Author Archives: 40andover

The Test: End of Day 2.

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Ah, ’tis the Spring of my Content.  (Apologies to Willy Shakespeare.) Because the Test continues.

COB (colleague of blogger) felt bad that I thought he was stacking the deck against my being upbeat for one month (the Test), so he was in and out of my office all day saying cheery and pithy things.   He also wants to be known as THE COB, because there can be no other colleague who merits mention in the blog.  Well, he is right about that.

I am trying, really.

But there is so much static interference.

Yet, I didn’t curse the man who crushed my arm by swinging open a door and catching my arm. The EXCRUCIATING pain only lasted a few minutes and the bruise is not so bad.  So, I remain cheery and hopeful and am spreading that karma like a boomerang, I tell you.

I am waiting for POB (partner of blogger) for our Wednesday night date.  I arrive early and sit at the bar. The drunk man at the other end (who is talking too loud to be ignored) is pontificating to his poor date about 1888 Germany being an example of an evolved society. Funny, how it devolved into chaos and demagoguery in just a few, short decades. But I digress.

Ok, so I am being grateful for all that I have and now I hear the drunk man claiming that, although he is Caucasian, he is Indo-European because we all descended from that part of the world.  So, now he gets to go off on Indians and Europeans.  Whoa.  He needs to stop, because even I am offended and our family fled Germany and Central Europe.

But using his theory, he can rail on whomever because we all came from Adam and Eve.  He, on the other hand, definitely came from apes or, possibly, the ever-adaptive rodent family.

Ok, a history book is committing suicide every minute this guy speaks.

I am good with his being pedantic, insufferable, and patronizing because I am focusing on the good in the world notwithstanding the current chaos. So, THE COB, you haven’t won this bet yet.  I am in a good place.

But I am drawn again into his conversation because his date is countering his ramblings with a little fact checking. Mobile Google is awesome. She is in solid fighting form now that she decided there is no future in him.   So, if I could paraphrase, “Dumb@ss, you got your facts from reenactments on the History Channel”.

He realizes, too, that this date is going nowhere.  So, he says he is rich. Dude, you need the wealth of a Saudi prince to save this date and she sounds like she has too much pride for that anyway.  Good for her.  Tragic for you.

Now this is adding to my month of contentment and karmatic equanimity.  Boy meets girl, gets drunk and offends everyone within earshot.  Girl ditches boy with facts, fabulous diction and perfect grammar.  Boy tries to get girl back with money.  Girl gets the check.

In full disclosure, I negotiated a clause in the Test that I could think about the people, not only in Japan, but all over, whose lives have ended, or been upended, by natural and man-made disasters.  So, in the midst of my ramblings, I don’t forget about them and their suffering.  I hope that relief comes in time.

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The Test, Day 2

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COB (colleague of blogger) came into my office to test my resolve to be hopeful and content for the next 29 days.

He came in and talked about his commute from hell, and a deal we lost to a firm that undercut our very modest pricing.  Then he told me about his friend’s blog that has way more followers than mine and provides a day-by-day  exercise and eating regimen to an awesome body in one year.  She is 23 years younger than I am and I don’t think our realities of “awesome body” achievement can be the same.

But I feel hopeful and happy.  I put on moisturizer this morning so my wrinkles are muted.  I brought in make-up in case I am so moved to spruce up my look.  And I haven’t yet spilled my coffee all over my tan slacks.

Is this an awesome start to the day or what?

Click to hear the Seeker’s rendition of Kumbaya:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA

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The Test

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COB (colleague of blogger) is tired of my doom and gloom. (Really?  I thought it part of my magnetic personality. . . .)

And that, in and of itself, is shocking, since COB was discussing that the end of the world could occur on December 21, 2012.  Something about the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus and planetary alignments. Not that COB BELIEVES it, or anything.  But he was just putting it out there.

Probably to stack the odds before he dared me to be hopeful and cheerful for one month.  ONE MONTH.

In case you didn’t read carefully enough, I was challenged to be hopeful and cheerful for one month.  (COB is a poker player and probably has side bets on whether I will sink into despair in 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 2 weeks.)

I think it is funny that people are talking about the end of the world being in 21 months away, since Japan lies devastated (and its nuclear rods laid bare) by an earthquake and then tsunami, Libya is in civil war, Bahrain and Yemen are in chaos, the Ivory Coast is a bloodbath, we are in two wars, our deficit is out of control, the recession hasn’t ended for most Americans and we have a dysfunctional Congress, and on and on and on.  Sounds like the end of days now.

BUT, I digress, comme d’habitude.

Back to sweetness and light and kumbaya.   A dare is a dare and I have my pride.  So, forget the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Forget images of breadlines during the Depression.  Forget the daily carnage for an acre or two of oil fields.  I am going to be happy, hopeful and cheery, Gosh darn it.

So, here is what I did today to make good on the dare:

  • When I was at the gym, I didn’t tell the stinky man that he was curling my nose hairs, as we took turns on the same machine.
  • I made sure that all elderly, infirm or pregnant people on the bus had seats.  (Yes, I know I am too pampered to hang with humanity, but the recession hasn’t ended.)
  • I swore to POB (partner of blogger) that I would take a time-out from the 24-hours news REcycle, where the object is to scare us more than to provide information.  (Note to self:  If Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper is at the nuclear power plant in Japan, it can’t be releasing THAT much radiation.)
  • I kissed and hugged my son, as I asked G-d (and whomever else with power over these things) to protect him from the chaos.

Not bad for my first few hours of Blogger-High-On-Happiness.

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Elvis in the House

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A portly guy wearing an Elvis wig, over-sized sunglasses and that tragic white jumpsuit that was “signature Elvis” in his final years, walked through the lobby of my office building. Apparently responding to jeers from the security guards, he yelled, “it’s still a free country and I am doing my part!”

Now that struck me. Today, with the news from Japan getting worse, Saudi troops landing in Yemen and Bahrain and pleas for a no-fly zone over Libya, we need all the Super Heroes we can get. Real, imagined or dead. Maybe the Elvis impersonator was doing what he could do to feel in control and perhaps offer comfort as a super human personality (just ask other Elvis fans).

He wasn’t so crazy after all (maybe). I might buy a Star Trek: The Next Generation outfit. They always had the answers. Maybe Counselor Troi, although I would need more gym time as well as implants. But you get the point.

Elvis was in the house. And that was what we needed today.

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To my brother at 50

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I hear Joni Mitchell singing, “So the years spin by and now the boy is” . . .  50.

My brother and I are different people, or so I used to think.  Now I think we are so much alike that our similarities grate on each other.  We have the same expressions, gestures, and righteous indignation when bad things happen to good or innocent people.  And don’t mess with our kids.  We will lay you out with our bare hands.

My brother is an exceptional father and, by all accounts (ok, his mother-in-law), a wonderful husband.  Yet 50 is big.  And I wonder about the Joni Mitchell song.  His young dreams may have lost some grandeur coming true.  Are there new dreams, better dreams, that carry him through to the next year, and the year after that?  I hope so.  I wish I knew my brother better to know about his dreams, his fears, his triumphs.  But we are not those kind of siblings — yet.  I know I am prickly and judgmental (who, me?).

As we deal with the end pieces of my mother’s estate and planning for my father’s next 30 years (he promised to live to 120, like Moses), I know he trusts me to do the right thing.  That is the highest compliment my brother could give me. So, I know, deep, deep down, all three of us understand each other and know we will do what is right.  That was clear in the way we all pulled together when Mom died.

But I want to know more about him.  Not just what he thinks of me.  I want to know his dreams, his issues, his mundane concerns.  I want to know if the children have a religious affiliation.  Not because I care about the answer; rather, I care to know so I can be a part of their lives.

But, in the interim, I hope he still has wonderful dreams and the chance that they may come true.  And, I hope he thinks he is a lucky man for the life he’s lived so far and for the people who love him and whom he loves.

Happy birthday, bro.

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The moment of learning

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DOB (Dad of blogger) brought more pictures of the family from the 1920s to the 2000s.  Quite a span.

I saw two pictures of my Mom attending Cousin Gentle’s Tai Chi class.  She still had hair, so it had to be 1996 or 1997.  It was part of her regimen to control the pain from cancer.  She had such faith in Cousin Gentle, and illness opened her (and the rest of the family) to non-Western medicine.  It was the age of humility for our family.  We learned that being doctors and lawyers was not the only measure of success and that we needn’t exclude ancient practices when western medicine had no answers.

We learned.  We evolved.  We opened our minds and our hearts.  And we resolved we would not close up again when Mom died.  Here are pictures of the turning point of the trajectory of our family:

Together we moved, slowly, in the beat of Tai Chi, to a more open, more humble place.  I remember that time, that moment, when we didn’t have the luxury of smugness and hubris.  We are better for it, although it was sickness that opened our minds, our hearts and our soul.

 

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Charlie & Co.

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For the record, I have never seen Charlie Sheen in anything, at least to my recollection.  I have only seen clips of the recent media circus surrounding the disintegration of his connection with reality. 

Why are people following him on Twitter?  Why are people tuning in? 

No one interviews a homeless, psychotic person.  But the media is making money on ad revenues by showing Charlie talking about being a warlock and transversing the space-time continuum.  Why?  Because people tune in to feel better about themselves by watching a TV star dive head first into mental abyss.   Just my theory.

This reminds me of an old tale about a media circus surrounding a young girl’s fallinto an abandoned mine shaft or water well.  Everyone was so busy getting the news story and the hard-luck backstories of the townspeople, that no one bothered to save the little girl.

And if that is true, both Charlie and we need serious medical help.

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Life is a Cabaret, my son, but don’t learn the lyrics

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TLP (our son, the little prince) loves Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.  That’s pretty awesome since he is 8.5 years old.  The problem is that his two favorite songs are Mack the Knife and Cabaret because of the tunes and the instrumentals.  When we looked up the lyrics, it was a little ooky.

First, Mack the Knife doesn’t sound like it will be about wine and roses.  Mack the Knife is based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.  Murder and blood.  And Cabaret involves a prostitute who charges by the hour.

And now my son wants us to purchase the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated.  I draw the line there — he is too young.  But why the heck I am letting him listen to songs about violence and prostitution? 

There is a bright line here, somewhere.

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At the shores of Tripoli

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Nero, Caligula, Hitler, King George, Idi Amin.  These are the names of some leaders who were raving lunatics.  They were vicious, evil and certifiably coo-coo. 

But Moamar Qadafi really takes the madman bloodlust to a new level. 

Does anyone else think he talks like Charlie Sheen and looks eerily like Michael Jackson (odd skin tone and propensity toward make-up).  

Except that we mechanisms to deal with a psychotic Hollywood star or a dead and alleged pedophile pop-star.   

Qadafi will not leave voluntarily.  He will savage his people to stay in power. 

A no-fly zone cannot be a unilateral US action.  It is hard to enforce and, if we engage, we have to be in for the long haul.  Forget what Dick and Rummy told us about easy-win, easy-out strategies in Iraq.  Stupid then; stupid now.

President Obama is pursuing the right strategy to make the military re-think killing fellow Libyans.   John Wayne McCain is being contrarian.  How many wars can we fight?  If the US steps in overtly, it gives Qadafi leverage as a revolutionary against imperialist powers.

We have a moral obligation not to allow the slaughter.  But we have to be intelligent about it.  We have to look before we leap. 

May Allah bless and save the Libyan people.

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Ode to COB

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Dear COB (colleague of blogger) took care of almost everything while I was away on vacation.  He tried to hard to let me rest, refraining from telling me — how shall I say — “human interest tidbits” so I could really disconnect (as much as one can) from the office. 

Occasionally, he would catch me on Facebook with an off-line sidebar on the trials and tribulations of being both of us for one week.  I get that.  Being one person is hard enough.  Talking like me while wearing my clothes is really close to impossible for such a big guy.  His poor back.

In these days of shifting allegiances and loyalties in every area of life, it is good to know someone has your back at work, so you can focus on your family.

COB, you rock.  And I got yours, too.

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