observations on the lives of others.

I like to think I provide you something in return for trusting me with a bit of the two commodities you can never replace – your time and attention. I hope I do because I feel a responsibility in that regard.

I love people who choose thoughtful conversation over diatribes, although I must admit the frequency with which I’m tempted to rant about the issue of the day (and sometimes do).

I read similar (frequently better) pages like this written by others whose thoughts I find interesting or soothing or inspiring. Some of you, some others.

I hope there never comes a time when we don’t make time for simple sharing of thoughts. Truly, I love that you feel the same.

Dog comparison

	Great Dane	Chihuahua
Name	Odin	Cleo
Weight	110 lbs	9 lbs (being generous here)
Means of engagement	Presses face into crotch	Inserts body into armpit
Vocalization	Loud, deep bark	Sneezy little chuffs
Territoriality	His bed. Also, Zoey’s bed	Angela’s bed
Elapsed time to turn human into quivering mass of love	One minute, thirteen seconds	Yeah, that’s about right
Human love with	Rachel	Angela
Chews	House, barbecue cover, toys, etc.	Food. Can’t be bothered with non-food items.
Courage	Afraid of cats	Afraid of nothing
Favorite pastime	Sleeping	Sleeping
Favorite comment	D’oh!	Wazzat?
Tenure in family	Nine years, ten months	Two days, four hours
Legacy	So many good memories	So many good times ahead

Observation will continue.

Cleo

The newest member of Clan McDermott is a Chihuahua. Yes, yes, one of those little constantly underfoot rat-like dogs. Well, maybe not so much a dog as a mutation of the canine strain in the direction of smallness.

I’ve always been more a fan of larger dogs. Sam was a Rottweiler / Blue Tick Hound. Odin was a Great Dane / Black Lab. I like my furry buddies to weigh in the three digit zone.

So, there we were at the animal shelter, Daughter One and I perusing the current offerings of the four-legged variety. Hugo was a cool Pug mix but Mary would never go for such a heavy shedder so no Hugo. Remington was a cool old guy but we were looking for a companion who would be a closer match to Zoey the Small and Annoying and Remington was decidedly large.

A young couple swooped in and snatched up the cute little black and white little girl before we could make our pitch.

Then about halfway down the left line of cages One came across this little shivering, ears-forward, tail wagging fist-sized girl who couldn’t get enough of One’s fingers to lick. Swear to Gawd, it was first sight love for da bote a dem.

She’s a sweet little thing and anxious for affection of any kind. And she’s house-broken. She’ll fit in just fine. And Zoey will be a great big sis to her.

So, welcome to the family, Cleo.

Point of view

I was riding across the lake the other day and both Mt. Baker to my north and Rainier to my south were out in all their glory. It was a magnificent sight. (Okay, sights, since I had to turn my head to see each in turn.)

I got to thinking about the potential for an eruption. Based on sedimentary evidence of previous pyroclastic flows, either mountain could spawn a doozy. I give way occasionally to a low grade nervousness about it, the way you occasionally worry about a lightning strike. Not likely, but still…

And then, in the way one’s mind wanders when riding the bus with a finished book and stunning mountains within view, I got to thinking about the frequency of eruptions. I found myself wondering what a film of our volcanoes would look like from a more geologic point of view.

I decided that western Washington, viewed from high above and speeded up a gadzillion times, might most resemble a coffee percolator. Or perhaps thick soup just coming to a simmer.

It was a cool thought.

And then I noticed the teenager across from me and thought of geologic acne and the whole thing was ruined in a single pop.

Not every bus ride flight of fancy makes it to cruising altitude.

The bachelor...again

Mary left for Florida this morning, taking her turn as her mother’s caregiver.

There was a time when extended families lived in the same city or even the same house. Elders took a hand in the raising of children and children in turn provided for the needs and security of their elderly parents. It was a good system for the most part, one that provided both succor and continuity.

It’s been a long time since families lived in the same row house or apartment building or tenement. It’s been awhile since most families even lived in the same city.  Mary’s is bi-coastal so it’s no small matter to arrange for visits, much less an ongoing caretaking arrangement.

They make it work.

Many the argument – er, discussion – has taken place among the sibs over the last few years as it became clear that their mother was going to have needs beyond what she could provide for herself. They haven’t always agreed except on one thing – their mother would never be left to fend for herself or forced to choose between dignity and survival.

So, once again I find myself largely alone for the next month. Mary will be with her mom. And since Daughter Two is in Chicago and Daughter One has, you know, her own life, I will be largely alone.

And it sucks.

And it’s okay.

Because this is what Mary needs to do. It’s what a family does.

Woman's work

Project: Protect the house from woodpeckers (a protected species hereabouts) trying to nest by making holes in the wood siding

Wife’s tasks:

Figure out what to use and how to use it (special netting)

Find hammer stapler and staples after husband gives up.

Climb ladder again and again

Install netting along roof line using, you know, tools

Secure bottom end of netting to siding using (as you might have guessed) tools

Husband’s tasks:

Haul ladders out of garage

Fail to find the hammer stapler and staples

Hold ladder for wife

I always make sure my spouse sticks to woman’s work. It’s her place.

It's not the vulgarity

Regarding a certain candidate currently running for public office, I’ve been quite bothered by the vulgarity and bigotry he’s been espousing. I remain bothered by this.

But there’s an aspect of this person’s bilious bloviating that bothers me even more than the hateful content. Here’s the thing:

Whether he’s making fun of persons living with disabilities, or bragging about his (undemonstrated) prowess in various areas, or simply lying, what he’s not doing is speaking to the actual, you know, issues.

He’ll make the country great again but can’t say how. He’ll make a neighboring country pay for a new Great Wall (another example of his hateful spew) but doesn’t say how. He’s going to fix health care but doesn’t say how. And of course he’s going to ‘fix’ the military. Again, no plan.

He decries H1B but of course, his own companies bring in workers using that rule. And then he has the gall to stand up on national television and say, “we shouldn’t have these loopholes but hey, it’s there and I’m a businessman so I use it,” as though that’s a legitimate defense.

He wants to bar refugees and other immigrants. Oh, wait, except for the young, statuesque ones he marries.

Asked to define his specific objection to Common Core, his answer was, “it’s education from Washington, D.C.” He clearly doesn’t know what Common Core is, since it’s actually driven on a state by state basis. And of course the press lets him get away with it.

He claims to be a great businessman but he’s a leader in business failures. It’s more accurate to say he’s good at starting and not so good at operating businesses. Shouldn’t that make us nervous about this guy as a potential chief executive?

And yet, he leads in the polls.

I don’t care so much about the vulgarity. I do care that we seem to have so many folks planning to vote to make it the lingua franca of the White House.

Amazing. And frightening.

Temptation

“Too soon,” they say. Daughters One and also Two and of course, SheWhoMustBeObeyed.

Too soon for our emotional states. Too soon for Zoey the Small and Annoying to make the adjustment. Too soon to choose wisely. Too soon for a new round of training and accommodation and assimilation.

It’s too soon because we have to process the loss of Odin the Large and Lazy. He is still a part of us, so wouldn’t a new dog feel like an interloper?

I suppose I have to agree it’s too soon.

Too soon after the death of a friend who was unconditionally loving through so many family and personal events.

So, someone please tell me, why do I feel this insane temptation to go to the pound, ‘just to look?’

For now

For now, you’re still my buddy.

I can hear you snoring behind me as I write this. I’m glad.

I’m glad because your gentle snoring means that you’re not in pain, not stuporously shaking your head trying to dislodge a tumor that you don’t understand is there.

I’m glad because it’s clear you feel safest when one of us is with you. A dog feeling safe with me is a high compliment.

You’ve sprung back before. They said weeks or months, certainly not a year and it’s been over a year. We’ve had a few low spots along the way. A time or two I wondered if it was time.

Perhaps we’ll get another reprieve but I doubt it. Too many symptoms, too little energy, just too…

It won’t be tonight, I don’t think. We hope you are still here when your girl gets home tomorrow night. But of course, it’s not about her or me. It’s about you and it’s my last duty to an old friend to know when it’s time.

Not yet, though.

For now, you’re still my buddy, snoring on the carpet behind me. And I'm glad.

Who said it wouldn't last?

Thirty years ago as I type this Mary and I met at my friends' (her brother's) wedding. Actually, at the reception since I missed the actual wedding. I spent the evening hoping no one would notice that the bottom twenty inches or so of my pants were soaked, as were my shoes and socks. But that's another whole story...

Anyway, I met her and displayed my sense of humor, in spite of which, she eventually agreed to a date. Silly girl!

So-o-o-o, happy thirtieth to Mark and Deb! And thank you for inviting me to your wedding. I think...

Should

               It can be entertaining and even occasionally instructive to observe the folks with whom I share bus rides morning and afternoon each work day. You really get the complete cross-section of society since bus riders are mostly self-selecting and they each use their own criteria for choosing transportation modes.

               Some folks don’t have company-provided parking near their places of employment. That’s me. Or they simply dislike driving in city / commuter traffic. Also me. Some can’t afford private transportation or can’t drive for a whole variety of reasons. And some simply prefer the bus.

               So, you get this whole panoply of personalities, economic strata, histories and futures. And as I said, it can be fun to watch.

               What’s even more amusing is watching the watchers. The way people react to the people around them is a sociology lesson in real time.

               There are the private ones who want only to be left alone to the book of the week and do everything they can to discourage human engagement. And on the other hand, there are the ones who can’t wait to strike up a conversation about just about anything.

               There’s the ‘crazy guy’ who always cuts the line but no one objects because it won’t stop him, the drivers don’t care and he goes off on anyone he sees as usurping his right to be first. We all just try not to be the one sitting next to him when he starts railing against the world. You can tell the bus-riding newbies because they appear so delighted at finding an open seat on a standing-room-only coach. Nobody makes that mistake twice. He watches for someone to run afoul of his world view and then launches an attack that is quite alarming until you’ve seen his schtick a few times and come to realize he is literally all bark.

               There are the guys who stare at girls and the girls who try not to be caught staring at guys. Leerers come in both genders, although the approach is different.

               Folks become ‘bus buddies’ over time, learning each other’s routes and enough about their jobs and families to provide a sort of community of the 554 / 8:10. I have bus buddies and we all watch each other for the opportunity to engage and then to disengage after a moment’s easy conversation (pulling out the book or unravelling the ear buds being the primary coded signals we use).

               Among the watchers the most interesting to me are the ones I like to think of as the Normative Police. These are the folks whose idea of how the world works and our places in it are so secure that they feel comfortable assuming the judicial role within the public transit microcosm.

               On the old 210, there was a woman among the regulars whose judgment regarding each person boarding ‘her’ bus was so clearly etched on her face that folks who didn’t measure up sometimes found it insulting. In the time it took for a rider to enter the bus, scan their pass and walk the few paces required to pass her inspection station, she could size up, adjudicate and consign to the nether regions anyone who failed to measure up to her standards. One of my bus buddies took to calling her Big Nurse behind her back. She caught Marsha once but only looked confused. I don’t think she’s read much Ken Kesey.

               On the 212, there is a guy who reminds me of the character Pigpen in the Charley Brown cartoons. Only instead of dust, this guy moves through the world in a cloud of ‘should.’ If bus riders actually had thought balloons over their heads, his would be infilled with a dark gray. Pretty much no one measures up, if his jutting lower lip and furrowed brow are any indication. I don’t believe in all the times I’ve shared a ride with him (three years on this route, times maybe twice each week – you do the math) I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him smile or heard him utter a pleasant greeting or comment. If not for the fact that he tends to make business calls loudly and at length, I might have assumed he was mute. But his facial expressions tell the tale.

               I love riding the bus for the community it provides. For a writer, it’s a motorized collection of writing prompts.

Looking to the future

A day will come when we don’t need to embrace people’s differences because we won’t consider them important. We will accommodate the needs of people who live with disabilities without resentment and when confronted with a heavy accent we will listen more closely without grimacing.

A day will come when women will be able to walk down the street without fearing the intent of every male they happen across or worse, who lies in wait. And men of good will won’t have to feel guilty by association.

A day will come when women and minorities in positions of leadership and authority will be unremarkable.

A day will come when we won’t take the time to worry about the gender or sexual orientation of loving couples because we will prefer to spend our time and attention making sure that the people in our own lives feel loved.

A day will come when censorship will be nonexistent because to try to censor will be universally viewed as distasteful but also because most writers and speakers and painters and, and, and… will be respectful so that censorship is unnecessary.

A day will come when bigotry in any form will be so universally censured that the bigots will recede into the dark places from whence they were excreted.

A day will come when diversity won’t have to be promoted because at long last we will realize that sameness promotes inbreeding which is both unhealthful and boring.

A day will come when every child will be able to rely upon every adult of good will for protection and succor and those who would hurt, or abuse, or neglect children will be seen and treated as the arch criminals they are. And people will always and in every case intervene. Which means…

A day will come when no one earns the hateful sobriquet ‘bystander.’

A day will come when I won’t have to write any of this in future tense.

That day is not yet come.

But it will. Not in my lifetime and not in yours.

But trust me, the day will come. And my job today is to live my life in such a way that I help us move toward that day rather than away from it. I haven’t always been good at this but I will continue to try harder.  Because if I do, if we all do, then for our grandchildren or theirs,

A day will come.

A young family

It was a chore day at Chez McD, so I found myself sweeping and dusting and vacuuming whilst Mary did the grocery shopping, etc. Working in the family and dining room, I found my gaze frequently drawn to the neighbors’ backyard. The whole family was out taking advantage of the first non-rain weekend day in some time.

The Dad raked leaves and cleaned up the detritus from a series of storms that have blown through of late. Meanwhile, the Mom played catch with the son and older daughter while the younger daughter alternated between running around aimlessly and scolding our dogs whose barking and tail wagging announced their eagerness to join in the play.

One of the things I really like about this family is that they act like a family. The kids are the focal point of their lives. There are things I don’t understand about them; for example, they are devout Mormons and we are not devout anything. So their whole view of life on earth might be quite different from ours.

That’s okay because we agree on the single basic premise of life in a family – that children should be made to feel they are the whole reason for their parent’s lives. The raising of children is a big deal, which is not to say everyone needs to have children. But if you choose to have children, you have to be all in.

These folks are. And it shows.

Their kids are polite and respectful to adults and each other. And trust me when I say they know how to have fun. They’ll be fine.

Just felt like sharing that.