Turning Japanese? Not yet anyway.

Gabe and I started Japanese 111 at the Community College yesterday. It snowed today. Gabe is playing PS3 with Matt. I am studying Japanese. Gabe, the anime buff, thinks he will be helping me with Japanese homework. Time will tell.

We’re not to chapter 1 yet. We’re still in the “pre” chapter...the little bit at the beginning of language texts where you get your intro to basic greetings and a smattering of other niceties. And this I can say definitively: Japanese is like brain yoga. And I’m not talking downward dog. Nope...one of those asanas where your hand’s on the floor, your foot’s in the air, and you promptly fall into the nightstand and knock a lamp over.

Kind of makes you want to crawl back to French, Spanish, or German with a penitent air, saying all is forgiven! I didn’t mean it when I said querer was an inextricable knot of conjugations! And here’s the thing: In the pre-chapter--the baby chapter--you don’t even conjugate anything. But you also don’t get the comfort of an alphabet you recognize. Merci, gracias, danke... Oh, sure, anybody can say that, and write it too. And maybe you can say arigatoo, even though there’s probably nothing in your basic western educational background that the word even remotely resembles. But don’t get too puffed up about that. Because you’re cheating. It’s not really written “arigatoo,” it’s written ありがとう, and therein lies the problem. It’s going to be quite a while before I can look at ありがとう, and register it as a word. And sadly, my entire Japanese textbook looks pretty much like that.

Frankly, I do not know if I will ever look at Japanese characters and see words, as opposed to seeing a code that must be cracked, using the handy chart found in the back of my textbook, or online. Can a brain be that plastic at 47? Interestingly, I find that the experiment of discovering the answer to this question is almost as interesting as the language-learning process itself. Can my brain get it? Let’s see.

It has been quite some time since I traced the lines of word-parts in a work book, taking care to draw the horizontal crossbar before adding the slash and the curlicue. I’m sort of feeling like someone should give me a fresh new extra-fat pencil, and a stick-on gold star at the top of my paper. And there’s the semi-appalling truth that the hatches and swirls I’m struggling to copy are second nature to any Japanese 7 year old.

Even so, I’m finding it more fun than chore...I was just a little unprepared for the reaction my brain is having. Huh? it says. You want me to do what? So I show it a flash card featuring what appears to be a fish hook dancing with dagger and say “soo desu.” Or, more precisely, そうです. (cheat sheet: "That's right.")

Some stones are better left unrolled.

I’m done teaching Gabe to drive. He can get a license when he’s old enough and mature enough to figure out how to go about it without me. By then he’ll have at least 2 sisters over 21, and maybe couple of Tylers, who can pick up the ball I dropped, which will--by then--be moldering in a dusty corner with some dog teeth marks in it. Although, truthfully, I don’t think I dropped the ball. It’s more like none of my serves were ever returned.

The only thing that niggles me still is that he’s going to need a certificate of completion from the driver’s ed school. He’s done the classroom hours, and 2 out of 3 of the drive-with-instructor sessions. After session #2, the guy told me not to schedule #3 until he’d gotten more experience, and there’s where the twain won’t meet. Because what the guy said was correct: He’s bad at driving. And I’m done. So I’m hoping that if I call the driving school on Monday and explain that we’re bagging it for now, but would like--if possible--to have the certificate in hand so that he doesn’t have to pay for and take driver’s ed again several years down the road, that they’ll agree to one more supervised lesson, even if it’s not the sort that normally comprises lesson #3. But if they say no...oh well...it’ll be Gabe’s $400 and 30+ hours next time.

Next time, as in a time when he can both round a bend and observe, in a meaningful way, that there are 5 cars backed up at a light a mere 15 yards ahead of him. The surprising thing--to me anyway--is that you would think that a guy who can ride a unicycle, perform sleight of hand with cards, and defeat Super Mario in a melee would have the necessary eye-hand chops to handle a car, but t’aint, apparently, so.

It can be a little disconcerting though, when people do not mature according to the only scheme of which you’re aware, to feel confident that the alternative unknown scheme will also have a reasonable outcome. That, thus, is the trick of this parenting episode--to be able, in the absence of confidence, to exist on the the plane of the now, and trust the then to be either a) something you can handle, or b) something you can wash your hands of. I am practicing “b” by leaving the driving ball to grow lichen in the corner.

Swabby

Gabe is out racking up miles with the driving instructor. It’s #2 out of 3 sessions. Must get the driver’s license even if he doesn’t particularly need to use it much. For practical and i.d. reasons. And now I have another. One must have a valid DL in order to obtain a Merchant Mariner Document from the Coast Guard. One must have the MMD to enter the entry level Merchant Mariner program at the Paul Hall School in Piney Point Maryland. And one must have a back up plan should college not work out. And that’s what Piney Point would be.

Deck Department, Engine Department, Steward Department? Yes Gabe...the possibilities abound, and you’re stuck on a boat where they must make some use of you. This is not to say that college is out. By no means. We will visit, we will pick, we will entreat...but ultimately the rest is up to the kid, and--while I hope he’ll grab the magic feather and fly--it helps my inner tranquility to have a Plan B. Or a Plan 9 from Outer Space if need be.

chips ahoy?

The problem is: I don't want to be in charge of everything all by myself. All the time. That is the little lumpy thingy I have to clamber over in order to plan a trip...or social event at my house...or stuff. Ick ick ick. Want to defer!

Or perhaps I merely need a fortitude microchip implant.

Smiling Coasts, Open Minds

The Honda Odyssey went to a new home. I hope, sincerely, that it will love it there, and start faithfully with nary a hitch for its new proprietor. As for Jeff, I could see that same little wistful cloud hovering about him as the transaction was enacted--the cloud that signaled another face-to-face with the fact that he really will not drive anymore. But...with the van’s absence from the driveway will come, I hope, limited cause to even think about it much.

Meanwhile, another piece fell into place in the possible-trip-to-The Gambia sequence. Gabe’s passport--the one which he could ostensibly get without parental permission and that will be good for 10 years because he’s 16--arrived today. Yes. Nothing on the application requesting parental signoff. No indication from the post office lady who took the application, photos, and checks, that anything was missing. But still the Passport Office held his app, with a letter noting that it would be processed pending a copy of an i.d. and signoff from me. Naturally I obliged, with the requisite grumble that I’d have been happy to provide such permission had they only included that in the instructions. Perhaps t’was the scruffiness of his photo. Must come from a shady family, that one. But it’s here, and now--if I can get reasonably comfortable that Becca and company will be in Serrekunda during Gabe’s Spring break from school--I can try to secure reasonable flights. And no...this does not mean the ones offered on Expedia for $2500 a pop round trip from Gatwick. This means a cheap charter, and that may be harder to come by.

But what an intriguing thought--Gabe and Jeff in West Africa! Goodness...we can lose Jeff in Chipotle...we’d have to put him on a leash abroad. But how else will I ever travel, I ax ya? So, ok.

I have pushed some furniture aside in my brain. I’m making room--trying, in fact to make a most welcoming space--for a character to inhabit. See, according the the fiction-writing study I’m doing via The Open University, UK, fiction should begin with the character, around whom the plot will develop. Try to do the plot first, and the characters may not bake properly. Maybe that’s been my problem all along...hence the redecorating in my brain. I await a worthy protagonist. I hope the feng shui is adequate in my cerebrum. Not sure. Maybe a tinkly fountain would help.

In cars

Sometimes when my kids were small, nap resistant, and I needed a bit of mental space, we took a car ride. They’d settle, usually sleep, and I’d cruise quiet neighborhoods, pacified by the balm of road rumble and the visual placidity of architectural structures.

Now I do it with Jeff, and it still works. Not for nap-induction, but as a means to generate a sort of white-noise zone, where the angst of the ill-fit caused by our diverging abilities to communicate in the old ways is dissipated, much as a good antenna bearing eliminated the aggravating static on your old analog tv.

Talking works better there. Though sometimes it’s me doing most of the talking, but his listening works better too.

Wade has observed that Jeff is best able to comprehend and communicate when his eyes are closed. It is true. You can put him on the phone and--especially if he relaxes and closes his eyes--his interaction with the person at the other end is as close to “normal” as you’ll ever see it.

The car effect is similar. Despite there being visual input, it is of a low-demand sort. Jeff seems to be able to understand--mostly--and respond--mostly. To be clear--he responds at home too, but not necessarily in a way that suggests he grasped my meaning. I serve a volleyball, he returns a shuttlecock.

Car responses show a better intake of the input. There is still the hiccup factor--that is, the same question may be raised multiple times. As an example, this morning we were discussing The Campanella Family. Input items provided by me: Jeff’s family bought the Holly Ridge Road house from them. The daughters--Mary Beth and Cathy--were abrasively assertive. The dad struck me as taciturn and surly. And...once, Mary Beth and Cathy most impertinently insinuated themselves into a trip to the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that my mother was sponsoring for me, my sister Ellen, and our cousin Bev. We covered the fact that I did not recall what Mr. Campanella did for a living, as that was not of particular interest to my 7 year old self, but Jeff still asked. 3 times, spaced throughout the conversation. “What did he do for a living?” I don’t want to keep saying “we already covered that,” so I just say “I don’t remember.” Again.

But the sense of calm, and the pleasant companionship afforded by road trip white noise is nice thing. Like a good cup of coffee or just one Godiva chocolate.

Chai? Hat? Chai in a hat?

Mr. Chilly thinks there's a draft. He's checked the front door. Not open. The back door. Nope. The trouble, which has not yet occurred to him, is that he's not wearing a hat. At the moment, that hat would be a royal blue thick stocking cap which used to belong to Becca, before she moved on to jaunty berets or woolen hippie hats with earflaps.

But here is what is wrong with Jeff and hats: He likes to pull them down over his ears in such as way that the hat is not actually over his ears at all--intead, the tops of his hears are squashed down and out by the hat, which sits just high enough on his cranium that a small crown at the top remains unfilled, like the tip of a pear. All in all, the effect is what you'd get if Larry, Darryl, and Darryl were possessed by the spirit of Dopey the 7th dwarf.

If I witness this, I will tuck his ears under the cap, and rearrange the hat's position to a more sporting sledder style. I cannot help caring about this. The hat is intolerable worn a la Darryl.

I am tired. The "Nano coffee-tablet" I popped last night (a free sample from the health food store,) did keep me alert through a trip to see Four Christmases with Ellen, Rachel, and Becca last night (reviews: mixed,) but it also gave me a certain level of middle-of-the-night consciousness that I don't ordinarily attain...hence, tonight I'm bushed.

I believe that the populace has achieved stability for the evening--2 out, 2 in, lockable door--so all that's diverting me is Les Mis on the Kindle, wanting me to jump back into the barricade with the combatants as they await the climactic scene. But tomorrow. I'm sure as grape shot that I cannot reach the end without Victor Hugo going off on another tangent--oh...probably several chapters on the composition of the soul of a Parisian chaiwalla or something. And that will be a trudge which requires a fresh brain, free of fog.

If I get Jeff a bomber hat, he won't be able to squash his ears, or--at least--I won't be able to tell. Thought.

I'm gettin' over it, I'm gettin' over it...

Fuzzy Lenz stopped by on Saturday, to measure the area out the back door for some sort of flagstone/brick masonry installation. We could keep stepping off the rickety plywood “temporary” steps (which Jeff assembled roughly 12 years ago) into the grassless mudflats which comprise that third of the backyard, but perhaps (I’m thinking) if we make the back door appealing I will be inspired to stop decorating the backyard with old ladders and dog doodoo, and plant a shrub or two instead.

Fuzzy, it seems, does good work. He installed the brick and concrete walkways which surround Gordon and Tracy’s chateau. My goal now, will be to discourage him broaching--any further--the topic of “retirement.”

Here’s what he said Saturday morning, if I may resort to a rough paraphrase: How’s retirement Jeff? Wow. Not sure I’d want to retire. My brother-in-law retired at 60 and went straight downhill from there. Sure, it’s good so long as you stay active. I guess you stay active, right Jeff?

This is not too unlike the ”Retired? You lucky dog!” comments which are not uncommon at cocktail parties (which are, fortunately, the sort of things we rarely go to.)

So, I smile blandly, wondering if it would be appropriate to accidentally spill a drink (or coffee in the case of Saturday morning) on the speaker, so as to nip the topic mercifully in the bud.

In truth, at this point, we would both rather be employed than not, but he cannot, and--as leaving someone who cannot turn on the oven alone all day is not good mojo--it is inadvisable that I seek outside employment.

Which brings me to the crux of why I am a cranky person who keeps promising to blog in an upbeat manner, but whines instead: At no point have I liked the idea that I would be spending an unspecified number of years acting as administrative companion to a disabled person whose formerly diverting personality has, to a large degree, evaporated. But, as recently as a couple years ago, I was able to believe that I held the ace, or consolation prize of “being a writer”; that this, in fact, was something of a purpose in life which I could pursue while attending to my administrative companionship duties. However, now that I can look semi-objectively at the fact that I’ve written 3½ crappy to tolerable, unpublishable books, the delusion is failing me. So I’m feeling like a rather horribly drab critter, incapable of the creativity necessary to sustain the saving grace of having a meaningful creative outlet. So ick. (Not the fish disease, the sentiment.)

Well wow, that’s whiny. Maybe I shouldn’t post it. But I will, because it explains, succinctly, my personal mid-life crisis.

I’m still planning to stumble upon something to do which is more worthwhile than devoting years to 25-chapter novels destined to collect dust. And while I am waiting, if you decide to expound upon the pluses and minuses of retirement, in Jeff’s earshot, I will spill orange juice on you.

Oh, it's just another cranky post.

I’ve had the sort of day where you wonder--complete with chronic visceral special effects--whether there’s any possible way you’re up to the job of discharging your obvious obligation for the length of years it appears it will take.

I hate that thing where someone has a need so evident that it practically palpates the atmosphere, seeking it-does-not-even-know-what, and you know that it is your cosmic role to be the need-meeter, but you can’t because you’re hopelessly ill-suited to the position, and--on top of that--you’re a really bad faker. And, additionally on top of--or shall we say below--that: forget your own needs because there’s absolutely no way in heck they’re going to get met, so you might as well recognize them right now as wants, not needs. And stop being such a wuss. Gads. Do you need a smack, or what?

What else? I’m digging deeper into the concept of Gabe: The Post-High School Years. Oh, and there’s another need where what I have to offer may be ridiculously inadequate, because--frankly--there may not be a place in society for just everyone, of just every disposition. But it’s still my job to find the place, even if it doesn’t exist. Because a person cannot a)live in the computer room forever watching animes and online episodes of The Office, or b)be booted into the street prematurely. Hence, there must be something else that will work, even if there isn’t. And I pretty much have to find it.

Most likely, some people--present company included--ought to just relax. Even if they’re constitutionally unable, and weenies to boot.

Oh yes, I’m reading the Title 9 Sports catalog again, wherein the “real people” models appear with little bio snippets under their action shots such as: Jean-Anne--Occupation: College Professor, Hobby: Round-the-world sailing, special accomplishment: Following my heart. But then you have to wonder how her heart got so smart.

fresh from the Keebler zombies...

Becca and Tyler A. are making Christmas cookies. Hazel is casting a dubious glance at Fredfred who might--you never know--decide to usurp her position at the watering bowl. Jeff has, as is typical, retired early. I, as usual, just ran upstairs to dole out his pills before he crashed.

Gabe insists that zombies exist. “What would YOU do,” he asks Tyler, “in a zombie attack?”

“Probably go into the woods and make a sweet fort,” Tyler replies.

The general murmur, in the kitchen, is that zombies cannot possibly climb trees, but Gabe’s authoritative book, The Zombie Survival Guide, asserts that 1 in 10 zombies can climb a ladder.

I expect that many of the cookies will adhere to a holiday or random theme, and few if any will resemble zombies, but an outlier won’t surprise me. That one could be interesting to decorate with holiday goop.

Rachel is youtubing genuine and spoof high-fructose corn syrup commercials.

Becca asks Gabe if he has a special request for a cookie shape. “Do one in the shape of a zombie,” he replies. I confess though: that was not a risky prediction for me to make.

Olivia comes in from a long day out. She is dressed like a nerd, having ransacked, from her boyfriend’s belongings, a stocking cap, a pair of geeky glasses with no lenses, and a playboy bunny necktie. She is getting ready to go out again.

Chessie is howling because Rachel scooped her up. She is too pudgy a cat to get up onto the kitchen island. Hence, the holiday goop--butter based--is inaccessible to her.

For now, I will pause as I’m inclined to decorate a zombie cookie. But Gabe got to it first, and I’ll have to settle for a star.

No Oscar, maybe.

Blanchett, Pitt, and company were perfectly good in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but the central character which I find myself the most interested in, in retrospect, is the retirement home which serves as a sanctuary and nursery for the young Benjamin, and as a haven at the end. Everyone needs such a place.

What else was right? Benjamin was right, that even the best and fullest of relationships cannot sustain the friction and ill-fit caused by insurmountable chronic physical conditions. A partnership may have occupied an utterly cherishable and eternally valued position in a person’s life story, but this esteemed place will not protect it from erosion when the tectonic plates of two lives shift unharmoniously. The white clapboard house with the piano in the parlor and a welcoming front porch might then be the refuge which fiction can supply, and real people might just have to dream about.

Wisdom from an older movie (based on the Anne Tyler novel): The Accidental Tourist. Sometimes who you should be with is not so much a function of who the other person is, but rather of who you are when you’re with that person. As wonderful and deserving as the other person may be, if you’re icky and mean around him/her then you’re probably not doing anybody any favors.

Still, you may not be able to rewrite the story line to fit the attractive parameters afforded by fiction, because you just may be one of those people who live outside the gestalt of storytelling (this may explain why--if in fact this is true of you--you can’t write fiction either.) If so, then you need to find another book to reference. Such as the only marginally fictionalized A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. From this book you can glean the following: Sometimes it’s just a trudge through the neverending trees, step after step, where the best pleasures available are your morning coffee and the occasional glimpse of wildlife. If this seems more descriptive of your story (using the word story loosely,) then it may be at least slightly comforting that even a trudge may, at the end, show enough signs of narrative that it’s worth telling about.

badness

Hazel lives to perform.

Just now, I can only see the black side of her nose, because she is peering around the corner at me, with just one eye, contemplating which of the tricks in her repertoire she should resort to next. At the moment, the kitchen table is ripe with possibilities. Even if there were not a wad of embroidery floss, a pen cap, and a roll of wrapping paper to knock on the floor with a dramatic flourish, she would tear more shreds in Olivia’s plastic bag full of dvds or dive headlong into a pile of newspapers with the velocity needed to scatter them across the kitchen.

She is 8. She should have outgrown this nonsense, but--at 7 pounds--she really hasn’t outgrown anything.

Plus, especially for the Christmas season, there is a tree to tackle. I know better--well, let’s say I’ve learned better--than to hang anything breakable near the bottom, but you can still make a lovely racket with what is there. If you tire of the basement door game.

The basement door game. That’s the one in which you (and by you, I mean Hazel,) sit at the top of the basement steps, behind the door which is left open just enough so that you can access your food and litter box. You push the door open all the way. I close it, because I don’t like the basement door wide open. You push it open again. I close it. Repeat until you decide you’d now prefer to jump from chair to chair staring at Chessie. Or stare at Rachel. She’s reading Jane Austen, but you can make her notice you’re staring at her. You know you can.

AM 111--where we broadcast mixed metaphors all day, every day

Sometimes going to Quizno’s with a person is the only way to help him feel like you are there for him and you are still “together.” So, though lunch out at Quizno’s (or Noodles, or Lebanese Taverna, or Chipotle,) may not seem like the worthiest of ways to spend one’s time or money, if it accomplishes the above-mentioned aim, it is valuable.

There’s not a lot I can do about Alzheimer’s, but I have, gradually, fine-tuned my personal description of what it does to a brain. And I am full of analogies. There is the one where I think of the brain as being a big bank of lights which, grouped into systems, operates the complexities of cognition like a theatrical kleig set. This image seems especially appropriate once you see a PET scan because that’s exactly what you see--lit and unlit spots.

But I’m failing to conjure just the right analogy to describe how the AD brain inexorably isolates itself as the channels which allow for communication with the outside world break down. A fish out of water, starved for oxygen in an atmosphere that’s full of it? Not quite, because a fish never had lungs to begin with. Maybe (as an especially seasonal metaphor) it’s a cut evergreen in a deep-bucket Christmas tree stand, browning prematurely despite your valiant efforts to keep the bucket full of water...because...its pores have all clogged with sap, and the water cannot be absorbed.

The problem is--if we extend the metaphor to the next ridiculous step in the story--the tree thinks you’re not watering it. So it’s kind of ticked off at you sometimes. And there you are, standing there with a hose.

I know that the problem is a communication one. The interface which allows for new information to enter the equation, outside that which already exists in the head, is broken. Because often the AD person will describe a thought or share a thinking process which has the marks of some fairly complex processing. But, should you try to add a relevant tidbit, or provide some tangential insight, you will find--when he responds as if your contribution has entered the mix--that it has not. He is simply restating the point of view that exists in his head, unreachable by external variables.

That which is new--that which deviates from the pre-existing template--does not compute. To interact with another person in a meaningful way, requires an exchange of information. When the AD person does not receive your signals, it is because his receiver is disconnected, but he thinks it’s because you aren’t broadcasting. Consequently, in addition to feeling unable to follow the ambient conversation in the room, he also feels that you are not attempting to include him, and that is a very difficult situation to correct without resorting to a tone and manner that will be perceived as patronizing (which adds a whole other layer of negative emotional content to the smorgasbord.)

To further complicate the issue, all but the emotionally super-human will find it difficult to sustain the incentive level needed to give and give and give into a relationship where communication and common understanding have failed. Because good relationships are positive feedback loops wherein the energy available to feed the relationship is directly proportional to the nutritional content you derive from it.

Another truth, therefore, is this: Sometimes it’s that your broadcasts are not being received, and sometimes it’s that your station’s power grid has run out of juice and there’s nothing to broadcast.

So, you go to Quizno’s instead, because at least everyone gets to eat.

Why Y?

I don’t know. You might wonder why I have participated in the National Geographic Genographic project, not once, but 3 times at last count. Once for my Y lineage (via my dad’s cheek cells,) once for my maternal line mitochondrial DNA (my own buccal mucosa,) and once more--to provide a more complete picture for my kids-- for Jeff’s Y line.

I figured Jeff’s would be similar to mine--your basic Gravettian or Aurignacian type drifters who landed mid-Europe and dispersed from there...but maybe without the ultra-norse Viking twist specific to the Gillespie line. And that’s why I delayed. But one day a month or so ago I simply decided what-the-hey, and Jeff got his mouth swabbed.

Turns out that his haplogroup, the E3b-folk, have almost no common history with mine, the I-folk. Yep...looks like our people split up roughly 50,000 years ago, in East Africa, about the time of what’s known as the “Great Leap Forward.” What happened round about then, see, is that humans got smarter. A lot smarter, evidently and they began to do new things like speak in sentences. So, what I imagine caused the I haplogroup/E3b haplogroup rift is something like this: The E3bs kept pronouncing ketchup and chocolate like cat-sup and chalk-let, and that really got on our I-group’s collective nerves, causing us to veer east across the Red Sea at Ethiopia while the proto-Clements continued up the east coast of Africa.

From there they pretty much peopled the coasts of the Mediterranean, both north and south while the proto-Gillespies blazed a more northerly trail through the Middle-East, then west into Europe where they busied themselves with painting beefalos or whatever those things were, on cave walls.

It is only by dint of the fact that some later member of each group independently fell for all that hyperbole about the “New World” that our children even came into being.

But why am I curious? I think it’s because I have a general concept of myself as the most mundane of human creatures, from an ethnic standpoint, and I was curious to see if any decorative accents could be appended to my Heinz 57 Euro self-image.

And I have, in fact, found these colorful details to be fun. Unimportant to be sure, in the scheme of things, but fun.

Ultimately there is no take-home point. Except perhaps this. As we strive to imagine Gabe’s future, we can offer him these two default options, should he not eventually come up with something on his own. “Gabe,” I will say, “take your pick. You may either be a muralist, or you may sell handwoven baskets in the Casbah. You have a long history of being suited to either of these occupations.”

waffling

The waffle iron died--after a long life of devotion to golden-brownness--at roughly age 70. ish.

You could hardly ask more of a household appliance. To gamely cook deliciousness for 3 generations of children is a feat not to be equaled by any Sunbeam or Proctor-Silex you might find at Target today.

The thing is though, now that I think about it, that it probably only cooked for two generations, one of which was not mine. It was there during my mom’s childhood, and I conscripted it back into service for my children, but I suspect that during my grandmother’s hermit years--roughly from the 60s to her death, in the early 80s, it barely saw the light of morning.

The waffles have been sticking to the top plate for some time. It was only last week that it became clear that the upper element was a goner. I loosened the 4 screws holding the top burner to the waffly-imprint surface, and had a look inside. The wires which used to carry the current from the bottom to the top had corroded into nothingness--there was an inch or so swinging loosely just to show me how it used to work...but there was no hope of repair, and it was sufficiently amazing that the rusty old, baked-on-greasy old bake temp indicator had outlasted the wiring.

Its like will not be seen again. A waffle iron sitting in permanent attachment to a stainless steel ornamental tray with almost rococo handle brackets. ‘Tis true--the paint has chipped off the handles, but the dangly ivorine knob you grasp to reveal the toastiness of your cooked-to-perfection waffle is as jaunty as ever.

I acquired it at my grandmother’s passing--missing a cord. This was in 1982. Fortunately, a nice young man at the local hardware store, by the name of Jeff Clement, was able to fix me up with a lovely, fabric-wrapped match. Actually, he fixed my mother up with it, because I was a little too awkward to talk to him.

I wonder if Williams-Sonoma sells anything nearly worthy of serving as a replacement waffle iron. I wonder if I will want to spend that much money. I will have to ponder. Pancakes aren’t bad.

blabbedy bla

I’ve forgotten how to talk.

Well, not entirely. If you ask me a specific question, or steer me into a particular topic, there is an excellent chance that I will be able to say something relevant and reasonably coherent.

Where I seem to be flagging is in the area of pulling something out of the air, for the mere joy of it, or commenting meaningfully on something I observe, or a spontaneous thought.

When girls call me, I like to listen to what they have to say, but--as Olivia pointed out this afternoon--I don’t have much to say beyond commentary on the subject broached by the other party.

I hope it’s not a use it or lose it thing. The trouble is that in the course of the past 5 years I’ve had the habit of spontaneous conversation conditioned out of me.

I say things like: “Look--I made coffee! Do you want some?” and “We need to leave in 10 minutes. Do you know where your coat is?” And generally, this generates a meaningful response.

On the other hand, a comment such as “Victor Hugo was really smart,” or “Getting sciatica on the first day of my period stinks on ice” is likely to be met with a blank and uncomprehending stare, or at best a bewildered smile...and one can pursue it, but if the receiver is broken it’s broken, and you will get nowhere except Frustration Land. So, you do (or at least I) tend to default to keeping it internal.

Which means, after 5 years, that I am quite boring. And I apologize for this, in advance, if you happen to get stuck in a phone conversation with me, or worse, maybe a car ride.

Maybe if I practice on the dog, I will retain conversational skills at at least the rate that an astronaut retains bone mass by exercising.

So, if I suddenly say with a burst of alertness “spontaneous conversation topic!” and launch into a monologue on Sigg bottles and the overly-enthusiastic nature of EMS employees, please indulge me, and share your take.

Allegretto

Jeff wants to know, again, where his wallet and keys are.

The trick is, I know where they were, this morning--on the table in the kitchen between the monkey chairs--but that was this morning. If I’d seen them since I would have made another indelible mental note, knowing the question would come up. But he managed to reposition them, and I have not yet happened upon their new, random, situation.

He likes the feel of the keys in his pocket--heavy, poky, inclined to make worn spots in jeans pockets--though they serve no purpose there. Except for the mini versa-tool which pops out every so often to assist in the opening of a box, but must stay home when he visits Colorado, lest the BWI security guy be gifted with another sharp and disallowed implement.

There are people, evidently, who come into the world grasping immediately that it is a place where beauty and tragedy entwine in an ironic pas de deux. They are the brilliant writers of farce and satire who can hit the ground running with efficiency enough to carve a career. Then, there are those--present company included--who assumed they must be inhabiting a nice, linear narrative in a book with neat binding...until--many, many years later--they notice there is no binding. There is no book. There may not, in fact, be an alphabet involved at all. Maybe this isn’t even a graphic novel, by gum. Once I thought I understood the words to a particular phrase of Jellicle Cats, and I’d sing along...Can you ride on a broomstick to places far distant?...Familiar with candle, with book, and with bell?...Were you Whittington's friend? The Pied Piper's assistant?...Have you been in the love-nest of heaven and hell?

And guess what? That’s not how the last part goes. It’s: Have you been an alumnus of heaven or hell? And this probably makes good sense in the context of what T.S. Eliot meant for the poem to convey. But still, my mangled, misheard version holds special significance for me. Because there is one of those love-nests, and I have been in it, and so have a lot of other people. There are no linear narratives spawned in this love-nest. But there is plenty of irony, beauty and tragedy...and not just a pas de deux, but a continual, nonsensical, sensical, discordant, syncopated, messed-up, harmonious, sometimes-boring, sometimes nifty, unfinished opus.

But I doubt if anyone would publish it.

conflatable inflatables

I’m not sure which was my dominant emotion--despair or mischievous irony--when I glimpsed the deflated heap of nylon in the yard across the street. White, with red and blue accents? It is, unquestionably, an inflatable snowman waiting for air stuffing.

I’m pretty sure that in the 22 years we’ve lived on this street, this will be our street’s first incursion into the area of holiday inflatables. And this is not because we’re one of those pristine neighborhoods where everyone’s very-similar house is surrounded by neatly trimmed topiaries and a flawless lawn. Nope. Some yards are scratchy, patchy and otherwise in perfect syncopated kilter with the eclectic dwellings they surround. We ourselves decorated with a sizable dumpster for 6 or so months last decade, and I know our neighbors were deeply appreciative, at least insofar as they never got out the torches and pitchforks.

As for me, well...you can see that I am making a stab at festive, and got both lights and a wreath installed today. The tree is soaking in a bucket out back, and the lights--as far as I can discern--work.

And now...for the next 2 or so hours...I will endeavor to stay alert enough to pick Gabe up from his after-school, service-hours-earning stint at the Baltimore Ronald McDonald House, where he ostensibly assisted in preparing the evening meal for families of sick children. I am not aware that he brought a deck of cards with him today, though sleight of hand is a good gig for Gabe on these missions. Perhaps he will like seeing the lights on the house when he gets home. And perhaps the neighbors will have their snowman inflated. And I will thank them. Because if our neighborhood becomes too tasteful, we may just have to bring back the dumpster.

doing things

A day is the vacuum that piddly tasks, by nature, abhor. The real myth, I guess, is the one that suggests we should actually accomplish something of note each day. A silly idea I want to and should dump.

It’s worth noticing that life can be just about, for example, eating. There’s a goodly bit of preparing, pureeing, and equipment washing involved in my dad’s 3 squares + snacks, and who can argue with that? Clearly it’s a right and valuable use of time, when a person’s physical condition requires specially prepared food, to spend as much time as is needed to specially prepare it.

As for me, I can piddle away the waking part of a day with remarkable adroitness, and still get to the end worn out but with nothing to show for it.

I have tried this as a mom of babies, as a fully-employed (with academics) person, and as the occupant of my current weird and nondescript role. Regardless of the hat I wear at the time, the essentials get done, I goof off some, and I become useless as the sun sets. There ought to be a take-home point, but I don’t quite seem to be getting it. And why should I? If I learned anything at all from life experience I would not have this nasty headache, because I would not have eaten a whole square of chocolate peppermint bark.

Smart people astound me. How can your brain perform those feats? I wonder. Talented people also astound me. How can your brain and fingers possibly communicate with the coordination required to play any instrument--and a fiddle in particular--that fast and flawlessly?

I remain astounded. And perplexed. And headachy.

150 years to perfect my baking skills...

The Riverview Inn Bed and Breakfast, in Sunbury, PA, was built by Ira Thorne Clement--one of at least 3 Ira Thorne Clements in the Sunbury Clement lineage--and until I get better straightened out, I’m going to say that the I.T.C who built the home on Chestnut St. was something like my kids’ Great(x3)-Grandfather who had no clue how busy Highway 147, aka Front Street, would be in 2008. Still, it is interestingly situated with just 147 and a long, narrow park between the house and the Susquehanna River.

Like many such towns, Sunbury has found itself having very little to do with the 21st Century--most evident in the general under-maintained disposition that characterizes it nowadays.

A Christmas light display of skaters glowed cheerfully across the street from the window of the “Overlook Room” where Jeff and I were bunked. That the park’s holiday light displays turned off at 9 p.m. probably reflects the state of the economy.

Rachel supposes that the chocolatey odor which wafted from the first floor in the wee hours of the night (fondue, said Gabe; brownies, said Tracy,) signaled that the resident spirits recognized that kin were filling the house that night, and they were doing what they could to be hospitable.

I was pleased with the trip to inter the ashes of Jeff’s mom--short though it was--and found that I appreciate the richness of human settlements even in the grayness of late fall, and the dreariness of the economy. There is always something to take in.

I wondered if my children felt any sort of connection to the place. The cemetery was quite replete with Clement markers of impressive size, and there they were, Clements every one. I feel such a connection in the hills of SW Virginia, but they did not make frequent forays up the Susquehanna in their childhood, and that may be the key.