See, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

I had just popped a plate of left-over pasta with smoked turkey cream sauce in the microwave and was about to build up a good head of resentment about it being too cold to take my lunch break in the back yard, when I stopped for a moment to run the dark wash through another dryer cycle. And suddenly it all felt right - the sound of the dryer, my dying cat waiting on the kitchen table for scraps - George, you doofus, it's MACARONI - the food slowly spinning in the microwave. 

You never know when these moments will arrive. Part of the magic, I guess.

Abstraction, distraction,

diversion, immersion

A melancholy mystery,

the way this late November sun sheds no warmth at all. In fact, this dull light seems to make me feel colder.  But it's not really mysterious. Tomorrow the short Thanksgiving break is over; I return to work; my son flies back to Seattle; everything that was imperfect on Wednesday but that I invoked the holiday to freeze in one distant, dim frame, like a DVD on Pause, will jump back into motion.

But that's tomorrow, right? Yes, but the dread has a way of kicking in early. So this is the main event - the fight for our right to be happy despite the facts. The right to be unreasonably serene.  

George the cat

is not all that old, for a house cat. At least not based on our other cats over the past thirty years. He's perhaps twelve - we don't keep great records in this area - yet he's mostly blind and senile, and increasingly skeletal. Plus he has a fantastically penetrating yowl as he begs for food, which is just about whenever he's awake. Despite the fact that we feed him at least ten times a day. Most of which he just nibbles at.

When Teri cooks, or when any of us eat anything at the kitchen table, he gets inches away from whatever is being prepared or eaten, and yowls until we begin to contemplate throwing him out the back door with all our might. (No, we have not succumbed to that impulse yet. But who knows what the future may bring.)

It's a given that those of us who love and care for animals have to endure surviving them, over and over, but the hardest aspect is deciding when to put them down. I'm holding off on George because at moments he still appears to be enjoying himself - when we pet him, he purrs vigorously - but who knows what he's really feeling? That said, my first choice is to have him simply die in his sleep. Then again - as in so many other cases - I don't really get to choose.

Every pleasure in this world comes at a price, no matter how fervently we may wish for loopholes.

Late In the Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWQ1HuCmQE



The Characters: 

Greg Gould, Bass
Drew Kemp, Drums
Steve McKenna, Guitar, Vocals
Kate Moran, Vocals
Phyllis Plotkin, Piano
Anthony Carpentieri, Electric Guitar

Recorded at Cave Studios, Oakland CA, 1986

Yesterday, not surprisingly,

I ate too much, but of course the point of the feast is the preparation and anticipation as much as the actual consumption. And who is with you on the journey.

Not to mention the great treasure, leftovers. I feel very rich right now; I have no money, mind you. but I have my family and a fridge full of food. No complaints, today.

Shadows Still Remain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n68v28aazD0


Highly Important note: Original melody by David Rubin.

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind - and then -

Setbacks at work today; never welcome, but made more crushing by the overall paucity of the pipeline. Then came post-game analyses, lacking in insight. My spirit did a searing impression of lead.

The sadness began to do its toxic magic: all troubles are one gigantic trouble. That can't possibly be untangled or overcome.

Then I heard my wife and my daughter in the kitchen doing first-stage Thanksgiving prep. Cutting up the white bread for one stuffing; baking cornbread for Stuffing II; brining the birds. All the while, music playing, from Mom's iPod: Temptations, Stones, Beatles, Aretha, The Dead, Dylan. And my little girl not rolling her eyes but doing a little dance here and there.

There. My family rescued me. Again.

Like the old joke goes,

what do you call someone who speaks two languages? A bilinguist. And what do you call someone who speaks three languages? A trilinguist. So what do you call someone who only speaks one language?

An American.

I do dream of one day learning a second language. For reasons obscure to even myself, I've decided it will be Russian. (And I don't underestimate the probable challenges. Years ago, I managed a small furniture store; I worked alone and had lots of time on my hands because most of the merchandise was relatively expensive and did not sell quickly. In an effort to make use of the idle hours, I bought a mandolin and a set of Japanese language cassettes. The good news is that I DID learn how to play mandolin passably well).

In the meantime, I try to enjoy my one language as fully as possible, like a blind man whose senses of hearing and touch have had to grow more acute. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

I go through phases where certain words seem especially expressive and aptly formed.

Current favorite: Encouragement. (поощрение).

The best time to write

is whenever you have an idea or two and you have time and concentration enough to incarnate them into words and see how they run.

On this damp chilly morning, under a pale sun that seems to have come to a complete stop, I'm waiting to drive down to the office till the worst of the drive-time has come and gone. Too early to do follow-up calls with prospects - especially on a Monday. Not a way to endear yourself to strangers who are not, in fact, waiting for your phone call.

Back to the topic of complaining, I realized that, although in the privacy of my own brain or sometimes in conversation with my wife I will bluntly catalog my troubles, I've actually gotten fairly adept at shaking it all off and moving forward. Or at least presenting that performance to the world at large.

And I began to wonder, when did this particular skill kick in?

Answer: when I became a parent.

You know where you can always find me

somewhere just studying the light

The cold breeze persists

with that penetrating quality it has when infused with moisture, but the rain has stopped and the clouds are on the run. So I get to sit in the backyard and enjoy the sun as it breaks through, in pulses. As do the cats, who really hate the rain and were acting like little lunatics when they were all forced to share the house earlier.

I call what I do reading, as I sit there, and I do have a book or magazine on my lap, but half the time my eyes are closed and my mind wanders. As always, contentment is no more constant than today's warm sun, but as long as I get at least some, I can hold away whatever pains or worries are dogging me right now.

November 1983

Already quite hungry.

(Teri's recipe, naturally.)


Thanksgiving Butternut Squash Soup

2 yellow onions (diced)

1 large Butternut squash (peeled, seeded, diced)

1 red pepper (diced)

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

1/2 cup dry sherry or brandy

Pinch nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

1/3 cup walnuts (chopped)

2 tablespoons honey

6 cups chicken stock

Salt and pepper

This is the "Before" picture.

Sweat onions, squash, and peppers in a little olive oil on medium heat for 15 minutes. 

Add garlic and walnuts for 2 minutes. 

Add brandy, stock, and spices. 

Bring to a boil, lower to medium cut until veggies are soft. 

Puree until smooth.

Serve with toasted baguette slices, salad with goat cheese and crumbled bacon.

The World Has No Pity for Those Who Are Defeated By the Ordinary

: Another way of saying, oh, dude, get over it.

I've been instructed by management that I need to drive in to the office two days a week for the next month or so (average round-trip drive-time: 2.75 hrs.).

Not crazy about this development, but 1) they could have said daily; 2) I can arrive late and leave early in order to avoid the worst of the rush hours, and 3) I do have satellite radio in the car. So, I will choke back my tears.

Plus, there can even be beauty in traffic. On occasion.

The pressure is on

 - but when it comes to sales, when is the pressure ever OFF? Yes yes I get it. And I really ought to be used to it after all this time. But there are days - and this is one of them - where it requires every particle of my patience and diligence to not run away screaming. Or crawl back into bed. Or run screaming back to bed.

When you see someone juggling swords and torches while riding a roller-coaster through gale winds, give the guy a break, would you, and don't keep asking him what he's going to close this week. It's not helpful.

OK, venting time is over. Back to work.

September 1977

And a time for every purpose under Heaven

When Teri decided to finally move on from childcare and teaching about eight years ago and pursue her longtime desire to design and maintain home gardens, her first real client was a woman named Leonore Fine. Leonore lived nearby on Claremont Avenue, and she really wanted a garden that she could spend peaceful, meditative time in. She even had a name for it - The Grotto.

Leonore was already 92 at the time, but still traveled, studied, entertained, and generally made middle-aged people like Teri and me feel really silly about kvetching about age.

Teri and Leonore got along great these past eight years, although Teri did think Leonore should have allowed her to kill garden snails - Leonore, however, forbade it, citing her Buddhist beliefs.

Leonore turned 100 this past March, and, though keeping as active as ever, did confide to Teri more than once how tired she was starting to feel.

She passed away at 2:30 last night, at home, with family at hand. And yes I know 100 is a great run, but I'm still choking up a bit here. Goodbye, Leonore, wherever in the universe you are. Hope it's all you imagined.

That Sunday Afternoon Feeling

Don't get me wrong, I like my job for the most part, and of course these are especially inappropriate times to whine about any gainful employment. But as a morning of reading the Sunday papers in the warm, sunny backyard with numerous cats lounging near my chair drifts into mid-afternoon, thoughts of Monday don't bring me joy. What can I tell you.

As I write this, my wife is out front raking leaves, and our big orange Elvis cat sits in the garden watching her. Neighbors and strangers walking by stop to admire him, and he accepts their attentions with the placid grace of old royalty. How do I get HIS job?

I admire William Blake and all

but I always found the phrase "doors of perception" problematic, if not downright clumsy.

We WALK through doors. We SEE through windows.

But "windows of perception" doesn't scan all that well. I admit. And if Blake had used that phrase, Jim Morrison would have had to have fronted a band called The Windows. Which would have just sucked.

Be Good to Each Other

Fun with Appliances, continued

The ginormous Franken'roid fridge got moved safely from Sandy & Eric's into our dining room last Thursday; it wound up taking a four-man crew. BIG guys. Tomorrow the old piece of crap gets hauled out. So tonight we've secured the help of Mike and Evan - two of John's pals for many years, and both very tall and fit - to help us 1) move the old unit into the center of our kitchen - after disconnecting the water hook-up; 2) move the Death Star into final position. # 2 should be interesting.

Can't Complain

Here's the thing about complaining - or even just talking about your pains, worries, and burdens in what you were hoping was a matter-of-fact, dispassionate tone: either the people you share these thoughts with don't see your situation as being all that bad, relatively speaking, and wish you would just suck it up for godssake, or they are truly moved by your problems and feel compelled to offer advice, which you actually did not want (even in the event that it's useful).

It's no secret that most of the best therapists and counselors have learned how to listen without saying much, but while still managing to convey sympathy. Most of us couldn't do that if our lives depended on it.

Once again, the two extremes are easy to pull off - you can either let it all hang out and express every dark, sad, bitter notion that haunts you in your times of trouble, or you can throttle back any and all expressions that might reveal you feel like you're about to fall off a cliff. Each has pros and cons, naturally.

I think a middle way might be better (and you probably knew I was going to say that); what I mean is, sure, it's not cool to lose your shit and either annoy or depress everyone within earshot, but neither is it a healthy course of action to shove every painful emotion into a vault in your guts. I'm not the first person to say this, by any means, but sometimes it's a good idea to catalog, in detail, everything that's wrong. And cry about it, while you're at it. Eventually the wallow will lose its appeal and shaking it off will seem like a great idea.

Notice I didn't say that doing this publicly is advisable. Your call.

All I want to do right now

is to sit beneath the November sun as it does its slow low roll across the cool blue sky.

But no.

I remember sitting on a park bench one sunny lunch hour on upper California Street, on the edge of Chinatown. April of '92? I was still wearing a dress shirt and tie to work every day at that time, but I had at least rolled up my sleeves and loosened the tie and was just floating in the warmth for a few minutes before I had to go back to my desk.

Teri and I had been trying to have a second child for a while at that point but Fate was fucking with us; miscarriage after miscarriage. The doctors were unable to find any cause.

So that was on my mind. I suddenly thought, all I want, I swear, is to have one more little baby who'll be able to feel this warm sun on their face. That's all.

I will admit with some shame that, though I got that wish, I did not remain in a permanent state of gratitude and fulfillment as I'd wordlessly promised. Working on it, though.

Man of Virtue

I know you’re careful what you wish for

and you watch just what you say

But it all comes back to haunt you

anyway 

Now you may be a man of virtue

and a friend to all you meet

But that ain’t necessarily useful

on the dark side of the street

You must remember this

A kiss is still a kiss

‘cept when it’s followed by a blade

You’re always so surprised

each time you recognize

some bad decision you just made

Sometimes I get the strong sensation

that my heart is like a bell

pealing brightly up to Heaven

tolling darkly down in Hell

But I just may be mistaken

Maybe only I can hear

and the day that bell stops ringing

it’s gonna be me who disappears

But please don’t get me wrong

I didn’t write this song

to make you brood or bear regret

I’m just the same as you

Don’t always know what’s true

and much of that I soon forget

I wish I knew where we were headed

‘cause this trip’s gone on so long

I don’t always trust my information

All my bearings could be wrong

I beg you do not be a stranger

for I’d surely miss your face

Just tell me ,”See you later”

You don’t have to name the time or place

Natural Causes

I grew up across the street from a cemetery, and I used to joke that before I was ten I'd probably seen - from a distance - more than six hundred funerals. Not to mention that I still associate the sound of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" with Sunday mornings and the smell of coffee, to this day.

And since the cemetery was a pretty vast stretch of property, with plenty of hedges and bushes and only a few meandering service roads, it was an extremely convenient place for us to do all the things teenagers like to do when adults aren't watching.

I don't believe any of us felt we were disrespecting the dead; we had hung around the place so long I think the reality of what its function was had long been lost on us. And in our defense, we never trashed the place or made much noise -  morality aside, that would have attracted unwanted attention.

We were all pretty young and healthy, so Death was not just another country for us - it was another world.

And my situation was even odder, in that my parents had decided to entirely isolate my sister and I from our large extended family in New Jersey, where they'd both been born and raised, so that aside from a few visits a year to my prematurely senile Grandpa Frank in Paterson, we knew nothing of that world. All of the ceremonies and rituals - including funerals - that bound those big Irish-Polish clans together through the years were attended by my father as sole ambassador, and he never reported anything back about the events. We may as well have been the very last of our line, as far as we ever saw.

This rejection of ritual eventually reached disturbing lengths, when my mother refused to have even a memorial service after my father died in 1986. Still working my way through that one, as you might imagine.

That's how it came to be that I never actually attended a funeral until my father-in-law Skip Hayes died in 1999. I'd like to make clear the fact that I'm not complaining; though I do believe with all my heart that the gathering of friends and family after a person's death can bring wonderful comfort and support to the survivors, I find formal funeral and burial services to be a brutal ordeal and I'm having none of it; mark my passing with lively music and overindulgence.

What's prompted all this, you ask? Not sure, really, but the past year or so has brought news of death to me often enough, and in enough different forms, that I can no longer pretend that it's an aberration or abstraction, or that it's a foreign thing whose residence is far away.

Suicide, accident, illness, even murder - when I say they're all natural causes, please don't think I'm being callous or flippant. I only mean that they all take place in one world. This world.

The World Is My Sweet Potato

Mission Not Accomplished

 - in that the mission was to get the stray cat (who Teri named Pancakes, in the fullness of time) to the vet, to be inoculated and spayed.

But we have succeeded in getting her to eat on the porch pretty regularly, and even in the pantry on occasion. The other cats leave her out of their pecking order politics, for reasons unknown. And she sleeps in the warm dry basement undisturbed,  we're fairly sure.

So she looks better and seems calmer. But we think she may be pregnant now. So did we help or hurt her, all in all? I just can't say.

May 1977

Soul Survival

Seems like all my life I've heard people talk about how living the wrong way - especially in terms of what you do to make money - can kill your soul.

I've had some time to ponder this. My tentative conclusion: souls are not as fragile as some would have you believe.

Does spending most of your waking hours most days of the week doing work that often seems pointless and brings little or no beauty or joy into the world actually damage your essential spirit, the way eating crappy food or breathing polluted air damage your body?

Answer (again, tentative): damage, perhaps. But destroy? No, for the same basic reason humans can survive toxic physical environments - adaptation. In the case of the soul - or mind, or spirit; not picky about the tag in this case - most of us find ways to discover some brightness or color or meaning in our days, whether through connecting with the people we work with, or perhaps just through momentary flights of imagination, anticipation, or memory.

And as I've said before, we can all use a hand with this now and then. Look around.

Cutting Board

A history, a stage. Wherever I look. A tiny geology of stains and cuts.

Brother

New to you, or hoping it's worth another go.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-6FxAZsiTQ

February 1999

I reached for the shadow of the bannister

and almost fell -

Disaster Averted (Major Appliance Division)

One of our old neighbors and current gardening client of Teri's is remodeling their kitchen, and they offered us their old refrigerator (for free). Given that this unit is larger and better-made than the Maytag lemon we've been stoically enduring for more than twelve years, Teri of course said yes.

So the plan (Stage One) was this: rent a U-Haul pickup and heavy-duty dolly, hire Teri's sometime gardening helper Louis to provide some young-person muscle, drive to Sandy's house in Piedmont, haul the new unit out of their garage, pull it up onto the truck via a ramp made of two thick planks of wood, drive it back to our place, get it off the truck, get it up our front steps, and park it in our dining room until Stage Two.

After smashing and gouging several fingers and Louis spraining his back in the process of just getting it out of the garage and into upright position, I contemplated the various ways this could play out, going forward. Nearly all of them involved additional injuries and possible destruction of the appliance.

I then made what I believe was a judicious call - I said, this is a very good point at which to stop our do-it-yourself effort and hire a professional. I mean, really. Holy Shit.

So we parked the now-upright unit - which I came to finally see was as big as Frankenstein on steroids - in an alcove off their driveway, and now the hunt is on for an actual trained, equipped mover.

Again, I feel like a wise, wise man. A wise man who is now more than $100 bucks in the hole for this "free" appliance, and who will likely be spending a hundred or two more before all's said and done. But, again, I mean, really. Holy Shit.