Mystery Solved

I always wondered how the daughter was able to successfully put hats, glasses, and you-name-it on our pet dog, when the second I tried to touch or place any object on our dog’s head, she would thrash violently until the foreign object was dislodged and summarily disposed of. 

The secret, as it turns out, as in all endeavors, is persistence.  Just keep doing it again and again (say for fifteen very gleeful and entertaining minutes to a child) and resistence apparently gives way.  At that point, the dog resigns to her fate as a dress-up model and will submit to almost anything (well, OK, even at that point, the dresses apparently are still a challenge).

The Whatifs and Other Monsters Under the Bed

The other night while I was lying awake worrying about something that I can no longer even remember, I came to notice my daughter lying on the floor beside the bed (a frightening shadowy apparition in itself until you learn to expect such behavior).  Eventually she presumably found the uncarpeted floor less hospitable than her own bed and returned there.

The next day I asked her why she was there and I got the standard kid answer for such nighttime behaviors: because of “Monsters under the Bed.”

I then wondered what I in the heck I was doing up at that time myself and realized it was pretty much the same thing: going to some cold, hard, dark place and worrying about my own “Monsters under the Bed.”  Those both irrational and rational fears we have when the din of the outside world quiets and we are left alone with our own unique thoughts and concerns.

This is a time and mood captured perfectly by the Shel Silverstein poem Whatif:

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song…

…Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Shel and I just need to keep telling ourselves: those nighttime Whatifs and Monsters under the Bed aren’t real, they’re just illusions of our overactive imaginations and worst fears.  Even our most rational fears only very seldom come to pass and as wittily told in Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen):

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday

So go back to your own bed.  Turn on a flashlight or shine some hope and optimism into your worried mind and let those Whatifs and Monsters under the Bed fade away and melt back into the shadows.  4PM on some idle Tuesday will no doubt come soon enough, so for now appreciate and be grateful for the day you just had and look forward to and be hopeful for those yet to come.

10 Years of WWILF’ing, Information Smog, and Distractions

Almost as if it was longing to be found and remembered on its tenth anniversary, I came across this receipt today for the first computer I ever purchased – 10 years ago today*. 

As I ponder this anniversary of sorts, it might be useful to reflect on what has changed in the 10 years since I first brought such an object (and many subsequent ones) into my house.

Firstly, computers have proliferated in my house like Tribbles, I have a basement full of relics (including this first one) and 3 of them within 10 feet of where I now sit (not even counting things like MP3 Players, GPS’s, etc.).

The wife’s irritation at their presence and the time I spend in front of them has oscillated back and forth between mild and serious annoyance.

I gained the freedom to do some work from home as well as the expectation from employers that I do work from home.  Home and work life have morphed into a single entity – but at least I now leave work on time and always make it home for supper.  Even if right after supper I am back to checking email.  

I have only read a handful of books and never again subscribed to a newspaper.  I haven’t been to a library or opened an encyclopedia in years.

I have spent probably no more than a single hour of continuous concentration on any one single thing.  A constant stream of emails, IMs, and many other digital distractions have all contributed to this attention deficit. 

More positively, as my treasured family photos have migrated to sites like Flickr, I no longer live in fear that a house fire would permanently destroy these precious items. 

Reflecting on all of this, it is useful to remember a time not so long ago when computers and the Internet were not an integral part of our daily lives.  And also perhaps worry just a bit, that the negative trends listed (the constant communications, interruptions, intrusions) will only multiply at an ever-increasing rate until we become little more than computer processors ourselves. 

Overall, looking at the past ten years, one can see that this new media age, like the TV-age that preceded it, holds the promise of even greater convenience and access to information, while taking away things like solitude and concentration.  How you feel about that I guess depends on which of those things you value more.  But enough concentration for one hour (and one decade) - time to get back to WWILF’ing** and another 10 years of digital distraction.

                                                                                                                  

* It is also interesting to recall the fact that by 1998 I had worked as a computer programmer for over 2 years before I could even get enough money together to afford one.  The first year of work, I didn’t even have a computer on my desk.

** WWILF = What Was I Looking For?

Hash House Harrying and Krispy Kreme Challenging

I heard of a few amusing new “sports” this week: 

• The Krispy Kreme Challenge – a 4 mile jog while eating a dozen donuts – http://www.krispykremechallenge.com/ 
• Hash House Harriers – jogging, beer drinking, and a quiz rally – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers  and when you heard “beer” you just knew Pittsburgh would have a chapter

I figure such events are only the natural progression of all those supposedly well-meaning matrons forcing junk food on their kids at those youth sporting events.  I can remember at my kids’ soccer league games, I was always a bit peeved by the parents who were compelled to organize the ”halftime snack” of juice boxes and Little Debbies.  Especially since I figured that this was probably the only time half of those kids had gotten out of the house away from this junk all week; yet even here in the middle of the soccer pitch, junk food was thrust on them.

On the other hand to look at the positive side, if you figure folks are just going to eat donuts and drink beer anyway, they might as well get in some jogging (and puking).  But be careful, and I am not making this up, one of the few “rules” is “no puking on purpose.”

So move over bowling, darts, and pool, eating and drinking just found a new companion sport.  Krispy Kreme Pizza House Harrying Anyone?  Jog a 5K while eating a dozen donuts, a medium pizza, and drinking a 6-pack of beer. 

In Case You Didn’t Know It

Daddies will do anything for their little girls….

Cough Medicines Too Risky for Kids but Psychotropic Drugs are Just Fine

Here in the Middling Years of the Nanny State, it is with little surprise that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided to ban cold medicines for young kids.  Like most such prohibitions, the ban is not completely without its merits: the argument that adult remedies rarely work the same on kids and that they may not work at all and the fact that 750 kids per year had to go to the hospital for reactions or side-effects (though this hardly sounds like a statistically significant number in a nation of 300 million – 150 children a year actually die from bee stings but we haven’t outlawed bees yet).

So OK, now that we have this evil cough syrup menace taken care of, wonder if the FDA can be troubled to turn its attention to far more serious drugs that are specifically marketed and targeted to children: serious hard-core psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Paxil, and many others (which are mostly speed/amphetamines - remember when those things were bad?). 

Sometimes given with good cause, sometimes irreverently referred to as a “straight-jacket in a bottle,” these drugs have skyrocketed in use in children over the past 15 years.  Yet,  no-one (except the drugs companies and medical professionals who profit no doubt) even knows exactly what percentage of kids are on this stuff (estimates seem to place the number at 5 million US kids).  

Far more disturbing are the consequences of these policies of mass medication: 

• the number of foster kids who are given these drugs without their (or any guardian’s) consent
• anecdotal evidence that strongly suggests that another drug problem has been created by kids trading and selling these drugs in school
• no-one knows what the long term effects will be of this massive drug experiment on our kids

Government drug policy makers must be on some serious mind-altering drugs themselves when they prioritize relatively benign medicines such as cough remedies before these incredibly potent drugs.  Where is a Nanny State when you need one?

Gary Sellers – Nader’s Raider, Eccentric, and All-Around Good Person

2 Degrees of Freedom from Ralph Nader

Last night I was half-watching a PBS Independent Lens program on Ralph Nader (“An Unreasonable Man“), when the program showed one of his first aides, or Nader’s Raiders as they were called, Gary Sellers.  I thought to myself, that man looks remarkably like a Gary Sellers I once knew 25 or so years ago. 

That Gary Sellers, though I had heard tales that he was a Washington Lawyer (which I frankly didn’t believe), lived in a tiny trailer up on Knobley Mountain in Short Gap, WV.  The trailer was in the middle of a cherry and apple orchard on the top of a hillside of a beautiful piece of property that overlooked the farms and rivers of the northern Potomac Highlands near Fort Ashby, WV.  On a clear day from up there, you could see for 40 miles.  It really was a lovely piece of land except that you had to drive by some sort of deep gravel pit on the way in and an oft-used coal mining road ran through the middle of the orchard (probably some of the reasons why he left in the late 1980s – and like many such places of beauty, this orchard is now a McMansion farm). 

Gary used to make friends by bartering his cherries for goods and services in town.  Which is how my family met him, when my step-father traded some car work for a “day pass” to the orchard.  This barter-system became a way of life for our family for many years and Gary became a family friend.  And if Gary didn’t need to barter in order to obtain life’s essentials, I knew no different.  For indeed, he seemed to live simply enough to me.   As far as I knew, his only possessions were whatever old, deteriorating car he happened to own at any given point and a small camper that sat among the overgrown weeds and fruit trees of his hillside orchard. 

In fact, had I not just potentially learned that he was once a lead assistant to Ralph Nader during Nader’s most productive period and afterward was indeed an active and diligent Washington lawyer as was always rumored, I would have continued to think of him as basically an aging hippie – perhaps a Timothy Leary who happened to like black cherries instead of LSD.  Furthering this belief, was the fact that Gary did not seem to be bothered by the basic concerns of life, such as money and transportation.  He drove what might once have been considered cars but had become broken-down wrecks.  And the fact they he could not be bothered by such mundane details as obtaining reliable transportation led to many misadventures (and sometimes even the need to borrow cash). 

In Memorium  

Pre-Google, I might have never been able to confirm who this televised Washington lawyer Gary Sellers was and probably would have chalked it all up to coincidence.  But I did look up this Gary Sellers, the Washington Lawyer, the one-time Nader ally and later Nader critic, champion of worker safety and openness in government, and indeed he was that Gary Sellers, the aging hippie and jalopy-driving cherry-monger living off the land.  Sadly, I learned this fact by reading his obituary in the Washington Post.  I was saddened to learn that he died last March, as way too many Americans still do (even with Nader’s safety efforts), in a car accident.  

Though I was only in my early teens, Gary always treated me well and in a way that teens respect and appreciate – like we were peers or friends.  He had a genuineness that kids are very keen at detecting (but are forced to turn off this filter later in life so we can later cope with the generally phoniness of the world).  To be sure, he was definitely an eccentric (as evidenced by the many light-hearted stories that are associated with him), but he was also exceedingly friendly and giving – in a word, the perfect aging hippie (albeit one with a secret alter-ego as a Washington lawyer).  

What better testament to a man is there than to be fondly remembered by all who knew him and to know that he left the world a better place (as he most certainly did through both orchard planting and safety regulations)?  With his work here now done, may he now be able to spend eternity tending to his black cherry trees on a beautiful hillside on the other side of heaven. 

The End of Summer Blues and Promises not Kept

I, probably not at all unlike most people at this time of year – most of all students, feel the End-of-Summer Blues coming on.  As I find myself approaching middle age, these post summer pangs are probably a bit worse than when I was merely a student with little else to worry me than another year of bully-induced aggression and education-induced drudgery.  For now, I view the end of summer as yet another milestone from which to measure failure, goals I did not meet, and promises not kept.

So let’s see how I did:

Goal: I’m going to go camping with the family
Result: The camper never made it out of storage and now sits unused under a black walnut tree covered in blackened walnut effluvium

Goal: This Summer I’m going to read more
Result: I read 2 chapters in the book I started on New Years (the last time I had a resolution to read more)

Goal: Take the family to parks more
Result: I took the kids on 3 occasions (we’ll call that partially met)

Goal: Take the family swimming
Result: Again, partially met – we went swimming together as a family 3 times

Goal: Take the boy to an amusement park and ride some really big roller coasters
Result: By some last minute maneuvering, I achieved one! With 2 months of constant prodding – and an almost immaculate confluence of weather, schedules, and finances – I was able to take him to an amusement park and he really enjoyed.

And even though I usually hate the crowds and commercialism, I really enjoyed it too. From the grizzled, middle-aged (and maybe hackneyed) perspective of someone who realizes this: when I am gone special memories like this may perhaps stand out and allow my son to remember me more fondly (than as the distracted workaholic he might otherwise envision) and to set a better example for his kids.

I know this is the true “theme” that these theme parks pimp and have programmed into hapless parents like myself, yet it is probably one of the few advertising gimmicks that has some ring of truth to it.  Spend a day with your kids, don’t think about anything else, and share a memory that might live on a little beyond yourself.

When your daily work, missed goals, and failures are forgotten, this is the one thing that remains and lives on: the fond memories of your friends and loved ones - perhaps at least one reason to feel less blue. 

(Linguistic) Love Greek-Style

As any good protestant parishioner (or at least one who has had to endure the oft overwrought ”God’s Agape Love” sermon*) can tell you – in the Greek language, there are several different words for love - Eros, Philia, Agape, and Storgē - each expressing its own different facet and expression of love.

So while I was bashing on marriage a few weeks ago in this post and lamenting that the “Eros” version too often only happens when one returns after an extended absence, I thought it might be useful to examine all types of marital love.  And just as the ancient and modern Greeks have 3 or 4 different words for love, expectedly there are also these types and manifestations of love in marriage: 

Eros – Erotic/Romatic/Euphoric Love (Timespan – 1 night to 1 year) – I think we all know what kind of love this is – it is what they show you on TV and in the movies (even the non-pornographic ones!).  It is the chemically addictive desire to mate that our selfish DNA has endowed us with.  This is like when you begin to really like a song and learn its words and you just want to hear it again and again – thinking it will be that fresh and interesting always.

Philia – Philial/the Love of Friendship (1 to 3 years) - This is the most broad and ambiguous of the greek loves.  It can mean anything from the love of friendship, goodness, or even pleasure.  It can even mean being “lovable.”  And this is my favorite definition, for at this stage we are still at least trying to be lovable.  We know ourselves and we know our mates for all our strengths and weaknesses.  This is like when you have learned that favorite song by heart, but you still like it (you just may not want to hear it all the time or necessarily over again and again).

Agape – Unconditional and Long Term (3 to 10 years) - This is the start of the love of family, of the love of the more permanent love artifacts (art, children, connectedness, etc.), and of the love of something more than yourself.  This is like when you continually rediscover that song you liked long ago.

Storgē - Love of Family (10 years to ?) - This is the willingness to sacrifice the Eros, Philia, and Agape for the familiarity, safety, security, and commitment of a long term relationship with your family.  It is when you finally understand-through hard experience-the vows of “sickness and health, richer or poorer,” and so on.  It is the final sweet and pleasant mix of erotic, philial, and agape love with family.  And, with luck, it is the end state of all happy and functional relationships.  So “play it again Sam.”

Notes:
* I personally believe that modern Christians may be imbuing this word (Agape) with meanings it never originally had to have some sermon-writing material.
** I lived in Greece for a few years and would hear these words all of the time, and their meaning and connotation seemed almost nothing like when our preacher would use them (but in his defense, he may have been using the ancient meanings).  Some examples:
“Philemo! My Friend! You want to buy a rug!”
“Agapemo! (My Love!)” – was a favorite when I used to hear the Greek Ya-Ya’s use it to call their grandkids in for supper (and they probably weren’t talking about God-like love, although it is possible).

Tipping your Postman with Postage

It is funny how memories work, they are always on and always in your head just waiting for the instant that some peripherally-related topic gives the right neuron a zap, and jiggles and coaxes them out of your head after many decades.

I was reminded of this fact while I was watching my postman sweat and deliver mail in the sweltering sun.  I thought: “what an ass I am, I’ve never once given him a tip on the holidays.”  (Even though technically the uber-bureacratic Postal Service specifically prohibts such activities)

Instantly I was carried back to the neighborhood where I grew up and the memory of a plucky neighborhood matron who was doing a holiday collection for our neighborhood postman.  My step-father’s reply?

No thanks – he gets a tip from me every time I buy a stamp.

A comedic reply that I somehow both shockingily and fondly remember for the first time 3 decades later.  As for my postman?  In the time it took me to write this, God gave him his tip 5 months early – a thunderstorm came and washed away the heat and humidity.  Thanks God – I owe you one – do you take postage?