Category: Other

Old Man Goals

January 15th, 2012 2 comments

I wonder when old starts. Is it a number? Or an attitude? Or maybe it’s just a natural shifting of priorities. Whatever it is, I think I’m old now, and I like it. It’s so damn sensible. For example, it used to be that if I was driving somewhere, my objective was to get to my destination without wasting any time getting there. It was like there was an ongoing scorecard or something. If I would speed up to anticipate a light change, and then scoot through that light on yellow, that was a victory. If I got stopped by that light, it was a defeat.

No more. I only have one objective now when I drive, and that’s to not run into anything. If I decide to slow down or stop when I don’t really need to, that’s always the reason why. (What makes this possible is that I no longer think of time spent waiting for a light to change as being less valuable or less important than time spent with a loved one or playing poker or whatever. Another oldness trait perhaps?)

It’s the same with cooking. I used to be in a hurry to just get it over with. Eating was, in my mind, more often than not, an inconvenience. Now I take my time feeding myself, and my prime objective when working with food is to not draw blood.

And then there’s exercise. My objectives used to be all the usual stuff. Now all I hope for and aim at is to pay enough attention to not injure myself.

If growing old means hurrying less, and risking less, then yes, I am consciously making myself older every day, because I want to acquire more oldness, right away!

6:49 and All’s Well

January 1st, 2012 One comment

The loudest thing right now is the heater that turned off a few minutes ago and is still making lots of little metallic sounds as it cools. It’s an old heater. I take that back. The typing makes many more and louder sounds than the heater. The brightest thing, actually the only bright thing, is the lit stick candle next to me. I’m not at home this morning. Kay and I did a sleep over at a friend’s house last night. We had no intention of being awake at midnight, but as it turned out, we almost were. Before that, the artists in each of us here agreed that as numbers go, 2012 is a better number than 2011, by quite a ways.

We felt that

2012

looks better than

2011

and that

two thousand eleven

doesn’t sound nearly as good as

two thousand twelve

Not that 2011 was a particularly good or bad year, or that 2012 holds any sort of promise. These are numbers. They contribute to the landscape when I see them, they join my thoughtscape when I think of them, and they appear in my soundscape when I type them.

Good morning 2012. I’ll be seeing you around.

Xyst Bag

December 24th, 2011 3 comments

About 30 years ago, for Christmas, my mom made me a bag. I still have it. It lives in a big flat box, underneath a snazzy, rotating Scrabble board. Its job is to contain the 100 tiles. If I were allowed to keep only one thing to remind me of my mom, it wouldn’t be a photograph, or anything she wrote. It’d be this bag:

I played a lot of Scrabble as a kid, and then I didn’t play at all during my late teens. When I moved out of the homestead at age 20, I made a friend named Ken and we both fell in love with Scrabble all over again together. We played and played a lot of Scrabble for several years. We even got good at it. Mom came to know Ken. Then one winter she blessed our obsession with a bag, and a chosen word.

In case you forgot, a xyst (sounds like zist) is a covered portico used by athletes in ancient Greece and Rome during bad weather.

So why would my mom choose that word to put on this bag? 1) Because it has premium letters in it. 2) Because it is short. 3) And because it’s way cool!

I get swept away by gratitude waves now and then, and they bunch up in December. Right now I’m feeling grateful that somehow, in the great shuffle-up-and-deal called life, I was dealt a mom who made a xyst bag.

Fortunately, I was able to get that picture taken before the bag was consumed by a black monster…

Spectacular Accordion Player in Santa Cruz

December 1st, 2011 7 comments

Kay and I have major people in Santa Cruz and we go there all the time. You see things in Santa Cruz that you don’t see other places. You get a little used to seeing things in Santa Cruz. It’s even possible to temporarily lose appreciation. And then you see something that brings the fascination back online.

I give you… the accordion player:

Thank you, universe

November 24th, 2011 6 comments

Dear universe,

Thank you for having condensed a speck of your matter and energy into the temporary little collection of biomass that I affectionately refer to as “me.”

Thank you for all the other living biomasses too. And the dead ones. Especially the ones I eat.

Thank you for all the hardships and hassles and agonies and injustices and all the other shit you constantly dump on me. Without them, how could I ever appreciate this perfectly pain-free moment that me is experiencing right now as me sips yet another glorious coffee? You’re a clever lot, universe. Me knows your game. Thank you for letting me play it long enough to be able to play it well.

Love,

Tommy

A Hilarious True Email

November 11th, 2011 No comments

Dear readers,

My cousin A.J. sent me an email and then called me right away and instructed me to read the email to him over the phone. I faithfully obeyed, and a few minutes later we were both gasping with laughter. The email, below, was written by a friend of AJ’s named Wendy. That’s all I knew. That’s all you need to know. Happy gasping…

Where do I start..this morning my phone seemed to have lost all battery over night. Charged it about 1/2 and went to work. Get off at 7:30 PM check phone..have 2 msgs. Driving, so wait till I get to Target parking lot(had some coupons to redeem) and proceed to check msgs. 1st one from Stephanee, she writes “guess what I’m having for dinner? A bacon wrapped- deep fried- chili cheese hotdog w/onions, mustard, and fritos!” I write back ‘ call the medics’ my phone wont send, says to send again , I do, says it wont send try again, I do,says it wont send try again I do, then I give up and check 2nd message which is from a number I don’t know, asking if I could keep her cats for a few hours while she has her air ducts cleaned. Not sure who this is..write back, “who is this?” then think probably my neighbor so text again, “Is this you Teri?”  Phone says wont go through try again, I do then close phone..battery almost gone again so leave phone in car while I go shopping. taking good ole time, no hurry, no worry. Get to check out, almost through there when a policeman comes up and asks..” are you Wendy Lee?” Yes “Are You alright?”   UM..Yeah, why do you ask?

“We got a call from your daughter saying you texted her to call the medics..so she did, they’re checking your house and your daughter is heading to Target to see if you’re okay”   “OMG, I texted her that message cause she told me she was eating crappy food..can you call her? I left my phone in the car” He gets on his shoulder walkie talkie, they tell Steph I’m at Target and all’s okay..she’s almost there. We go out to car there’s 2 cop cars, 3 cops, I tell them how sorry I am about a bazillion times, and I’m telling them about my phone being messed up and finally get to car and actually show them the text Steph sent me and what I sent her…there it all is..her message to me and mine to her..” Call the medics”   THREE TIMES! One of the policemen jokingly said ” so this all her fault” I said “of course, if she’d eat healthy this would never have happened” Poor Steph got the messages one after the other..Call the medics, she tried to call me 8 times I never answered (I had left the phone in my car! )

So she called the medics…and  Brandee and Debbie and my neighbor Teri and some other friends before she got call from cops I was at Target.

She pulled up then and we hugged and cried and discussed the events, called Brandee who was trying to book flight out of Dallas, and my Sister Debbie who was in Columbus at Pam’s,(they discussed how they pictured me laying on the floor texting ‘call the medics’) and my neighbor Teri who told me how the fire trucks came and the firemen went through my house looking for my dead body. ( I was very glad I had cleaned my kitchen and made my bed before heading to work this AM!)   so Steph and I are feeling calmer and I remember about the other text about cats and air ducts, so I ask Teri about that and she says she has no idea what I’m talking about!    Finally get home and see new text from my daughter Pam’s cousin who accidentally blanket texted the message about the cats.   Whew. Alls well that ends well as my son-in-law Jimmy texted me.. actually he wrote   ‘All in all that is funny in the end’ and he didn’t think it sounded right, ”that would not be your last text to the girls”   I told him he’s right…I would have asked for ‘hot’ medics. Bottom line my dearest friends, be very careful what you write in your texts..you just don’t know how things will be construed. and remember if something wacky does happen to me.. adios Amigos .. I Love You All !!!

Faster than Google

October 24th, 2011 4 comments

So I’m walking the streets of Palo Alto and I pull up to a crosswalk, and this guy pulls up next to me, and we begin to share a brief standing ceremony. Me, standing there, trying with all my might to not have any purpose or direction, and him, about to engage his device.

I am a big appreciator of devices, and especially of the people who keep coming up with such useful uses. My device has the same new feature that the guy next to me had. I haven’t yet remembered I have it. I think now I will. Into his device, my neighbor said, “Google search, Tamarine restaurant, Palo Alto.”

Soon, he was about to learn from his device everything he could ever want to know about the relationship between where he was, and where the restaurant was. But not soon enough…

I looked at him, got his attention, pointed, and said, “Cross street. Turn left. 2.5 blocks. Walk time: 1.9 minutes.”

He smiled and put his device away.

Did You Know Your Diaphragm Has Holes In It?

September 19th, 2011 One comment

To see the reason I am blogging about this short animation of the diaphragm and rib cage in action, check out the view from underneath that begins at :51. See the holes? Here’s what the voice over says…

“As seen from below, we get a sense of the full range of motion of the diaphragm as it would glide over the aorta, the vena cava, the esophagus, and the internal organs.”

Those holes are for the plumbing, like the holes in the floor of a bathroom. My mental vision of what my parts are doing inside me (the “gliding” action) is forever changed. And I think much improved!

Here’s another line from the video about the diaphragm:

“It gains its shape from its attachments.”

The same has been said about people. :-)

diaphragm-animation