The Aerie
Yet another non-phenomenally-productive day. But I got two nice pairs
of shoes out of it!
After suffering from profound exhaustion yesterday I just slept in
today, waking at 9:00 feeling like I could have slept a couple hours
more. I think giving blood at 7:00 a.m. and then going nonstop until
midnight was probably something I could have done 15 years ago, but
maybe not anymore.
Anyway, my wife had reserved some Friday time in order that we get new
shoes, so I already knew that was on the menu. Then when she suggested
going to [1]Al's Breakfast first, well, what could I do but
capitulate? Grina was behind the grill and I had a New Orleans omelete
for the first time, and it was terrific.
After that we headed off to Duggan's Shoes in St. Paul. For years I
purchased a new pair of shoes every year at Target for about $15.
Sometimes I got a good pair, most of the time I got a crummy pair, and
it was all luck. I have a lot to do, and becoming a shoe expert wasn't
going to be one of those things.
Then my spouse prevailed upon me to visit Duggan's. Proprietor Ultan
Duggan is one of those crazed specialists who knows more than almost
anyone about shoes. The difference was phenomenal: I bought a pair of
sneakers that fit instantly, and that lasted for about five years. In
fact, I'm still wearing them, they just look a bit ragged these days.
Well, my sneakers are ragged and my dress shoes, well, I can't
complain. They're a pair that I bought five years ago at Payless for
$10. They fit and they work and for $10 I can't complain. But in
addition to desperately needing a polishing (at $10 a pair I'd rather
buy a new set than polish the one's I've got), the soles have been
worn to paper thinness over time. So it was time for new dress shoes.
His shop is reminiscent of Ollivander's in the first Harry Potter
film: shabby but comfortable, scattered with shoes and shoeboxes, and
tended by a white-haired proprietor who remembers every item he ever
sold. I tried on the new sneakers first: he keeps your records on
file, so he immediately brought the right pair of replacement
sneakers. Then he brought out some dress shoes. The first pair felt
too big and clunky with no arch support. Then he brought out the
second pair. When he slipped them on my feet it was like the scene
where Harry picks up the proper wand. They felt like they'd been
specially made just for me. I didn't want to take them off.
So we walked out of there a couple hundred dollars lighter, but
extremely well shod.
This morning was an example of the advantages of living in one place
for a long time. After a couple of decades, you know where all the
best things are. In this case the best breakfast in town, and later
the best shoes in town.
Back home once again I tended to a little business, and then undertook
the arduous task of cleaning up my office. Part of that is to get my
desktop PC rebuilt. Oh joy, what fun that is. My current machine has a
full 5G hard drive, and a full 10G hard drive. I bought a 30G
replacement drive. My idea was to put the OS on the old 10G drive, and
use the 30G as a data store. But I couldn't get the 10G drive to
consent to be a boot drive. So instead I've switched it around, and
the OS is going on the 30G drive, and the data store on the 10G.
Much too much detail, I know, but it serves to explain where my time
gets wasted: booting, rebooting, switching jumpers on hard drives,
plugging in cables, screwing brackets onto drives, etc. Next thing
there goes the afternoon.
And that will likely be the activity of the weekend. First cleaning
the office, then advancing an application security assessment that's
coming due, and then when I have a moment work on rewriting my
role-playing book.
Haven't gotten to the gym today yet, plan on going tonight. So that's
it for this five of five week. This five-entries-in-five-days
experiment has been useful in helping me track the progress of the
week. Hopefully practice will make perfect and maybe I can make this a
habit...
[2]Last
So tired. So very tired.
Today got totally out of hand. If yesterday was slipping, today was
freefall. I got just about nothing accomplished today, and worked very
hard doing it.
Well, of course that's not entirely true. I shipped a ton of my Dad's
old furniture down from my mother's place to my place, with the help
of my father-in-law. Two desks, two bookcases, two nightstand-type
things, he had two of everything in his office. We shipped them down,
cleaned them up, cleaned the kids' rooms a bit, and loaded them in
there. Now the kids have desks.
Mostly weekend-type activity, taking place on a business day because
that was the only day everything was coming together properly.
That was the afternoon. The morning was spent first checking the
results of the wardialing effort, then giving blood at the Red Cross,
then a lunch appointment. And that was the day. Oh, and I also
formatted a new hard drive for my chock-full desktop computer.
I got a free day from the gym due to my blood donation. "No heavy
lifting for five hours," they said. So there I was, five and half
hours later, lifting desks into my father-in-law's pickup truck.
So now this rough beast, my hour come round at last, slouches off to
the bedroom to make snores.
Hopefully tomorrow will feel more organized. At least as far as I know
I can sleep in.
[1]Last
Okay, this one got away from me a bit.
Monday and Tuesday I felt I had a pretty good grip on the week. But
today felt like somebody greased the reins or the brass pole or
whatever metaphoric object I had a grip on as regards the passage of
time. Hopefully tomorrow will go better, but it's not promising: the
day starts with a 7:00 a.m. blood donation.
I made the earliest possible appointment because the donation process
has become bogged down in more bureaucracy than a Chinese travel visa.
From a 15-minute formalty, somebody decided you have to verbally
answer all the questions on the form, as put to you by a nurse. As a
result my last three attempts to voluntarily hand over my precious
bodily fluids (uh, by that I mean blood, wiseguy) have ended in
failure. Just ran out of time waiting for the staff.
So tomorrow I show up at 7:00 and hopefully the queue won't have had a
chance to back up.
Last night and this evening I got to have fun learning to w4Rdia1.
I've munged the text there because I don't need every search engine in
the world directing h4(kers my way because I happened to mention the
word. Come to think of it, I should probably alter h4(kers, too.
There.
Anyway, it's been fun finally learning to do something I've been
suspected of doing for twenty (count 'em, twenty) solid years. It's
all perfectly legit, we've got a client who wanted the service.
Also got an odd call tonight. A 49-year-old adoptee in Michigan was
notified by his confidential intermediary that she had located his
birthmother. A CI is an agent assigned by the state to search for
adoptee's birthparents for a fee, and then manage the reunion
communications. This subject of CI's is one of those "Don't get me
started" issues that can really set my blood boiling. A 49 year old
man and his 60-something year old birthmother have to have their
communications managed by the State... *blam* oh, dang, blew another
gasket.
Anyway, he's faced with having to write a letter to his birthmother to
convice her that he's not a mad stalker or whatever the hell the State
thinks is likely to presume he is guilty of until proven innocent. And
in searching the 'Net he found my excerpt of my letter to my
birthmother, and liked it enough to seek out my phone number (in
itself a bit of an accomplishment) and ask to see the whole thing.
Well, so here I was, the wife was away, I was managing three kids
dinners and chores, running a w4rD!a1, talking on my cell phone (on my
own dime no less!) and running up and down the stairs from the
basement to the attic trying to first find my original letter to my
birthmother, and then scan it and e-mail it to him.
No wonder I'm so tired.
So anyway I'll be interested to see how this goes. Hopefully all will
work out well for everyone involved.
Inevitable exercise update: 5K in 20:03, without looking. Yep, just
rowed at a steady pace and kept the meter tipped so I couldn't read
it. I'm very happy with those numbers. Now if I could just get my
weight down I'd be tickled pink.
Anyway, I get a blood pressure check tomorrow, so I'll be interested
to see if my rowing has made a difference in my borderline high blood
pressure. Usually it's 135/78 or somesuch (you think I'm doing this
rowing for fun??), so hopefully tomorrow it will be lower.
Unless somebody mentions confidential intermediaries right before I go
in for the checkup...
[1]Last
I don't know how bloggers do it.
I mean, I'm trying to do ONE journal entry per day, and it FEELS like
I'm blogging.
If you don't know what blogging is, it's... oh, hell, go use Google
fer goodness' sake, that's what it's there for.
Of course, the bloggers keep it short, and do several one-paragraph
essays per day. Me, I sit down and start writing this
stream-of-consciousness stuff, and I'm here for pages.
Anyway, at the end of Day 2 of 5 what do I have: hit the gym both
days, with great difficulty. Yesterday I turned in my third sub-20 5K,
this time using a nice even pace the whole way through, and came in at
19:57.9 I was still tired enough that I thought I was gonna die, but I
didn't do that big sprint-tnen-try-to-survive thing. Just set a nice
1:58 pace and tried to hold it all the way through.
Of course, in the midst of this all these gorgeous women were passing
too and fro across the gym. Amazing how much time I could lose when my
concentration wavered. But I made it. That was yesterday, and this
morning I just did the weight-lifting routine (front torso: chest
press, shoulder press, forward raises, side raises). Tomorrow, rowing
again!
Man, this must be boring reading. Sorry.
Anyway, the rest of today was nuts. Sat at a client site for five
hours and didn't really do anything I can justify billing them for.
Half of my time was occupied with calls from other clients, half with
e-mail and other time wasters, and half with my @&$^@(! USB network
connector deciding to flake out on me. I mean, sure, whaddaya want for
twenty dollars, but still. I like things, if they break, to just
break. Not this puppy, no way. I could still sniff the network. I saw
activity lites blinking. And for the first minute after I rebooted, I
had connectivity -- long enough to get my DHCP address, for instance.
But after that, nothing. No connections would. Finally I broke down
and drove over to CrapUSA and bought a FORTY dollar pcmcia network
card, so hopefully this will work.
Anyway, after work I had writing group. But rather than doing writing
group, I got to wardial. Granted, as missing-writing-group things go,
getting to wardial somebody is a nice substitute (even now my phone is
ringing, ringing, ringing to victory). But I hated having to miss
writing group. Particularly since its MY freakin' writing group, but I
never have time to write (or even read the group submissions) anymore.
But I got the wardialer working and running. In the first 100 numbers
we found nine modems. Now I've got 2400 to do overnight and I'm hoping
we find a few more. One cool part was when I set the wardialer to
calling my cell phone (along with the 9 other poor saps near my
number): when it called my phone I answered it, and quick as a wink
I'd whistled up a 300 baud carrier. Like riding a bicycle! Hadn't done
it for 15 years, at least!
So, off to bed, maybe read another 1/10th of 1% of Cryptonomicon. Then
its off to meet Kevin at the Blue Moon at 9:00. Meeting at 11:30. And
Thursday... blood donation at 7:00 a.m.! Man, I know how to have fun,
eh?
[1]Last
As of this writing, I still have no idea who won the Superbowl.
Yes, I know, that's both sad and annoying. Not the fact that I don't
know this information alone, but the fact that I'd bring it up like
that. It's like pointing out that you have a disease and being
strangely proud of it. "Look! I have a cyst!"
Actually, part of it is surprise. I haven't made any deliberate
attempt to avoid the Superbowl. Since it was aired I have watched a
portion of the news, and even listened to a portion of the radio
sports -- but they were talking about Venus and Serena Williams. And
I'd think that some component of the Superbowl would by now have
simply shoved itself in my face, like some person with a disease
saying "Look! I have a cyst!"
Instead, nothing. No idea. I'm sure that in a little while when my eye
chances across a web page or some radio commentator brings it up I'll
learn the Great News about the Superbowl. Either that or Fan of
Victorious A on a mailing list will taunt Fan of Loser B.
I spent the Superbowl finishing the boxing of my father's effects on
the one- month-anniversary of his death (that should actually be some
Latinized "monthliversary", except I don't know what Latin for "month"
is...). (Okay I looked it up, and I should have guessed: "mensis" is
"month," and "monthly" is of course "menstruus." Duh.) That would be
the menstruversary of his death then.
Okay, maybe we'll stick to monthly anniversary.
Anyway, got a lot of stuff boxed up, and his former office mostly
cleaned up. Categories of boxes included Stamps, Coins, Collectors
Guides, Brass, Spoons, Silver, China, Franklin Mint (a mercifully tiny
box), Computers, Office Supply, Books, Magazines, Magazine Flats,
Toys, and Garage Sale. All of this was packed into the 12X12 office
where he also worked as a medical transcriptionist, and used the
Internet for online sales and games.
No one can accuse the man of having been a profligate waster of space.
My wife and kids kept my mother company, and I could tell she
appreciated the chance to talk. My brother has been a real brick about
this whole thing, he's been with her during a very difficult pair of
months, but he's only one person and his topic range is limited. So my
mother talked my wife's ear off. Then we had lasagna and salad and
some of the really bad non-carbonated wine cooler that my mother
likes.
Now I've got Yet Another Box of my dad's computer stuff to deal with
at home here. The last one took me a month to process and I'm not even
done yet.
Other than that, I stayed up too late on Saturday night reading
"Cryptonomicon." Actually I stayed up too late on both Saturday and
Sunday. As a result of staying up way too late reading into the small
hours of the morning, I've just about almost managed to reach the
halfway point in this book. Say what you want about the man's quality,
he certainly provides QUANTITY. And by God, ain't that the American
Way?
Saturday night we went to the U of M Rarig Theater to see a very, very
nice performance of "Much Ado About Nothing." It was quasi-modernized
(contemporary if somewhat antiquated modern dress, some odd emphasis
on fashion and fashion magazines). The makeup needed a lot of work,
but the actors were fine and exhibited a lot of energy.
Of course, in one of those "this freakin' town is too small"
incidents, I ended up sitting in front of an annoying local author and
some immense friend of his. Only the immense friend was there when we
took our seats, guarding some coats tossed over chairs. Later the
author arrived with two of his daughters, and he and the friend began
talking guns in loud voices. While I realize that this author is
physically unable to go more than ten minutes without talking about
guns, nonetheless I found myself feeling less than understanding about
this disability.
The author of course has no idea who I am. He and I had our little
spat over the Internet -- correction, on the BBSes -- about fifteen
years ago. And no, it's not like I walk around gnawing over ancient
tiffs and injuries suffered years ago. Still, everytime I see him I
want to say "You talk big about guns and weapons and preparedness.
Then you insult anonymous persons on the Internet and make them mad at
you. Then you go about your life apparently not understanding that
they know who you are, but you don't know who they are!"
Does this mean I'll ever do the fellow any harm? No. But does this
mean that if I passed him on a dark frigid evening trying to flag down
my car because his was stalled on the roadside that I would continue
without stopping? Yes.
Well, okay, I talk big: I'd probably stop, give him a lift, be
perfectly sociable, and drop him off, thinking the entire time "You
were so rude to my wife online that you made her weep, you bastard,
and you don't even know it!" That's me, Mr. Minnesota Nice. Good thing
for him and his hypothetical car that I didn't spend more time growing
up in New York City than I did.
Anyway, that was the weekend. This week, in an ongoing effort to
achieve more balance in my life, I'm going to try to be much more
deliberate about each day and its activities. Hopefully that will put
the brakes on this rocket-car- into-the-future phenomenon. So, Day
One, Monday, I've made my journal entry, and now I'll head off to the
gym...
[1]Last
Oh, hello, it's Saturday?
I'm back to the "Well that's just silly!" stage of life management.
You know, where I'm in a rocket-car to the future, and the weekends
are whipping past like ignored stoplights?
I mean, this is ridiculous. I'm not unhappy, I just can't believe how
fast time is passing. Heck, JANUARY is almost over, and I'm still
trying to get with the program!
One of the first losses I take when life gets like this are my daily
resolutions -- it's hard to be sure I get to the gym every day when
the days go by so fast I hardly notice them. I did get another
sub-20:00 row (19.53.8) in this week, but aside from that not too
good.
And they had to go put a scale back in the men's locker room again...
Unless I was wearing 5 lb. underwear I've put on a little weight over
the holidays. Not that that's any big surprise, but it's frustrating.
And I have to confess to letting myself fall into a bad old habit:
online conference boards. I really have to quit again.
Of course, I had a good reason
TITLE:a friend recently became the administrator of a fairly sizable
conference board website. It seemed only polite to log in again and
contribute to a few of the discussions.
The next thing I know I'm wasting my time arguing with the same old
thick-headed conservatives that seem to infest every board. Really, I
get the sense that some agency distributes them evenly across the
nation.
"Okay, Smith, you're assigned to troll the ABC board
TITLE:make sure that NO meaningful conversation takes place! Jones,
you troll the XYZ board, and remember -- sidetrack, then terminate! I
don't want to see any relevant discussion lasting more than three
messages!"
So instead of putting what little free time I have to good use -- say,
posting journal entries or chatting on friendly mailing lists that
make me feel good -- I end up playing Conceptual All-Star-Wrestling
with morons who think that Big Business, the Media, and all Government
are socialist left-wing pinko commie conspiracies. Really, it makes me
wonder how -- or if -- we ever evolved intelligence.
I have to give that up too. Yeah, I get a kick out of practicing
mental judo on these midgets, but I've been told I come across nasty.
Between looking bad and wasting my time, these conferences are a bad
idea for me. I'll add my conference link to my NetHack binary as
things I just can't let myself do until such time as I have, what is
that again? Oh yeah, "free time."
Speaking of free time, I've been trying to begin recording the books I
read on this thing -- not because anyone out there cares, but because
I lose track myself. How many times have I bought a book and read it
either partly or completely, only to suddenly realize I've read it
before, and in fact it's right over there on my bookshelf? More than
once.
So I figure if I post them on here I can (someday when I have my
web-browsable cell phone) check before purchasing whether I've read a
given book or not. Okay, that will never actually work (I'm just not
that organized), but what the hell. Anyway I've finally gotten around
to picking up Neal Stephenson's "[1]Cryptonomicon."
On the one hand it's disappointing because, well, I was expecting
cyberpunk (or cypherpunk as the case may be), and what I'm getting has
no science-fiction elements in it (in fact some parts are rather
dated). On the other hand, it's a fun little read. Stephenson has such
a merry narrative voice that it's easy to forgive the typos,
inconsistencies, and occasional lapses when he goes off to the
restroom and leaves Bruce Schneier alone at the keyboard.
I guess at 1000 pages, it had better have an engaging narrative voice.
Reading it is entertaining because of the length. With a normal
250-page novel, I can finish it in about one or two days. And when I'm
facing a week of work, it's frequently easier and less stressful to
just eat the novel and get done with it than put it down and have it
tempt me for the entire week. With this thing, no way: I can't eat
that novel, not in any one sitting. I've been reading for 300 pages,
and I can't even tell where the plots are or where they are going. For
all I can tell this novel just keeps telling its story until it stops.
And if I try to stay up all night to finish it, I'll be up until next
Tuesday.
So I can easily put it down and pick it up later knowing that I won't
be finishing the thing today or anytime soon.
Well, now we see what happens when I don't post journals for a whole
week: 10K of meaningless, directionless drivel! Now, however, it's
time to pack up the family and head off to see 'Much Ado About
Nothing' at the U of M Rarig Center theater. Twenty two years ago I
was in that same theater lusting after Didi Bencriscutto, and now I'll
be there with the wife and three kids.
Like I said, I'm strapped into a rocket-car into the future. Whoosh!
There goes another week...
[2]Last
Oh, hello, it's Friday?
Well, I don't know where that week went. Criminy!
My biggest highlight for the week was finally breaking the 20:00
barrier on my 5K row: 5000 meters in 19:53.10. I accomplished it in
rather aggressive, unorthodox terms: I'd prefer to row an even pace
the whole time and come in under 20:00, and I'm sure I'll get there
sometime. But on Wednesday when I set my new personal best I did so by
sprinting the first 500 meters and then simply struggling to hold my
lead for the rest of the trip. I rowed the first 500 meters in about
1:40 (or 20 seconds under a 20:00 pace), and then tried to hold my
speed at 2:00 for 500 meters and watched the lead erode down to 8
seconds by the end. After which it took me about ten minutes to be
able to stand up.
Then I foolishly completed my workout with my weight exercises, ending
with the toe-lifts: standing with my toes on the edge of the machine
and 100lbs on my shoulders, go up on my toes and back down again,
stretching out the calves.
And for the rest of the week I've felt like a pair of angry turtles
are clamped to the backs of my knees.
The rest of the week has passed quickly due to a goodly amount of
work, so at least poverty will be held at bay a while longer. The work
continues even now: Friday night I worked on an after-hours client
project (rebuilding their network rack) until 11 p.m., and Saturday
I'll probably put in six more hours there moving files around and
finishing the cleanup.
With a weekend of hard labor ahead, I took Friday off and the family
all went to the Science Museum to see two presentations: the Vikings,
and an Omnitheater presentation on Jane Goodall. I've never been
particularly interested in Vikings, but I've always been very
interested in Goodall. Okay, I admit it, she was every nerd's fantasy
girl when I was a lad in the '70's!
Strangely, my appreciation of these shows was reversed (and, no, not
because I discovered that Goodall is 26 years my senior!) I found the
Vikings exhibit strangely moving, while Goodall's film seemed flat and
emotionless.
The Vikings struck a chord with me on several levels. First was the
fact that they once comprised a great and fearsome culture, ruling
great portions of the Known World with unchallenged might -- and now
they are but a memory and a parody of themselves. A bit too much like
America for comfort. But on a more personal level was the plight (more
properly, I suppose, the saga of their settlements in Greenland.
This, too, had modern parallels: Settled at the end of the first
millenium, Greenland seemed a welcoming, fertile new land. But after a
few centuries the climate changed, and the settlers on Greenland died
out or fled before the advancing cold of the "Little Ice Age." Again
the parallel with America, where unlike the Vikings we are culpabile
for the climate change happening around us.
The story of the Vikings left me melancholy and thoughtful about what
the future holds for our present way of life, and how pitifully we may
be judged by our posterity. The great works of the Vikings are now
rusted spears and mouldering funeral boats: what will we leave behind?
Deserts, landfills, and ruined cities?
I went to the Goodall film prepared to be both delighted and
mortified: I was looking forward to learning about her community of
chimpanzees, and dreading the news of the environmental plight in
Africa. I got a little of both, but just a little. Mention was made of
the loss of 90% of the habitation of the chimp, but only briefly and
in a most cursory way. And we were introduced to a few of the chimps,
but without any particular depth of feeling. Indeed, some
characteristic of the cinematography made the scenes of the chimps
interacting -- at least when they were on the ground -- seem flat and
staged.
Finally, Dad Day with each of my twins has been pushed back and then
back again -- today it was with the Omnitheater trip. Hopefully maybe
I'll get some time in with one of the twins on Sunday. We'll see!
[1]Last
So far so good on the resolutions. I have missed a couple days at the
gym, but on the other hand last year when I completed my full month of
workouts I had just been laid off. By and large I've been managing to
get to the gym, so that's not so bad.
One of my other resolutions was to spend solo time with each of my
kids. Scheduled time, set aside on the calendar, keeping me on track
rather than just a vague "I oughta do this" notion that never happens.
So today was the first day, with my youngest the first guinea pig.
First I took my youngest to see "Treasure Planet". I have to say, I
thought that they did a good job with it, especially by taking the
time to play up the character relationships and downplaying the
explosions (not that there was a shortage of those).
What I had no way of knowing, however, was how much of the movie would
revolve around the abandonment of Jim and his mother by Jim's father.
Long, musical segments portrayed the growing father-son relationship
building between Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins. Flashbacks showed a
variously-aged Jim being overlooked and eventually abandoned by an
obscure silhouette of a man. Finally Jim tumbled head over heels in
pursuit of his father, as the man slung a duffle over his shoulder and
set sail into the sky, never to come back.
Sitting beside my son, With my father recently deceased, I'm probably
the only adult who ever started crying during a showing of "Treasure
Planet". Pitiful.
Afterwards, having blown my nose in the Men's room, we went off to
Slumberland to look at dining room tables. Ours, purchased damaged
from a closing JC Penney's store for a good price, has an annoying
problem: it's a center pedestal, and three children hanging on it has
turned it into a kind of wobbly-topped playground ride. For about
$450, Slumberland has a two-pedestal model that presumably won't
wobble as much.
Having approved the selected table for eventual purchase (we can phone
the order in), I took my boy to Burger King. He was obsessed with two
things: shaking-fries and toys. Burger is not King on his itinerary.
At the Burger King, the lad behind the counter was extremely nice. My
son asked which toy was available, specifying a particular one. The
lad confirmed it was available. Then when the order came up his face
fell: the toys were out! He offered a different one, which my son
found disappointing. Finally he said, "Hang on a moment," and returned
with one of the toys already open. "Here, out of the display."
Later, my son asked why he didn't have cheesy fries. He had ordered a
Big Kids Meal, thinking that they came with it. The fellow reached
under the counter and handed him the cheese-and-bag mixture with a
smile, even though that would have been a separate purchase.
All in all the lad made the entire venture a huge success.
I'm always ready to complain about poor service, so I made a point of
getting the lad's name and the address of the central office. I'm
excited to make sure that fellow gets a commendation from his boss.
I'll be careful not to mention any details that might get the boy in
trouble, just "great satisfaction," "above and beyond," etc.
Hopefully it'll make his day like he made mine and my son's.
[1]Last
Okay, so I feel like I'm finally facing forward. Dad's dead and his
ashes safely buried, so his return as a brain-craving zombie is
unlikely. (You'd think after those Dawn of the Dead movies the entire
culture would embrace cremation as a precaution.) His birthday was
yesterday, so that little emotional speedbump has been overcome -- at
least until next year. And now, today, a week into the New Year, I
finally feel like I'm facing forward rather than downward or backward.
Of course I have several New Year's resolutions to keep. The first is
the gym. Last year at this time I resolved to hit the gym six days a
week for at least a month, and I did it. Then in February I got fancy
and tried to intermix aikido practice with trips to the gym.
Of course, the whole thing fell apart.
I'm just not that clever -- I can't manage things that go
every-other-day. I'd go to aikido, then to the gym, and the next day I
couldn't remmeber, had I gone to aikido yesterday, or the gym?
Confused, I went to neither place.
Which is not to say I stopped working out. No, but I'd broken my
regular morning regime, and once broken it was hard to restart. I did
alright, I hit the gym with fair regularity, and dropped my weight
below 200lbs for the first time in at least a decade.
So this year, no monkeying around. I miss the aikido, but I need the
gym more. Once I become wealthy enough to never have to work again, I
can start going to aikido. Well, hopefully sooner than that, but for
now I'm not ready.
My other resolution is around nutrition -- gotta cut back the carbs
and add on the protein. I'm not an Atkins diet guy -- yet -- but I'm
reasonably convinced that I eat too many carbs and drink too little
water. We'll see how that goes.
Then I have to resume giving blood. I was giving blood quite regularly
until November. At that point the Red Cross instituted a new set of
ridiculously time-consuming processes surrounding donations. Now, I'm
actually fine with that, except that I went to THREE appointments, and
was kept waiting up to an hour each time, before even STARTING the
process.
I don't have that kind of time, I just don't. At least not without
warning. I mean, okay, you want my blood? Then tell me "Okay this
appointment is going to take three hours." That would be FINE. I'd put
it in my datebook, "Monday, 9-12, Red Cross", no sweat. But when I
come in the third time, having ASKED "Will I be done by 10? 11?" And
been assured that all would be well only to find myself still in the
lobby at 10, THEN I get annoyed.
But they need my blood (and YOURS too), so, regardless, I'm going to
have to figure out a way to give it to them, despite their
bureaurcacy.
Another resolution is to go over this website at some point and fix it
up. Unlike Lileks (who apparently not only lives in the 1950's, but
actually experiences days with more hours in them than I have) I don't
have the personal bandwidth to rebuild my website every month. Or
every year. But this site is about due. I want to gussy it up, add
slicker buttons and bars, and most of all GET RID OF ALL THE DEAD
LINKS, thankyouverymuch.
But before I can get to that, I have to do about twenty other projects
first, such as build a website for my birthmother, sell all my
father's silver spoons on eBay (the man may not have been born with a
silver spoon in his mouth, but he died with about 100 in his closet),
rewrite Mitlanyal before March, and take care of a million things
regarding my business.
But for now: exercise is back on track. That'll have to be good
enough.
(After getting my 5K row down to 20:08, a month's absence has it back
up to 20:48! Woe!)
I'm not given over to believing in much, and certainly not omens.
Because I don't know what I'd make of these omens of the New Year...
The first omen was positive, I think. The tape player on my wife's
20-year-old boombox didn't work. For several days I resisted the urge
to crack that sucker open and try to fix it. Time and time again I've
opened up cheap electronic devices intending to fix them, only to end
up with a permanently broken electronic device. Or if I didn't break
it, the device worked no better but left behind a mysterious pile of
parts. What are these parts? How can this thing function without them?
Are they the appendix of parts, useless but destined to blow up and
kill the thing eventualy?
One time I tried to fix my Dad's ancient (and I mean truly ancient)
1977 vintage VHS VCR. This Soviet-style device is three feet wide, two
feet deep, and a foot high, and I use the present tense because when I
went over to clean out some of his stuff I saw that he still has it.
Note that it hasn't worked since the mid-Eighties.
Anyway, I was trying to fix it, and I broke off a capacitor. Now, I
don't recall what was wrong at the time, but the device was still
mostly functional: I was just trying to fix some small something
somewhere. Anyway, I snapped off an entire capacitor -- which in my
understanding of electronics should have meant that I permanently
broke a circuit and disabled something -- and yet the reassembled VCR
worked just as badly as it had before when I was done.
So that was why I resisted fixing the boombox. But, finally, I gave in
to temptation (and the desire to save $50 on a new cheap boombox), and
when I finally opened the case (being stymied for 20 minutes by one of
those recessed screws that look so obvious after you've found them but
hide in plain sight until then) a rubber band fell out.
Now, this is a vintage boombox, nearly as old as the VCR. My wife used
to listen to Andy Gibb on this thing before he died. The tape recorder
hasn't worked for almost the entire time. I open it up: a rubber belt
falls out. A few minutes of exploration, and one rubber band later,
and the tape recorder works once again.
I couldn't believe it either. Twenty years it's broken, and all it
needed was an ordinary rubber band to fix it.
So that's good, and I'm feeling pleased with myself.
Later I sit down to watch Men In Black II with the family. In one
scene, Agent K kicks an alien in the groin. The alien does not react.
He kicks the alien again. Still nothing.
Then Agent J yells "K! He's a Chinballsian!"
K pulls down the alien's turtleneck shirt, and briefly (this is PG-13
after all) reveals a pair of testicles hanging from the creature's
chin. One quick punch in the face, and the groaning alien slumps to
the floor.
I turned to my wife and said "Huh. That's the second show I've watched
today involving someone with his testicles hanging from his chin.
And it was. That was the second omen. Weird shit is coming my way, I
think. Earlier in the day I'd watched an episode of South Park called
"Freak Strike", in which all the deformed people who appear on daytime
talk shows went out on strike for higher wages. Swept up in this was
South Park's own Butters, who Eric Cartman had disguised as a "freak"
by gluing a fake pair of testicles to Butter's chin.
So, one good omen, and one decidedly odd omen. These things usually
come in threes (not that I believe in omens of course, oh no.) But I'm
waiting for the third omen to reveal the kind of year I should expect
from 2003.
And hopefully, there won't be any Chinballsians in it.
[1]Last
It was Taps that got me, of course.
My father's experience in the military has never been a significant
part of our family life, so I have been repeatedly surprised whenever
I realized that he was being buried at Fort Snelling. Yet there we
were this morning in the thin, chill January light, waiting in the
assembly area of Fort Snelling for my father's ashes to arrive.
The cemetary at Fort Snelling is at once both mundane and awesome.
Mundane, because it was impossible to set foot on any of the frozen
lawns without feeling the crunch of goose feces beneath one's soles.
Awesome, because no matter where one stands, one is surrounded by a
starburst of headstones, arrayed in all directions, each representing
a deceased veteran. In every direction some alignment of headstones
formed linear rays stretching off into the distance.
After a time the mortician drove up in a sedan, rather than the
hearses arriving at the other assembly areas: apparently cremated
remains do not require a hearse. The mortician, a young fellow with a
strange, crooked smile consulted briefly with my cousin, who was
driving my mother and her two sisters. The he got back in his sedan
and led off across the lines of tombstones to a small canvas gazebo.
There we found an odd arrangement. Half a dozen uncomfortable looking
plastic chairs were arranged in a line before a squarish device, one
of those pipe-and-belt elevators used to lower coffins into graves.
Two bars were placed across this arrangement, and a foot-square panel
of green astroturf positioned atop the bars.
Resting on the panel was a dark plastic box, about the color of a
container of Hershey's Cocoa and twice as large. A sticker on the
front of the box identified it as the ashes of my father. It looked
mean and cheap, but at the same time appropriate -- the box's very
shabbiness was a harsh reminder of the fact that my father wasn't
there. That box was truly a mere box of ashes. In the mortuary we'd
been offered all sorts of decorative containers within which to place
the box, but we knew our father's opinion regarding such needless
expense, and had joked that he'd haunt us and ask why we'd wasted the
money.
From beneath the square coffin-elevator a pair of raggedy tracks led a
few yards out from under the gazebo to a pile of concrete boxes,
vaults for interring coffins. Their concrete corners were stained and
blackened, as if they'd been used before.
The whole arrangement looked absurdly as if the small box of ashes
would be rolled across the tracks and lowered slowly into the yawning
concrete vault.
Then a small bus pulled up, and a number of elderly men in uniform
piled quickly out, and arrayed themselves before the gazebo. An honor
guard.
My father was getting an honor guard? And we didn't spring for a
decorative container?
It seemed incongruous. I never thought of my father as a veteran. His
history in the Navy was something that took place in the Ancient Past,
and was never part of day-to-day life. He rarely spoke of his
experiences, and those he did describe were mundane -- no tales of
combat and death, only boredom and rote chores.
Yet here they were, aligned now, rifles raised at command.
-CRACK-
-CRACK-
-CRACK-
And now one of the elderly, uniformed men raised a horn to his lips.
The first three notes of Taps wrenched at my heart. And then three
more notes broke it, echoing from the distance; a second member of the
guard was positioned about thirty yards away, echoing the first.
The sky was silvery blue with high-altitude ice, feathery cirrus
clouds casting sundogs across the sky. The tombstones arrayed away in
all direction surrounded us in a star with sixteen points. Taps hung
in the air like the clear notes of a crystal bell.
[1]Last
Well it's all over but the interment.
Dad died on Thursday night, three hours after we'd met to make
"eventual" funeral arrangements, not realizing how close we were
cutting it.
The Visitation was Monday evening, and the Funeral Mass on Tuesday
morning.
The Visitation was hardest, with the Funeral Mass coming in a close
second. I was usually able to keep it together, but when my mother or
my sister broke up then I lost it. And my father's coworkers put
together a booklet of memories of working with him, and that small
kindness set me off as well.
But there are always good sigest to these things. My old friend Steve
from high school showed up to the Visitation. That was good. The fact
that he just buried his own mother last Friday, well, that wasn't
good. She died of cancer as well.
Keith showed up and had a nice chat with Theresa -- unfortunately I
was not able to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked. And
Vicki showed up too, which touched me. Vicki and I just worked
together for a few months finishing, well, a year ago now, so for her
and her husband Kevin to show up was very kind. And Rob showed up too
-- we worked together and his folks go to my church, and when they say
"Let us know if you need anything," you know that they really mean it.
So everyone was quite kind.
Afterwards I led everyone down to Sherlock's Home for a meal. My
mother had expressed a wish to dine there, and when I found out (on
the mn.general newsgroup of all places) that it was closing on
December 31st, I thought I should make a point to get her down there.
After an initial confusion (I told the staff I wanted reservations for
9:00 and they thought I meant for 9 people), we settled in to a very
nice meal. I had the steak and kidney pie -- I'd just had it at Brit's
Pub not long ago and I wanted to compare the two. It was excellent --
a little more dry than Brit's, but with a better sauce in which the
wine was less prominent.
I also got to try the Plum Pudding, so now I know what that tastes
like (a cross between spice cake and bread pudding).
The Funeral Mass the next morning was tough. I thought I had it
together but a lot of clues point to my real state of mind: I'd meant
to bring a copy of the Star Tribune Online Legacy Guestbook for my
mother to read, but I left it on the counter at home. I'd meant to
bring a nice note from Cheryl, but I left it at home. And, worst,
despite getting everything set up in advance, with box of Kleenex&tm;
in the car, I forgot to bring any in with me, and snuffled my way
through the service on damp, raggedy used stuff. Bleah!
As usual I was touched to see who showed up. Kevin and Kristin were
there, but I apparently missed them. Tim showed up briefly. Steve
later, who is fighting his own cancer. And Joe and Victor both came
for the Mass itself, which was generous of them.
After the Mass and the lunch we went back to my mother's and sorted
through the cards that had been sent, collecting the memorials which
we'll send to St. Jude's. But then, after a while, it was time to go,
and we left my mother home alone in her house. That was hard to do,
but unavoidable.
At home we took fitful naps as best we could, and prepared for a New
Year's Eve party at Terry's house -- he's in my writing group. We had
a great time there, talking and playing Charades. He's got two great
teenaged boys who would be good role models for my own kids --
independent and smart but not sullen or rude. Very nice.
And of course Debbie was there throughout -- a close friend of the
family, her support was crucial to our getting through this whole
ordeal.
So now we'll bury Dad's ashes at Fort Snelling on Friday, and that
will be that. There will be no more steps left in the process. He'll
be dead, and buried, and life will go forward without him.
And it will take some time to get used to that fact.
[1]Last