It was two years ago this September 9th that we adopted a homeless and rather ordinary looking black and brown three year old tabby. After two years of living with us, Arthur is settling in well. For a cat, he is living the good life. He has a home of his own. We provide him with shelter, food, water and plenty of attention. Arthur even has his own cat door to our screened in deck. There he can while away a day sleeping on a table or watching the birds, squirrels and bunnies that traverse across our back yard.
Whatever trauma was inflicted on him as a young cat still lingers. While he loves his adopted humans very much, he is still not comfortable being picked up or cuddled. He remains profoundly skittish and paranoid. When I can get him on my lap, just a slight shift in position is enough to make him bolt off my lap. He still requires an escape route before going into any room. Having too many people at close range makes him nervous.
At the same time, he dotes on attention and petting. He is an easy cat to please. Scratch him on gently on his head, or under his chin, or pull lightly on his tail and he purrs contentedly and looks at you with adoring eyes. He loves being brushed so much that if he were not so ordinary looking he might win a pet competition. With continual coaxing, I can get him to jump on my lap. Occasionally, he is in such need of attention that he will jump on my lap on his own initiative. He is discovering that being on my lap can be enormous fun. Yet, he has to weigh his fun against his intense feelings of paranoia.
For a while he let us trim his nails but he must have figured out that it reduced his ability to defend himself, so now that is out of the question. This makes bearing a cat on my lap challenging. Even when I wear heavy jeans, I often feel the sharp prick of a claw on my leg. When I wear shorts, I can see the scars I bear for the honor of being loved by a cat.
Arthur has every comfort a cat could want but does not know what luxury means. We bought him a nice clean kitty bed that he has never slept in. We have a cat condo used by our previous feline residents, but he has never ventured into it. His favorite place to sleep is in the basement on a couch, where he has ample warning of people coming and going.
In the morning, I typically find him in our TV room looking out through our blinds at the street. Occasionally he will greet me at the bedroom door in the morning, but since our daughter is a night owl, he tends to need his morning rest. Mostly in the morning, he is looking lethargically out the window. He may well be in a hypnotized state.
His cat door is actually inset into a window in our kitchen. It is hard to get in or outside of without something to rest on, so we have turned a kitchen chair into a cat stool. On the other side of the window is a table we use sporadically when we feel the desire to eat outside he uses as a platform. He makes a dozen trips a day or more outside. The sound of the cat door opening and shutting has become very familiar.
Arthur is a simple cat. He is neither particularly stupid nor brilliant. We have purchased various cat toys for his amusement. For the most part, they are ignored. It is likely that his kittenhood was too traumatic to have learned how to play. All he wants is positive attention at the times of his choosing. He seems to lack most common feline curiosity, although to my surprise I recently saw him looking at me from the other side of the bathroom door. Previous felines in our household delighted in hiding in closets or under furniture. They also enjoyed getting vertical. Arthur likes to always be in plain site and generally avoids sitting on furniture. In that sense, he is a remarkably respectful cat.
He does have one serious deficiency. Perhaps the litter boxes at the shelter were not changed as often as he would like. Despite having two litter boxes cleaned twice a week, he has been known to periodically urinate on the carpet, much to our consternation. He always picks the same spot. When this happens, out comes our oversized bottle of cat urine odor remover, although it never seems to quite do the trick. Worse were the occasions when he would pee down our air ducts. Then his odor would stink up the whole house. There were times that the smell was overwhelming. We have had our ducts professionally cleaned, covered one register completely and put a special vent over the other. His favorite spot on the rug for peeing is now covered with a rubber bath mat. Soon we expect to replace the carpet with a wood floor, which will make future episodes like this easier to deal with. (Yes, he has been to the vet on this issue. One incident showed he had a bladder infection. All other times he has been clean.)
He is learning to beg. Generally we avoid giving him table scraps, but I do keep a container of kitty treats on the kitchen table, and give him a few when he shows up. Fortunately, none of it seems to be going to his hips. Arthur has always been a big boned cat, but never a fat cat.
His least favorite thing is going to the veterinarian. This is to be expected, but with his advanced avoidance skills, it can range from difficult to impossible to get him into a cage. Unfortunately, Arthur has needed to see the vet on various occasions. Most recently, he had to suffer the indignity of having three rotted teeth extracted, which gives him the appearance of Bucky Katt. Now his face looks a bit offset.
His favorite activity is receiving lavish belly rubs from me. I give them to him when I am under the covers in bed shortly before retiring. He can get quite upset if I do not make the time for his belly rub. He knows exposing his tummy could be dangerous, so it must be exquisitely pleasurable to override his innate cautious sense.
I hope for the day when he is completely over his skittishness and I can hold him in my arms and cuddle him like I did with my late, lamented cat Sprite. Perhaps that day will come, but I am increasingly dubious that it will. Arthur is an affectionate kitty, but he has to get affection on his own terms.
Perhaps in another two years, if I post about him again he will be recovered from that early trauma. Perhaps I will be able to cuddle him in my arms someday without risk of being seriously scratched. Stay tuned.
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September 17th, 2008 at 07:59pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
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Tags: Pets
Sometimes you do not realize how much someone means to you until they are gone. I find it surprising though when I am touched by the death of someone I knew mostly tangentially. Wilson Nichols Jr., the former music director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston, Virginia that I attend, passed away into the great unknown on August 20th at the age of 61.
Wilson died in North Carolina from the complications of progressive diabetes. He struggled with diabetes during the entire time I knew him. I first ran into Wilson around 1997 when I started attending this church regularly. Most likely you have not been to a Unitarian Universalist Church. The one I attend is probably similar to most and is full of mostly white, mostly highly educated, mostly liberal and mostly older people. At the time, Wilson was likely around my age: in his early fifties. He wore large Coke-bottle glasses. I later learned that diabetes contributed to his glaucoma, which explained the glasses.
Wilson was not a particularly handsome man, although such attributes are always in the eye of the beholder. Yet, he was a hit with many of the parishioners. There was often a queue of people before and after services wanting to hug the guy. He was generous with his hugs as he was with his voice. As you might expect, music was his passion. Over the years, I have seen other music directors and accompanists at church, but none exuded his passion for music. It just leached out of him. He managed to make a living with his part time gig as the church music director and by giving music lessons to neighbors. He earned a Master of Arts degree in music, and led a number of chorales.
Originally, he led a chorale in Gaithersburg, Maryland. In his later years, he ran his own chorale, aptly named the Wilson Nichols Chorale. We parishioners were blessed to hear concerts twice a year at the church. Most of the membership attended even though the events were not official church functions. Membership in the chorale was by invitation only and Wilson was particular about whom he let on the chorale. My daughter Rosie, who sung in the church choir for a few years, was eventually invited to be in his chorale. It was during this time that I got to know Wilson on a more than superficial basis.
I suspected he was gay for years, in spite of the line of women queued to give him hugs, or maybe because of it. I never pry nor ask about such things, but during one service, he openly admitted his sexual orientation. I was still working through my own squeamishness with gays at the time. I thank Wilson for helping me sort through my own feelings. Logically I did not believe that gays should be discriminated against. Emotionally I had to work through my issues of interacting with gays. Some gays I have known enjoy teasing us straights. That might explain why I felt uncomfortable. With Wilson though, his force of personality was so large that his sexual orientation soon become moot. Since meeting and knowing Wilson, I never felt uncomfortable about a person’s sexual orientation again.
Sadly, over time, Wilson’s condition became more acute. His eyesight degraded to the point where he could no longer read music. He was hospitalized a number of times because of his worsening diabetes. He could still play the piano effortlessly. He had one of these minds that could hear a work of piano music and could often be able to play it afterward. He eventually sold his townhouse and moved to his native North Carolina where his brother and sister in law apparently took care of him in his decline.
For the most part me and my fellow parishioners are a musically inept bunch. I never learned to read music. Thank goodness for Wilson. With his enormous singing voice, he could overpower the rest of us, giving any hymn a resonance the rest of the congregation could not quite create. Wilson though was in his glory, not at weekly services when he sang boisterously while sitting at the piano, but at his twice-yearly chorale concerts. They were big deals. He hired a few instrumentalists. The chorale itself was buttoned down in black; men were expected to wear tuxedos. After the chorale progressed in, he strutted into the sanctuary to a thunderous applause. Then he would solemnly set himself down at the piano, for he was about to product art. From there, he would both play the piano while somehow simultaneously directing the singers and instrumentalists. For me, the holiday concert was my big musical event of the year. A few soloists had voices that were a bit shrill, but overall he amassed quite a collection of free local vocal talent. His selections were a mixture of the usual and the eclectic. Sadly, our church sanctuary was never constructed for great acoustics. His concerts deserved a somewhat better venue than they received.
Now that he is gone from this world, what I miss and admired most about Wilson was his passion. It is harder to find passionate people today, as we are so wrapped up in our toys and stock portfolios. To Wilson, music was like a snort of cocaine. Music, in all its forms and flavors, kept him feeling enchanted.
A few years ago shortly before he retired to North Carolina, the Wilson Nichols Chorale gave one last concert, sadly not in our church where his presence was too awkward. Instead, we attended the concert at a small Episcopalian church in McLean. The concert was given to a greatly diminished audience.
Afterwards there was the usual reception. It was clear that by this point Wilson’s eyesight was mostly gone, so I made a point of telling him who I was. My daughter, who sang under his direction for many years, was also with me. He gave my daughter one of his world famous hugs and told her to visit him in North Carolina. Thinking I likely would not see him again, I told Wilson in a very heartfelt manner just what a joy it was to know him and to hear his music over the years.
Today at service during our Joys and Sorrows, I lit a candle in his memory and said some nice words about Wilson. It seems like most of the congregation had moved on years ago. Nevertheless, I could still hear his booming voice in the rafters. Wilson filled our small church with so much musical energy and passion. We were blessed to have him as our music director for so many years, and I was blessed to know him. In retrospect, my only regret is that I did not take the time to know this remarkable man even better.
Wilson’s spirit is out there and I for one feel it every time I attend services. I just wish I could get one more of his big hugs.
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September 14th, 2008 at 05:11pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
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Tags: Music
My Dad has simplified his life to fit into a two-bedroom apartment. At age 81 and a widower this all for the best. Even so, his two-bedroom apartment is more than he needs. The spare bedroom is great for guests, but he does not get many of them. Since my mother passed away three years ago, he has been reducing his life even more. Her clothes were donated shortly after she died. Her plants proved too burdensome for him to care for, so they are gone. Also gone are any sign of holiday decorations, except for the smattering of Christmas cards that he places in a basket.
I hope long before I turn 81, assuming I make it to that ripe age, I have simplified my life too. My wife and I make periodic attempts. When they succeed, they amount to de-cluttering us to where we were a few years ago.
There is a burden to possessions, but its burden was not clear to me until this weekend. I helped my friend Renee sort through the property that her mother had left. Renee’s mother died unexpectedly last month at age 68. Both Renee and her mother could be forgiven for thinking that her mother would live longer than she did. I am sure though that if Renee’s mother had any inkling that she would not have survived to age seventy, she would have dramatically simplified her life. For in dying unexpectedly she left Renee with both a staggering amount of grief and a staggering amount of possessions. I did not realize just how much stuff this was until this weekend when a host of her friends and I went through the arduous process of helping her try to sort it all out.
Somehow, in spite of her grief, she and her son James managed to have a memorial service for her mother in South Carolina, empty her condominium and move her possessions to two storage units at a new ezStorage in nearby Reston, Virginia, all within the space of less than two weeks. We spent today simply trying to inventory their contents in order to identify any damaged items. There were close to ten of us going at it all afternoon, and we only made a modest dent in the pile. Her mother apparently was not afraid of living large, and seemed to have plenty of money. Her career took her to over eighty countries. Seemingly, in each, she found some exquisite piece of furniture or artwork to send home. I never met her mother, but clearly, she was no K-Mart shopper. I was just stunned by both the volume and the quality of her furnishings. She had a vase that was made in 600 A.D. She kept exquisite hardwood furniture handed down for generations that looked nearly new. Her art collection included dozens of truly stunning paintings from all over the world.
Nor was she afraid of the 21st century. She had a large high definition television, computers and all sorts of electronic gizmos. She also had many books. She also owned lots of other amazing stuff I cannot mention because my mind could not embrace its vastness. Her mother’s belongings filled up one of their biggest storage units, floor to ceiling, packed tight, as well as a smaller unit that was similarly packed so tightly it was hard to imagine where they could add a deck of cards.
No wonder Renee looked frazzled. It is not easy being the only surviving child when your last parent dies. The challenge becomes particularly large when your parent is also well moneyed and likes to buy things. Simply sorting through all of her stuff will take years. There are literally thousands of items, all of which need to be categorized and appraised. Most of it will end up sold at an estate sale. Once the estate sale is complete, Renee will never have to worry about money in her retirement.
Also left behind: a year old purebred Rag Doll feline, a sort of final living link to her mother. The cat is now living in Renee’s house, which is also full of birds. The cat needs a new home but the birds need to be protected from the cat’s predatory instincts. For now, the cat lives in her bedroom while she tries to find it a home. She would prefer to give it to someone she knows, so she can check up on it from time to time.
I do not expect to meet my maker at age 68 like Renee’s mother, but I do hope that by age 68 I will have gotten rid of most of my junk. Since that is only 17 years away, I had better start soon. We have walls full of books that we will never read again. We have dozens of cans of paint we will never reopen. I have warranties going back to the Reagan administration. We have three bikes, only one of which is ever used. We have three DVD players, all in perfectly good condition. We have seven computers but only three people actually living in the house.
All these possessions should feel liberating but increasingly they feel like a ball and chain, making my life overly crowded and confusing. Judging from my neighbors, my life is relatively de-cluttered. At least my garage actually has a car in it. Many of my neighbors leave their cars in their driveways and use their garage for storage.
Ideally I would leave this life about the way I entered it: naked and without a possession to my name. That seems unlikely, but what I can do is give my daughter (who like my friend Renee will someday be sifting through my effects) more time to grieve for my parting, and less time having to deal with my possessions. I think my father understands this, and I now realize that by simplifying his life, he is actually showing us great love.
Thanks, Dad.
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July 13th, 2008 at 06:52pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
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Tags: Progressives
Based on reading news reports yesterday, it seems the SUV’s days may be numbered. Yesterday, General Motors announced plans to close four truck and SUV plants by 2010 as a result of shrinking sales for these vehicles. Ford Motor Company has also cut production of trucks and SUVs. Sales of large and midsize sports utility vehicles are down 30 percent compared with the May 2007. To try to get rid of them, Ford is offering substantial discounts. Good luck with that. With gas prices in my neighborhood now at $4.019 per gallon and with the summer driving season just starting, buying a SUV or any vehicle with low miles per gallon looks very stupid.
Despite their popularity, the SUV epitomizes America at its worst. SUVs were always expensive. Double the cost of gasoline and it is like adding an extra hundred dollars a month or more to your car payment. Unless your SUV is paid for, this either makes your SUV unaffordable or moves it into the luxury category. Moreover, the more you drive an SUV the more unaffordable it becomes. Even the automobile manufacturers’ attempt to put lipstick on a pig by making hybrid SUVs has not worked. GMC has sold only 1,100 of its Chevy Tahoe hybrids. That’s 1,100 total nationwide.
Unsurprisingly, fuel-efficient small cars are now hot. Fuel-efficient hybrid cars are even hotter. The Washington Post reports that owners of the Toyota Prius compete against each other to prove they are the more fuel-efficient driver. Also rising in popularity is mass transportation. Overall ridership was up 3% in the first quarter of the year compared with a year ago. In Baltimore, light rail usage is up 17 percent in a year. The Metrorail system here in Washington D.C. is running more and more eight-car trains, and most rush hour trains are still standing room only. While only 5% of Americans use mass transit regularly, you can bet many more wish it were an option and would use it if available. They have just unwisely chosen to live in an area that is not accessible to mass transit. More businesses and governments are allowing employees to work four 10-hour days so they can save on fuel costs.
General Motors seems to have figured out that gas prices will not return to nostalgic gas guzzling levels again. In one of the least surprising news stories of recent months, Rick Wagoner, the current GM chairman and chief executive said, “We at GM don’t think this is a spike or temporary shift; we believe that it is, by and large, permanent.” Which is why it is closing plants and laying off employees. GM has shrunk to half the size it was in its heyday and will now shrink even further. Thousands of American workers are among victims of their unenlightened leadership. Our friends in the North American Free Trade Agreement are also feeling GM’s pains. A plant in Canada and another in Mexico are among those that GM plans to close.
While GM’s sales plunged 28 percent and Ford’s dropped 16% compared to a year ago, some automakers are sitting pretty. Honda Motors, which has engineered fuel efficiency into its cars for more than two decades, reports its auto sales rose 18% in May. Both our cars are Hondas. I have been driving a fuel efficient 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid for three and a half years and routinely average 37 to 40 miles per gallon. We will likely add a third Honda to our family shortly. Our daughter needs a car for college, which begins in August. While we looked at used cars, we found we could purchase a fuel efficient Honda Fit for the same price as a used car that is three or four years old.
America’s love affair with the automobile is destined to downsize in the 21st century, but it will not go away entirely. Clearly, we are now in the transition phase where we have to live within our means in an increasingly expensive world. Unlike the oil shocks of the 1970s, this one is not going to go away. It may moderate from time to time. When even General Motors acknowledges the long-term trend is real, you know the gig is up.
American automobile manufacturers should have learned from the oil shocks of the 1970s. Instead, they chose complacency. Why reduce shareholder profits by making long-term investments in fuel-efficient vehicles? Instead, executives can get big bonuses for short-term profits. Inertia pays because America’s brand of capitalism rewards short-term profit makers. The formula works of course until market forces change the dynamic. Then stockholders get the shaft for their obsession with short term profits. Auto manufacturers like GM are caught flat-footed. This is a company that is so unenlightened that it killed its own experimental electric car, the EV1.
Honda Motors is laughing all the way to the bank. Americans will still need cars, but they will need reliable fuel-efficient cars. The company showed the long-term vision that positioned them well for any change in market dynamics, which will translate into greater market share and greater profits. GM and Ford were largely asleep at the wheel, belatedly reacting to market forces rather than positioning their companies to profit from them. As a result GM and Ford are shrinking.
GM plans to either radically change or sell its Hummer brand. Once the world’s largest automobile company, it now looks in real danger of going out of business. It may join a long list of failed automobile manufacturers.
If I were a GM stockholder, I would be working to fire its whole management team. It needs new leadership with a clue on how to anticipate market dynamics. This way stockholders always win. It needs a consistent long-term vision. More likely though GM will suffer the fate of companies like Bear Stearns, and be sold off in pieces for chump change to some much smarter companies. If that happens, let us hope it is Honda Motors.
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June 4th, 2008 at 10:44pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
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Tags: Automobiles, Economy, General Motors
A few weeks ago, I preached about the virtues of vegetarianism. I did so hypocritically, because I am not a vegetarian. I have been getting the vegetarian gospel from many sides lately. My friend Wendy likes to say she belongs to the Church of Vegetarianism. She points me to sites like Grist to encourage me to become one and educate me about environmental choices. I also have a sister who is a vegetarian of a quarter century standing. My new sister in law is also doing the vegetarian / all organic food thing. It is a very Boulder, Colorado-ish thing to do.
It seems unlikely to me that after fifty years of eating meat generally at least once a day that I could give it up forever. However, as an experiment I have been having Meatless Mondays. It is not much but if all Americans went meatless one day a week, we would cut our meat consumption by one seventh. Assuming a stable population, that would mean fewer feedlots and fewer animals consuming our nation’s grains. By redirecting these grains from animals and biofuel plants, more grains would be available for human consumption. This would be good news for much of the Third World. The high price of grains, driven by our need to direct so much of it to animals and biofuels, is putting basic carbohydrates out of reach for the poorest, meaning millions are malnourished who were not a few years ago. Some are starving to death because they cannot afford something as basic as a bag of rice. In addition, with fewer livestock there would be less animal waste, fewer pollutants and fewer greenhouse gases. It would be no panacea to global warming, but this strategy in conjunction with many other efforts could perhaps change the current global warming dynamic.
To my friend Wendy, the primary reason she is a vegetarian is because she believes that slaughtering any animal is inhumane. There is no way of knowing how an animal feels about being dismembered, although I suspect it is something far more abstract to them than it is to us with our large prefrontal cortexes. It strikes me as reasonable to assume that animals above a certain brain size probably have some idea of what is going on when they before they are slaughtered. If we must eat meat, then animals should be killed in a way that minimizes animal trauma and suffering. Most cattle are killed by having a bolt shot through their brain. This supposedly rapidly leads to the animal’s death, or at least allows it to be dismembered without being aware that it is happening. I suspect if I paid a visit to a slaughterhouse then I would suddenly find the wherewithal to become a vegetarian. If we were serious about global warming, we would send meat-eating students on slaughterhouse tours so they could see how it is done. Like most Americans, I prefer to have my animals killed far away where I cannot hear them complain.
Not eating meat with breakfast is not a problem for me since I typically do not eat meat with breakfast anyhow. Lunch is more challenging. I am used to a sandwich or some soup where meat is one of the ingredients. One can always have a salad with lunch. I know salads are very healthy but no matter how much I dress them up, they are never interesting to eat so I want to add something more substantial, which I equate with dense food. One can claim to be a vegetarian and have an egg or tuna salad sandwich with lunch. It seems like cheating somehow. Eggs come from chickens, which produce them by eating grain. Calorie for calorie, feeding a chicken is better for the environment than feeding a cow, but an egg salad sandwich defeats my modest goal of making more grain available for human consumption. I should really avoid any dairy or egg products on meatless Mondays. Eating tuna also feels like I am cheating. Logically there is virtually no connection between harvesting seafood and solving global warming and hunger, providing species are not over-harvested. If you are a sea creature, there is no humane way to die. Unless you are a very large creature like a whale, you are likely to die by being gorily dismembered by some other sea creature. Thus far, I have avoided both egg and tuna salad sandwiches on my meatless Mondays. More typically, a cheese sandwich with some lettuce and tomatoes suffices and feels filling. It is not perfect, but it demonstrates intent. If I feel like being bad, a slice of cheese pizza is another easy substitute.
For me, the only challenge comes at dinner. This is when my desire for consuming meat becomes almost Pavlovian. The first couple of weeks I found that I had to exercise mind over matter, because my body told me to eat meat. Meat substitutes help. If you buy the right veggie burgers, you will not feel denied. However, one can quickly get tired of veggie burgers. I am not much of a burger fan in general. It is rare that I consume more than one burger a month.
Most meat substitutes tend to be rather poor imitations of the real thing. They rarely come close to either the taste of meat or its texture, nor do they usually have meat’s heft and density. Perhaps if you eat them religiously your taste buds adapt. I suspect for most vegetarians meat substitutes are transitionary products. At some point, you do not want them anymore.
Other dinner meat substitutes are more prosaic. Peanut butter and grill cheese sandwiches qualify, with a peanut butter sandwich being the better substitute. After three weeks, going without meat one day a week no longer seems particularly difficult. I may well choose to try two meatless days a week soon, and see if that is as simple. All I have to do is be mindful not to eat meat that day. Nor do I feel the compunction to eat more meat on the other six days to make up for the day without meat.
My solitary actions do feel rather pointless. I am just one of 300 million Americans. Perhaps by blogging about it I can help start a trend. Less than 3% of Americans are vegetarians. I cannot claim to be one, but I have found cutting back on meat was simple and relatively painless. Going through this exercise once a week serves another important purpose: it keeps me mindful of my values. If like me you are concerned that your meat eating habit is indirectly causing people elsewhere to starve, you should not hesitate to try my approach of going without meat just one day a week. I suspect that you will find as I did that soon for that day you will not miss the meat at all.
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May 28th, 2008 at 08:40pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Global Warming, Hunger, Vegetarianism
You would think that we are enduring enough agony by paying record high gasoline prices. According to the Associated Press, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline is now $3.365 a gallon. That tracks correctly with gas prices here in Northern Virginia. Recently it cost me more than $40 to fill the 12 gallon tank of my fuel efficient Honda Civic Hybrid. Ouch!
Apparently, all those press reports about oil companies making record profits does not mean that oil companies are beyond inventing new ways to make us feel even more screwed. To help their bottom line, most gas stations offer a convenience store that tends to excel at providing convenient fattening and sugary foods. Some gas stations will still change your oil or fix your car, but they are becoming fewer and further between. Finding a gas station that has a compressed air pump for your tires is also getting problematical. Those stations that have them generally want you to insert quarters into their machine for the privilege. Thus far, gas stations have not figured out a way to charge you for wiping down your own windshields, but I suspect that is coming.
No matter, gas stations have found a new way to make money that is far more annoying than anything they have done so far, which says a lot. It started with many stations making you listen to audio advertising while you pump. As long as you are at the pump, they figured you had to learn about all the great things they were offering. Now it is not enough to assault you with audio advertising. Now you get your own commercial spouting TV right at the pump!
Sunoco, curse them, is the latest oil company to install these obnoxious devices at the pump. Naturally, there is no off button that you can press to escape these advertisements. Nor is there any way to adjust the volume. It is at near ear splitting volume. Moreover, since pretty much all of us have to get gas regularly, we become involuntary captives of this advertising.
Sadly, Sunoco is everywhere in my neighborhood, which means if I want to patronize a different chain I really have to go out of my way. I am going to go out of my way anyhow, because of this latest egregious indignity. It is also needless noise pollution. You can hear these talking pumps hundreds of feet away.
Sunoco seems to be partnering with ESPN. In between long advertisements, you get brief sports updates and something reputing to be the local weather. I guess this is how they justify their assault. All I know is that I cringe. I move as far away from the pump as possible while my car fills up. Yet even if I had my MP3 player in my ears, I could not begin to tune out the noise from these pumps. You are essentially captive.
Perhaps to add a few more nickels to their profits they will adjust the pumps to pump gas more slowly. This way instead of two to three minutes of listening to advertising, it could be extended to five minutes. This will be good for their bottom line. Perhaps in an effort to escape the noise we will be driven inside to their convenience store. I hope they sell 80db earplugs.
Alas, gas stations are hardly the only offenders. I remarked before about mobile advertising, which I still think should be outlawed. I have mentioned movie theaters that are putting advertising in restroom stalls and in front of urinals. Even my local BJ’s Wholesale Club has decided I need to hear commercials while I shop. Along with the piped in music we now get about 30% commercials. It is enough to make me join Costco.
Certain things in life, like shopping, eating and going to the bathroom are unavoidable. Where these unavoidable activities intersect with profit, wise companies should be going the extra mile to make us want to shop there, not drive us away. Going to these places should to the largest extent possible be pleasant, not aggravating. This should not be rocket science. I have to wonder what sort of public relation morons thought up these latest ideas. It is as if they want their customers to loathe their products.
I’d say they are doing a great job. Oil companies though have no place to go but up in the public’s opinion. Given this sad fact of life, I have to wonder why oil companies want us to have an even more aggravating experience at the pump then they already provide.
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April 11th, 2008 at 07:42pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Advertising
Surely, chocolate is the work of the devil, since a taste so divine is too good for us mortal and sinful human beings. I can go a day without chocolate, but I do not like to. I figure as long as I am abstaining from so many of life’s other vices, such as whoring, drunkenness, gluttony, smoking, snorting cocaine and voting Republican I am entitled to one modest little sin: chocolate. Were I a good Catholic I would feel obliged to report my sinful behavior to my priest because frankly, there is not much else to report. I would have to hope that penance did not consist of a week of chocolate withdrawal. All I can say is that for this lapsed Catholic of more than thirty years, all the Pope has to do is require priests to distribute chocolate communion wafers and I’d go back to Mother Church in a heartbeat. I’d be humming “Nearer my God to Thee” on my way to the communion rail.
Chocolate, like most things American, has become cheapened and bastardized. I came to this realization this week here in Denver. A few times a week to satisfy my chocolate craving, I have been discretely dropping in on the snack bar where I work. There I engaged in my sinful 240-calorie habit: a bag of Dark Chocolate M&Ms. This week though because I am on business travel I have not been able to satisfy my Dark Chocolate M&Ms Addiction. None of the vending machines carried it. So yesterday, I thought I would try those old fashioned M&Ms. You know, the ones so loaded with sugar the chocolate is almost ancillary.
What a mistake! Regular M&Ms, once my ideal way to satisfy a sudden chocolate craving, became nearly inedible. Had it really this sweet all along? How could I have ever eaten this stuff? Dark Chocolate M&Ms indicated to me that I had been selling myself short all these years. The Dark Chocolate M&Ms at eight five cents were the exact same price and size as the regular M&Ms. However, the dark chocolate M&Ms were 1000% tastier.
People on the continent have understood for centuries that dark chocolate is the real chocolate. The overly sweetened stuff served to us in our candy bars is more sugar than it is chocolate. In short, it is inferior. For years, I ate the sweetened applesauces. Then one day I tried the unsweetened version and discovered that I could actually taste the apples. I never went back.
That is the way it now must be with chocolate. Chocolate is too rich an experience to cheapen it by loading it with excessive sweeteners. The real prize is the chocolate flavor itself. Admittedly, real unadulterated chocolate such as used in baking is inedible to most of us. However, by sweetening chocolate just a bit, so it is semi-sweetened, you can appreciate chocolate without having to deal with its bitter natural taste.
Allegedly, dark chocolate is something of a health food. Like any candy, it should be consumed in extreme moderation. Nevertheless, I feel better knowing that consumed in moderation it may have a few health benefits. It can lower blood pressure. Since I do not have a blood pressure problem, this is probably not a reason to consume it. Yet it can also be an antioxidant, providing it was manufactured without milk. What is dark chocolate’s secret? It is something called cocoa phenols, which is a compound known to lower blood pressure.
As best as I can tell, Dark Chocolate M&Ms do not have any dairy products mixed with them. However, even if it had no health benefits, it does not matter. It is by far the best brand of M&Ms on the market. It is inspiring me to try a host of other dark chocolates, both foreign and domestic. With less sugar in it than regular M&Ms, it is also less likely that I will feel the need to consume more chocolate.
Whatever. I predict that within a few years Dark Chocolate M&Ms will overtake regular M&Ms in overall sales. America will discover that it prefers the chocolate to the sweeteners and the added milk.
It is amazing how much more endurable my life has become because I indulge in a few small bags of Dark Chocolate M&Ms over the course of a week. I have discovered I can endure a lot of crap in my life for the compensation of the taste of this ambrosia. Lord, I am not worthy to receive this elixir, but if you cut down all our chocolate trees, I’ll come after your head.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 10:51pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
one comment
Tags: Chocolate, Food
Doctors are busy people. Generally, if I get a phone call from our doctor’s office, it is some nurse giving me the banal details of some lab results. When out of the blue your doctor gives you a call it feels unnatural. If your heart does not start racing a bit, it should.
My doctor left a message on my voice mail at work on Wednesday asking me to call her back. I was at home attending my wife, who was recuperating from back surgery. I was not aware she had even called until Thursday morning when I got to the office. We played more telephone tag but she eventually called me at home on Thursday evening. She said that she received copies of my sonogram. Recently I had a sonogram of my bladder and kidneys. It was precautionary and part of some steps I had taken dealing with my annoying lower back pains.
While the technician was examining my kidneys, my liver must have been close by. The sonogram turned up some sort of lesion on my liver. My doctor felt that it was probably nothing to worry about. Most likely, it was some sort of benign cyst. Just to be on the safe side she wanted me to get a CT scan of my liver.
My wife would shrug off a CT scan. Her body has been scanned, poked, prodded and examined repeatedly from all sorts of directions for much of her adult life. She has had CT scans as well as MRIs and is something of a pro at this business. (”Close your eyes when they put you in the machine and try not to move.”) She expects things to go wrong. Me, I expect things to go right. There is a reason I hit the health club regularly, ride my bike to work and pop baby aspirins at night. I expect to remain healthy. I do not particularly like my minor back pain and my slightly enlarged prostate. However, these are all normal and almost predictable conditions for middle-aged men. What I do not expect is anything weird to be going on inside my body.
A cyst on my liver is not normal. On the other hand, neither is it all that abnormal. Thanks to the power of Google, I have learned that many people have cysts on their liver. At any one time, approximately 5% of the population has them and they are largely benign. I may have had one for decades. It is only now with sufficiently advanced medical devices that these things are even noticed. So it is probably just a benign blood cyst. Yet undeniably, it could be something more dreadful, like the early stages liver cancer. My maternal grandfather died of liver cancer. Of course, he did not die until his late 80s, which was a remarkable lifespan for someone born in the 19th century.
Women get cysts all the time, particularly on their ovaries. Gynecologists just keep an eye on them. In fact, women deal with all sorts of medical crap, from ovarian cysts to fibroid tumors, PMS, menopause as well as breast and cervical cancer. We middle aged men think it is unfair because our enlarged prostates make us run to the bathroom a couple times during the night. We are such whiners. Women learn to deal with their bodies giving them abuse. They have had a chance to get comfortable with their own mortality. For me the back problem and the enlarged prostate are mere annoyances. A lesion on my liver though, is a cause for concern. I wonder if I should be panicking.
I do not like prolonged periods of ambiguity yet I must wait. I must wait to get time inside a CT machine. I must wait for a radiologist report and for my doctor to ponder what it means, if anything. I should feel grateful for all this wonderful modern technology. This sonogram might have been a blessing in disguise by locating a problem before it turned into a much larger or life threatening one.
Or I could be one of these men whose life’s clock much shorter than they think it is. For me September 11th is memorable for two reasons. The first reason is obvious. I worked in Washington D.C. and saw the smoke rise from the Pentagon. I was part of the fear and chaos that marked that day, although somewhat tangentially. The second was because I was commuting in a vanpool at the time. The driver and owner, Dan, drove us all back early, fighting hellacious traffic to get us out of the city. In retrospect, his actions were almost heroic. Yet it would be the last day Dan would ever drive the vanpool or even go to work. He was complaining of stomach pains. It turned out he had pancreatic cancer. He was dead within a month. He was 48.
Life is a roll of the dice. In general, I inherit good genetics from both my parents so I know that my chances of premature death are slim. I am and feel very healthy which explains why this all feels so surreal to me. If I had some potentially major affliction I sense I would know about it somehow. Most likely, that is not how these things happen. More likely, you move through life in ignorance then discover rather suddenly that you were deluding yourself.
Overall, I am taking this news is stride. I am concerned but not anxious. Logically I know the odds are small that I have any condition that could be either serious or fatal. The emotional part of my brain is not quite so sanguine and is hyper vigilant. I am hoping in a week or so this ambiguity will be gone and I will resume enjoying life to its fullest.
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March 2nd, 2008 at 02:00pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
one comment
Tags: Aging, Health Care
This Valentine’s Day, instead of my wife being next to me in bed, she was 2000 miles away. Specifically, she is in Arizona. She is taking care of her mother who is recuperating from lung surgery. She is doing this even though she herself needs surgery to repair a herniated disk in her back. She has been popping pain pills and getting physical therapy for months in an attempt to avoid back surgery. They did not work so recently the decision was made to operate.
I suggested that since her mother has plenty of family in the Arizona area it might be more important that she say home and get her back surgery rather than traipse across country to try to take care of her mom. But no, duty called. When you think your mother needs you that trumps everything, including your own major back problems.
I hope that she is earning some major karma points. I was similarly dutiful in 2003 when I went to Michigan to offer moral and logistical support to my mother during her long hospitalization and recovery. However, I was in good health. My wife kept the home fires burning on my trips. I am doing the same on her trip. I washed five loads of laundry yesterday, and I hate doing laundry. I even cleaned the kitchen floor.
I am also discovering a few things that I did not expect: it can be healthy to have time apart from your spouse. With my daughter working, I find that this week my household is often reduced to one four-year-old feline and myself. I do miss my wife, but I confess I do not miss all the drama that has been occupying our lives since her back went out after Thanksgiving. Herniated disks must be something like nine on a 10-point scale of painful things that can happen to you in life. Because she is in pain, she cannot help but broadcast her pain. Her back is a constant topic of discussion. I offer moral support, of course, and even some logistical support. I suppose it helps but it does not really solve her back problem. For eight days or so, I am free of it.
Ironically, her trip to visit her mom was perhaps the best Valentine’s Day gift she could have given me. Every caregiver needs some downtime and I have had precious little. I realize that since I do not have her degree of back problems, I am merely whining. Still it is a relief to have my wife with her bad back gone for a while. It is as if we are learning to better love each other by being less supportive.
Now that my daughter has her driver’s license, I do not have to fuss much over her either. She gets herself to work on time and comes home when her shift is over. Which leaves work (which was stressful this week), and hours and hours of glorious solitude. I am finding that I am slowly reverting into the creature I was before I got married. I am remembering who I was before I became tangled up in this institution called marriage.
Granted, before I was dating steadily in many ways life was a lot less fun. Sex was more likely to be my right hand than with another woman. Still, there was a certain reckless freedom to being a bachelor. As a husband and principle breadwinner, my life feels controlled and regimented. As a married man living the life of a bachelor for a week, I am discovering the pleasure of doing things at my own pace. Doing laundry yesterday was an example. If I felt like surfing the web for a while rather than move the next load through the laundry cycle so be it. No one was impacted.
I toyed with the idea of going out on the town by myself. Fortunately, I quickly abandoned it. It turns out I can have more fun at home than anywhere else. I am not sure what single 51-year-old men do, but it is probably not what twenty something single young men do. I think older single men congregate at the counter of their local Silver Diners, and read their newspapers while sipping coffee and consuming entrees loaded with fats and carbohydrates. My idea of a fun thing to do by myself is to spend a few hours at the local Barnes & Noble. I pick out a handful of nerdy computer books, hope for a ready cushy chair and just read. In theory, I could do this any night, but in practice, since I have a spouse I do not. I probably will do it tonight since my schedule is free.
Another thing I could do is take in a movie on a weeknight. I hear Tuesday is $5 movie night at the local Reston Multiplex. The leisure class does these sorts of things. They do not necessarily have to be at work at 7 AM. They can be spontaneous. While there are many great things about having a spouse, spontaneity is rarely one of them. No, things have to be negotiated and planned. I do not consider my dining tastes very advanced but I am an epicurean next to my wife. This typically limits us to a half dozen restaurants, generally with American or Italian food. She won’t do Mexican. She won’t do Thai. She won’t do Indian. She will do Chinese but she only likes one particular Chinese restaurant in Herndon. With her gone my dining options are now expanding. The problem is I generally do not prefer to dine alone. However, I can get takeout.
In short, I love my wife this Valentine’s Day. I did send her a card and made sure we had a long chat on the phone. I love her for being devoted to her mother in her time of need. It is an aspect of her character I cannot help but admire. I also love her for giving me this unexpected respite from our relationship. Perhaps I can be a refreshed and better spouse when she returns.
Happy Valentines Day, sweetie.
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February 16th, 2008 at 11:53am
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Love, Marriage
A gray Monday. It came with a spattering of rain, but that was not necessarily bad. If that meant that fewer people were at the local Department of Motor Vehicles office, then we would be on to enjoy the rest of the day all the sooner. Luck was with us. The parking lot at the Sterling, Virginia DMV was only half-full. We discovered why when we entered the building. Their camera was down, so no new licenses would be issued today.
So it was back in the car again. This time I drove us to the DMV office in Leesburg some fifteen miles away. Luck was with us again. The lot was only a quarter full. We had just explained our mission at the information booth (to get my daughter a driver’s license at last) when her number was called. We shuffled down to another booth. We did not have even ten seconds to work on the application.
Trying to get our daughter licensed has turned out to be a two and a half year endeavor. She may be eighteen, but she was never in a hurry to drive. We had to coax, nag and occasionally demand she set her heinie in the driver’s seat to get her any practice at all. She preferred to be chauffeured, no matter how much it annoyed her parents. Attrition and bouts of perseverance from her parents eventually succeeded in turning her into a competent driver.
Then I naively took her to the DMV for a driver’s test. Things had changed but I never bothered to read the latest regulations. I figured that at age 18 she was a legal adult so they would give her a written test. It would be followed by a driving test then she would get her license. That won’t work in Virginia until you turn 19. In addition to the formal driver’s education that she had as a sophomore (from a book and driving simulator only) the state said she was also required to get professional instruction. So despite the fact that she was ready for her license, we had to plop down $325 to the AA Driving School of Herndon, Virginia for seven chaperoned lessons.
Those lessons dragged on too. Meanwhile, we shuffled her off to work at odd and inconvenient hours, often picking her up after midnight when we felt like zombies. Her driving instructor had to work around her job schedule and she had to work around frequent inclement winter weather, which meant that it took nearly two months to get all her lessons. Can’t you just be licensed already? Finally, last Friday, on my 51st birthday, I got my real birthday present. She took her last lesson. Her instructor signed the special blue form. All we had to do was get her to the DMV to have her picture taken and license issued and she would be a licensed driver at last!
The lack of lines at the DMV helped but for some mysterious reason the Social Security Administration’s computers were inaccessible for a while, so we waited for forty-five pointless minutes until her SSN was confirmed. A few minutes later she was unceremoniously handed her official driver’s license. I felt like Pomp and Circumstances should be playing. If they only knew how long we waited, they would play the music! Instead, I suggested we celebrate her belated milestone in a mediocre fashion by stopping somewhere for a fast food lunch.
“Drive us home, licensed driver,” I said. She elected to go to our local Burger King. Still, I gritted my teeth. It was not that she was a bad driver; it is just that with probably something like 75 hours on the road, she was still very much a novice. I got in the passenger seat and tried to act nonchalant. Except along Sully Road, there were concrete barriers pushed up against the side of the road and she has a tendency to drive six inches from the curb. “Pull to the center!” I yelled as she nearly clipped those concrete dividers. For the rest of the ride home I bit my tongue. I have to let it go.
On our way out of the Burger King, she turned too tightly, causing a rear wheel to go over a curb. If only all her initial mistakes could be like these: minor ones that won’t hurt the car.
Let it go. I called the insurance company and had them put her on our policy. She will cost an extra $55 a month. As long as she is not in school, she can pay the cost of her own auto insurance. She can drive one of our cars, but only when we have an extra car available. We were not going to buy her one.
The weather outside looked a bit chancy, but I decided to bike to work today anyhow. I needed the exercise. For my birthday, I purchased a new 27-speed hybrid bike. While this was good for my cardiovascular system, it would leave her home alone with my car, my keys and the state’s permission for her to drive it anywhere she wanted.
I arrived home from work hours later to find my car in the driveway where I had left it, but it clearly had been driven. She told us she did not feel the need to drive a car until, of course, the opportunity finally presented itself at last. How could she resist? Tonight, rather than pay $2 to have her pizza delivered, she elected to drive and pick it up instead.
I am trying to turn off that parental part in my brain that tells me to keep fretting, but it is not easy. I have spent eighteen years fretting over her and trying not to let my obsessiveness get the better of me. The day had come. I had to trust her with a $22,000 hunk of metal and more importantly, her life, doing what for most Americans is the most dangerous thing they will ever do: drive a car. “Remember what I told you,” I said on the way home. “Driving is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Don’t ever get complacent!”
My wife has chimed in later too. “Drive like everyone around you is insane,” was her sage advice. This is good advice, especially in this area which is a weird amalgamation of people from across the United States and many foreign countries. It is not technically true that everyone driving is insane, of course, although it frequently feels that way. However, there are enough drivers driven by distraction where, if you are smart, you should realize that when on the road your life is always a couple second from ending. You survive by always driving soberly and always being mindful of the traffic around you.
So Rosie, stick to right lanes for a while if you can. Pass with care. That means always looking behind you. Don’t trust your mirrors. Stay in the center of your lane please. You will hit fewer potholes that way. In addition, don’t go anyplace unless you aren’t sure you know how to get back. And keep that cell phone with you at all times and keep it charged! God forbid that you should ever need it but the registration is in the glove compartment, along with the insurance card. Moreover, watch carefully whenever you park and whenever you back out too.
Yeah, I am going to do nag her for a while. Maybe she will tune it out. I cannot help it. She is too precious and she is our only child, after all. I know in time my anxieties will ease. Right now, I take many deep breaths whenever I hand over the keys. Relax, Mark. It’s going to be okay. Relax.
Yet my hands remain clenched.
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February 4th, 2008 at 08:48pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Automobiles, Driving, Young Adults
