The Wild Winds of Fortune

Andy Rooney died.  He lived to a ripe old age (92) but he will still be missed.  Now it is up to Larry David to carry the weight of being the best-known snarky curmudgeon in the country.

It’s gray today.  I guess late fall is turning into winter.

Do not forget to turn your clocks back tonight.

On Thursday afternoons, I take a class that always begins with a mindfulness exercise.  Yesterday’s was intended to help us remember good things on our lives.

We were first asked to think of a time when we felt a “healthy exhaustion.” Check.
We were then supposed to think of a time when we felt loved and appreciated. A couple came to mind right away, but I was able to settle on one quickly.  Check.
We then were supposed to think of a caring gesture or kind words that someone we cared about had told us. That took a little bit to narrow it to one, but okay.
We were then asked to remember a beautiful place (just one) and concentrate on the beauty we experience.

I couldn’t do that.  There are too many places.

I have stood on the shore of Cumberland Island, Georgia, watching the sun rise.

I have stood on the Salisbury plain on a December morning facing Stonehenge as sleet fell.*

I have watched the sheets of water cascading down Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

I have driven through rural Oregon in October, where the bursts of color were the trees on fire.

I have driven through southern Spain as the late afternoon sunlight splashed off the whitewashed walls of the houses.

I have seen the hills of the Scottish lowlands with mists kissing the tops of the trees.

I have driven through the almost unbelievably green hills of New Zealand in September, and marveled at the boiling streams and pools near Rotarua.

I have been down Big Sur in all sorts of weather: the glorious sunshine filled afternoons of an early autumn morning and the overcast and misty days of winter** when the fog hugs the trees and the sea turns from blue into a beautiful silver-gray.

I have felt the warm sand of St. Croix under my feet as I sat under the palm trees doing nothing but looking at the brilliant blue water.***

I have been through the Alexander Valley when golden shafts of afternoon sunlight have turned the edges of the feathers on the wild turkeys feeding on the hillside shades of orange and bronze.

I have seen the Belgian countryside when the poppies are in bloom, reminding me of why the poppies were so well known in the first place.

I have stood before the Vietnam Memorial in Washington in the spring when the cherry trees flower, reflecting upon the names and looking at the memorials placed there by family, friends, and comrades-in-arms.

And all of that is outside of museums and great buildings, so many of which I have also seen.

I have been so many places, seen so much beauty, it is too much to remember, to limit. When I think of it, it fills my heart to almost bursting.

I have been very blessed.

*Stonehenge is great when there are no tourists.  Usually that means when the weather is miserable.  If you’re up to it, though, that is also when the place is at its most atmospheric.
**Never during rain, though.  I would not ever want to drive it during rain.
*** And drinking rum.  The hotel I was staying was small, a bit down-at-the-heels place on the unfashionable side of the island.  They left a full bottle (750 ml) of 151 Cruzan rum on your pillow when you arrived.  Much better than mints, I thought.  I met the most interesting people there…

Looking at things, yesterday I was cranky and mopey.*

Today, I am cranky and melodramatic.**

I am hoping that tomorrow I will be a more fun human being.  Maybe even sunny.***  Or snarky, at least. ****

*The two lost dwarfs.  They left because of “creative differences.”
**The dwarfs’ younger, prettier cousin, who was written out of the movie to give more screen time to Snow White’s evil stepmother.
***The dwarf that opted to skip Hollywood altogether for a short, unmemorable career on Broadway, and who now sells real estate in Philadelphia.
****The dwarf that decided to become a lawyer, and who has had a successful career as a litigator in New York.

… but not with joy.

Dancing as a way to forget.  Dancing as a way to express yearning.  Dancing as a way to mourn.  Dancing as a way to escape.

I can’t dance right now.  Some days I can barely walk without supporting myself, and more often not without pain.

According to some people I know, I first need to figure out what I am trying to forget.  What I yearn for.  What I mourn.  What I seek to escape from. All so I can “deal with them.”  The truth shall set you free.*

Really?

I know the answers to all those questions.  And all the knowing in the world will not fix a damn one of them.  The solutions to them I am working on, but they are mainly out of my control, within the hands of other people or the world at large.

I should be thankful. I have a roof over my head, my kids will not have to worry about where their next meal comes from.  While I am definitely in the 99%,  I am certainly towards the top. I have enough clothes, and shoes (I would have more, but I hate shoes and shoe shopping).  I have health care and insurance.

I am thankful for all those things.  But somewhere along the line Maslow’s hierarchy does come into play. Not to mention watching other people whom you love struggle mightily with their own place in the world. Maybe dancing would help.

As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

She had her priorities in order.

*Of course, as James Garfield reportedly said, the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

Dear bicyclist:

When there are no bike lanes, you and I are sharing the lane. That is the operative word: sharing.

When I am significantly ahead of you, have slowed down to make a right-hand turn into a parking lot, and am signalling my intention to do so, greatly speeding up to pass me on my right as I am making my turn is not only foolhardy but wrong. I don’t care that you were trying to make the left turn light at the intersection.

I know, I had the audacity to actually be scanning for people slower than you: pedestrians, kids on bicycles, etc. Your responsibility was to slow down and wait for me to finish to finish my turn.

All your fancy gear — the racing bike, the skin tight cycling outfit, the streamlined helmet design to mark you as a serious cyclist — will not change the fact that you are an irresponsible idiot.  Had you been a child you would have had an excuse (and I probably would have seen you better), but you looked close to thirty.  I would have thought that all those years of experience in the world would have taught you common sense, but clearly I was wrong.*

Sincerely,

That lady you gave the nasty look to as you sped away.

*What galls me about all this is I do make a concerted effort to watch the roads for bicycles of all types, and am careful to give them enough space. The only thing that  makes me crankier than things like this is when they run stop signs and red lights, which they do with some regularity — especially the “serious” cyclists.  Kids are much better about those.

Why yes, the First Amendment does protect his right to Free Speech.  Imagine that: Cop backs up protester.

Best line by the cop: “If you don’t like free speech you should move to another country”

You know how Congress often adds amendments to bills that are totally unrelated to the bills themselves?

While looking up the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (in the aftermath of this post), I discovered that one of the last provisions deals with the transition from analog to digital television broadcasting. There is also a provision regarding time periods for Medicare+ plans.

I’m stunned.  I think it is an exercise for the imagination to see how these things are related.

The passing of Steve Gingras has made me once again realize how fleeting life is, and how important it is to tell people “thank you” and “I love you” before they are gone forever. People can die without a moment’s notice from heart attack or stroke or car accidents.

There are a series of emails I need to send.  I just sent the first one, to Railfan’s Speech and Language teacher from elementary school.  She made an immeasurable difference in his life.  The fact that he is doing as well as he is in the world is due in no small part to her care.

Now on to others.

A friend on Facebook was posting about the bittersweet feeling of having her last IEP (Individual Education Plan) for her daughter.  I mentioned that we had had the best Special Ed Director in the world when the kids were in elementary and middle school.

I knew Steve had retired in September. The Facebook conversation reminded me that I hadn’t talked to him in a while.  I thought I would drop him a note thanking him for everything he did for my kids.

He died on October 24. He was only 60.

Steve Gingras was one of the good ones.  He fought for the special needs kids in the district, even as tightening budgets made getting services harder and harder. He attended every IEP for every kid who was in a special day class in person, rather than sending a representative. He fought to get resource services for the Not-So-Little Drummer boy when he was in elementary school, because he was performing so much under  his potential, and had significant trouble with fine motor skills.  Many another SED would have ignored the issue, since by a lot of objective measures the NSLDB was not doing badly in school.

On one occasion, I commented to the Speech & Language teacher that I was worried that one of the kids I observed on the playground had an autism spectrum disorder.  She replied that the parents were fighting testing.  The next year, the kid — who did indeed have ASD — was in a special ed class.  She and Steve had convinced the parents to get the boy assessed and helped. A lot of others would not have bothered, since the parents were not pushing for an evaluation.

So many of my friends have talked about having to fight school districts to get services for their children who needed it.  While we occasionally had gripes about the services we got, we did not have fight to get help for our kids.  We never doubted that Steve put the kids in his district first.

He was also a good role model for the kids: in addition to being caring, he was also definitely his own person.*  He wore a beard and a ponytail, and occasionally a Grateful Dead shirt to work.  Okay, so it was a tasteful lavender polo, but it had the Dead insignia on the pocket. Once, a parent came into the office at the elementary school, breathless with worry because a “strange man” was walking about campus. “Does he have a gray ponytail?” asked the secretary. “Yes,” replied the parent. “Oh, that’s only Steve.  He belongs here.”

As indeed he did.

Farewell, Steve.  I am so sorry I didn’t tell  you  in person what a marvelous guy you were, and how much you helped all three of my kids, especially Railfan.

The world is a lesser place now that you’re gone.

*Okay, so he smoked like a chimney, and had to fight off a bout of esophageal cancer as a result.  Nobody’s perfect.

Tonight, since it was Tuesday, I went to the Loft in San Jose for trivia, as I do every Tuesday.

Last week, The Resident Shrink, The Rocket Scientist and I had managed to not merely beat but pulverize The Gringos, who have been the dominating force in Loft bar trivia all year.  We felt pretty good about it.

Tonight, i managed to beat the Gringos (at full strength — four members) single-handedly. We were tied coming into the last round, where I picked up 11 points to their 8.

Afterwards, I heard them grumbling among themselves that this was the first time that they had lost two games in a row.  They were cranky about having to shell out for all of their dinner, rather than part of it.*

Oh, poor babies.  I feel so sorry for them.

Hopefully, next week I can make it three weeks in a row.**

*This is  not to say the were bad sports.  On the contrary, they were very gracious to me and congratulated me for a game well played.  They were just grumbling among themselves.


**See how hard this blogging every day thing is? I played on Tuesday night, November 1, but since I was caught up in other things I ended up posting it a few minutes after midnight, meaning that it was posted on November 2.  Rats.

Today is the first day of both NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).  While the first may seem difficult — 50K can be a lot of words to crank out in 30 days — the latter may end up being no walk in the park either.

Posting every day may not be as easy as it sounds.  Although  my average for last month — the most prolific month I have ever had writing this blog — was nearly two posts a day, there were many days where I posted four items and others where I posted none.  Unlike NaNoWriMo, you are not allowed to take a day off and make the work up the next day.

So we will see.  I expect to be doing a lot of blogging, although how much other writing I will get done will be determined by factors currently not under my control.

Consider this the start of an interesting month.  Hopefully.

Edited to add: What if I tried to blog 50K in November?  Yes, it might get boring for you…