ThingsPondered

I was feeling absolutely non-verbal due to the onslaught this morning of super-contagious stomach-painful-abdomen-virus racing around my workplace.  So, when Bruce wanted to know what kind of muffins I brought home, I opted for acting it out rather than speaking.

I was trying to communicate “banana nut” as the type of muffin.  Sadly, Bruce is very low-skilled at Charades.  However, we had two things going for us (I thought):  [1]  I am very good at acting out clues and [2] evening is his highest energy time of day.  Strangely, he did not know the standard signals of the game.  I mean, wasn’t this a popular television show many times over?  And, although Bruce did not grow up with TV, he certainly has embraced it now.  Or, maybe that’s just for football and Law and Order. 

After a few whispered words to teach him the signals for number of words, number of syllables, and “it sounds like..”, we were off.  He struggled, but finally got “banana” down. Next I signaled: “one word, one syllable.”  Cleverly, I depicted a male urinating and then got to the pair of naughty bits below the sprinkler. He guessed balls, gonads, genitals, scrotum [hello? ONE syllable?]. Banana-gonad muffins?  I had to switch to the “sounds like…” options for clues.  So, I pointed to my derriere. He guessed ass.  Banana-ass muffins?  Sweet baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!  And, by this point he was having a senior moment and forgot the word banana!  I wonder where and when he has feasted on gonad-ass muffins?

Well, at least a good laugh was had by all.

the world who you are: 

just start talking.

Failure to Conjugate Third Person Singular

                    a/k/a

        Don’t say Don’t with he

Santa Maria, Madre de Dios!  There are many languages more

complicated

(MUCH more complicated)

than English. 

We are talking PRESENT tense – also not a huge

challenge.  In English, generally we use the same exact verb (action word

for you Wal-Mart devotees) with five of the six types of people groups. 

The is action word identical for: I, you –singular, we, you-plural, and

they.  Therefore, we need only learn one other form of the verb to

complete our vocabulary.  Why, then, do you insist on declaring to the

world that you are happily locked into the lower class?  

It seems to be a badge of honor to talk like a country-western song.  I

know you are not stupid people.  You have many skills, talents, and

bodies of knowledge.  You can run rings around so many of us with your

expertise in myriads of arenas. Yet, you persist in trashing English when

the solution is SO SIMPLE.  There is even a pattern:  often all that is

required is adding an “s” or an “es” to the verb used for the five other

pronouns.

Examples:  I do, you do, He does.

Therefore, when the word “not” is part of the sentence, we have: I don’t,

you don’t, he doesn’t.

Try it.  It is easy, truly.

Since the Guatanamo Bay detention camp has such a bad rep and bad karma, it is a source of embarrassment to the administration.  We hear that President Obama would like to close it as one of his earliest executive actions.  Nevertheless, if the prison is shut down, does ANYONE think that the prisoners themselves are going to just vaporize?  No, they need to be relocated.  And what better place than an area with some elbow room, an area close to the Dubya man who believes in phantom weapons of mass destruction: Crawford, Texas?  After all, the detention center was created during his “reign.”

Consider the repercussions: perhaps leaders will think harder when making a decision.  Perhaps they will  adopt the Native American “seventh generation” requirement: that in making a decision, the leader must consider the consequences, not only for the moment but for the next generation, for the generation after that, and for up to seven generations from the time of the decision.  THAT would be an improvement.  What if it had existed when energy-wasting inventions and transportation modes were being pumped out?

In the meantime, let Dubya enjoy his life as a private citizen with some good ole boys from the cells of Gitmo down the street or around the corner.  Show them some good ole American hospitality.  As Mr. Rogers said, “Gee, won’t you be my neighbor?”

My partner and I made the decision to start feeding the backyard squirrels.  We have accidentally fed them birdseed for years, but now we are consciously choosing to feed them.  As this was an impulsive move, we are shooting from the hip so far.  

What is official squirrel food?  For the moment, it is whatever the local big box store says it is.  And that is dried ear corn.  This was not the best option; it was the only option.  Thus, until we do our feed research, in ear corn we trust.

We have a heated squirrel water bowl (really a birth bath) and a ceramic bowl for feed.  Into it, I excitedly placed three ears.  That was today, the third day of squirrel over-wintering parenthood.  Now, I am realizing that watching the little rodents happily chomping away on our deck may not be as easy as we imagined.

Pecking order.  Birds have it, literally.  Wolves have their hierarchy of power with the alphas, betas, and so forth.  Humans have it.   Then, it should not astonish anyone to acknowledge that squirrels have dominance ranking.  I observed it this morning as one precious-looking squirrel was at the bowl with the three newly poured corn cobs.  He (or she) was happily springing on an ear to extricate one kernel, then leaping back about a foot away to happily chew.  This was repeated several times until…

A more dominant squirrel appeared. Older, bigger, cannier, and wise in the ways of the squirrel world, this creature ambushed my cutie.  The ambush was just a “get out of here” maneuver, not infliction of bodily harm.  However, this dominant squirrel contrived to deprive me of my squirrel watching pleasure.  This meanie picked up a cob in his mouth and scampered away with it!

Alright.  This happened on our first day as well.  However, what has me on the warpath is that the scalawag returned to do it again three minutes later. What chutzpah!  Obviously, I leaped up and banged on the door.  Unfortunately, when an ugly huge human does this, not only the meanie, but also the cute, squirrels run.  In annoyance, I went outside and peeled the kernels from the only remaining ear into the bowl.  My thinking was that the “one-at-a-time” dainty eaters will still be able to eat within our sight.  In contrast, the muscular tricky squirrels will not find anything worth hauling.

I wonder what can happen next?

“Does the C in YMCA stand for chocolate?” asked one of my before-school care charges, obviously hoping that my answer would be “yes.”

Why is chocolate so magical?  Why does it conjure up images of comfort, caring and indulgence? There is no denying that in the United States, if not the world, it holds the status of a reward.  Chocolate producers obviously capitalize on this attitude in their marketing.  However, even without marketing, I believe that it would nonetheless be regarded as special enough for children and adults to clamor for it.

In the past, I did not crave chocolate.  No, my favorite sweets (and I DO have a sweet tooth) were desserts using any red fruits.  I could rather easily walk by a plate of chocolates.  But then, I worked for a supervisor who adored fine European chocolate.  Occasionally he would bring in a morsel from Belgium or environs to attempt to convert me to his tastes.  Aah, to my detriment, it worked.  I am now a chocoholic.

It is not the cocoa or cacao alone.  Heavens no!  Have you ever had a spoonful of unsweetened cocoa mix?  Blecch.  Now, add sweetener.  Not good enough for me.  It is not the sugar which redeems the cocoa.  No, it is the butterfat.  When one combines the cocoa with sugar and the glorious dairy fat, then the result is a sweet for the gods. Thus, until the candy makers tap the raspberry and butterfat lover’s niche, I guess I will settle for chocolate.

        Thanks for the curbside Service to Go!

I live in a development that is only about twenty years old.  The real estate investors and building contractors did something unspeakably heinous in order to throw houses up as cheaply and as quickly as legally possible:  they mowed down all the trees.  Therefore, we went many years without seeing critters one expects to see in a suburban Pennsylvania yard.  Among these critters were squirrels.

Happily, after much approved (and covert) planting of trees and bushes on the part of many homeowners, we are seeing many birds, squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, and the occasional skunk.  Life is back to normal.  However, my partner and I are developing a new habit within our regained normal ecosystem’s flora and fauna.  We are officially providing food and water for the squirrels. 

This did not blossom from a sudden devotion to rodents.  No, it was not so much an act of commission as one of resignation.  No matter that we intended to feed our birds; the squirrels’ communications network kept them immediately informed.  Furthermore, as they are bigger and scarier than the finches, sparrows, juncos, titmice, and similar little dudes, they get first pick of the seed and fresh water.  Since my partner enjoyed watching the squirrels so much as he sits at our kitchen table, we decided to go public.  We have purchased a heated birdbath – which we renamed a heated squirrel water dish, and are buying dried ear corn (a squirrel staple.)

As expected, the word is out. 

I relish being alive today.  The Internet with all the information it makes available is exciting as all get out.  However, I find that the Internet Age it has benefits and downsides for persons searching for a job.

Job hunting online can have many great attributes.   It can be quick: both the skimming through positions and the uploading (or copying and pasting) of one’s resume.  With online applications, there is no need for bond paper and postage stamps.  I am happily overwhelmed with access to information about jobs in distant places, more details about the job duties and sometimes even about the employee benefits.  Additionally, the employers sometimes include an “About Us” page, which gives a sense of the company’s culture.  Next, I further exploit the Internet by researching the potential employer through mapping, tourist, chamber of commerce, and other data sites.  I like making informed decisions on whether or not to apply: it saves everyone’s time. 

Sadly, there is a flip side which is bad.  Frequently, if a site lists a telephone number for extra assistance, I seem to encounter no human at that number.  Today I called the number for a federal agency.   I heard approximately twenty rings before the automatic message began.  It basically said “email us or dial zero for job application help.”  So,  I dialed zero and got a pleasant sounding gentleman.  I explained my need for job application assistance and he transferred me to another desk.  The extension belonged to a new and absent individual who recited the same sort of message with the same caveat that one could dial zero.  So, I did.  Again.  I think I connected to the same switchboard operator, but I played cool and just said same words: I need job application assistance.  I endured yet another new extension with plentiful  rings.  However, this time I gave up and hung up.

As I say, there are fantastic things about the Internet and job hunting on it.  But in the meantime….

Brother, can you spare a dime?

At A Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place by Kate T. Williamson. 

This is a humorous diary in comic book form about the frustrations of a college grad who ends up living at home while writing a book and waiting for the next job, or next step, or next living space.  Although arranged as an interim stay, the residency stretches a tad longer than planned, therefore creating the need to make some adjustments and endure some oddball embarrassments and vexations.

Kate Williamson is one bright cookie who has been an artist for most of her life.  She is as intellectually scrupulous as she is honest and humble, self-deprecating in a bitter-sweetly funny way, and a natural to produce this graphic novel about the journey of returning home.  Just as Lauren Bacall was meant to be found by Hollywood, Kate Williamson was meant to combine her oriental artistic sensibilities in watercoloring and cartooning, her pithy humor, mots justes, and frank brevity,  to create this gem of a storybook.

Immediately, the cover art gives one a good feel for the yarn.  Kate has drawn herself despondently prostrate on the very pink carpet of her very pink childhood bedroom.  It’s not a fate she pictured as she matriculated to Harvard University.  Her particular adventure is flavored by the character of her childhood hometown – a nice enough place for growing up, but not a happening locale for a single.  She copes in her connections for social contact: reverting to play with little kids in the neighborhood, hanging with much older generational friends (also revealing a truly nice mutual regard and enjoyment of her parents), and some of that boredom-numbing filling of time with videos.  Many of us have been there, done that.  However, not as many of us have been able to catalogue our own adventure as it unfolded and recognize our pathos as gentle, ephemeral comedy.   

She gives hope to any of us who have faced a turn in the road, an unexpected intermission in the symphony of life, and the occasional accompanying feelings of isolation or defensiveness as we try to work past those speed bumps.  Kate’s ability to examine herself and laugh, all the while retaining confidence that this is a temporary, yet necessary stage, is enviable and inspiring.  She is a chrysalis who knows that butterflydom rests at the end of her road.   

Watercolor illustrations, great in their own right, fill this book.  Some of the best are seasonal nature scenes interspersed between the story pages, displaying the influence of Kate’s studies in Japanese art.  The detail of woodgrains in hardwood, variably fading wallpaper patterns ,  autumn leaves and tender spring buds are sublimely captured.

I have high recommendations for At A Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place.  Buy it as the perfect gift, but allow yourself enough time to read it first (and then maybe buy another copy for your permanent collection.)

(Some names have been changed.)

One of my fondest memories of my work life revolves around experiences teaching at St. Munificentia Roman Catholic School.  It was wealthy.  That is if you count gifts of the spirit, God’s love everpresent, and glorious hardwood floors, lovingly maintained wooden desks, doors with transom windows, and glowing radiators as richness.  I do.

The school operated on the third floor of a sturdy red-brick parish social hall, in which the community of  parishioners  came to see movies in the early twentieth century, sitting in folding chairs in the cavernous first floor.  “Third floor walk-up” had an entirely new meaning for a St. Munificentia teacher.  Since children in elementary (or grammar) school grades need to be escorted everywhere by the teacher, we did a lot of up- and down-ing on those stairs.  We called it the true fitness plan of the school.

This school was tiny in population and in square feet.  Classes were multi-grade decades before it became fashionable.  This was not due to any St. M. undisclosed research on educational benefits of combining ages.  No, it was because there were only five classrooms serving nine grades.  In this setting, the space for the administrative office was proportionately small.  Actually, it was smaller than proportional.  Most homes have powder rooms larger than our office.

The office contained a desk for the secretary and a desk for the principal, Mrs. Mary Kathleen O’Grady.  One could walk in a mere three feet before colliding with the secretary’s desk.  This was no business office-sized desk.  It was wooden (of course) and about 33 inches wide.  It reminded me of the desks that furniture stores sell for a child’s room.  In front of it, a chair sat sideways for visitors to conduct their business.  Behind it sat Téresita, the secretary.     

Ah, Téresita!  She was an angel with the mischievous gleam of the devil in her eye.  Attractive and slender, dark-haired and perpetually smiling, she always seemed to have time for a few friendly words, regardless of her workload.  Because of her inviting presence, she attracted visitors and confidences.  Especially from men. 

Thus, it is no surprise that on the appointed day for school pictures at St. M., the photographer, after checking in at the office, lingered.  He was the familiar traveling school photographer we had used for several years running: an ambitious, trendy, single guy trying to make his way in the world and trying make his life sound bigger and better than what it was.   

This was 1999.  A certain medicine for older men had just become available to the American public and there was quite an advertising campaign pushing it into everyone’s awareness.  Apparently, younger men were also intrigued by it.

Our photographer came to the office in the early afternoon.  He was formally dressed, with tie and snazzy jacket.  Evidently, he’d had an extraordinary experience with his morning Catholic school client and needed to spill it all to someone.  Who better than our Téresita?  As Principal O’Grady was not present, he felt free to confide.

It seems that this new medicine had so captivated his curiosity, that he was able to procure one pill.  Not that he had any problems, mind you.  However, he just wanted to know what it might accomplish in a healthy young man.  He paused. This was too much temptation for our Téresita to resist.  With a combination of sympathy and extreme interest, she egged him on to reveal the whole story.  With total privacy prevailing, there was time for him to pour it out. And, of course, the reason the rest of us know it is because Téresita wickedly shared it all later.

The young fellow took the pill the evening prior to this work day.  It worked very well.  However, it continued to work for a very long time.  So, as he prepared to go to his first client school, he needed an outfit that would provide “coverage.”  Arriving with his photographic equipment, he was greeted by that school’s principal.  She was a very elderly, veteran nun.

From what Téresita reported, I imagine this principal as round-faced and kindly, with eyeglasses and the VERY old-fashioned penguin habit:  a floor-length black robe with a rosary swinging from her rope belt as she walked.  I picture her with sensible thick-heeled quiet shoes.  Gnarled competent hands.  Someone who had lived with her sisters in Christ for the last 45 years and had watched with pride many a graduating class of 8^th graders.   Now she was greeting the photographer who would take the autumn school portraits.

Early autumn in the northeast is unpredictable.  Some days are brisk; others are summer-like.  To this man’s misfortune, it was already humid and hot that morning.  As the nun welcomed him and guided him to the room he would use, he took care that his jacket was well-placed, prim, and proper looking.     Classes were called.  Individual and class portraits were begun.  Very quickly, though, the photographer was roasting.  Of course, the sister noticed his face and hands covered with beads of sweat and encouraged him to take off his jacket to get comfortable.  Any reasonable person would have immediately complied.

However, conditions were not yet favorable.  He had to thank her and decline, saying he was good, while it was quite obvious that he wasn’t.  As the picture taking continued, all those little student bodies in a small space added to the temperature and moisture levels.  Several more times, the principal urged him to remove his jacket and loosen his tie so as to be comfortable.  Each time, he needed to create some sort of excuse and smile.  He had a rough morning!  Finally, he was done and, at the same time, coincidentally, so was the medication.

So, with this amazing story unburdened and the freedom to work in shirt-sleeves restored, our photographer went about his business at St. Munificentia.  Later, after the students left, Téresita relished telling us the entire episode.  The story itself was hilariously funny, but the idea that he told someone else was irresistibly riotous.  Poor man.  Little did he know that for every year thereafter, as he came to conduct photography business, we were enjoying this adventure of his which was absolutely NONE of our business!