Memorial Day

Rain fell every day last week. Nuria and I stayed home and watched old movies and TV shows. We also ate popcorn, which we usually do when watching TV.  

Friday morning came and the rain left, so I went to the garage to get my Jeep out and go to the pharmacy to pick up medicine I had ordered. When I turned the ignition key, there was dead silence. The battery was completely dead. I didn't know it at the time, but the "dome light" switch had been left on. By me, on Tuesday night. And there are five dome lights in my Jeep: two for the front seats, two for the rear seats, and one for the cargo bay. They drained the Jeep's seven year old battery down to zero. The battery is already two years past the life of its warranty. I paid $130 for the battery seven years ago, but it was a warranty replacement due to the battery exploding (read about it here), so there was a discount. I think the full price was in the $150 to $170 range. A new battery, same brand and type, is now $200, with a three year warranty: inflation on the price, deflation on the warranty.

I pulled out my old battery charger (more of a trickle than a real charger) and left it on the battery overnight and the next morning the motor cranked like it had a new battery. I drove to the pharmacy for meds and groceries.

Later Sunday, Nuria decided that my car should be washed. So I got out the car-washing tools and a lawn chair, and I lit up a cigar and leaned back in my chair while Nuria washed my car. Now and then I'd remove the cigar from my lips, point to a spot on my car, and yell, "You missed a spot!" 

Just kidding! (I don't smoke. I used to, until the incident at the gunpowder factory.) I got out the vacuum cleaner and cleaned the Jeep's floor carpet, after which Nuria took the vacuum cleaner and cleaned it again. Then she got a bucket of soapy water and washed the outside of the car. But I didn't stand by doing nothing. I stood by with the water hose and rinsed the soap off the Jeep. Rinsing is hard work and I worked up a sweat. 

So today it's Monday and it's also Memorial Day, the day dedicated to remembering our fallen war heroes. From 1868 to 1970, Memorial Day was observed on May 30. But then it was changed to the last Monday in May. Which, this year, is May 30. 

I need to mow my yard, but it's bright and sunny and hot. Tomorrow will be hotter: 95°F. And Wednesday will also be 95°. Thursday and Friday will be a little cooler but with a chance of thunderstorms. Maybe I can get some mowing done late this afternoon. I wonder if Nuria would be interested in learning how to operate a lawn tractor. She did pretty well at washing the Jeep and parking it back in the garage. And then making dinner: tossed green salad, stuffed scallops, and sweet potato. I think she's ready to upgrade to tractor driver.

Junk Calls

I used to know a fellow named Dave who carried his cellphone with him but kept it turned off unless he wanted to make a call. He would say, "My phone is for my convenience, not for other people's convenience." Well, okay. It's his phone, so he can use it or not use it as he prefers. I have arrived at a similar position regarding my cellphone.

I used to receive so many calls from scammers and salesmen that I quit looking at the phone to see who was calling. I check the call list at the end of the day. There are seldom calls from people I want to talk with. Most of the calls are from strange numbers, usually out of state. I used to answer these calls but they were always from people who wanted to scam money from me. Usually, the voice was a recording. Sometimes it was someone who wanted to buy my house cheap so they could make a few superficial repairs and then "flip" it—sell it for a quick profit. I used to receive a lot of mail from home flippers, but now they call me. Or, rather, they try to call me. Another common variety of call is the threatening kind, in which a voice would tell me that I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to have my assets seized, etc. These are not the kind of phone calls that, if they were real, would be delivered by recorded messages.

So my cellphone sits on my bedroom dresser and I no longer look at it when it rings. It seems I've reached a point in life where a phone is almost superfluous. I don't know that other people (besides Dave and I) do the same thing, but I do know that some of my friends are nigh impossible to reach by phone, though I can reach them by email and schedule a voice or video call. It's useful to have a phone to make phone calls when it's necessary. It is the junk call that has become the bane of today's phones. At least for some of us.

Nuria's Good Day

Nuria (my Costa Rican ladyfriend) has wanted two things ever since she decided that my home was our home. She has wanted a Virginia ID and a Virginia driver's license. She has been studying the Virginia driver's license manual every day, and she has read it cover to cover three times. Getting a Virginia ID involves mostly a lot of paperwork. Both procedures are done at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

I hated to have these things hanging over my head, so on Wednesday I went to the DMV website and made an appointment for this morning. Our appointment was at 8:45AM, but the appointment page said to arrive ten minutes early. So we got there at about 8:30. We were the first DMV customers today.

We thought it best to get the Virginia ID today, then at some point in the future she would take the driver written test. Then after some driving practice, she would take the actual driver road test. She used to have a Virginia driver's license, but that expired over twelve years ago.

She needed to show the DMV several items. The woman behind the counter closely examined the documents. The documents she mainly examined were Nuria's ID (her passport and her Costa Rican ID) and her two proofs of residence (a change of address confirmation letter from the post office and a letter from her bank). She gave special attention to Nuria's old Virginia driver's license and her old Virginia ID. 

At the end of the "interview" the woman decided she had seen enough to issue a Virginia ID to Nuria. Then there was a surprise. The woman asked if Nuria wanted the ID or a driver's license. 

Huh? Why yes, Nuria wanted a driver's license, too.

So the woman printed a temporary document for the driver's license and told us that Nuria would receive the permanent license in the mail in seven to ten days. This was totally unexpected. And Nuria wasn't asked to take a vision exam for her driver's license, despite not having a driver's license for over 12 years.

So we left the DMV and got on the interstate highway and headed north to my home. After about five or ten minutes of driving, traffic came to a stop. There had been an accident somewhere ahead of us, and traffic inched along then stopped, inched along then stopped...repeat and repeat. After maybe 15 minutes we reached a place where I could exit the interstate and we made our way back to my home through city streets.

Nuria is happy and I am happy. Those two items had been hanging over our heads for two years, and now they've been crossed off the to-do list. Nuria still has to fly back to Costa Rica every five to six months to remain legal in the U.S., because she doesn't have her permanent residency card yet. She applied for it on February 23, 2021 and it was supposed to take between 8 and 10 months to process her case. As a widow of a U.S. citizen she is legally entitled to permanent residency, but U.S. Customs and Immigration has been running behind and her case status is always "application has been received and is being reviewed." But that's another story.

You may wonder why Nuria needs both a Virginia ID and a driver's license. In fact, she doesn't. But we assumed that in order to get a driver's license she would have to take a written test followed later by a road test. That is why she requested a Virginia ID. It was only after the ID was approved that the DMV informed us that she could also get a driver's license. Apparently, her old license from 12 years ago had been designated merely as expired and no new exam was required. She simply paid $32 and she was good to go. 

Sometimes, the bureaucracy works.

Food and Stuff

My ladyfriend Nuria and I went grocery shopping today. Naturally we had to go to three grocery stores. First we went to Walmart where we bought over two hundred dollars worth of food. That was just a warmup. Then we went to Publix, because I wanted to have pastrami on rye bread with Dijon mustard and with dill pickle on the side. Then we went to Food Lion for some other items. 

We bought fresh fruit and veggies to make juice drinks. The drinks we make are really tasty. We use carrots, celery, cucumbers, strawberries, apples, pineapple, and oranges. They could be healthier, but I don't think they could taste any better.

I say the juice drinks could be healthier because we could add leafy greens like spinach. But that would require a different kind of juicer than the juicer I own now.  There are three kinds of juicers. I have what is called a centrifugal juicer. It's the most affordable and the fastest. To juice leafy vegetables you would need a masticating juicer (slower and more expensive) or a cold press juicer. Cold press juicers are the most expensive and the hardest to operate, but they make the most nutritious juice.

So the pantry is full. Actually, my house doesn't have a pantry, but you know what I mean. All homes used to have pantries. Where else would you put all the jars of food that you canned during the summer and will consume during the winter? There had to be a pantry. But like home canning, pantries have largely disappeared. 

For lunch, we ate pizza. We bought a Walmart extra-large pizza. I ate one slice, and Nuria ate three slices. I can eat one slice and gain a pound, and Nuria can eat half a pizza and not gain any weight. Every day when the weather is good, she gets up early and goes for a long walk. She has a pedometer and she told me she walked 5500 steps this morning. I felt like I had walked 5500 steps by the time we finished shopping, but for Nuria, all those grocery store steps were on top of the 5500 she had already walked today.

Now Nuria has begun studying English on Duolingo. She has been speaking English for more than fifty years, but she wants to improve her English. There are certain phrases that are tricky for people who are not native English speakers. Such as, which is correct: "I will stay in a hotel at Paris" or "I will stay at a hotel in Paris." Native English speakers know the second phrase is correct, but how do they know? Is there a rule? What is the rule? Learning Spanish is just as problematic. Do I use this word or that word? A Spanish speaker like Nuria can tell me the correct word, but she can't tell me why it's correct. It's frustrating, for me.

It's 5PM now. Time to quit blogging and do something useful with my time!

Pentatonix

The song of the day is 2019's Shallow by Pentatonix.

Life Is For Learning

I used to have a life. Every day I woke up and showered, shaved, dressed, and drove to work—to a job I enjoyed. After work I usually drove to my favorite restaurant & bar where I would eat dinner and chat with the wait staff and regular customers I knew. Most of the time I drank iced tea. On a weekend I might drink a beer or two. But that would be over a period of several hours, so I never left the bar “buzzed”.

Then the company I worked for declared bankruptcy and laid off its employees. I decided to retire. More accurately, I decided not to fly hither and yon around the country in search of another engineering job. I was 54 — 8 years from social security — and jobs for older engineers are difficult to find. Companies prefer to hire young engineers for a number of reasons. I didn’t think about it a lot. I had resources and plenty of time to ponder my future.

Three years later my mother passed away, leaving behind a very cluttered house and garage. Reluctantly, I moved from Roanoke to the city where I grew up. I moved into the family home to de-clutter it and put it in shape to sell. I ended up staying here, in the house of my youth, for a number of practical reasons. But in transplanting myself from Roanoke, I severed most of my social network. I have a few friends with whom I continue to correspond by email and Skype. But most of my friends vanished into their own lives, never to be seen or heard from again.

I’ve always had social anxiety, so I was never a “joiner.” I don’t join clubs. I have no desire to attend church, as my own beliefs are very different from those of the average church-goer.

I have a brother I last saw in 2004. I last spoke with him in 2010 when I called him to tell him of the death of our cousin in Florida. That phone call lasted 30 seconds. I don’t send him email because he doesn’t reply.

I haven’t been to a movie theater since 2008.  I don’t miss it. Most movies are available on the Internet, anyway, if you know where to look. Television bores me, so I don’t have cable. I have Internet, which I find at least as entertaining as the so-called “entertainment” on TV. Other than that, I was alone, living in a silent house with little interaction with my fellow humans. Each day was like the day before and the day after — a monotony broken by occasional visits to a doctor or medical lab. My desire was to get through the remainder of my life as painlessly as possible to whatever conclusion was coming.

Living alone, I developed a drinking habit. For about ten years I was a heavy drinker. When I say “heavy,” I mean that if I went a day without alcohol, I would have hallucinations. They would begin at bedtime on the day I didn’t drink and they would usually be gone by the next morning. Though sometimes they would still be going when I awoke. Some of the hallucinations were mundane, some were interesting, and some were beautiful and exotic. Some made me wish I had a magical camera that could photograph them. But I decided to quit drinking. So I did, in 2020. Though people have offered me alcohol, I haven’t drank any since the day I quit. I don’t miss it and I don’t think about it.

On November 24, 2020, slightly less than three months after I quit drinking alcohol, my Costa Rican partner Nuria visited me for the first time. She had been the wife of my friend Ralph who lived in Costa Rica, and he died on January 19, 2020. I wrote about Ralph in Restless Spirits and again in Angels and Spirits. 

I could have been more, could have done more, could have achieved more, than I have. But I don’t consider my life a failure. I don’t consider anyone’s life a failure. I consider that all of us, every person, good or bad, is here to learn. Life is for learning, and I think there are many realities in which we can learn, and this life is just one of them.

I’ve done a few things in this life. First job at age 13 (paperboy), second job at age 15 (drugstore), third job at age 17 (chemical factory), fourth job at age 19 (e-tech), fifth job at age 21 (engineer, missile guidance), sixth job at age 27 (self-employed), seventh job at age 39 (engineer, mobile robotics). I’ve wrecked a car, which sent me to the ER. I’ve taken flying lessons. I’ve flown an airplane. I went to night school when I was 16. A friend and I built and operated a “pirate” radio station when I was attending university. I’ve nearly killed myself a few times, and I’ve nearly killed others a few times. I’m not proud of those times and I’ve learned from them. In high school I was the school photographer, and in my first year of college I was the school photographer. I was never in the armed forces but I tried my best to get an engineering job with a civilian contractor in Vietnam. There have been times when I should have been killed, but I had a guardian angel looking over me. I am convinced of that, because I’ve been lucky too often to attribute it to chance.

I thank God for allowing me to live this long, and to have opportunities to grow and evolve and mature. If I come back, I hope I can remember the lessons I’ve learned, because I don’t want to repeat some of them.

Now I have Nuria, and I think our relationship might be my final lesson, at least for this lifetime. She is a wonderful person who is liked by everyone who meets her. I will be growing in some way, just by knowing her. Perhaps the same may be said of her knowing me. Time will tell.

Remember: you’re here to learn and to grow. Don’t beat yourself up for your mistakes. Learn from them and let them go.

Until next time—be well.

Frank Sinatra

The Song of the Day is The Impossible Dream (The Quest) from the 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, and also in the 1972 film of the same name, by American singer and actor Frank Sinatra.

Commode Cannon

My house is located about a hundred feet from a street intersection. A couple days ago, I looked out my front window and I saw some kind of industrial utility truck stopped on my street at the intersection. The truck had a large—about 12-inch diameter—hose coming from it and going down into the street through an open manhole. I surmised that the city was working on a water line or a sewer line and gave the matter no more thought.

The next day the truck and the large hose were back, and the hose was down under the street again. That didn't surprise me—some jobs take more than one day. I was in the living room and Nuria was in the bathroom when she called to me, "Where did all this water come from?" 

I went to the bathroom and I saw drops of water all over the toilet seat. Then I saw that water was all over the floor around the toilet. Indeed, where did all this water come from? Then I saw that over half of the water in the toilet bowl was missing. The connection was obvious: the truck had blown high pressure air into the sewer line, perhaps to unblock the line. The high pressure air flowed into residential sewer lines and into toilets. I envisioned the toilet water shooting upward like a fountain at the Bellagio. 

I asked a friend who lives six houses down the street from my home if he had experienced a similar water event in his bathroom, and he confirmed that he had. So this was quite a blast of air, to still be so powerful that far from the manhole. What if someone had been sitting on their toilet when the contents of the toilet were expelled upward by high-pressure air? The word "uncomfortable" is the nicest word I can think of for such an event. Certain parts of the human anatomy do not respond well to being blasted by water under high pressure. 

It gives one pause to know that at any moment, without warning, one might be knocked off their toilet by a mixture of high-pressure air, water, and, uh, whatever might have been floating in that water.

Abortion Again

Abortion is in the news again. Actually, it has always been in the news. In 1965 I was a moderator for a discussion panel on the subject, "should abortion be legal." 

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that women have the right to have an abortion without excessive government restrictions. And now, in 2022, it appears a new Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade or greatly restrict its use.

I watched the May 6 episode of Bill Maher's Real Time show (which aired last night, as I type these words) and the discussion topic was, not surprisingly, a woman's right to an abortion. So I was going to write a blog post about abortion, but then I realized that I've already done that, almost two years ago. For those who haven't read it, you can read it here.

Old Photos

I was looking at some old photos this afternoon. Friends, neighbors, family members—all from years 2004 through 2018. Photos I took after 2018 are on my phone and/or Google Photos. 

I have photos from long ago. One of my hobbies when I was in high school was photography. I took photos and I developed the film and printed the negatives. They were mostly black and white. I had a darkroom in my basement. I had a daylight film loader and I could load 35 mm film cartridges and, with a green safelight, I loaded film packs for a 4" x 5" Graflex camera I sometimes used.

Although I obviously didn't take this photo of me and my dad, I did print it. I found the negative and printed the photo in my darkroom when I was a teenager.

I printed the photo, but I didn't add the beam of light that appears to be shining on us from above. Nor was that "effect" in the original photo. But it's in the photo I have now. I guess it gradually faded into the photo during the six decades since I printed the photo. It looks like God is shining a spotlight from Heaven on me and my Dad. Maybe it was there all along, and it just took sixty years for me to see it.

It's after 10PM now, which is early for "pre-Nuria" VW, but now that Nuria lives with me, I have to get my butt in bed and turn out the lights. It seems that certain things are expected when you have a partner. 

By the way, I found this photo with the help of a piece of software I wrote a few years ago. I call it FileFinder. At first I looked through all the folders on my hard drive that contained image files. I couldn't look at all the images—there are thousands. But I looked in all the folders and couldn't find this photo. Then I had a thought: "Why don't I use FileFinder? After all, this is why I wrote it." 

So I fired up my FileFinder and in less than a minute it pulled up this image. Ironically, the photo was in a folder I had already looked in.

Quality Control

A picture is worth a thousand words.

That's what they say.

Angels and Spirits

Do you believe in angels? Many people do. 

Do you believe angels are beautiful young white women with long blond hair and wings? I call those angels "greeting card angels." Or do you think angels walk among us and can look like any person of any age, any sex, and any race?

I knew a man who claimed to be an angel. He never said anything to me about being an angel. But after he died, I found out about his angel traits from his wife. His name was Ralph. He was married five times, and his last wife was Nuria. Nuria is Costa Rican.

When Ralph was sixteen, he got his high school sweetheart pregnant, so he dropped out of high school to support his new wife and baby. He got a job working on a loading dock. He was smart and hard working, and he worked his way up to Plant Manager, then to Director of Manufacturing, then to Vice President of Manufacturing. He was making a six figure salary when he retired at age 45, but he became bored and began working at various "small" jobs to pass the time. When I met him, he was working at a call center in Costa Rica. I Skyped with him every day. That is how I met his fifth wife, Nuria.

I recognized and envied his intelligence and common sense. I could understand how he became a success in various jobs. Ralph was an alcoholic and he drank vodka straight from the bottle. I warned him several times that he was risking throat cancer, and I told him to mix his vodka with water. But he continued drinking it 80 proof. He died from throat cancer in 2020.

After Ralph's death, Nuria and I began Skyping. We both lived alone and we enjoyed our conversations. She began telling me a little bit about Ralph.

I don't have the space on a blog post to write about all the many things Ralph did that one could attribute to an angel, but I'll give a few examples.

One of Nuria's female relatives was trying to get pregnant, and she had already miscarried three times. Then she got pregnant again, but was fearful of another miscarriage. Ralph placed his hand on her stomach as if to sense something inside her. Then he told her that this time she would have a healthy baby and it would be a boy. In fact, she did give birth to a healthy baby boy.

A lucky guess?

One day, Nuria had to leave work and come home in the middle of the day because she was bleeding heavily and the bleeding wouldn't stop. Ralph arrived home a few minutes later. He found Nuria in the bathroom. He told her to stand up, and he placed his hand on her abdomen. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.

A lucky coincidence? 

Ralph would sometimes have spells in which he spoke in a foreign language. He wrote in his Bible in ancient Greek. Sometimes he would enter into a "spell" and he would speak ancient Greek, and sometimes Hebrew—languages he had never studied and which he never spoke in his ordinary life.

Ralph claimed to be an angel, but never discussed it with anyone besides Nuria. He said his angel name was Raphael. The Bible's Old Testament mentions the archangel Raphael, one of the seven archangels.  Rafael is also called the angel of healing. Ralph told Nuria that reincarnation is real and that this lifetime would be his last incarnation on Earth.

Ralph was also a spirit medium; he could bring spirits to him and let the spirits talk through him. Nuria told me she spoke with his uncle and his grandfather, and her father and her grandmother, among others. Ralph's grandfather used to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes, and Nuria said that his spirit always insisted that Ralph smoke Lucky Strikes while his spirit was communicating through Ralph's body.

Nuria has told me so much that I suggested she write a book. I know it would be fascinating to many people. I'm not really a writer. I'm a blogger, and an amateur writer, and there's a difference. Plus, there are many things Ralph spoke of that Nuria doesn't want to reveal. I guess she feels that most people are not ready to hear some of the things Ralph said.

Before closing this blog post, I will add that I've been interested in life-after-death, reincarnation, after-death communications (ADCs), and stories of human encounters with angels for most of my life. So listening to Nuria's stories of Ralph's encounters with the world of spirits was naturally intriguing to me. As for reincarnation, I have a few personal stories. One of them is on this blog, and it's titled Samsara, and was published in 2014.

Some books that I've read on the subject of angels, spirits, life after death, and ADCs are listed below. The titles in bold print are books I consider must-reads on the subject.

After the Light - Kimberly Clark Sharp
Children of the Light - Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger
Touched by Heaven’s Light - Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger
To Touch the Light - Kevin D. Randle
Parting Visions - Melvin Morse, M.D.
Life After Life - Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D.
Reflections on Life After Life - Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D.
Saved by the Light - Danien Brinkley with Paul Perry
On Life After Death - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Afterlife - Carol Neiman and Emily Goldman
Mary T. Reflects on the Other Side - Mary T. Browne
Adventures in Immortality - George Gallup, Jr.
Transformed by the Light - Melvin Morse with Paul Perry
Returning From the Light - Brad Steiger
Death’s Door - Jean Ritchie
Closer to the Light - Melvin Morse
Angels - Paola Giovetti
A Book of Angels - Sophy Burnham
Where Angels Walk - Joan Wester Anderson
Angel Letters - Sophie Burnham
Touched By Angels - Eileen Elias Freeman
Hello from Heaven - Bill and Judy Guggenheim
To Dance With Angels - Don and Linda Pendleton
The Light Beyond - Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D.
Through Time Into Healing - Brian L. Weiss, M.D.
Many Lives, Many Masters - Brian L. Weiss, M.D.
Only Love Is Real - Brian L. Weiss, M.D.
The Eagle and the Rose - Rosemary Altea
Journey of Souls - Michael Newton, Ph.D.
Many Mansions - Gina Cerminara