Valentine's Day

It's appropriate that my previous post, one week ago, was about Valentine's Day. Today, a week later, is Valentine's Day. 

My partner Nuria walked into the living room this morning while I was at the computer. She carried a Valentine's Day card, an Olive Garden gift card, a jogging outfit (I wear them inside the house), and a pretty bag of Lindor dark chocolate strawberry truffles. 

I looked at them, then at her, and asked the obvious question. "Is it Valentine's Day?"

Really, I had forgotten all about it. I felt bad for a while. But that's typical of me these days. If I don't write it down, it goes into one ear and flies out the other ear. 

I'm sure Nuria was disappointed but she did a good job at hiding it. She's good about remembering to do little things for people. My friend Butch lives a few doors down the street. Nuria made him a plate of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. She also made cupcakes for his daughter, who had to go to the hospital this morning. Butch was at the hospital with his daughter, and on the way back home he stopped by our house (Nuria and I) with a bouquet of flowers for Nuria. That is so much like Butch: always doing something, when I'm kicking myself, to make me kick myself a little harder. He handed Nuria the flowers and Nuria handed him the two small containers of cupcakes. Thanks, Butch ... I wasn't feeling bad enough. Oy.

I found a pretty song that I want to share. It's called To Build A Home. 

Valentine Gift

It's Tuesday, February 7, 2023. A week from now will be Valentine's Day. So I wanted to pick up a few gifts for my partner, Nuria. I asked her about rings and necklaces and if she wanted to go with me to a jewelry store to look at some. She said no, she didn't want jewelry. 

So yesterday I drove to a store and bought three items I thought she might like. I was guessing, of course, but I had reason to think she would like the items I bought.

I returned home and presented the first item to her. "I just bought one of those," she replied.

I presented the second item to her. "I just bought one of those, too," she replied.

In baseball, three strikes and you're out.

I presented the third item to her. She loved it.

It was something for the kitchen, simple and inexpensive: a Ninja Fit blender. I would describe it to you, but everyone knows what a blender is and how it works. This one works very well. As it happens, I recently began a juice diet (a partial diet for now; I still eat some solid food) so the juicer will be used by both of us.

I know what you're thinking—"You bought her a cheap juicer? Cheapskate!"

My response is: "What did you expect me to buy her—a car?" Well, as it so happens, I did help her buy a car just last month, after her previous vehicle was wrecked by a driver who drove into her car. Insurance paid for most of the cost of the replacement car, but Nuria and I each chipped in a substantial amount to get the car she wanted. But that's another story.

Now, I don't mind spending money on a gift, it's just that I'm lazy and I hate shopping. And I have little imagination, so I can't imagine what a woman would want in terms of a gift. Plus, all women are different. And what man can figure out the female brain? Scientists can't do it. Ordinary men can't do it. As far as I know, only advice columnists can decode the female mind, and I don't know any of those. Advice columnists, that is.

But all in all, I'm thankful there is a Valentine's Day, or else I wouldn't have such a nice blender to make smoothies. I meant to say, Nuria wouldn't have such a nice blender. That I can borrow to make smoothies.

I purchased a blender for my kitchen a few years ago, but it's the kind that separates the solids from the liquid. I think drinking the peel with the juice is probably healthier than just drinking the juice. And the old blender takes longer to clean after using it. I have to disassemble it and clean each part with a brush, then let the parts dry, then reassemble it. Cleaning the new blender is basically a rinse-and-let-dry operation. 

But now I have to start planning. Nuria has a birthday in June, and Christmas is only 321 days away. I barely have time to think of her next gift before it's time to give it to her. I guess it's inherited. My dad was exactly the same way. Every Christmas, he would drive to a nearby drugstore late on Christmas Eve and buy my mother something simple like panties. I was just a kid and still I felt bad for my mother. She bought gifts for everyone. And wrapped them, and put them under the tree. She deserved better. But dad was a hard-working, hard-drinking man, who did such things as gift-buying at the very last minute. I think he knew better, and I can't believe he didn't feel some remorse over his last minute Christmas shopping.

I guess I inherited some of my dad's DNA. In fact, I know I did: half of my DNA is his. As for my mother, she was a worrier, and I inherited that. I worry about buying gifts. There should be someone I can pay to gift-shop for me. But then, they would surely end up buying the wrong things, and I'm already good at doing that.

1883

I'm watching a TV mini-series called 1883. It's a good show. It's about a group of settlers going West in a wagon train in (of course) the year 1883. There are ten episodes in season one, and thus far, six have been aired. I don't know if there will be a season two. That's why it's called a "mini-series." 

Watching the show, it brings to mind what my own family may have gone through, though they never went West. My father's family came from Florida and Alabama. Unfortunately, I can't trace them back further than the Civil War. Many courthouses in the South were burned during the Civil War, and records were lost. 

My mother's Virginia ancestry is more intact and I can reliably trace her roots to a man born in England in 1599. I can trace his roots even farther back, but the farther back I go, the less reliable the information becomes.

My mother, Alice, was born in 1916 in Sussex County, Virginia. My grandmother, Sarah, was born in 1890. Sarah's mother, Mariah, was born about 1855 and Sarah's father, John, was born about 1838. John would have been 45 years old in 1883, which, in my opinion, was a little bit old to make the trip west. It was a difficult trip and required very hardy folk. They had to cross a continent, the Great Plains, desert, mountains, and rivers, in horse-drawn covered wagons (not to be confused with the earlier Conestoga wagons pulled by bulls that were used to settle the eastern part of America). Many photos and drawings of the covered wagons are on Wikipedia here.

Imagine traveling for thousands of miles through wilderness in what was essentially a small farm wagon covered with canvas. If those settlers had known in advance of the hardships that they would have to endure, many of them may have reconsidered their trips west. They might have looked around and thought, "You know, this place where I am now isn't so bad." 

But many of the settlers going west had already crossed an ocean in a wooden boat with canvas sails to get here, and nothing was going to stop them from their goals. They were sturdy, determined folk. I think it likely that most of them were young. Young people haven't experienced so much of life's hardships. They still think anything is possible. Some of them were right. Their gamble paid off and they found a new and better life. Others lie buried along the thousands of miles of wagon trails. Though they lost their gamble, I respect them equally for trying. They were building a country in the most difficult circumstances, though most of them surely didn't think of it that way. For many living in the 19th century, hardship was normal, and moving West was just a different kind of hardship. If they continued living in the East, they knew what their future would hold. Traveling west was a gamble that a better future lay at the end of their long trek.

As I said earlier, 1883 is a good TV show. It shows us the hardships that settlers faced. I hope the outcome is as satisfying as the journey.

Dentist Visit

I went to the dentist yesterday. It had been three years since my previous visit. I used to go every six months, but then ... Covid. I don't care to have someone who might have Covid breathing at me 18 inches from my face, even if they're wearing a mask. But time passed and I decided it was time to go to a dentist, and I chose a dentist who has an office about 5 minutes walking time from my home. His office is less than one minute away by car. 

This was my first visit, so a young woman cleaned my teeth and took a lot of x-rays. The dentist did meet me and we chatted for a couple minutes. He's from Venezuela. He complimented me on the way I rolled the R in his name. I took Spanish lessons for two years, but that was sixty years ago. More recently, I tried taking Spanish lessons from Duolingo but the grammar and verb conjugation were too difficult and my brain was too old for so much new information. 

The rest of the day was uneventful. I went to bed around 10PM and, because I had not slept at all during the previous night, I went to sleep quickly. I awoke around 1AM with a toothache. I lay in bed for about thirty minutes and the toothache didn't get any better. I knew I was not going to get any sleep with it. So I got up and took a couple of acetaminophens. I stayed up another hour until the acetaminophen was taking effect and the pain was beginning to ease, then I went back to bed and fell asleep. I attribute the toothache to the dental cleaning. Probably a bit of water and maybe some plaque got pushed under the edge of my gum. Today, twelve hours later, the pain hasn't returned. I've got my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

After the dental cleaning I left the office with five new appointments. The first appointment is called a followup. The next four appointments were for filling new cavities. And though they're not scheduled yet, I'm supposed to come back for two new crowns. The crowns are going to cost about a thousand dollars each, which I think is a lot, but the dentist said that without them, those two teeth will fall apart. Actually, my teeth have been falling apart since I was a kid. My brother once told me, when we were kids, that my teeth were as hard as oatmeal. When I was attending college I couldn't afford to see a dentist. So when I graduated and had a job, I went to a dentist. He found three old fillings that needed to be drilled out and replaced, plus fourteen new cavities to be drilled and filled. He scheduled appointments on two consecutive days, about four hours each day. The impressions made by my fingers gripping the armrests of his chair are probably still visible. I recall leaving his office and getting into a taxi (my car was in a repair shop). I said to the taxi driver in my best novocaine-numbed speech, "I migglee yass ump to inruig coloomba." The driver looked at me as if I were a Martian. So I began pointing this way and that way, and he followed my hand signals and got me home.

I look forward to my five new dental appointments (more if I get the crowns). Don't you hate it when the receptionist looks up from behind her desk and says, "You again!?" At least the bookkeeper will give me a warm greeting. 

For Your Consideration

One of the best things about life, maybe the best thing, is the ability to take naps. One day I'll die, and I'll miss taking naps. I'll especially miss taking naps on a cold day with the blankets piled on me, lying on the bed in anticipation of sleep. Then I fall asleep and dream. I dream fantastic dreams that I don't remember for longer than three seconds after I awaken. I remember a dream long enough to think, "Wow, what a fantastic dream." Then I get up and go straight to my computer to type as much of it as I can recall, and I can't recall anything. My only memory is the memory of how great the memory was.

But I begin this blog post very off topic. The post itself concerns life and death, so perhaps that is why I reminisce about dreams, which are that in-between state between life and death. You could lie down to sleep, then fall asleep and never wake up. It happens. And dreamless sleep is a little bit like death, but only a short death from which we return.

What prompted this post is an interview I saw with Ezekiel Emanuel on CNN. I found it a very thought-provoking interview, because I'm at the age where such considerations as those in the interview are appropriate for me. At a certain age, and especially with certain medical conditions, the prospect of dying is not terrifying; rather, the prospect of living is the thing that is terrifying. Then we have to consider, do we take the medical treatment or do we let nature take its course? What are the consequences of the path that we choose?

Beyond a certain age, and I can't say exactly what that age should be, as it will differ from person to person depending on our health and circumstances, each of us should give some thought to this topic. So I'm posting the video here for your consideration, or you can go to YouTube to view it.  

Background notes: 

Zeke Emanuel was Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center 1998–2010, a member of the COVID-19 Advisory Board, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics of the University of Pennsylvania, and Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. 

One of Zeke Emanuel's brothers is Rahm Emanuel, an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States ambassador to Japan. He previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019 and the 23rd White House Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010, and served three terms in the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois between 2003 and 2009.

Karma's A Termagant

Nuria got up early, as she does every morning, and unbeknownst to me, she drove her new used car. First she went for her morning walk. She walked to the city's municipal building and registered her car so that they can send her a tax bill. She even registered the car that was wrecked and they will send her a tax bill for that car, too.

But then she drove to Walmart and bought groceries. And on the way back ... I hate to say this, because, she just had a wreck with her previous vehicle, and what are the odds of having another incident so soon, but stuff happens. And when she got back to my house—as luck would have it—just after she had parked her car and the trip was seemingly finished, she...

Hold on, someone's at the door.

Ok, I'm back. They were selling Girl Scout cookies. Now where was I?

Oh yes, Nuria went to the store and just when she got home and parked her Toyota,  she ... she ... she dropped her house key into that crack between the seat and the center floor hump. And she couldn't find it. So she called me on her phone, and I went out to her car and retrieved the key.

What? You thought she had wrecked her new car? Banish the thought!

While I was outside, I was hailed by a man standing on a neighbor's porch. I didn't recognize him, but he knew me. It turned out that he was the son of the woman who lives there. He's been gone for several years, and he was about 18 years old when he disappeared. He was in trouble with the law a few times, and then he disappeared. I assumed he had gone to prison, probably on a drug charge. Now he's back home for a while.

I have a cousin with the same name as the young man on my neighbor's porch. He (my cousin) went to prison, too, for stabbing someone with a knife. My cousin has a brother (who is also my cousin), and the brother went to prison for seven years for vehicular manslaughter. He was driving at 109 miles per hour on the DC Beltway at 2AM when he ran into the rear of another car. Five people were riding in the car he hit, and a woman was killed. The car he hit was knocked across the median strip where an oncoming passenger van collided with it, injuring the passengers in that van. A female passenger in my cousin's car suffered a broken back and ended up in the hospital. My cousin walked away unhurt. In fact, he kept on walking, and by the time police arrived at the accident, he was nowhere to be seen. The police used helicopters to look for him and they found him walking down a residential street at 4AM. Hence, the seven year prison term. 

Karma can be a bitch if you don't treat your life and the lives of others with love and respect. I look at people like my neighbor's son and my two cousins as "young souls." They'll learn, the hard way. As Rev. Marion Starnes of Terra Nova Center once said to me, concerning first generation souls, "...first generations are too busy trying to get themselves out of jail."

Amen to that.

Rainy Sunday

Today is a cloudy Sunday. A light rain falls sporadically. It's a chilly 41°F—nine degrees above freezing.

We (Nuria and I) ate hot pastrami sandwiches for lunch, made with rye bread and Dijon mustard with dill pickle on the side. I had mentioned to Nuria, one day this week, that I had a taste for a pastrami sandwich. That was all I said. The next morning I got out of bed to find her unpacking groceries. She had just returned from Publix where she had purchased, among other things, rye bread, a pound of pastrami, and dill pickle.

Later we watched an episode of the old Perry Mason show, the series that was on TV from 1957 to 1966. We watch an episode every day. Then we watched an episode of 1923. That show is one of Taylor Sheridan's latest projects and is a prequel to the well-loved Yellowstone and a continuation of the story after 1883.

The first episode of 1923 begins with a scene from the end of episode 3, and then it flashes back (though that isn't clear to the audience) and then winds its way forward in time to the point where episode 1 begins. So season 4 will begin where season 3 ended, and where the beginning of season 1 ended. If that is clear. Only four episodes have been released as of now. Maybe that is all there will be. With Taylor Sheridan, anything is possible.

The weather forecast says we'll have sunshine on Tuesday and Thursday this week. Other days will be rainy. But I like rainy days. I like sunny days, too, but in a different way. I like being inside on rainy days. Sunny days are nice for walks and for work you have to do outside. I like snowy days, too. They're beautiful to watch as the snow falls, but then there are the people who get their car stuck in front of my house and have to leave it. My car stays in my garage unless I really have to go out. And my Jeep has four wheel drive (4WD) that really helps get through snow, if I have to do that. My last car, a Subaru wagon, had 4WD, too. I won't buy a 2WD car again, and there's a reason for that. You can read about it here if you're curious.

Below: Dec. 9, 2018—A snowy day and a car is stuck directly in front of my house at the end of the sidewalk. That is not me with the shovel. I don't do snow anymore.

The Toyota 3

Today is a nice, sunny Friday. Yesterday was cloudy with periods of light rain. 

Even so, yesterday I drove Nuria to Richmond to assist her with the purchase of another car. She had a 2009 Toyota that was wrecked by an inattentive driver who drove into her car. She only had the car for five months. The other driver was at fault so his insurance company, Progressive, was responsible for paying for damage. But Progressive would only pay for about 80% of what the car cost five months ago. So we had to add several thousand dollars to the amount Progressive will pay us in order to get another car like the one she had. And we're still waiting for the check from Progressive, but I assume they will pay us eventually. 

We found a 2010 Toyota that is almost identical to the one she lost. Like her destroyed car, this one is a Camry LE with "magnetic gray metallic" paint, ash color fabric seats, and has the same options as the previous car. It's almost identical except for being one model year newer.

I don't like driving to Richmond. The traffic on the highways is heavy and moving fast. Nevertheless, we got there and we transacted our business, and after about an hour we drove away. I had given written directions to Nuria that told her how to get home. But shortly after we left, I lost sight of her in the rear view mirror. I drove the route I had planned in advance, and I never saw her behind me again. But when I got home, her Toyota pulled up behind my Jeep about one minute later. Considering that the two of us had just driven over 25 miles, I thought that was amazing timing. 

We went back out to Burger King and bought a couple of Whopper meals. We both like the Whopper sandwiches, but they're never hot at that place. Never. "Barely warm" is the best one can hope for. Then we drove to Food Lion and bought a basket full of groceries, and then to home again. 

So now it's Friday morning and Nuria just left the house on a walk to a nearby insurance company. Her insurance is going to cost well over a hundred dollars per month, and it's only the minimum liability required by law. That price doesn't even include collision coverage. After she (hopefully) purchases an insurance policy for the Toyota, she'll then go for her usual morning walk around the neighborhood.

I lost a friend yesterday. Well, not a friend, exactly, but someone I've known for a long time and is the husband of a friend that I've also known a very long time—if you consider thirty five years a long time to know someone. I have another friend whose health has been declining for the past year. It's like, one day they're okay, and then they're not okay, and then they're worse, and then they're gone. If you have people that you love, let them know now, because our lives are finite and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

And that is VW's wisdom for this Friday morning. I hope all of you have a pretty weekend.

Closing In On A Car

On Friday, I drove my lady friend Nuria (who was recently de-auto'ed by a vehicle crash) to an auto dealer in northwest Richmond, Virginia. We took the Interstate, first I-95 north, then I-64 west, to get to West Broad Street (US route 250) where the auto dealership was located. 

While we were on I-95 we viewed a miles-long backup of stationary cars in the opposing lanes of I-95. It's not uncommon to see that on the interstate highways in and around Richmond. Traffic flows fast and heavy on those highways and accidents happen every day.

We went to the auto dealership to see a particular car they had advertised online, but the car was a disappointment. It had spots of rust on the hood, which the salesman said was sun damage. "After all, this is a 2009 vehicle, so you can expect sun damage." 

I replied, "My Jeep is a 1995 model and there is nothing like this on it." There were also scratches on the trunk and roof, which he said were "cat scratches," which they clearly were not. They didn't appear to have been done by any kind of animal claws, but perhaps by a sponge or brush—possibly the overhead roller brush in an automatic car wash. There were dents and paint transfers also, and we decided that the car wasn't a good deal considering the asking price. So they brought out another vehicle to show us. This one was a 2010 Toyota Camry LE with 38,000 miles, very similar to the vehicle that was demolished in the accident (see The Toyota) except this one was a 2010 model whereas the destroyed car was a 2009 model.

We found a few small dents and scratches, and the salesman said their body shop could remove them. Ok, fair enough. We put a deposit on the car and we left. We'll probably go back on Wednesday to retrieve our purchase.

Our trip to the dealership took 45 minutes. Driving home, Nuria didn't want to drive on the Interstate. So I tried driving through the heart of Richmond. It took us two and a half hours to get home. That included a side trip to I-95 that the GPS put us on, but we quickly ran into a blocked highway, likely due to an accident, and we were fortunately close enough to an exit to leave the interstate and get on Richmond's Broad Street and then onto South Belvidere Street, also known as Routes 1 and 301, and we took that road back to my hometown, 25 miles away. But at least we were moving, not sitting in traffic.

We returned the rental car to Enterprise today. When we rented the vehicle, they put a $50 hold on Nuria's credit card. This was to ensure that if it needed gas when we returned it, they would be reimbursed by taking the money out of her credit card. But Nuria filled the gas tank before returning it, so there was no reason for Enterprise to continue the $50 hold. But they refused to remove the hold. I told them I didn't understand; we returned the car in the same condition, the gas tank was full, our part of the deal was over. Why can't they remove the credit hold? They said they couldn't remove it until they saw a copy of her insurance policy declarations page.

We both explained that I had emailed them a copy of the declarations page three days ago, at their request. They said they couldn't find it. So we drove home and I emailed the declarations page to them again. And I asked for them to reply and let me know that they removed the credit hold. 

At the end of the day, we had heard nothing from Enterprise.

The Toyota 2

I sit at the dining table. I look at Nuria. Her eyes look watery.

"Are you crying?" I ask.

Nuria doesn't reply, but her eyes well up with tears. Hmmm.

"Is it the car?" I ask, referring to her lost Toyota (here: The Toyota).

"Yes."

There's not much I can do about that. I hate to see her hurting emotionally, but you have to remember, she is from Costa Rica, where she always took a bus or an Uber, and she didn't have a car until she bought one in July. The Toyota was more than a car. It was independence. It meant she could go anywhere she wanted at any time she wanted. There's a proverb: "You never know what you've got till it's gone." Now her car is gone. She misses it.

"We can get another car."

She shakes her head. I guess it's like losing your pet animal. Buying another pet just doesn't fill the empty space in your soul.  

I have to do something about this.