Lunch

I didn’t plan on posting a photo of my lunch, but I decided to do it just so you can see that I don’t always eat banana dogs. (Note: the black “seeds” on the tomato are not seeds, they are bits of black pepper from a pepper grinder.) For two days in a row—tuna fish salad, potato salad, coleslaw, tomato, and a dill spear. It’s almost healthy. But I have to be careful. Too much healthy food will throw me into shock. My body isn’t accustomed to it.

Happiness

A friend sent me a link to a YouTube video by Scott Adams called The Happiness Formula. Adams is the writer and illustrator of the comic strip Dilbert. His Happiness video teaches us everything we need to know (and more—a lot more) about the subject of “how to be happy.” He includes a nice chart with boxes and arrows and the names of brain chemicals.

My brain rejected his video. I believe Adams was an engineer and he takes an engineering approach to the subject of being happy. I’m sure his approach has its merits, but I think he’s overthinking it. I don’t follow his “rules” for happiness and yet I’m reasonably happy (though I’m not without my occasional “blue” day which I suspect happens to everyone).

Today I’m blogging. This will be my third post for the day and it’s not 1 PM yet. I enjoy writing. It’s something that helps keep me happy. Today is a sunny summer day in central Virginia. The front window beside me is open. The back door is open. A floor fan is running, providing me a gentle breeze. Cars pass my house and kids laugh and holler in the park across the street—just a couple of the sounds of summer passing through my window. I have friends to chat with, even if it’s a video chat. I have friends to visit. My needs and wants are simple.

On the shelf beside my computer desk there sits an old book that was given to my brother long ago by our grandmother. The book is titled The Art of Real Happiness and was written by Norman Vincent Peale, D.D., and Smiley Blanton, M.D. It was originally published in 1950. Which is to say, people have been looking for the secret to happiness for a very long time, and for just as long, other people have been offering advice on how to be happy. In fact, a lot of money is made by the purveyors of happiness advice. The pursuit of happiness is the target of all those TV ads. “Use this product,” the announcer says, “and your white sheets will be whiter and your colored clothes will be brighter.” The implication is that brighter clothes will make you happy. “Use this product and you’ll have whiter teeth,” says the announcer, suggesting only losers have normal looking teeth.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to be, if not ecstatic, then at least content, and I’ve done it the old-fashioned way—without books or flowcharts or analysis. I’m not sure whether I’m lucky or blessed. Maybe I’m a little of both. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it.

If you’re not happy and you want to be happy, I don’t know what to tell you, because you and I are different people. Perhaps very different. It has been said that “folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I suppose there’s a lot of truth in that.

The Drip From Hell

My kitchen sink faucet developed a problem. Drippage. At first it was only the cold water that dripped. But soon the hot water joined the party. (Of course there is only one faucet head but this is a two-handle faucet with a lever for hot and a lever for cold.) A drip doesn’t sound like a lot of water, but over a period of hours it could fill the sink. Something had to be done. So I did something.

I began my diagnosis by grasping the hot water faucet and gently wiggling it. The drip turned into a continuous stream. Further wiggling would not return the faucet to drip mode. I reached under the sink and turned off the hot water valve.

Having learned nothing from that experience, I grasped the cold water faucet and gave it a little wiggle. The cold water drip turned into a stream. Uh-oh, I’ve done it now. I reached under the sink and turned off the cold water valve.

Now, no water is going to the sink. Time for plan B.

I went to Home Depot and bought two faucet cartridges. Those are valves that control the flow of water through the faucet, from fully on to fully off to anything in between. There are hundreds of faucet designs and no one seems to see much value in using the same cartridges (probably a patent issue), so of course there are hundreds of cartridge designs. I found the correct cartridge but it took about half an hour. The search might have gone faster if I had the brand and model number of the faucet, but alas, that information is lost in the mists of time.

I returned home and installed the new cartridges. When I turned on the water valves under the sink, I was pleased to see the drip was gone. However, even with the faucet handles “wide open” the faucet only managed to produce a trickle of water from both hot and cold.

I removed the new cartridges and inspected them, carefully comparing them to the old cartridges. I could see no difference in the way the old and new cartridges were constructed or in the way they functioned. Nevertheless, I put the new cartridges aside and re-installed the old cartridges. I turned on the water valves under the sink, and found to my surprise that now I had only a trickle of water from the faucet, even with hot and cold valves fully open. The old cartridges had been working except for the drip, and now they weren’t. What is going on?

It was time to call in reinforcements. So I called a friend who lives nearby. He is a Jack-of-all-trades kind of guy, very knowledgeable about almost any kind of any household repair. I explained the situation and he came over to lend a hand.

For the next hour he and I analyzed the situation from every angle. We checked water flow to the valves; it seemed adequate. We verified the valves worked as designed. Yet only a trickle came out of the faucet head. Where was the blockage? My friend and I were mystified. I’m not a plumber and my plumbing expertise goes only so far. It was now time to get professional help.

I knew that a plumber wouldn’t waste his time trying to figure out this kind of problem. He would replace the faucet assembly and be done. I decided that was the best move. But replacing the faucet would involve getting to the faucet from below to remove the nuts holding it to the sink. In order to do that, the drainpipes must be removed from the sink (did I mention there were 2 bowls?) along with p-traps and u-pipes and t-connectors and various other whatnots. It’s not that I can’t do it—I can. But only if I don’t mind spending a week of my life driving back and forth between my kitchen and the plumbing supply store to buy one do-hickey after another. (Me: “How do I…” Store clerk: “Oh, I forgot to tell you, you need to use this special tool…” et cetera, et cetera. If it sounds like I’ve “been there/done that”, it’s because I have. Too many times.)

I was done for the day. The next day would be Sunday and I could shop for a replacement faucet then.

But Sunday morning I slept late. When I arose I made breakfast and chatted with a friend. Then I decided to mow the yard because the remainder of the week was supposed to be rainy, and I don’t mow wet grass. So I mowed the yard. I visited a friend to discuss my plans for the sink and a few other things.

My kitchen ceiling light was getting dim, so when I came home I rummaged in the garage until I found a florescent tube for the fixture. I took the tube into the house. I returned to the garage and carried a stepladder to the kitchen. I replaced the old tube. At last I had success at something; the light fixture was bright once more.

The tiny orifices in my bathroom shower head were starting to get clogged because of the hard water here, so I removed the shower head and soaked it in CLR. Where the CLR didn’t work, I ran a paper clip through the hole. When I finished, the shower head worked much better. Another success, though a simple one. No kitchen faucets were purchased today.

Monday came—a cool, gray day. I needed to wash my laundry because I was running out of everything. So I did that. Elapsed time: about two hours. Then of course, I had to make lunch—tuna salad on whole wheat with dill spears on the side.

After that I worked on a blog post, then I decided to tinker with the faucet cartridges one last time. After that, the clouds let go and rain began falling. I went online to try to select a suitable replacement faucet. The Home Depot website has its own search engine. If you enter “kitchen faucet” and do a search, guess how many different kitchen faucets Home Depot can sell you.  The search returned 2,216 results. And that is only kitchen faucets. Just for grins, I searched for bath faucets. That search got 3,145 hits.

Hour by hour, day by day, the week has ticked by. The kitchen faucet still runs slowly. It doesn’t bother me as much as one might think. I’m philosophical about these things. Whenever I repair something in the house, or something on my car—another thing breaks. There is always one more thing to fix. One day I may become fed up and call a plumber. But for now, there’s something else that needs my attention. I suspect there always will be.

Banana Dog

This is dinner tonight:

Yes, it’s a banana in a hot dog bun (a stale bun at that), mayo on one side, peanut butter on the other. I like to call it innovative; other people might call it peculiar. One thing’s for sure: you’ll never see a chef on TV make this kind of cuisine. Regrettably—and here’s the part of this tale you probably wouldn’t guess—it’s not as good as it looks. If that’s not sad enough, consider this: I don’t always eat this well. In fact, I often skip meals, and people wonder why. Now I don’t have to explain. I’ll just direct them to my blog. Welcome to my cooking. Can I fix you a meal?

By the way, it’s best not to top the banana with beef chili or mustard and onions. Stick with mayo and pb. They’re about as good as it gets.

Night Thoughts

I awoke in early morning darkness. I rolled over in bed and looked at the softly glowing numerals on my clock.

The time was 1:55.

This is what I remembered:

I dreamed that I wrote a novel. Then (this part might be real) I awoke and recalled the dream. At this point I could have gotten out of bed and written an outline of the novel. But I didn’t do that. Instead, I lay in bed and fell asleep again and dreamed another dream.

The second dream was also a novel. Or, possibly, it was a collection of short stories. Whatever it was, I remembered it at 1:55. I remembered the events. I remembered the details. I remembered whether it was written first person or third person.

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. The time was still 1:55. I wondered briefly if my clock was broken, stuck at 1:55. But then it changed to 1:56.

I got out of bed, determined to write an outline of this second dream before it could fade away. I sat in front of my electronic brain and began typing this blog post. But at this point in time, the details of my two novels have faded away completely. All I can remember about the novels is that they were wonderful. Too bad you missed them. I know, it’s disappointing. Sorry.

But I like to leave my readers with something worth their visit, so here’s a factoid for you: There are only three English words that rhyme with no other words. They are angel, bulb, and month. Thank you, dictionary.com. And good night.

Deep State

My far-Right friends like to bandy about the term “Deep State”. I’m not sure what they mean by Deep State because the definition seems to vary depending on what group the person using the term identifies with. For example, to the Right the term denotes a hidden government-within-the-government and its conspiracy to undermine the Right. To the Left, the Deep State is much the same thing except it is anti-Left. Every group seems to have their Deep State Bogey-man and it is always attacking their group.

The far-Right seems to be especially caught up in this Deep State conspiracy, but then, the far-Right seems to get caught up in a lot of conspiracies, and some of them are pretty weird. Remember the conspiracy theory that had Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant? There’s no way to know how many people believed that bit of incredible nonsense, but one man believed it enough to take a rifle into the restaurant and demand to be taken to the basement so he could rescue the children. When employees didn’t immediately take him to the basement, he fired off a few rounds from his rifle to make his point. But employees couldn’t take him to the basement because the shop didn’t have a basement. You can read about that bizarre incident here.

According to dictionary.com, the term Deep State originated in Turkey with the secretive network derin devlet. It has also been applied to other countries in the mid-East such as Egypt and Syria. There might really be a Deep State in some third-world countries, but by comparison to some of those countries, the governments of the U.S. and other first-world countries are models of transparency. Doubtless some chicanery goes on behind some of government’s closed doors, but to jump from political intrigue to a government-wide conspiracy is a stretch.

One of my friends is convinced that everything I write and post online is scanned by a shadowy government organization which allows my article to be published only if it has been reviewed and approved by this mythical Deep State. Who could believe such nonsense? Does anyone have actual evidence this is happening? Show me the evidence!

Humans and Monsters

Monsters live among us. Not the imaginary monsters children may think are lurking under their beds. I refer to real monsters in the shape of human beings. These monsters want to kill you and your family and friends and neighbors. They want to kill as many of you as they possibly can, and they want to do it as quickly as they can. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or whether they know you. They want to kill you. You might be sitting in a parked car, sitting in your living room, walking your dog, or doing some other mundane activity while minding your own business. They want to kill you. And at the same time, ironically, your death means nothing to them.

According to Gun Violence Archive, as of this date (August 5, 2019) there have been 255 mass shootings in America this year. (Gun Violence Archive considers a mass shooting incident to be one in which at least 4 people are shot.) The number 255 may seem very high, but that is probably because most mass shootings are only reported by local news outlets where the shooting occurred. If 4 people are shot and injured, that won’t be on the national news. However, you needn’t take my word for it. Go to the Archive and click on Mass Shootings in 2019, and you can find the details: where, when, the incident report, and source material.

The mass shooting phenomenon in the U.S. seems to be escalating, and people appear to be getting numb to the phenomenon. They break out the clichés: “Our prayers are with you,” “We have to do something,” “It’s too soon to talk about it,” et cetera.

Of course, we know how to end it. We’ve always known. We could end it now if the majority really wanted to end it. But until we make that decision, the monsters will keep winning.