A Moment In Time

The world is changing and I just watch it change. It’s like floating down a river in a canoe. I watch the scenery go by, and sometimes there may be a small rapid that requires me to paddle strenuously, and then I go back to drifting with the current past high cliffs and low forest and under the occasional bridge, sometimes waving at someone on the shore, sometimes passing a small beach with people sitting in the sun. I look at them, they look at me, and a minute later they’re history. Sometimes I might take a photo of the scenery I’m drifting past, just to have a memento of my trip.

The history of nations and the history of humanity are not too different from that canoe trip. Sometimes in America there are turbulent times. Now is a moment in which many Americans are dealing with the consequences of their forebears’ actions. Some of those actions were evil in today’s context, but at that time they didn’t know it. Nineteenth century Southerners didn’t think of themselves as evil. The world was the way it was and they simply existed in it, like fish in water that cannot understand the concept that they are wet.

We can’t see the things we take for granted today that might be repulsive decades or centuries from now. As righteous as we may think we are, I can assure you we are not perfect and we are even now doing things that would embarrass us—or our descendants—in the future. Those who refuse to be embarrassed are simply stuck in time, like a canoe trapped in an eddy. They cannot make progress unless they can get out of the eddy, but most do not see the eddy or understand why they need to leave it. Only death can free them.

At some point I get out of the river, and another weekend, another month, another year, I put my canoe into the water once more. I remember where some of the rapids and eddies are located on the river, and I am able to avoid them. Every trip down the river teaches me something useful. Every trip down the river, in the spring, summer, and fall, in high water and low water, is different. Some trips reveal rocks I didn’t know were there until the water was low. The passing scenery on some trips is so different that the river looks like a different river. And on every trip, there is something to learn.

Mrs. Pulley

It’s Wednesday. The days are rushing past. It seems like only yesterday it was Tuesday. Where does the time go?

A female friend just “broke up” with me by text message. My phone was off and I forgot to turn it on until early afternoon. That’s when I saw she had sent, and then deleted, several text messages. The final message was the “breakup” message. “It looks like you don’t want to hear from me.” Etc.

Truthfully, I’ve had more than my share of female drama. ¡No más! (Spanish for “no more!”) Her native language is Spanish, of which I remember “sí” and “no” from high school Spanish classes. You see, when I was in high school, I learned enough to pass the exams (most of them) and not much beyond that. I remember “hola” and “adiós.” I tried to learn “left and right” but it was too complicated. They translate as “izquierda y derecha” for feminine gender and izquierdo y derecho for masculine gender. Spanish is full of adjectives and nouns that are different for different genders, so if you want to learn Spanish, you basically have to learn two languages. Good luck.

All I remember from my high school Spanish classes is the teacher. Her name was Mrs. Pulley, and even today she holds the record for the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in or out of high school. So I have this story.

I had a ball point pen that I used in class. On the upper half of the pen was a figure of a woman. The image was about an inch tall and she was wearing a swimsuit. But when the pen was upside down, her swimsuit slid off, revealing her nude body.

I was sitting in the front row as Mrs. Pulley was speaking to the class. I was absent-mindedly tapping my pen on my desk, and it was upside down. Mrs. Pulley looked down, and with supernatural visual acuity, she saw the naked woman on my pen. Her face turned red and she ran to the back of the room and sat down in one of the little desks with her face in her hand. The kids all around me turned to me and asked, “What happened?” I replied with a shrug and “beats me” and tried to put a look of bafflement on my face.

Mrs. Pulley recovered with no permanent damage. She took my pen and gave me hers, although her pen had no naked lady on it, which to this day I think was an unfair trade, but life goes on.

But regarding my former female friend, if she thinks she can hurt me by not speaking to me and not texting me, she’s going to be disappointed. I grew up in the era when people “texted” using Morse code, one letter at a time. I was a ham radio operator. I used Morse code. I often waited with anticipation for the next letter of the alphabet to arrive. So if a person stops speaking to me now, it takes me months to notice. Modern times. You can have a friendship when you go to bed and 12 hours later you don’t have a friendship because they texted you and you didn’t respond within 30 seconds. It’s just as well. I don’t need friends who are that quick to pull the you’re-dead-to-me trigger.

Nighttime Interloper

I was tired and I went to bed early: 8:30PM. About 5 or 10 minutes later a friend texted me to see if we could talk for a few minutes. I told her I had gone to bed. I rarely say “No” to someone who wants to chat with me, but I felt really tired. I went to sleep immediately after that.

Time passed and I awoke in darkness. I knew the electric power was off because the house was too dark. As I lay in bed, I saw a shadowy figure move silently past my bedroom door and enter the other downstairs bedroom which I use for storage. I couldn’t be sure he was real because the house was so dark, but then I saw the dark figure leave the bedroom and go back up the hallway toward the front of the house.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. I moved silently to the bedroom door, and I saw the stranger coming back down the hall toward me. When he got within range I threw a mighty punch at him. I connected only with air. The stranger had backed off and I had missed, but now he was aware of me. He came back toward me and I whirled a high kick at him—something you might see in a Kung-Fu movie. Incredibly, I missed again and whirled myself down onto the floor. Now what? The shadowy figure had the advantage. He was on his feet and I was on the floor.

And then I awoke for the second time. I was on the floor beside my bed. My dreaming body had thrown itself off my bed and I was on the floor with my bed sheet crumpled under me. I clambered onto the bed and switched on the lamp beside the bed. The time was 10:30PM.

The incident had really awakened me. I decided to get up for a while. And then, because I had nothing else to blog about, I decided to blog about this “nighttime interloper.”

It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. One night I was dreaming and I threw a powerful kick, and my dreaming body kicked the cast iron radiator beside my bed. That hurt! Another time I dreamed I was trying to reach something above me, and I jumped for it, with the result that my actual hand collided hard with the head of the bed. I’ve even thrown myself, along with my sheet and blanket, off the bed and onto the floor, so this wasn’t the first time.

Now I’m wide awake and it’s 11:15PM. Well, shoot. Might as well watch some YouTube. And I’m making a mental note: don’t eat chili dogs before going to bed.

Prophecy

Some days, I feel good. Some days I feel less good. Today was one of those less-good days.

After lunch I lay down in bed. I fell asleep. I dreamed a long dream, and it was a “normal” dream, as dreams go. I awoke. I could hear rain falling. The window next to my bed was open and the air seemed cooler.

I remembered the dream for a while. Then I fell asleep again and dreamed another long dream. This was a bizarre dream. I’m sure it had meaning, but dreams fade so quickly when we awaken that it’s usually difficult to decipher them. They’re like a picture puzzle with half the pieces missing.

The part of my dream that was most resounding was the end of the dream. I saw the protesters, I saw the fires at night, I saw police shooting at looters and peaceful marchers alike. And I heard the words repeating:

Nothing is going to change.

Nothing is going to change.

Nothing is going to change.

Monument Avenue

The mayor of Richmond, Virginia (capital of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War) has stated that the monuments on Monument Avenue are coming down at some time after July 1st. There are monuments to five significant men related to the South and the Civil War: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, and Mathew Fontaine Maury.

I have no say in this decision. Whether the monuments and statues are there, or whether they’re gone, it won’t affect my life. And truthfully, I doubt it will affect anyone’s life. If only getting rid of statues would remove racism and discrimination from America—if only it were that easy. But it isn’t. The day after the statues are gone, we’ll be the same people living in the same houses and working at the same jobs. For racism to disappear, the change has to be in our minds and hearts, not in bronze statues on marble pedestals.

Can we still call the street Monument Avenue when the monuments are gone? After all, Monument Avenue is relatively well known. It has a Wikipedia entry. The avenue is home to an annual 10 kilometer running event that is named for the avenue: the Monument Avenue 10K. The avenue draws tourists from other states who want to see a slice of history.

And there’s this: Monument Avenue is designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. A bronze plaque in the avenue’s grassy median states:

“This district possesses National Significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.

“This grand avenue retains a unique combination of commemorative sculpture, community planning, and distinctive architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

I would like to include photos of some of the commemorative sculptures, but at the moment they’ve been decorated with various colors of graffiti and they’re not looking so good.

To Bean Or Not To Bean

In my last post, I detailed how I bought store-brand, no-beans chili and when I opened the can I saw it had beans. I wasn’t upset about that, but I wrote about the incident on this blog and somebody at Food Lion headquarters saw the article and phoned me. My phone records calls, and the call, at least the important part, went like this:

FL: “We want to assure you that our no-beans chili has no beans. Your article stating the contrary is incorrect.”

Me: “But there were beans in the chili.”

FL: “No there weren’t. We don’t like the implication that our chili has beans.”

Me: “But you sell chili with beans.”

FL: “Yes, we do.”

Me: “So what were the things in my chili that looked like beans?”

FL: “They weren’t beans.”

Me: “What were they?”

FL: “Bean-like objects.”

Me: “What are they made of?”

FL: “That’s proprietary. We can’t tell you.”

Me: “But doesn’t the law require you to disclose all the ingredients in your food?”

FL: “I’ll refer your question about the law to our legal department.”

Me: “My phone records all my calls. Do you mind if I blog about this phone call?”

FL: “Yes.”

Me: “You do mind?”

FL: “Yes.”

Me: “What if, at the end my blog post, I said this call never took place and it was purely fictional? Would it be okay to blog about the call then?”

FL: “I guess so. But you must report that our no-beans chili has no beans.”

Me: “I will.”

And we ended the call. Just for the record, I’ve eaten their chili-with-beans and it’s tasty. And that about sums it up.

Oh, one more thing. Their no-beans chili has no beans and this call never took place.

Let me think—am I leaving out anything? No, I think that does it. G’night, all.

Lifestyle

My biorhythm is out of whack. And by biorhythm, I mean that thing that tells us when to sleep and when to wake up. And by us, I mean me.

I went to bed to get some sleep at 5:30AM today. I’m not a shift worker. I just developed a problem with being able to sleep at night. I used to cure it by drinking alcohol, but that began creating its own problems, so now I just don’t sleep at night. Problem solved.

This morning, as I just said but it bears repeating, I went to bed at 5:30AM. I went to sleep about 6:30AM, by which time the sun was beginning to rise. Not exactly dawn, but maybe it’s what people call false dawn. I went to sleep and woke up at 7:30AM, so I got a solid hour of sleep. I got out of bed at 8AM and ate breakfast: two chili dogs.

I didn’t eat lunch until 2PM. For lunch I ate two more chili dogs. I use store-bought chili because convenience is my raison d'être. When I bought the wieners, I also bought a can of chili. Usually, I buy hot dog chili, but the store only had the Texas Tailgate brand, which I tried once and didn’t care for the taste. To each his own. So I bought a can of generic store-brand chili. The can’s label declared, “chili no beans.” It wasn’t hot dog chili, it was just chili like you might put on a baked potato. But when I opened the can, guess what was in the chili. Beans.

I know what you're thinking. You’re thinking if the can says “no beans” then it can’t have beans in it, because companies don’t lie or make mistakes. Sure. But in my version of reality … never mind, it doesn’t bother me at all. It was only a preference, not a got-to-have. Besides, with all the spices I can’t really taste the beans. And technically, I’m not sure real chili even has beans in the recipe. Nor meat. Chili with ground beef is called chili con carne—chili with meat. Isn’t it?

Anyway, I liked the chili with no beans; it made good chili dogs. I put diced onion on top of the chili. Chili dogs have to have diced onion on them. I’ll leave heating instructions to my readers’ imaginations and a little trial-and-error. I could easily tell you how to heat up a hot dog wiener in a microwave oven, but it’s a secret passed down in my family for generations and I promised to never reveal it.

I was talking with a friend yesterday and we both have our issues with house-cleaning. She gets run down from taking full-time care of a grandson with disabilities, and I’m just lazy. I’m not lazy when I do things I enjoy. I’ll spend hours writing software and it seems like ten minutes went by. Or designing a website. Or writing a blog post—when I have something to write about. But cleaning is a chore I can always put off until tomorrow. And then until the next day. And then the next. And the next.

Tonight, instead of watching YouTube videos or reruns of TV shows, I think I might wander the house zombie-like, picking up old mail and scratching my head and asking myself, “How did this happen?” Such is life.

Late Afternoon

The afternoon was quiet as he walked the tree-lined street. Quiet, but for the tinnitus—that eighth octave C note constantly in his ears, every second, every minute, every hour, every day. After hearing it for so many years, he seldom noticed it unless he thought about it. He didn’t think about it now.

He turned a corner onto another street and came upon a tree with clusters of bright red blossoms. Many of the oldest blossoms had turned a deeper shade, had fallen to the walkway below, creating a purple stain on the cement that would be washed away by the next rainy day. In the east, a white cumulus cloud boiled into the sky. Ten miles away, rain might be falling. But overhead, his sky was blue.

He encountered oases of sounds along his walk. In one spot, children’s voices drifted on the air. In another spot, birds twittered. Between the oases was a silence broken only by his own gritty footsteps.

Sometimes, on such a summer eve, he wished he could capture a moment like this. He wished he could distill its essence into words so that anyone reading those words could feel this moment as he felt it. But he knew that kind of writing was far above him. It didn’t matter. His writing was what it was. It served to pass the time.

For that is what life is: passing time while we wait for the end. If, while passing time, you do something that helps your fellow humans pass time, then your life surely must count for something, whether or not the world knows.

2AM Hopper

I awoke at 2AM and knew sleep was no longer possible. I got up and went to the kitchen. It was then that I saw the creature. It was a cricket. I turned to get a better look at it, and it hopped under the dining table. That’s how I knew it was a cricket. I get the occasional roach that finds its way into the house, but roaches don’t hop. I shrugged and let the cricket go. I knew the creature and I would cross paths again, and soon.

Recently, I awoke at night and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. There was a creature on the spigot. I knocked it into the sink, then I poured water on it and washed it into the sink drain. The creature was too large to fit through the slots in the sink drain. So I grabbed a knife and began chopping at the creature. Eventually, my chopping rendered the creature into pieces small enough to fit through the holes in the drain, and then it was gone. When unwanted creatures come into my house, death awaits them. And it won’t be pleasant.

I’m not even going to tell you about what happened to the mouse.

To Wear A Mask

A guy walked into a Costco (story) and began his shopping without a mask. Costco requires customers to wear a mask. So a Costco employee (wearing a mask) walks up to the guy and tells him to put on a mask. The guy refuses because, he says, he woke up a free country. So the Costco guy tells him to leave the store and takes away his shopping cart.

I think some people are confused about what a free country allows. It’s a free country but you can’t drive a hundred miles per hour on our highways. It’s a free country but you can’t take a loaded gun onto a passenger jet. It’s a free country but you have no right to come into my house without an invitation.

America is a free country, but there are federal laws and state laws and county laws and city laws. America has laws, as does every other country. Wearing a mask is not about freedom. Wearing a mask is about not giving a disease to people around you. You might insist you don’t have a disease, but no one knows that for sure, including you. Some people with Covid don’t exhibit symptoms; some exhibit very mild symptoms. But your cough or sneeze could give someone else a disease that kills them. Why is your “freedom” to not wear a mask more important than the lives of people around you?

If wearing a mask protected you and only you, then I would say, “let the guy (you) not wear a mask if he doesn’t want to.” But I would say that with one caveat. If you choose to walk around in crowds without a mask, then you should forfeit your right to hospital care if you get Covid. Why should you put doctors and nurses at risk of catching the disease from you, when you intentionally avoided preventive action? Why should medical people put their lives on the line to save you, when you refused to help yourself? If you would agree to not seek medical care if you caught Covid, then I would be okay with you not wearing a mask.

But it doesn’t work that way. Not wearing a mask means you could unknowingly infect others. I’m not okay with that, and you shouldn’t be either.