Rainstick in my Ear

I feel like I have a rainstick in my left ear. Rainsticks are hollow sticks full of seeds that make pleasant, cascading raindrop sounds when turned from end to end. The pleasantness, I'm finding, is relative to one's having a choice about hearing it. I'm getting over a cold that seems to want its last hurrah to be in my ears. I have intermittent pain, I can't tell where noises are coming from, and my left ear keeps telling me someone's following me around with a rainstick . I don't mind the sound too much, but I do wish they'd quit following me around with that thing!


My doctor recommended using a "neti pot," a little device for washing out the sinuses. I'm bemused (as usual.) What could be helpful about pouring salt water up my nose with a tiny teapot? A lot, apparently. Gets stuff moving, keeps pressure from forming and prevents rivers of sediment from flowing down the throat. I reluctantly agreed to try this new torment because the alternative was the firehose method--forcing salt water up the nasal passages with a plastic spray bottle. "I've tried that before", I told her, "The water winds up somewhere behind my eyebrows and never comes out". She appeared to be listening--but was probably using all her energy to keep from rolling her eyes--and suggested the neti pot as a less-effective but gentler alternative.

It's too soon to tell if this is working. At least the pain isn't getting worse. I still hear the rainstick following me around, making my world very surreal. I hope the ears are about ready to heal, because tonight half of a filling fell out of my mouth, assuring my presence in the dentist chair first thing Monday morning. I can't face the prospect of dragging my broken teeth and malfunctioning ears to two different doctors on the first day of the week. Maybe I'll just stay in bed with the covers over my head. Yeah, that would work. At least until I got hungry and needed to chew, or heard a noise in the room that could be marauding racoons--or just that darn rainstick following me around.

"Remove Bay Leaf"

I made a pot of chicken soup today because it's ostensibly better for you than tequila--my next choice--when you have a stoopid cold. The mixture did some good before it was even finished; it turns out that standing over an enormous cauldron of steaming soup is great for the sinuses. (See? It's better already. Tequila definitely has to enter the bloodstream to do anything.)

I added ingredient after ingredient, hoping I would actually be able to taste something, but it didn't work. The hot liquid on the sore throat worked well, and soft, overcooked vegetables were easier to swallow than anything except chocolate (which, I found out, is wasted on a tongue that can't taste. Even with great mouth feel.)

When I got to the part where the recipe says, "remove bay leaf,"I stopped in befuddlement. Why do all the recipes say that, without giving us a clue how to do that without risking life and limb? Armed with only a slotted spoon, I stared at the volcanic crater on my stove. A gallon of roiling soup, about a hundred cut vegetables and chicken chunks, grains of rice scuttling about like brine shrimp, and I'm supposed to find a bay leaf? There are specialized gadgets for every other function in the kitchen, why isn't there one for this? I sure could have used some high-tech, bay-leaf-sniffing tongs right about then.

Alas, no such device lives in the Utensil Drawer of Mystery--even if I was foolish enough to risk losing a digit or two by rummaging through it with my bare hands. Like a Neanderthal with a stick chasing a mastadon, I hunted down the bay leaf with my slotted spoon. Not a very clever bay leaf, this one. I've chased bay leaves in the past that would have done the Loch Ness Sea Monster proud on the elusiveness front. This one gave in after only a few minutes of sifting and cursing and only one splash burn on my hand.

This can't be right. A food industry that plies us with tiny mesh bags for our lemon slices surely has something for this recurring danger to cooks all over the world. Am I missing something here? My second choice is starting to look better every minute. Even if you have to fish out a worm from the tequila bottle (eww!), you won't burn your hand doing it.

Early Worms not too Smart

It's the day before Easter, a day before we are all reminded of new life and new beginnings.

It's been a long, long gray winter, and we won't really be reliably done with the overcast until about, umm... July. However, we were graced with enough sunshine today to make us think spring might actually happen (we begin to doubt around the end of February.) The real ray of hope for me, though, was the mass of robins in the park this morning. They fled to the trees when tots bearing Easter baskets searched for Easter eggs hidden either by a large furry bunny or some well-meaning adult human, but not for long.

After the tiny horde left, the robins floated back down to the grass. They looked like an army of field workers, harvesting a crop. Businesslike and busy, eyeing me in between bobs of their heads, they harvested all the worms who were foolish enough to come out that early. Which brings to mind the saying, "The early bird gets the worm." It's too bad worms don't learn from experience and communicate. If they did, wouldn't they tell each other that being a slug-abed is the way to live to see another day?

But worms will be worms, and robins will be robins, thank God. Spring really is around the corner and all is well in my little world.

Good-bye, Codey

Life is full of absurdities, but sometimes it delivers profound, inexplicable sadness. I can make jokes about absurdities because that seems to be the best way to deal with them. I'm a little lacking in coping skills for the sadness quotient, though.

A little red-haired boy and his dad sat next to me in the airplane on my way back from Arizona a few weeks ago. The boy told me his name was Codey and he and his dad were on
their way back to Everett from Hawaii. We looked at a map and couldn't figure out how it made sense to have a connection in Phoenix to get from Hawaii to Seattle. He wore glasses that looked like little goggles and spoke with conviction about mountains and sea turtles, and played his hand-held electronic game. He turned his face toward me after removing his glasses and I was struck by what an angelic little face this delightful, imaginative character had.

People touch our lives every day, and we touch theirs. We may never know who we make an impression on. Codey impressed me; I was sure he would grow up to be an engineer or a designer or a leader of some sort.

But he didn't get the chance. I've been hearing on the news this week about a little boy who died two days after a tragic backyard accident in Everett; it was not until tonight I saw his picture on TV. I felt a horror of recognition and a deep sadness when it finally sank in. My reaction is, "But how can he be gone--I just saw him! And he has so much more to do in this life!"

He did do something profoundly amazing. He told his parents to donate his organs and his body parts so other people could have a chance. At the time of the news story I saw, five people had been saved by the power of his conviction and imagination. More may be touched that way. I don't think anyone who met him could have missed seeing that he was a pretty special kid. But even for a special person, that's quite an accomplishment.

Good-bye, Codey. You did good.

Hey, it works for Greyhounds--why not Grannies?

Newsweek is running a story about a new kind of nursing home in China for empty nesters whose grown kids live in different parts of the world. The facility has web cams in various locations so the residents' families can see them living their daily lives via computer.

My friend has a greyhound who stays at home--mostly on the couch--while she is at work. She installed a doggie cam when he started chewing on the couch and dragging cushions out into the garden. She keeps an image window open at the bottom of her computer screen to keep an eye on him. Her co-workers love it, though greyhounds really are couch potatoes (who knew?) and he doesn't do much in the way of entertainment for his unseen audience. When he starts to chew or drag, my friend calls the home phone and commands him, on the answering machine, to stop. She can see his head whip up, and he stops (well, usually.)

When it's time for me to go to the group retirement home, I'm not sure I want web cams giving away my secrets ("Oh, look--she's stealing chocolate from the kitchen again!") The only thing that would be worse is having someone holler at me on a speaker. It works great for Greyhounds, but Hell, what's the use of getting old and cantankerous if you can't do whatever you want? I hope this Chinese thing doesn't catch on and turn into Remote Granny Control over here!

Why Belly Dancers Dance

My friend Cinderelly is smart and beautiful--and shy. So, I was amazed when she took up belly dancing. What is it about belly dancing that gets people so hooked? I know Cinderelly loves Halloween; she decorates her house inside and out and makes herself and her grown daughters amazing costumes. I've never been to a belly dancing competition, so I went to see her group perform today.

Large silken hangings transformed a hotel conference room into a place of mystery. Sinuous music played on the PA system. Vendors displayed coin-encrusted bodices, chains to wrap around necks and waists, and diaphonous skirts and veils. The most enchanting thing to see, however, was the women and girls in their costumes. Even just walking through the room, they jingled, their hair floated around their heads, and their eyes sparkled. They loved the way they looked and felt, and it showed.

"Do you know why these women dance?" Mistress of Ceremonies asked, "They do it for love of the art form." Someone murmured to her, and she added, "...and for the costumes," then she said, "...and for the bling!"

I greeted Cinderelly after her performance. "Now I know why you do this," I said, "It's 'dress up day' for grown-ups!" She was still kind of shell-shocked from being on stage , but she said, "Yes, it's like Halloween every day!" Snap! The woman is definitely on to something. If we could all find something that makes us feel as joyous as when we were kids who dressed like princesses and as powerful as when we thought we could do anything, we could stay young forever. At least in our hearts.

Bravo, Princess Cinderelly. You're my hero!

U.S.Army Seeks and Destroys...Pigs?

It seems that Fort Benning, Georgia, has a pig problem. Ugly, destructive wild pigs--6,000 of them--are tearing up the woods and scavenging pretty much anywhere they want to (at 300 pounds with big curved tusks, they don't run into many folks who "just say no.") Obviously, the boorish boars gotta go.

The base checked with civilian contractors about getting rid of the pigs, but it cost too much. Then, someone had a flash of inspiration and decided to use one of Ft. Benning’s most plentiful resources—people with guns. Military folks, retired military folks, and civilians who work on base will soon be roaming about, special permits in hand, shooting wild boars at will.

On the one hand, you gotta feel for the pigs. They're probably descended from pigs left to breed in the New World 500 years ago to provide fresh meat for itinerant Spanish explorers. I wish there was another way to deal with this problem. On the other hand, there are a lot more people and a lot less space in the New World now. Wild boars crashing through your yard could give you nightmares, at the very least.

In times of yore, Europeans fought these these pigs' ancestors with bows and arrows and war axes. The boars often won, taking out even the strongest hunters . Today's Ft. Benning hunters have the advantage of modern weaponry, but still, it's gonna be ugly.

This story makes me grateful for my Northwestern suburb where nothing much happens. If I lived on Ft. Benning, I’d wear a bright orange vest day and night, even when taking out the trash (which wild pigs think is a big lunch bucket just for them.) Oh, and I'd take an armed guard every time I went outside, to deal with fleeing, angry wild pigs. Heck, maybe I'd just stay indoors!

Tempe Buttes Sunrise (Part 4 of 4—starts Feb. 14)

Yesterday on the north side of the buttes I found one other vestige of old Tempe—Double Butte Cemetery, resting place of Tempe Pioneers since 1903. It sits between the stadium and the dry river bed, in the foreground of the view from the Restaurant above. I suspect its presence may be the only reason the freeway doesn’t run right next to the base of the butte.

Today I am on the south side of the buttes, with the entrance to the stadium on my right. The sky is just beginning to light, and the moon hangs to my left. Hundreds of birds ecstatically welcome the day, singing and chattering and sailing between the low trees. I watch the buttes as the light becomes brighter and the moon turns to a piece of tattered lace behind me.

The sky is pink at the horizon with a blue band above it, that clear striation you only see in the desert. Both buttes have a matte finish; no light bounces off of them. The sun begins to climb from my right—it would have been behind Great Grandfather as he drove the road between the buttes. A train whistle cuts the air, then the train thunders past. Would he have heard that? I think the railroad came in the late 1800s, so he probably would have.

The smaller butte, on my right, has a shoulder that resists the light moving up its right side. Its left side, in shadow, looms large and dark. On my left, the larger butte begins to glow all at once. It slopes up gently to the left from the stadium, which sits squarely on the old road. A green carpet from recent rain softens the slope that supports wispy brush and cacti in its thin, light brown soil. I think the butte on the right would have kept the opening between the big rocks in shadow as long as it could in my great grandfather’s time, but eventually the soft first light would have captured it.

Within twenty minutes, sunrise is over. The sun is bright and small, creating a silver lining on scattered flat clouds. I pull down the visor of my hat. No more matte finish—the buttes, the stadium, the trees, and the long-tailed dark birds are all brightly lit.

Last night, I noticed several small caves on the north side of the buttes. Today I notice more of them near the top of the large butte on this side. My great grandfather had one “wild child,” a boy who “kept his own schedule,” as my great aunts said. I can imagine him hiding in those caves, creating havoc by throwing rocks and fighting with other boys. He later took up partying, and as an adult even ran tequila across the border during Prohibition. He would have loved the idea of a bar called “Tequila on the Rocks” up where he surely consumed his share of tequila on those rocks.

That boy was my grandfather.

Old Tempe—Only a Place of the Mind (Part 3 of 4—starts Feb. 14 )

I'm back in Tempe, with a Google map route to the road on the north side of the buttes. Clutching my map, with daylight on my side, I'm confident I'll find it this time.

Very little remains of old Tempe. ASU swallowed the barrio in the 1950s, and my great grandfather's home in the 1960s. The ancient canals, first built by native Americans 1000 years ago and re-dug to give life to the nascent agricultural town about 140 years ago, are covered by modern Tempe streets. The church where my family worshipped is now Newman Center on the ASU campus.

The Salt River was finally dammed into non-existence after a huge flood in 1980 took out a bridge and seriously hampered transportation between Phoenix and Tempe. All that remains is Rio Salado Lake at the end of Mill Street, on which my great grandfather's store once stood, but is now boutique stores and restaurants for the college crowd.

The buttes are perhaps the only things I can see that have the same location and shape as in Great Grandfather's time—ignoring, of course, that pesky stadium and hotel in the middle!

I make several 90-degree turns, follow a winding road over a freeway, and pass on-ramps for two freeways. No wonder I couldn't find this in the dark. A valet takes my car on the circle drive between the hotel, restaurants, and spa. There's not much room for a parking lot half way up two tall rocks.

I head for the "Tequila on the Rocks" bar and sit at a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Phoenix. I order a virgin pina colada and a quesadilla and watch the clouds change from pink to blue, then to gray. I see the butte become two-dimensional in the fading light and then turn to a looming dark shape, an absence of light. It probably would have been barely distinguishable from the night sky in Great-Grandfather's time. Today, it is very distinguishable—because the line of lights of the Phoenix airport runs straight into the middle of it.

I sigh happily. I have it—that indefinable sense of connection with old Tempe. I also have a comfy chair and good food. This is my kind of research!

Trying to Find Great Grandfather's Tempe (Part 2 of 4—starts Feb. 14)

I'm flying into Arizona. I'll spend one night in Tempe then I'm off to Yuma to see friends before returning to Tempe for another night.

In the late 1800s, my great grandfather and his contemporaries drove their horse carts between the twin Tempe Buttes to get to the best place to ford the Salt River. My great aunts remembered walking the road to get to a beach at the river's edge. I'm determined to see the route they took. This is made a little harder by the fact that Arizona State University (ASU) built Sun Devil Stadium on the buttes. The old timers are still mad about that.

I'm too eager to find the road to the buttes to wait until morning. I drive my rental car directly from the airport to Sun Devil Stadium, despite not having been blessed with a sense of direction and not knowing where I'm going. (Thank you, Arizona highway department, for big stadium directional signs!)

In the dark, I don’t find the road up the north (Phoenix) side of butte, but I find a back way from the south, where the stadium is situated. Natural formations don’t look natural in the eerie glow of street lights. It seems odd to drive a car to a point between two ancient buttes where, for centuries, people journeyed to the Salt River. Even odder is finding a sign that indicates the space I thought was just the size of a road is actually wide enough for a stadium, a Marriot Resort, and an upscale restaurant.

The stadium is dark and deserted, but the hotel parking lot is alive with well-dressed people laughing and talking. I’ve spent so much time imagining this spot in 1893 that it’s hard to adjust to the reality of 2008. The diners will enjoy an expensive meal and view–the same view my great-grandfather saw for free when he headed for the ford in his horse cart. Of course, there are thousands of lights and a freeway he never saw, but I’m not sure they make the view any better.

I want to see the sun rise and set on both sides of these twin buttes. I want to get a feel for the way the formations may have looked to my great grandfather. I will have to come back a few more times—once, just to find the right road—and twice again for sunset and sunrise. The buttes and this project are larger than I anticipated.

No One Told Me about My Great Grandfather (Part 1 of 4)

My Mexican-American great grandfather was a founding father of Tempe AZ, a fact no one bothered to mention to me until about 10 years ago. He was respected in both the Mexican and white communities in racially prejudiced times. He managed his dry goods store well enough to send his seven children, including the girls, to college in the early 1900s. He went to church every week, he admired and strove to emulate Abraham Lincoln, and a city park is named after him.

But beneath that staid exterior beat the heart of an adventurer. He worked underground as a gold miner to save money for his dreams. He married his best friend's 16-year-old half-sister out from under the nose of her disapproving mother. He dared to give credit to Mormons when they were shunned by other store owners.

I think someone should write his story. I suspect that since no one else even thought it was worth mentioning, that someone has to be me. I've been gathering family stories for 10 years—but everything else will take a lot of research.

Curiosity Saved the Tree

I inherited a Neantha Bella Palm tree (a 3-foot palm bush, really), from someone who was moving. "How often do I water it?" I asked. "Once a week," was the answer, "water it until water comes out the bottom."

I've never gotten water to come out the bottom. I water it, watch the dish under it for signs of moisture, and give up because I don't want to drown the poor thing. Since I'm leaving on a trip for a week and a half, however, I thought I should do it right today. I watered and waited, watered and waited--nothing happened. I emptied the quart-sized watering can into it. I tilted the pot a little and ran my finger around the bottom to see if I could feel any moisture. Not only did I not feel moisture, but I couldn't find a hole! Surprised and curious, I tilted the whole big pot over so I could see the bottom.

Bad idea. Did I mention I just poured a quart of water into the pot? A quart of water that was just waiting to run out the top onto the carpet?

As I was standing on a pile of rags soaking up the spill, I remembered the old saying about curiosity killing a cat. Curiosity caused a big mess on the my carpet, but it probably saved the tree. Other old sayings, about silver linings and ill winds, come to mind--but I will spare you. (You're welcome.)

Where Did I Leave My...?

Young Geezer gave me a book I really wanted for my birthday. It's titled, "Where Did I Leave My Glasses," and the cover photo shows the top half of a woman's head, with her glasses up on her head like a headband. It's about normal middle-aged memory loss. It seems that we Boomers don't know how much of our weird behavior is just age-appropriate, and when we should start to worry. Forgetting keys? Probably normal. Forgetting my phone number? Kind of worrisome!

I finally had time to read last night. I settled down on the couch, pulled the comforter over my lap, reached for my book--and found an empty spot on the end table. Wha-a-? I know I left it there! "Where did I leave my book?" I wondered out loud. I dragged myself to my feet, grumbling, to search the rest of the living room. Then the rest of the house. I couldn't find it anywhere. (This will come in handy at Easter, when I can hide Easter eggs from myself.)

I found it this morning, in my work bag, ready to be taken to the cafeteria at lunch time. What great planning--and how amazing that I don't remember doing that!

Gosh, I wonder if that's normal. Good thing I found the book. I can look it up and see.

The Futon of the Computer World

When I worked in high-tech, the IT guys were special envoys from the gods who had magical powers. They climbed into the ceilings and snaked cable through cube walls to make amazing things happen on our computers. When they upgraded our systems, there was short inconvenience followed by increased performance and productivity.

Not so the government. They send us emails telling us mandatory "upgrades" will stealthily be put on our computers in the dark of night, and the result is "Your computer will take longer to startup and shutdown", and "CD/DVDs or USB drives inserted in your computer will no longer automatically start." To add insult to injury, our homepages on Internet Explorer wil be locked into the internal homepage, which opens at the speed of a tree sloth.

Why would any IT Department make these kinds of changes? "These updates are required to comply with recent government requirements to meet or exceed security controls for all governmnet agencies. " Oh.

No magical envoys are showing up to make my life better--but we will share a clumsy behemoth with a whole bunch of other government divisions. We're the "futon" of the computer world. (Merge a perfectly good couch and a perfectly good bed into a futon and what do you get? A mutant that is no good for sitting or sleeping.) Same principle here: merge a good computer system in one division and a good one from another division, and what do you get? A sloth of a system that doesn't work well for anyone!

Regulations trump efficiency every time. But who are we going to complain to? We are the government--we are the ones who write the regulations!

Yep, we're from the government, and we're here to help.

Analog Brain in a Digital World

I love tiny travel alarm clocks. Or I did, when I knew how to operate them. I'm a 12-hour clock kind of a person who has been late to work more than once from wrongly setting a 24-hour clock. My solution lately is to keep a $5 analog, battery-operated clock at my bedside as my real waker-upper, because waking up is serious business that can only be trusted to a timepiece with only one purpose: to ring when I want it to.

Tonight, I was awakened from a sound sleep by loud beeping in the living room. I rolled over and groaned. I knew right away it was that evil digital travel alarm I bought because it was pretty and promised a timer function (it didn't have one.) It turns out it this demon device has about 25 features controlled by three buttons, none of which says "alarm off" or "set date," like a reasonable clock would do. I stuffed it under a couch cushion because I was tired last night and couldn't figure out how to correct its settings after accidentally squeezing the wrong button. Bad idea.

Tonight's solution wasn't much better, but it is effective. I fumbled with all three buttons until I found one that made the alarm stop screaming. Temporarily, it turns out--it began again five minutes later, after I was back upstairs. "All right, that's it!" I told the recalcitrant clock. I stomped to the coat closet and retrieved my ancient metal toolbox with the unreliable metal clasp. Congratulating myself for remembering to hold the bottom and avoid scattering tools all over the carpet, I successfully manuevered it to the table next to the clock. "We'll just see what you can do without your battery!" I snarled. I think the clock trembled just a little bit (or maybe that was just my astigmatism.) I found the small phillips screwdriver and twisted the tiny screw on the lilliputian battery door until I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. Still snarling, I pried it up with a regular screwdriver and removed its little heart. Add "clock murderer" to my resume, I guess.

Now I'm going back to bed to sleep until my trusty $5 clock wakes me up. The digital clock with its various parts and instruction sheet ("Please to press button 1 for make date...") slumbers quietly in a zip-lock bag. Maybe I can find an unsuspecting friend on whom to palm it off. I'll tell them what a great alarm it has--there's no way they'll sleep through it. I know. I tried.

King of the World

Sometimes I envy gamers, who chase each other around their virtual worlds, fighting battles and razing imaginary countrysides. We writers tend to be odd folks who type furiously at our keyboards for hours to produce a just few paragraphs. Not exactly team players, and definitely not your A-list party folks.

We can, however, get together and write. How does that work, you wonder (if you're not rolling your eyes or snoring at this point.) Tonight a few of my writer friends and I met to listen to each other's latest writing and practice our craft spontaneously. We pulled slips of paper with previously written phrases from a box and wrote about them for five or ten minutes. We timed the writings. The rules are that you don't edit as you go and you have to keep writing, even if you have nothing to say ("I have nothing to say" is popular in this circumstance). Spontaneous creativity can be amazing. Enthralling scenarious often emerge, sometimes even surprising their authors.

Tonight we viewed a one-minute clip of a hot air balloon flying and landing. Three different writers wrote three completely different 10-minute pieces based on what they saw. One was dramatic, one was humorous, and one was touching. Who knew you could have so much fun sitting quietly around a table with notebooks and pens? (I did mention that we writers are odd folk, didn't I?)

So, maybe I don't envy gamers so much tonight. They have to play in the confines of the worlds programmers created for them. Each one of us writers creates our own worlds, like mad scientists, then we sit in our little cubbyholes and mess with our people's lives. We create them, kill them, and manipulate every little detail of their lives. Gamers seem almost benign by comparison, don't they?

Have the Bushtits been There All Along?

People talking on cell phones while driving do incomprehensible things, like crashing into the backs of big DOT trucks covered in flashing lights or wandering off the side of the road. This we know. However, I'm beginning to suspect we may all be that distracted by our busy lifestyles--so much so that we walk and drive right past amazing little bits of nature every day without even noticing.

Earlier this week, I got out of my car (a miracle in and of itself) to mail a letter in one of those blue R2D2 corner mailboxes. Next to the mailbox was a squat, naked tree full of gnarls and stubby branches. I suspect in spring I will find it is a cherry tree, but right now it's just a loose collection of sticks. The tree was swarming with tiny twittering birds whose odd little beaks looked like the tips of nails. They paid no attention to the three similar trees nearby; they just climbed and hopped over and under the branches of this one.

I stood with my mouth open (demonstrating a complete lack of attention to the laws of probability, given that I was standing under a tree full of birds), bemused by the tiny, cute creatures. I've lived here nearly 20 years and have never seen this phenomenon before. The birds paid no attention to me, even though my head was very close to them. They were totally focused on whatever it was they were doing--which was something I couldn't figure out just by looking at them.

It only took a few minutes to find them on the internet. Bushtits (don't you love it?) stick together in groups of 40 or more and eat stuff they glean off leaves and twigs of trees. How have I never seen this before? Too much time driving and too little time walking? Too much time thinking about the next thing instead of being in the moment? Oh, I hope I pay more attention in the future. Those little birds delighted me with their sudden, enchanting appearance. How nice it would be to have more experiences like that!

The Kindest Part of the Newspaper

When I get too beaten down by the horrible bad news in the daily paper, I turn to the one place where I know I'll find kind, loving, sweet words--in the Obituaries. Yes, I know these people are dead, yes I know the people who wrote the obituaries are very sad, but somehow these ordinary people write some of the sweetest (and sometimes most amusing) stuff in the paper.

Today I learned that a 93-year-old Japanese American woman, who was known for crocheting and helping at church events, loved to play basketball when she was in high school. Did any of the church ladies know that? Wouldn't they have been surprised (and loved it) if they had? A lifelong pilot got his love of flying when he was nine and hopped in a bi-plane with a barnstorming pilot and his aunt (who must have been a real character). I love that story.

I often read that someone is survived by a "loving wife." If Young Geezer was to meet his demise when we were in the middle of one of our 2-day brouhahas, would I be able to write that? Or would I have to be honest and say, "...surived by his cranky wife who is still waiting to get the last word"?

Long lists of accomplishments are popular, but the words that always touch my heart are the ones that show how loved the person was. A family wrote about their homeless, alcohol-addicted son and brother and emphasized how hard he tried and how many times he succeeded. Wow. Wouldn't it be nice to think that no matter what a screw-up you think you are, someone loves you anyway and will say good things about you when you're gone? I'd like that. Hey, maybe I'll write the words myself and ask Young Geezer to be sure they make it into my obituary if I "precede him in death," as they say. (Or would he think I'm just trying to have the last word?)

Who Was that Masked Woman?

I'm too damn old to have a cold. And I'm too damn cranky to have a cold and work eight hours a day. But since I'm not unconscious or dead, I can't really justify staying home like I did when I was a kid and it was fun. Now it's just boring. So I needed to figure out a way I could be at work without sharing my germ-ridden status with my co-workers. They seem like nice enough folks, but I suspect they could turn into a medieval mob crying for blood if I brought pestilence into their midst. Best not to find out.

The Vent from Hell, which is directly over my desk, began spewing dust a couple of weeks ago as our underpowered heating/air conditioning system struggled mightily to single-handedly combat the the northwest winter. Each time the heat came on, the fibrous cloud caused a chorus of hacking and coughing throughout the cube maze. I needed protection--and I knew just what to do. I brought in the masks I wear on airplanes to counteract perfume and germs. They are pretty effective; I don't often get sick after traveling by air, and being placed next to one of those perfume-drenched people who believe "more is better" no longer results in hours of groveling before flight attendants to get my seat changed. Sure, the masks worked well on airplanes, but were they a match for the demon vent of dusty death?

Success! The Vent from Hell was vanquished--but not in time. I have a damn cold. I can't stand the idea of staying at home thinking my cranky old thoughts, but I hate it when people come to work and cough in their hands and sneeze all over the workspace. My solution? I'm sitting in my cube wearing a mask like a fugitive from a hospital, wiping my hands like an OCD sufferer (think Monk, the TV detective), and causing double-takes in the hallways.

"Why are you wearing the mask?" asked on co-worker, "is it for your protection or ours?" Never one to pass up a chance to look good, I said, "Yours, of course." I smiled behind my mask, but naturally, he couldn't tell. That's one disadvantage of wearing a mask. People have to guess from your eyes what your expression is. Jack Nicholson could probably scare the crap out of you in a mask, and Carrie Underwood would still look gorgeous--me, I just look kind of like an owl.

My mask filters out dust and keeps in humidity; I don't cough and sneeze nearly so much with it on. I found out the hard way, however, to keep gum or mints handy--I about asphyxiated after a garlic-laden lunch.

One co-worker suggested I create "mood masks" with smiling or drooping mouths to match my attitude. I don't think so. My boss already thinks I'm weird, and the "gnashing teeth" mask probably wouldn't be his favorite. Mona Lisa was on to something with that mysterious smile; maybe I can look mysterious behind a mask. (What? It could happen!)

Happy Exploding New Year's Eve!

Fireworks have a long and respected history, but I'm just a tad uneasy seeing them in the hands of my pyromaniacal adolescent neighbors. Yes, the explosions are pretty, yes they're awesome, but they're explosives, for Pete's sake! Shooting in the air, in front of my house!

One of said pyromaniacs several years ago caused a fire that destroyed the unimaginably ugly chain-saw carving of a bear on another neighbor's porch. We were all grateful, but kind of sorry that half of the roof went with it. TV News people try to look somber when they report injuries, but I suspect they have a secret office pool to guess how many of us will burn ourselves with our exploding entertainment. Aside from the obvious reasons (danger, destruction, etc.), if I was King of the World, I would ban fireworks for one reason: because they're scary!

Men have come back shell-shocked from every war fought since the Chinese invented gunpowder, yet we willingly re-create battle sounds in our neighborhoods--and call it fun! We are obviously crazy. However, dogs and small children are not crazy, so fireworks scare the bejeebers out of them.

Maybe the problem isn't that we have occasional fireworks; maybe the problem is that we don't have enough fireworks. Maybe kids and dogs wouldn't be so frightened if it was a daily occurence. My daughter recently moved to Naples, Italy. "Mom," she said on the phone, "Neopolitans love their fireworks! The shoot them off for weddings, birthdays, and just for fun. There are fireworks every night!" She took her old dog to Italy with her. Fortunately for him, he is deaf.

Our little dogs are not deaf, and they don't hear fireworks every night. They just don't understand about the Chinese and gunpowder and maniacal boys with matches. At midnight, I'll be on the couch watching the festivities on TV with a trembling dog plastered on each side of me. It's kind of a tradition with us.

Happy New Year!

Wha-a-a?

The TV next to the elevator in my office this morning showed a crowd of Pakistani people shoving and wailing. As I got into the elevator, a 40-ish woman in front of me said, "What’s going on there?"

“They killed Benazir Bhutto yesterday,” I said.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

[Wha-a-a-?]

Woman Goes to Doctor to Show Social Security She is Alive

(This is an actual headline from a KOMO 4 TV Associated Press news story. Honest, I don’t make these things up!)

My 95-year-old Great Aunt says the reason the people in her retirement apartment community are so happy is because they woke up that morning and found out they were still alive. No one should contradict you when you make that joyous discovery. But someone’s bound to give it a try, and that someone is more than likely to be the government.

A 76-year-old woman in Pasco, Washington was told by Social Security that she was dead. She was a little bit surprised. Not only is she not dead, but neither is her 97-year-old mother, whom Social Security hasn't tried to kill off yet.

So, how do you go about proving you're not dead? Doris Pennington brought her very-much-alive self to the Social Security office and showed them her driver's license. They looked at it and told her a doctor's note might help. A doctor's note!? (Um, Doc--could you please verify I'm alive?) So she got one.

It's a good thing she's so lively; I know a couch potato or two who might have trouble proving life still exists in their mostly-inanimate bodies. Even with a doctor’s note.

They say Doris will probably get her benefits reinstated, but they don't know how long it will take. She’s getting a little anxious. Apparently, the prospect of going home to live with mom at the age of 76 doesn’t appeal to her.

I'm Dreaming of a ...Self-Stick Envelope!

We're late this year. I don't know how it happened. Young Geezer and I just finished signing our Christmas cards and putting them in the envelopes. Yes, I'm one of those people who sends a Christmas letter; no, I don't fill it with great and wonderful things we did all year (it would be very short.) This year I wanted to send a photo and a letter. That might have been a little too ambitious for my non-multi-tasking brain.

Somehow, I didn't get as many photos printed as I thought I had, so I had to go through the list and decide who might possibly live through being deprived of a picture of two little middle-aged people. Since the answer was "almost everybody," it didn't take long. Then I found out I miscalculated when I counted the cards, so we wound up putting stamps on three envelopes we didn't need. Getting to the bottom of the pile of letters, I found one page of a two-page letter. I asked Young Geezer to rip open the last envelope because I thought I only put 1/2 of a letter in it. (I hadn't; it was good to go--until we ripped it all apart, that is!)

"Next year," I declared, " everyone better have a computer, because we're going electronic!" Young Geezer couldn't answer; his tongue was stuck on the flap of an envelope. I will, of course, forget I said this, and will recreate another version of this same misadventure next year. But maybe by then I'll be smart enough not to tell people about it. (Nah. Not a chance!) Maybe next year we'll even get a sponge to moisten the flaps of the envelopes (but why, when it keeps Young Geezer so well entertained?)

Ho, ho,ho, Merry Christmas, etc.!

You Got Me off the Couch for THIS?

I tend to gravitate toward dog people. Not that I have anything against cats or cat people; it just seems that we dog people have an understanding, a knowing that we aren't as tough
as we think we are. One of my cat friends sniffed, “Dogs are so needy!” Well, yeah. That's kind of the point, isn't it? Why would you put up with a dog if it didn't adore you, entertain you and follow you around?

I don’t usually have the patience to reason with small children and large dogs. I like my dogs small so I can pick them up for my convenience or their safety. But every once in a while, a big dog steals my heart. Or, as in the case of greyhounds, a whole breed of big dogs.

My Seattle Sis sold her condo and bought a house with a yard so she could get a dog. She was that most pitiable of creatures--a dog person with no dog! After much research and many rescue agency visits, she decided upon a greyhound. She filled out paperwork, jumped through hoops (OK, not literally), had a home visit by the agency, and put up a big, expensive fence. Then she proceeded to fall in love with a breed of dogs that has inspired admiration and love from humans for millennia.

Greyhounds, it turns out, are big ol' couch potatoes. Except for two or three times a week, when they need to run around like crazy dogs. Maybe it's because the rescue greyhounds come from dog tracks, where they are kept in crates every day except when they run. This one pretty much owns the couch and has to be displaced when company comes. Sis talks to this guy, lets him sleep on the bed, and is careful to keep the house cool in summer and
warm in winter for his zero-fat, short-haired body. In short, he has found doggie Valhalla.

Sis believes, as I do, that it’s just plain disrespectful to dress a dog up. That doesn’t stop her from doing goofy holiday photos, usually adding the props with photoshop. Imagine her dog’s surprise (and mine) when she actually made this poor boy wear these things. He had to get up off the couch and he had to wear stoopid stuff on his head to get his treats.

It's not exactly cruelty to animals, but it probably ruined his afternoon (well, for at least
the minute-and-a-half that dogs seem to remember anything.)

I think he looks a little pissed off, don’t you?

Foodies vs. My Immigrant Grandmothers

It didn't used to be cool to be an American who was too ethnic, who continued cooking the food and speaking the language of "the old country." Now it seems everyone is writing articles and stories about the food traditions of their immigrant parents and grandparents, making all of us wish we had such a heritage. My foodie friends smack their lips when they talk about exotic meals only grandma could make. Alas, like many Americans, I am a mutt. My immigrant grandmas came from different parts of the world and their families had to focus more on survival than on cooking.

My Mexican-American grandma's house always enveloped me in the aroma of simmering beans and warm tortillas--the Mexican peasant's meal. My German-American grandmother lived with with us and rhapsodized about "braunschweiger "[smoked liverwurst] on rye, the German-American working-class's favorite lunch box filler.

Mexican Granny grew up on a little ranch in Sonora where food was plain but plentiful-- when the various bands of thugs didn't plunder it during the constant political upheaval in early-20th Century Mexico. (When Pancho Villa's name was mentioned, she spat, "He was not a hero! He was a teef!") Her family hid the girls and the food in secret cellars during the raids, covering the trap doors with rugs and old women in rocking chairs.

German Grandma grew up in Pittsburgh; her father died when she was nine. Food was scarce and she quit school at 13 to work and help support the family. She had sharp memories of going to bed hungry, which prompted her to give my sisters and me ice cream with cocoa powder almost every night as a bedtime snack. Her love of cream came from skimming the cream off the top of the milk in the "spring house" in the not-so-hungry days before her dad died. We heartily embraced her cream tradition, but liverwurst was a harder sell. She never quite got us to love that pinkish brown tube of meat paste the way working-class German-American kids did at the turn of the 20th century.

My foodie friends build family cookbooks full of inherited Italian, Yiddish, and Asian recipes. I have an important job to do for them--I am the gourmand who consumes their creations with gusto and exclamations of appreciation--and I'm good at it!

The flavors of my childhood--tortillas with beans and Jack Cheese, ice cream with cocoa powder--don't tax my minimal cooking abilities. It's a good thing; I can whip them up for my friends any time without searching for exotic ingredients or sweating for hours in the kitchen. Then the payoff: they reciprocate, sending my palate on amazing international journeys as they share the flavors of their childhoods.

I've often heard America called a "melting pot." Maybe this is what we're talking about!

Dryer Balls and India's washer women

I bought a set of those mysterious little dryer balls you see on TV. Two knobby little rubber balls in the dryer are supposed to make your clothes soft without chemicals. Huh?

They do, indeed, make my clothes softer than when they are dried without my little blue buddies. Oddly, they also make the lint trap fuller.

I remember a young Indian woman I worked with a few years ago. She told me they didn't have a washing machine in her well-to-do home in India.

"How do you wash clothes?" I asked. "Oh," she said, "Some people come and take clothes to the river." I had a vision of a river running with suds. That didn't seem right, so I asked, "How do they get them clean?" She laughed. "They beat them with rocks!" I wondered how the clothes turned out. "Soft," she said, then: "Clothes don't last long."

Uh,oh.

I Don't Think the Beavers Did This

I never saw a natural stream until I was 10. I thought all birds were small and brown. And the closest I came to experiencing wildlife was catching tadpoles in the local drainage ditch. I grew up in a flat suburb of Los Angeles, where the streets are a grid and you can't get too lost because you'll run into the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other.

When I moved to the Seattle area, I was amazed that people in the northwest could actually live next to gurgling salmon streams, surrounded by tall, fragrant cedar trees populated by many-colored birds. I've lived here nearly twenty years and I still stop in awe to gaze out the window at the lush green landscape.

We saw a new beaver dam Saturday on the stream by the path where we walk the little dogs. The creek is two miles from our house, in a business park. We noticed the covered 18-inch storm drain pipe coveres were 2/3 submerged. Ducks glided through their new pond, upending occasionally to graze the bottom of the stream. We saw the gnawed tree trunks and the teepee-shaped stumps that proved the dam was a construction, not just natural tree decay.

"Do you know what the leading cause of death in beavers is?" Young Geezer asked. I admitted ignorance. "Falling trees," he grinned. Seeing the size of those stumps, I could believe it.

"What do you think will happen when we have a heavy rain?" I asked, "Do you think they'll open those storm drains and that will be enough to prevent flooding? It was Young Geezer's turn to admit ignorance. We finished our walk and returned home--just as snow began to fall.

Snow turned to rain, more rain, and then more rain. In fact, it's still falling--and today is Monday. I don't know what happened to the beavers and the ducks, but I do know the creek rose so much that the business park was evacuated today. Young Geezer's office is in that business park.

"Why do you think it's flooding so badly this year, when it hasn't before?" I asked him.

"Well, it's obvious," he said. "It's the beavers." I think he was only half-joking.

Somehow, I don't think the beavers did this.




(Picture, "City of Woodinville," by Rick Powell from King5.com weatherpix)

My Most Favorite Christmas Present of All Time

I’ve never gotten a car or a horse or even a trip to Hawaii for Christmas. If I had, I’m sure it would be in my cavalcade of great memories, although even then, I don’t think it would surpass my favorite Christmas present of all time. I was 18 and just moved into my own apartment. My youngest sister was six. I didn’t make much money as a hairdresser, but I tried to get a present for each of my five sisters, my mom and dad, and my grandmothers. I joined them for dinner at their house, bringing my little box of presents.

“M” was, in my opinion, the sweetest, most beautiful child ever born. I helped care for her as a baby and a toddler and didn’t think anyone could love a child more, until later, when I had a child of my own. I remember I made her present the most special one I could. I don’t remember what it was; I just remember trying to get something she really wanted. My dad sat under the big Christmas tree, working through the mound of presents. He called out the name on the tag of each and handed it to one of the little kids to act as runner to the recipient. Near the end of the distribution, he pulled a small package, carefully wrapped by small hands. “To ‘S’, from 'M'!” he called out. “M” was the next runner, so she brought it to me with a shy smile.

I exclaimed in delight, complimenting the wrapping job. I expected a piece of bubble gum or candy. As the wrapping fell away, I saw that a lot of thought had gone into this present. Inside was a small tablet, a stub of a pencil, and a rock. Not just any rock, but a rock “M” found and thought was beautiful. My heart was touched. I wanted to tell her how sweet and wonderful I thought she was. I wanted her to know how much I missed seeing her every day. But I was 18; I didn't know how to express all that. She was six; she probably wouldn't have understood.

She probably has no idea that her little present turned out to be my Most Favorite Christmas Present of All Time. It’s been 42 years. D’ya think I should tell her?

Squeaky Toy Emergency

Our tiny black dog is a squeaky toy addict. Not just any squeaky toy, however; only the ancient, frayed, smelly one will do. It's almost as big as he is. He wants to play tug-o-war, chase it, and squeak it constantly. He could be a poster child for the weight-loss properties of exercise; he never holds still long enough to let a calorie stick to him!

He is genuinely distressed when he can't find Squeaky. That tragedy befell us tonight. He looked upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement. He looked at us beseechingly, unable to rest without his beloved Squeaky. He was pitiful.

We sighed. We got up from the couch. We looked. We gave up.

Just when I thought we would have a sleepless night with a worried little dog making Squeaky reconnaissance forays during the night, I noticed a suspicious lump in the dog bed. I pulled up the blanket and found Squeaky, folded and smashed like an old Kleenex. Little black dog dashed over and grabbed it, dancing in ecstasy. If he could talk, he would have been saying, "There you are! Where have you been? So glad to see you!" We resumed our nightly routine of throw and fetch, squeak-squeak-squeak, throw, fetch...

It's hard to follow dramatic storylines on TV over the constant squeaking. A more disciplined dog owner might have let Squeaky stay lost for a while. Fortunately for one little black dog, I am not only undisciplined, I am also a real sucker for big, begging dog eyes. (Oh shut up, Cesar the Dog Whisperer!)

Toy Poodles as Multi-Purpose Household Items

So you think toy poodles are useless little frou-frou dogs, eh? I submit that they are actually multi-purpose household items:

1. Heater: Stuff one in the front of your jacket on a cold day.
2. Exercise Aid: Hold one to your chest while doing sit-ups
3. Emotional Discipline: Don't give in when they look longingly at your sandwich.
4. Personal Trainer: Do give in when they beg for a walk.
5. Toy: Dress them in cute clothes. Get lots of attention (some of it positive.)
6. Entertainment: Hold tiny treats over their heads. Watch them walk on their hind legs almost indefinitely: (But then, give them the treats!)
7. Hot Water Bottle: Pull one under the covers with you for a few minutes on a cold night. Be amazed at how much heat a 6-pound dog can generate.
8. Couch Potato Buddies: Sit on the couch. Be prepared for how quickly they appear from the far reaches of the house to assume permanent positions on or about your person.

In our house, it is against the Law to get up when dogs are sleeping on you. The other person is bound by Law to get your drinks and snacks for you. Young Geezer hasn't yet figured out I carry beef jerky in my pocket. When he does, I'll be doing a lot more of the fetching and carrying!

Cupcakes Bad; Muffins Good

A new food rule in my agency’s high-tech, high-stress work rooms attempts to keep employees from losing their concentration and messing up the equipment with their snacks. Interpretation of said food rule, unfortunately, is left up to managers.

Here’s an eyewitness report of one the new food rule being enforced in a work area:

“Somebody brought cupcakes to work. The manager made them remove the cupcakes from the room because they violated our new food order.

“The next day, somebody brought in muffins with icing. These were perfectly acceptable.

“The reason? We're not allowed to eat ‘cake’ in the room and ‘cupcake’ has the word ‘cake’ in it.

“Cupcakes with frosting?—Bad.
Muffins with icing?—Good.”

Thanksgiving/Black Friday

Ah, Thanksgiving! The time of year to eat obscene amounts of food with family—some of whom you adore, and some of whom you wish weren't branches and leaves of your family tree.We say a blessing before we eat, and we fervently hope we won't have to spend the meal rolling our eyes at the gross jokes of that one inappropriate family member (we all have at least one.) It is, in effect, an endurance meal. We do our best, then sigh with relief at the end and are grateful we don't have to do it again for a year. Well, except for Christmas.

Didn't Thanksgiving and Christmas used to be separate? I kind of miss that. It isn't enough to pack up roughly half of our belongings and our cranky kids to travel incomprehensible distances for Thanksgiving dinner. We now have the Olympic Shopping event known as "Black Friday"—the day after Thanksgiving. We are expected to drag our bloated bodies out of bed in the wee hours to save the economy by cramming ourselves into shopping malls that are as packed as Japanese commuter trains. (Kinda of my idea of hell.) The Thanksgiving Day newspaper is about ½ pound of newspaper and three pounds of ads. Businesses we never hear from the rest of year lure us on TV with promises of joy for our families and bargains for us.

On the other hand, it's heartwarming that we Americans feel so strongly about having dinner with our flawed families each year, then making heroic efforts to buy great presents for them. We might not always have the warmth and sensitivity that we like to portray in our movies (and TV commercials), but gosh darn it, we know how to make things happen! We're Americans, by gum! Of course we love our families—see what we go through for them?

My hat's off to those tough and dedicated people who show up at the malls at 4 A.M on Black Friday to make their budgets cover their families' Christmas dreams. Thank you for saving the economy! For my part, I'll probably be chewing TUMS and shopping on the internet. I hope that doesn't make me less of an American.

Bemused Patriot

When I was a flight attendant, I sometimes worked in Europe for weeks without coming home. I didn’t realize how much I missed the American flag until I passed the American embassy in a cab. I got tears in my eyes at the sight of the red, white and blue rippling in the breeze. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was a patriot.

Many years later, my daughter joined the Marines. I came to be acutely aware of the cost of keeping our flag flying. I met with mothers of other Marines, shared their pride in their amazing, dedicated sons and daughters, and was there for them when pain and tragedy befell them.

I am bemused that the definition of patriot has come to mean someone with certain political and religious affiliations. I don’t belong to the groups normally associated with “patriotism.” I don’t even talk about it much. I didn’t plan it or choose it, it’s just there in my heart. I love our beautiful, flawed country and I’m fiercely proud of our flag.

A faded or tattered American flag flying on a home or a business makes me sad. I try to contact people to respectfully ask them to take it down or replace it. No one has told me to mind my own business. I guess that’s because they know that, in a way, I am.

Drunken Birds

After the landscapers removed some pine trees in my favorite area of my work parking lot, I got my car thoroughly cleaned. No more trees coating my car in fine golden pollen or dropping needles down the vents! I stepped out the door at the end of the next work day to claim my clean car--and right into a 1960s horror film. Hundreds and hundreds of blackbirds covered the parking lot berms, jostled each other in the trees, and rose in cacophonous clouds. I think Alfred Hitchock must been frightened by a scene like this before he made the movie, "The Birds."

They pecked the ground, the asphalt, and each other. They bumped into each other and flew up angrily at cars that dared to disturb them. Looking at the berm, I found the normally inconspicuous ground cover was laden with tiny red berries. Feast time for birds! I would have high-fived them, but I fear those claws, especially after seeing that Hitchcock movie. Then I saw my car. All thoughts of high-fives vanished. Pink bird doo streaked every window, creating the effect of artwork done by—well, drunken birds. My screaming and arm-waving didn't faze the birds, but it did attract the attention of the building guards. Never a good thing.

My co-workers say the berry season doesn't last long. I hope they're right. It's a long walk from the center of the treeless south lot where the unamused guards "suggest" I park until then.

Drunken Leaves

"Little drunken maple leaves," I thought, seeing them lying on their faces on the pavement. It rained earlier, leaving wet asphalt beneath balding red and gold maple trees. Overpowered by a breeze, more leaves lost their tentative hold as I watched. They free-fell and landed, evenly spaced, on their faces. Each stem pointed skyward, moving slowly like little arms and legs. I remembered a long-ago story by a military friend who was on leave after boot camp, about a Drill Sgt. who made the recruits lie on their backs with their arms and legs reaching for the sky. "Dying Cockroach," he called it. They couldn't put their arms and legs down until the DI said they could. My friend said it was excruciating, but he "made it" when most of the guys didn't. A couple of years later, he broke his back in a motorcycle accident and the doctors said he would never walk again. He did. He "made it" when another person might have listened to the doctors and given up.

I don't know why that memory came up from the depths while I looked at the leaves. I don't know why it seems like it was just yesterday, when I can't even remember what I had for breakfast today. Being a Boomer is sometimes very weird.

And show the guard your ID…

My group’s office supplies are in a supply room three floors above us. It’s a long way to go for a paper clip. Groups on that floor are supposed to go to their own group’s supply rooms, which could be on any of five floors--or in the building next door. [What? You don’t think this is a good system?] Today, our group’s Grand Poobah of Office Supplies and All Things Good , [title changed to protect the unwitting perpetrator of a work absurdity] sent us this email:

“During the past few months, we have noticed that the supplies order has increased considerably. We have also noticed employees from other offices taking supplies from the our supply room. [What? People too lazy to go to their own supply room in a galaxy far, far away?] Therefore, we are beginning a new process for our group’s employees to get supplies.

"Effective immediately, the supply room will be locked at all times except from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m We ask that you plan to pick up your supplies during those hours.[What if I miss it by two minutes and I really, really need it? Will begging work?]

"Those who have keys to the room are employee X [whom I’ve never met and couldn’t find if I was on fire and she possessed the only fire extinguisher] and myself. She will be the primary contact. [Ah, Queen of Supplies!] If neither of us are available to assist you, there will be a note on the supply room door directing you who [sic] to contact [I have a bad feeling about this!].

"I realize that this new process might be an inconvenience at times [because having a supply room half a building away wasn’t inconvenient?] Given the circumstances, we cannot just ignore this problem [oh, yes you could. Please, please, just ignore it!] I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this might cause you. [OK, then. As long as you’ve apologized.]"

It’s 10:05 a.m. I need a green folder for a file that is due in 25 minutes. I hope begging works. I hope I can find Queen of Supplies (and I hope she has that fire extinguisher. I think I may be on fire.)

Safe in Seattle

This is how Seattle looks from space today. OK, this is how Seattle looks from space every day between November and May. If you want to be safe from missle attacks by orbiting satellites, this is the place to be. They'll never find us.

Headline: "Gun backfires as car-repair tool"

Is there any way you would not read a story with this headline?

Hats off to the headline writer for making a Boomer with a shotgun and a stubborn lug nut sound amusing. My summary:
"He was bound and determined to get that lug nut off," said the deputy [so determined, apparently, he forgot that shotguns aren't really precision tools.]
"...nobody else was there and he wasn't intoxicated." [Well, why not? It would have been a swell party trick!]
He was working on a Lincoln Continental. The wheel was about arm's length away when he fired the shotgun. [Can't you just hear the doors of his rational brain slamming shut?] He was peppered with buckshot and "other debris" in both legs and is now in the hospital. No word on the condition of the Lincoln.

No walk for you; you come back one day!

We'll be treated to sustained winds of 40 mpg today with gusts up to 60, if the earnest young TV weather forcasters are right. Hmm. I guess I won't walk the toy poodles. I don't want to wind up flying poodle-shaped kites.

Retire in Washington?

One of my retired friends sent me wikihumor (stuff a bunch of people made up) titled, "Where to Live After Retirement". It's a group of tongue-in-cheek lists about various locations. (For example: "You can retire in Florida where...You eat dinner at 3:15 pm," "You can retire in New York where...you think Central Park is nature," etc.) Washington state was not mentioned, probably because people in Arizona don't say to their spouses: "Honey, I'm really tired of all this sunshine, let's retire someplace where it rains a lot!"

I decided that my friends could come up with a funnier Washington State list. I was right. Here are their pithy contributions:

You can retire in Washington where…

1. The phrase "The Mountain is out today" is a weather report
2. There are 27 different names for rain
3. Throwing away anything recyclable is considered a felony.
4. You spend eight hours at work and ten hours getting there and back.
5. Starbucks is considered a sovereign nation.
6. There is a special name for two days of rain followed by a sunny day: "Monday."
7. Salmon is a religion.
8. Thirty days without rain is considered a drought.
9. Loggers have applied for protection under the endangered species act.
10. The main danger at coastal beaches is giant logs, not sharks.
11. Bill Gates and Paul Allen are considered modern-day sex symbols.
12. You never, ever, ever enter a crosswalk until the light is green, no matter how long the street has been empty.
13. You will always be an outsider until you learn to pronounce Puyallup, Snoqualmie, and Tulalip.
14. You will learn to recognize 53 shades of gray.

Wanna retire in Washington?

Poke it with a Stick First

My husband, Young Geezer, is several years younger than I am. This gives him the distinct advantage of having someone close at hand who has recently experienced the horror of declining physical abilities he is just now discovering. Eyes, for one thing.

" The only thing worse than not being able to see close up any more," he said, "is not realizing you can't see close up any more." He picked up a piece of "lint" from the floor, only to discover it was not lint; it was a spider. A live spider.

I tried to stick to my role of sympathetic, experienced Older Geezer, but it was hard to do, given that I was choking to keep from laughing. I think I made some appropriate sympathetic noises, then I gave him my best, hard-earned advice on the matter: "Always poke lint with a stick before you pick it up. If it moves, don't pick it up." (Of course, we could don one of the many pairs of annoying little reading glasses that we have stashed all over the house--but how adventurous would that be?)

Daily Work Absurdities

Yesterday, I needed a certain photocopied yellow form for a document. The shelf on which the forms reside was devoid of all but one lonely yellow page, onto which was stapled a slip of paper (when was this written--in pre Post-It Note Dark Ages?) with the note ,"Last one. Go to mail room to get more." My document had a certain deadline, but the allure of a trip to the mail room to get out of my dark, hot cube for a few minutes was inescapable, pathetic cube-victim that I am.

After an exhiliarting ride in the world's slowest elevator, I presented the form to the mail room clerk.
"We don't do those any more," she said.
"Who does?" I asked.
"They do their own now."
"Do you know where I can get a blank form?" I asked, bemused.
"I don't know anything about that. My job is to tell you we don't do them any more."
"Um, you said 'they' do their own now. Do other people use this form?" I thought maybe I could ask one of these obviously more experienced people where to find the electronic form--if one existed in this time warp.
"Oh, yes. Lots of people use it."
"Do you know where they get the form to copy?" By now, I thought I was stuck in an Office Space sequel.
"No, I don't know. My job is to tell you we don't do it any more."
"Do you know who these people are?"
"No, I just know we don't do them any more. Oh, and I can give you yellow paper to do it yourself."

I lugged my prize ream of yellow paper back up the world's slowest elevator, intent on finding a blank form to copy for myself and my fellow worker bees. Not yet fully beaten down after only four months of daily absurdities in this job, I was determined not to be the one who took the last of anything--coffee, paper in the printer, etc.--without restocking for my fellow inmates.

A more experienced worker bee gave me the phone number of a senior secretary who might have the form (thank God some secretaries still survive in the age of do-it-yourself technology! Nurses and secretaries are the ones who always know everything and can get things done while their clueless bosses take the credit.) It turns out she had something similar, did I want her to email it to me? I did. I got it and told my experienced worker bee that I would alter it for our use and put in our template folder. "Oh, you can't do that. Only certain people can add new forms." I tried to point out that it wasn't really new, since the department had been using hard copies since the Dark Ages. But no, it just couldn't be done. I suggested emailing it to everyone in the department who might find themselves wandering the halls with a ream of yellow paper. OK, maybe that would work. But we might have to give it a new Quality Control number. One of us would have to look into that. I smiled a smile that to me meant, "better you than me," and probably to her meant, "OK, I'll get right on that."

I fixed. I emailed. I got the copy center to create 500 copies. It took an hour and a half. Oh, an hour and 45 minutes if you count the time I spent walking around outside, trying keep from screaming.

I have another kind of document to turn in next week. I wonder what delightful surprises await me there?