Tranquility

Life is contagious. That's a good thing, generally speaking. But it is a contagion... I've been idly wondering how it works.

But think about it... the miracle of a body learning how to function from another body. A child forming from a union of cells, but more than that... the strange fact that it will probably know how to simply be alive, heart pumping and lungs inflating and deflating and cells moving oxygen and energy and who knows what. Holy. Cow.

We did a picnic yesterday with our friends, who have a 3-year-old. Camped on a blanket under a wind-gnarled eucalyptus tree festooned with long leaves, some of them as broad as my hand, and sworled strips of its own peeled bark, I listened to frogs and shallow surf, and breeze through bushes and eucalyptus stands, and smelled the bituminous salt of my beloved Pacific in the sampire grasses, and watched brown pelicans and marbled godwits and sparrows and a 3-year-old human. It was cool and foggy and the hills and city across the (incredibly shallow) bay looked like something out of a movie, fake, a matte painting. Vegetarian food (very eclectic... spanning from fake ham and cheese on wheat to marinated eggplant to sushi rolls stuffed with cream cheese and cucumber to home picked blackberries from our friends' yard) and tree climbing. And laugh at the graffiti of the ejaculating penis on the tree, and please dear God don't touch the semen-stained cheap blanket tucked up in the branches, thinking it is a garment of your friends. Dammit, some forms of contagious life ought not to be shared... I suppose the spray painted "KEEP OUT" on the thickest bole of the tree should have warned me. Thank goodness for alcohol gel... plentifully and immediately. Shh, yes it does, yes it DOES work. La la la la, can't hear you, la la la.

At home, today. I have so much to do. I elected to pick what would make me happy, and did my chores, and fed the birds. Again, the teeming magnificence of life. We have a wealth of young birds coming to our backyard to be fed. Young goldfinches, woodpeckers, scrub jays, and what we expected the most... ducks.

There are seven baby ducks coming to our cafeteria. Three "half ducks" that are almost-grown and starting to feather up, and four itty beige and brown peeps. They are gorgeous.

We went out tonight to fill the thistle sock and seed feeder, to put out new blocks of suet, and to feed the ducks. A beaver pulled down a sapling and dragged it into the creek not far from our house (and me without flood insurance... I begin to worry.) Sir Max-a-Lot and Duckira, the highly recognizable and ubiquitous domestic/mallard hybrids that come to greet our car with begging expressions every evening, mobbed us and made their little "wheepling" noises until we gave them a big scoop of hen scratch. Mama-Duck and her four littles came to eat, and she lowered her head and charged impressively at Enemy Duck and Enemy Duck's Mottled Mate every time they came to eat, ignoring all others. Runty the Half Duck came and hoovered up as much scratch as she could. Her speculum (the white and blue patch on a mallard's wing) is starting to show and she looks a little less runty than heretofore.

Pat took pictures of the goldfinches and woodpeckers and Scrubbles sat on our plastic picnic table and grabbed peanuts by the twos and threes, preparing to bury them in the bark that now comprises most of our front yard (bark shreddies, with weird oases of tall grasses and flowers... our landscaper's weird idea and it looks wonderful, except that it is pocked with peanuts.)

I cleaned my fridge out. It had contained strawberries and peaches gone very syrupy and embellished with green fuzzy things. Definitely not good eats, as Alton Brown would put it.

All my laundry is done.

How was your weekend?

Don't bank on it

Something you technophiles really ought to know:

When you pay a bill online, there is a delay. This is true even if you pay online through the creditor's website. It is even more true if you pay through your own bank's website, with rare exceptions.

It works like this:

You go on your bank's website. You tell the bill pay function to pay a bill. You relax. Must be paid, automatically debited from your account, right?

Wrong.

The funds are paid electronically ONLY if your bank has an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) agreement with your creditor. This may take up to several days; four to five business days is considered reasonable by many banks (including mine.)

If they don't have an EFT agreement (which is by far the more common arrangement)...

Your bank waits until they have a sufficient number of "electronic" checks to process and batch print. They process the payments and then they PRINT OUT CHECKS AND PUT THEM IN THE SNAIL MAIL.

That's right. Slower than if you had done it yourself with a snail mailed check.

If you pay online on your creditors' sites, leave three business days of elbow room before the due date. If you pay online on a bill-pay service's site (such as your bank's, or worse, a check cashing institution's or something like that), leave at least a week before the due date.

In my own bank's case, the situation is also fraught with computer replications of human error... a nine-digit bank account number needs a 0 in front of it in order to properly fill a (California) 10-digit account blank and be properly accepted by a creditor's EFT. [Grumble.]

I know what you're thinking.

"But Linda, I do this all the time: why haven't I gotten in trouble?"

Because most creditors have grace periods and you are falling into the technically-late-but-not-cancel-me-late zone. However, you may be accruing late fees.

You have been warned.

Gym dandies

Whew... you might be able to tell by my prolonged absence that that walk kicked my butt. We never really knew in advance how long it was to be. First, I was told 5k. Then 5 miles. Then 10k. Then 5k. Then 10 miles. Finally, I was told it was to be 10k.

It was 9 miles. They intended it to be 10k but they mismeasured. Several pedometers and GoogleEarth confirm that it was indeed longer than it ought to have been.

We finished the walk and had our hands wrung by the March of Dimes organizers who told us how much they appreciated what we were doing for babies. I didn't know this, but they've recently made great strides against SIDS; children prone to SIDS have enzymatic anomalies that can be corrected by feeding them a little differently... thus saving their lives. That makes me feel really good. I have friends who have lost siblings to SIDS.

Thank you, those of you who donated. We were deeply touched that you had done so.

Me, I got blisters, sunshine, and to see four cities (they run together) as I had never seen them. Also, the pride of knowing that me, my brother, and my husband made the entire walk without having to stop.

So did all my officemates... including the one born in 1928. She did a lot better than I did. Of course, she does yoga and has perfect posture, and is a gorgeous clotheshorse, too, whereas I am a saftig couch potato.

So did the lady who did the walk in labor because she wanted it to go faster. When her contractions got to 4 minutes apart in the final half mile, she called an ambulance.

Sheesh. Talk about belittling a contribution. :)

We've been going to the gym, as you all know by now. It's a religion. It works like a religion; everyone you know there pumps your hand and grins in your face, celebrating your mutual suffering, just as they would if you were in church together. You meet with concerned disapproval if you miss it. You are doing something that everyone universally thinks is Good For You and it has a social dimension.

For some people, that social dimension is more social than for others. I'm talking about the people for whom the gym is an opportunity for flirting, for sweating together and showing off their flesh, for grunting and grimacing "involuntarily."

Any woman can tell you that the men in her life have a romantic notion of the ladies' locker room, in which girls are all over the place naked, applying lip gloss, and talking about boys. Any woman can also tell you that every time she's ever been in a locker room, it has not been like that. My gut feeling is that we shower at the gym less often than guys; when we do, we are businesslike, barely sociable, avoiding eye contact, rarely talking, covering up as soon as possible, protecting our modesty and the other women's privacy. Sort of a shame. Guys' image is so much more interesting.

Evidently, guys get this idea from the men's locker rooms. Pat and Robert complain about the "forest of weiners" and the "chatty naked guys" that clutter their path in the locker room. I can't help but imagine them (not the hubs and bro, the golden, long-limbed, oiled and godlike strangers of course) snapping each other with towels, sizing each other up, and thinking about making a date. Call me romantic. Anyway...

In every community, there's a few people who strut around flirting with one another and talking (conspicuously and loudly) a big game about their sexual identity. I can identify the men who do this almost immediately on sight; something they throw off in their cues is a red flag for me. No girls allowed.

Pat can't. The other day -- oh, I'll be honest, a couple weeks ago -- he was annoyed to find a bunch of men talking about their "girlfriends" (pronoun: "he") and their proclivities with some teenage members of their clique in the locker room. Naked. Wet. Fiddling with towels. Que romantique! The female brain (well, mine anyway) swoons. He hadn't noticed that they were strutting and preening for one another in the gym beforehand. He was shocked that I described their clique exactly when he had mentioned their conversation.

In the back of my head since that moment, there's been a gang... like the ones you find in roleplaying games and action films, e.g. immature pop culture built on romantic notions... called the Gym Dandies. And now it's in yours. This is my gift to you.

wolves are good for you

My co-worker sent me this one and I like it, despite its obvious manipulative fictionality:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Yup. Pretty much.

I cannot think about wolves without thinking about Kenny, a guy we used to play roleplaying games with in North Carolina. His character had pet wolves, with whom he was spiritually bonded or something. Kenny began acquiring wolf memorabilia: t-shirts, wall art, knick knacks, everything under the sun.

That game affected him profoundly. Something in the character and his pet wolf struck a chord with Kenny - a funny, quick-witted, shy, salt of the earth man who played games mostly to keep a friend company at first, and then became so obsessed with the game's plot that he would call me at 3:00 in the morning to ask questions.

Some might think of it as scary, but it was really an ego boost. That, and a delight. We had a connection in which we could discuss morality and nature, from the most trivial of hobbies and obsessions. From this and other similar games, I have developed the idea that playing such heuristic explorations of personal and ethical social orientation can be not only entertaining, but fundamentally, deeply human.

Kenny used to say, "wolves are good for you." It was his character's universal remark when people complained about his inclusion of his erstwhile pet/companions. It was his own remark when he was teased about his wolf memorabilia.

They were good for him. They totally revitalized his world view and his way of seeing his fellow man. They brought him out of his shell and gave him a "pack."

I haven't seen Kenny in years, but I remember him tenderly.

When you're next playing a game -- a roleplaying game, or "I spy," or any game you play -- step out of your own mind and into that of someone or something with which you can sympathize. What would you be like if you were a wolf? A scrub jay? A human of the other sex? A hero? An assassin? A clone?

When you are done playing, you'll still be yourself. Only bigger.

Wolves are good for you.

And I don't mean that in a furry way.

Shameless plug

On May 5th, Pat, Robert, and I will be walking for the March of Dimes WalkAmerica event. This is why we've been going to the gym (to get into shape for the event) and developed the only good-for-us hobby we're ever likely to have acquired. The hobby will outlast the event.

It's a good cause, even outside of the health benefits for ourselves. March of Dimes wants to prevent birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. It's a hard cause to hate even with my own resident skepticism about philanthropic organizations.

The March of Dimes more or less automatically built us donation pages. Donation can be in any amount, from big to little. Here are our little web pages, in case you want to sponsor us (which is by no means required):

Linda's Page
Pat's Page
Robert's Page

More about the gym and health in general later... hopefully today. :)

...when I'm 64?

We've discovered that, at 37 and almost-37, we are finally, certifiably old people.

On Sunday, we drove out to get a bite to eat in Santa Maria, the town where I grew up and where Pat went to school (he actually lived in smaller and even less glamorous Los Alamos, just to the south). We didn't find the restaurant we were looking for, so we went to an old-fashioned, small-scale burger joint (yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm mostly vegetarian.) On the way, we drove through new housing/PUD/condo tracts and marvelled at how dense housing has gotten.

"I hate to be this person, but all of this used to be strawberry fields," Pat commented.

I laughed. I'd been thinking the same thing.

We looked at our high school's sports field and reminisced. "Our bushes and hedges are still there," we told each other, and looked at each other with knowing eyes.

We bought burgers and sides. The sides were expensive: we found out why when they gave them to us. "They ought to warn you that these are so big," I scolded. "Nobody wants these many onion rings." And we drove to the park to watch the ducks while we ate.

There, we honked at kids who were more than usually cruelly chasing ducks. (It's molting season and the poor little bastards can't fly.) Pat wagged his finger; I shouted, "please quit it!" The kids put on their helmets and skated away on those shoes with skates in them, the ones they didn't have when we were kids.

"I see why your mom hates those," Pat said.

We went home and laid around, enjoying the coolth of the spring afternoon while we napped over the covers in our robin's egg blue bedroom, listening to birdsong. I felt guilty for not cleaning out the fridge, or at least doing some laundry. I heard, faintly, from outside, a cry of "ready... aim... fire!"

I nudged Pat. "Go see if there are any parents involved; that sounds like trouble."

He went out and looked for the trouble. Three kids were kicking down the retaining wall around K-Mart, across the duck pond, sending big stone blocks skidding down the hill. He looked closer with binoculars. Yup. Older kid showing off for younger ones. He went out on the porch.

"Hey," he yelled. The eldest kid -- teen -- flipped him off. The tweens giggled.

"Cut it out or I'm going to call the cops!" Pat yelled.

"Okay, sorry," the kid yelled. And they went away. And Pat called and yelled at K-Mart management.

You kids, get off my lawn. And leave those poor birds alone.

Tales from the Creep'd

Someone I know, whose family titles rhyme with "laddie" and "bother," is the V-- Creeper.

He is a retired ITT guy who used to work at V-- AFB, back when ITT had all the contracts on base. When any of the shops would order overage or have leftovers from a project, back in those days, they would squirrel away all the spare parts under a tarp somewhere in a "rathole": an unused building, the space above a ceiling tile, an unused, old desk, a corner.

Times change. Companies stop making parts crucial to repair elderly equipment. Bureaucracies get burdensome in ways that cause any project approval or revision take 30 months. If a project orders the wrong kind of wire or screws, it can take 30 months to approve the replacement... or so the Creeper says. It may be straight-faced hyperbole.

Most of the guys who know where the ratholes are are dead, now. Only the Creeper remains.

When the companies now occupying the base want something, they call him. He has a magnificent spatial memory and, like a squirrel, he knows not only where his own ratholes are, but those of other people. Dead men and women who laid their tools by for another time when they were needed have created a niche for someone like a Creeper. "But they don't MAKE that part anymore," people say to him. "Give me a couple hours," he replies. And he brings them what they need.

This has been his job since he retired. He is the V-- Creeper. When project coordinators, dutiful bureaucrats, and desk-jockeys see him, they ask pointedly, "Why are YOU here?" He says, "Somebody has a problem. I'll be gone in 15 minutes, and so will the problem."

But the times, they change again. He says that now they have followed him, searched, or accidentally found all his ratholes --and destroyed them, at long last. There's no purpose to it: the space they occupied isn't being used and they cost nothing. It will only cause problems for those items to be discarded, before --and after-- their time. Now, the only ratholes that remain belong to dead people long gone, and he doesn't have their inventories memorized.

This is a person with whom I have very little in common, except that weird knack for the spatial dimension of memory (which is why I am utterly useless if somebody tidies my desk or helps me with paperwork.) Well, that's not quite true. I guess we share many features of our sense of humor. He's the only other person in the world, except MAYBE my brother, who says "framistat" to indicate a generic object for which one doesn't remember the name, or suspects that the other conversant doesn't know it. I do think of the life stories of inanimate objects in much the same way as he does (his specialty is guns; mine is jewelry and paper, like memoirs or cookbooks.)

Yet we have profound and keenly felt differences. For instance, he believes that communion with the Divine happens in a church; I'm a nature girl myself. He believes life is a struggle, often bloody, in which the most powerful and prepared will win. He believes the End is nigh and that I should be a mommy. He calls all useless animals "varmints" and does his best to eradicate them one or several at a time; coincidentally, he calls all animals "varmints."

But once in a while, it's delightful to realize that everyone around you is a superhero, a spy, a bounty hunter, a McGuyver, a ninja, somebody's hero, somebody's beloved, somebody's nemesis, a vital force in the world who is to be reckoned with and remembered. They have a special nickname and a talent that nobody else in the world can replicate, and that will be missed, unless times change so quickly that it is a memory before they are.

Reexamine your most exasperating loved one. I promise you won't regret the process.