RICHARD FINN EULOGY(
My 93 yr old dad dided last week and I thought I'd share with you the eulogy I delivered at his funeral)
I’d like to begin my remarks today by playing fast and loose with the words of William Shakespeare; specifically in the form of paraphrasing Marc Antony’s oratorio at Caesar’s funeral;
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, and I come also to praise him.
“I come to speak at Caesar’s funeral; he was my friend, he was my father and he was just to me.
“My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me.
“What private grief you have, alas, I know not, and I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts, for I am no orator, but, as you know me all, a plain and blunt man that loved my friend and father well.
“For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, nor action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men’s blood; I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do already know.”
What we already know of Richard Finn, though what we may have forgotten in the last declining years of his life, is that he was our Caesar; a builder, a definer of an era, and a progenitor of a legacy that will live on long after we have interned his bones in their final resting place. I beg your forbearance, friends, as I attempt to describe the framework of one man’s life; the personality traits that defined his spirit; and finally, humbly, how this man influenced my own journey.
Richard was born in the year 1918, into a time so fraught with peril and tumult that we, awash in our 21st century affluence, can scarcely credit the dangers he encountered. In 1918 the first Great World War raged, and, of even more import to Richard, a terrible influenza pandemic swept the globe, killing approximately 25 million people worldwide. Uniquely, this killer disease did not attack the old and feeble, but rather the young and healthy, and so Richard was a prime candidate for early mortality; and in fact fell ill during his first year. His mother steamed water laced with eucalyptus oil and her baby recovered to survive the scourge, not the last time his fighting spirit would prevail.
Not infrequently as I have walked eucalyptus groves in our old Hillsdale neighborhood and crushed their fragrant leaves between my palms have I thought of my father as a baby fighting for his life. Such is the tenuous nature of all our lives; for many of us would not be here today if he had not survived.
Dick was born into a family of 12 siblings and I think this had a indelible impact on his lifelong capacity to get along with other people; for we learn the most from our siblings, don’t we? How to share, when to give in, how to make peace. But during the Great Depression of the 30’s it also meant there were many mouths to feed the Finn Family on Broderick Street in San Francisco. And this early inculcation of a work ethic –for everyone had to work, no matter how young, to put food into the common pot – this work ethic was one of the defining characteristics of the man.
We often hear talk now of THE GREATEST GENERATION. And Dick was a member in good standing of that elite group. He served his country as a non-commissioned officer with the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Second World War – the struggle against an evil fascism that defined the mid 20th century.
After the war Dick Finn hit a great streak of luck. He found his niche in the insurance business, met a stunningly beautiful woman, Marion Reis, who had a vivacious spirit to match his own boundless energy, and they married and began to raise a family in San Mateo.
My friends, some of you may have learned that no narrative is an unmitigated tale of triumph; and so it was that Dick suffered two cruel losses in mid-life. First he lost his best friend and older brother John Finn to a slow death from stomach cancer. John was a fire Captain in the SF fire department, and used to take his nephew Jeffrey riding in the fire truck -- the siren screaming -- and even let me slide down the pole in the fire station. Every boy’s dream. This same vibrant, loving, brother, was now wasting away before my father’s eyes. It hit my dad hard, and he was doubly impacted when near that same time the insurance business he had built with a ‘reputable’ partner failed and left him jobless and broke.
My dad went into a deep depression, but with a wife, three kids, a mortgage, and all the other encumbrances of life, Richard couldn’t quit, he had to soldier on, so to speak. And with the help of Marion, who simply would not let him fail, the support of his friends, and the kindly attentions of our family physician, Dr. Gullogily, my dad pulled through.
Eventually he found work as an independent insurance agent, working for Tom Fox. This is a man we in our family shouldn’t forget, for he hired our dad when he was down on his luck and gave him a start back up; and my dad made the most of it in eventually taking over this insurance agency and managing it until his own retirement.
I’d like to take a moment to sketch for you two of Richard’s greatest attributes. First, he was a wonderful friend to many people. I recall heading out for a job interview once as a young man, and my dad gave me a sage piece of advice which I have never forgotten. He said; “Jeff, just go in and make a friend.” And that is the way he lived his life. He had a wide network of friends. If you went out to lunch with him anywhere in San Mateo, your meal was constantly interrupted by a stream of his business and social acquaintances stopping by to swap jokes, stories and generally shoot the bull.
This was a man who was extremely well liked and no party was complete without his singing “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?” followed by “If You Knew Suzy.” He could sing and he could dance. He carried himself through this life with a twinkle in his eyes, a joke on his lips and a very Irish gift for gab.
Because Dick was among the last of this greatest generation to pass on, most of his friends could not be here today. But I would be remiss if I did not mention his special friends, the Kochs, the Whites, the Foxes, the O’Learys, the Hurleys, the Haycocks, and especially his great friends the McGlennons.
My father’s other great trait was that he was a builder. He, and many of the families I just mentioned, formed the basis for building St. Gregory’s parish. From there my dad moved on to be a prime player in the formation of the San Mateo Recreation and Parks Department. But most importantly, he was a builder of a family. Look around you at the sea of young faces and well-adjusted, gainfully employed young adults. Because I possess only limited math skills I am unable to tally up all the grandchildren and great grandchildren, but they range in age from 18 months to 39 years; with another addition due in 3 months.
None of them would be here today without our family’s dauntless Caesar, without our beloved Richard.
When I began my talk I placed this chess piece on the podium for a reason. My father started me playing chess as soon as I could sit still and refrain from putting the pieces in my mouth. And whenever we would begin a game he would fix me with a very serious look and say, “Jeffrey, there is no luck involved in this game. You have to use your head, you have to think and plan ahead.”
So I knew we were not playing just for fun. I knew this game meant something. And this is the important fact; he never let me win a game. I had to earn my first victory. And I did so at the age of 12 with this chess piece – the white knight – which I used to mate his king in the far corner of the board.
This is the lesson my father taught me – in order to win in life I had to use my mind. And, just as importantly, all my victories had to be earned.
I have a 19 month old daughter and when I come back from a long run through the Santa Rosa hills, soiled and sweat stained, she loves to tackle me and bury her head in my chest while wrestling me to the ground. And this brings back to me my earliest memories of my dad. We would wrestle on the living room floor of our home at 3005 Beverly St. and to this day I still have a tactile sense of my father; he smelled like sweat and cigars.
Is it any wonder that when I sit out on my deck doing a crossword puzzle while smoking a cigar I am engulfed in a cloud of momentary serenity? When I put on an old jersey redolent of exercise and cigars I smell just like my old man. And for a brief, shining moment I am just a little bit more comfortable in my skin.
As I’ve said, my dad had a twinkle in his eye and a biting wit, and I will leave you with a final story demonstrating his acerbic humor. As a child every Friday night I was given one 16 ounce bottle of Royal Crown Cola to drink while I watched my favorite 3 TV shows, GET SMART, THE WILD, WILD WEST, and SECRET AGENT MAN. High as a kite on caffeine, sugar, TV gunplay and buxom women, this was as close to heaven as I am ever likely to get.
When the final show was over my dad would stride into the den, turn off the TV, peel me down from where I was bouncing around on the walls, arch an eyebrow at me and say in a voiced laced with stoic resignation;
“Jeffrey, the next words I want to hear from you are, ‘Good Morning, Dad.’”
And so I was ushered off to bed.
And now I can say to our father, to our Caesar, as he enters his new realm, “Good Morning, Dad!”
HER GUARDIAN (a new oil painting by The Dirty Diaper Dad)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
N.I.C. REDUX
Hot under the collar and her bosom heaving my wife stormed into the kitchen after a long unappreciated day at work and dropped her overstuffed faux-Gucci purse on the butcher block island with a thud. The Terror of Muirfield Court squealed with delight and raced to greet her while the noble Akita similarly abased herself , tail wagging and head shaking as she sniffed every strange scent on Rochelle’s pant leg.
“Hi, honey,” I said from my designated place on the couch, where I had been doing some of my best thinking all afternoon long.
“All of my friends at work think I am married to a meth addict,” she informed me.
“Hmmm, that seems like a bit of an exaggeration.”
She played with the child and the dog for only a moment before returning to her object of rancor.
“Did you write in your blog that you got a DUI?” she asked me.
“Not to my recollection,” I said, quoting a long line of American political crooks.
“Did you write you were in the County Jail?”
From the look on her face the last two words of this sentence evidently left a feces-like odor in her mouth.
“You know,” I told her. “You’re still quite a sexy babe when you get your color up like this.” I’ve had a lifetime of dealing with bitterly disappointed and angry women and I have found that lavish flattery will often, but not always, accomplish what outright lying can only hope for.
She didn’t take the bait. “Did you get a tattoo that I don’t know about?”
“Only in an existential sense.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Glad of an opportunity to veer her off course, I expounded, “Aren’t we really, all of us, tattooed by life? Doesn’t life, with it’s unceasing series of cosmic beat-downs and casual cruelties, just tattoo the living daylights out of us?”
I can’t dance, and I can’t jump, and I can’t write, but I can sling the shit with the best of them.
Unfortunately she was not buying what I was selling.
“What did you write in your blog?”
“N.I.C.”
“What?”
“N.IC.,” I repeated in a particular voice I have that makes it seem as if I am having to explain basic subtraction to an especially dense 3rd grader.
My wife hates this voice.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If the first words out of Vivienne’s mouth are shit and fuck, you will only have to look into the nearest mirror to find out whose fault that is.” I love playing the guilt card.
“Back to your blog,” she told me.
“No Impulse Control,” I said and pointed to where The Terror had the poor dog pinned in the corner and was tearing out tufts of tail fur and screaming with delight. “I give you Exhibit One, Vivienne Finn. No Impulse Control.”
“What the hell does that have to do with your writing in your blog about drinking, drugs and DUI’s. All my friends think I am married to a crack addict.”
“Exhibit Two,” I said and turned my head to where The Princess of Pandemonium was now standing atop her Choo-Choo and clambering from than onto a rickety old wooden chair, from whence she was headed for the large cast iron wood burning stove where, having imperfect balance, she could topple and kill herself.
“Vivienne, get down from there right now!” my wife screeched in a harsh voice.
Vivienne, of course, ignored her.
The dog had settled somewhere between us, her dark gaze moving from one face to the other as we further danced our long tango of love in the 21st Century. Though she may not have known the words, the dog seemed to be getting the gist. She turned her regal head and somberly regarded the high flying child on her precarious perch with a look that said, “Please fall, Devil Child, and thus end this reign of terror”
Rochelle removed our daughter from the heights and placed her on the floor where Vivienne renewed her assault on the canine population with emphatic vigor. The dog shook her off and stood by the window looking longingly at the great outdoors.
“What does Vivienne’s lack of impulse control have to do with your writing about getting thrown in jail for a DUI?”
“Poetic License.”
“Are you trying to irritate me?”
“Oh, after ten years of marriage, I no longer have to try.”
“Ha, ha, now you’re being funny. 2 weeks ago you were Mr. Cranky Pants, and now you want to be funny.”
If I was being funny, she didn’t seem to find the humor in any of it.
“Look,” I said, the very soul or reasonableness. “Vivienne suffers from N.I.C. and so does her dad. I was just trying to make light of the situation, that’s all.”
“I think I liked you better when you were depressed.”
“No, Dr. Moses fixed me.”
“And when you weren’t blogging.”
“Hey, it was your idea to get me blogging, there’s no putting the genie back in that bottle, Sister.” She also loves it when I call her ‘Sister’. “Have you actually read the blog?”
“No,” she had to admit. “But I heard enough about it at work today. All the nurses read it. They think you’re fucking hysterical.”
“Every artist loves to be admired,” I admitted.
“I’m going to go read the blog,” she said and picked up Viv and headed to the computer room.
The dog came over by the couch and stood in the perfect position to have her butt rubbed.
Naturally I obliged her.
“You don’t mind if I blog about you, do you, Kebu?”
“I have a brain roughly the size of your fist. I can’t waste precious gray matter on extraneous concepts like blogs.”
“You fascinate me endlessly,” I told her.
“Likewise, I am sure.”
“What is it you do think about?”
“I spend most of my time dissecting and cataloguing smells,” she told me.
“I believe you.”
“This world is an amazing cornucopia of odors. I find it fully engaging. For instance I could smell the anger on The Woman when she came in. And I could smell the fear on you.”
“I’m not afraid of my wife.”
One of the things I am best at is lying to my dog.
“No, of course not,” she agreed.
I scratched her butt some more and we let the subject of fear ebb away like briny water from a tidal pool.
“I like to think about food,” she admitted.
“I’m with you there.”
“That recent batch of Biscotti you made is most delicious.”
“Perhaps you’d like a piece.”
“Or two.”
“I live to serve you. All this fussing and fighting with the missus has given me a raging hunger.”
I heaved myself off my blessed couch and lumbered towards the cookie jar. I had a few more minutes to live before the wife returned from reading my blog, and so I figured I might as well spend it doing something I was really good at; feeding Italian cookies to a dog.
Hot under the collar and her bosom heaving my wife stormed into the kitchen after a long unappreciated day at work and dropped her overstuffed faux-Gucci purse on the butcher block island with a thud. The Terror of Muirfield Court squealed with delight and raced to greet her while the noble Akita similarly abased herself , tail wagging and head shaking as she sniffed every strange scent on Rochelle’s pant leg.
“Hi, honey,” I said from my designated place on the couch, where I had been doing some of my best thinking all afternoon long.
“All of my friends at work think I am married to a meth addict,” she informed me.
“Hmmm, that seems like a bit of an exaggeration.”
She played with the child and the dog for only a moment before returning to her object of rancor.
“Did you write in your blog that you got a DUI?” she asked me.
“Not to my recollection,” I said, quoting a long line of American political crooks.
“Did you write you were in the County Jail?”
From the look on her face the last two words of this sentence evidently left a feces-like odor in her mouth.
“You know,” I told her. “You’re still quite a sexy babe when you get your color up like this.” I’ve had a lifetime of dealing with bitterly disappointed and angry women and I have found that lavish flattery will often, but not always, accomplish what outright lying can only hope for.
She didn’t take the bait. “Did you get a tattoo that I don’t know about?”
“Only in an existential sense.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Glad of an opportunity to veer her off course, I expounded, “Aren’t we really, all of us, tattooed by life? Doesn’t life, with it’s unceasing series of cosmic beat-downs and casual cruelties, just tattoo the living daylights out of us?”
I can’t dance, and I can’t jump, and I can’t write, but I can sling the shit with the best of them.
Unfortunately she was not buying what I was selling.
“What did you write in your blog?”
“N.I.C.”
“What?”
“N.IC.,” I repeated in a particular voice I have that makes it seem as if I am having to explain basic subtraction to an especially dense 3rd grader.
My wife hates this voice.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If the first words out of Vivienne’s mouth are shit and fuck, you will only have to look into the nearest mirror to find out whose fault that is.” I love playing the guilt card.
“Back to your blog,” she told me.
“No Impulse Control,” I said and pointed to where The Terror had the poor dog pinned in the corner and was tearing out tufts of tail fur and screaming with delight. “I give you Exhibit One, Vivienne Finn. No Impulse Control.”
“What the hell does that have to do with your writing in your blog about drinking, drugs and DUI’s. All my friends think I am married to a crack addict.”
“Exhibit Two,” I said and turned my head to where The Princess of Pandemonium was now standing atop her Choo-Choo and clambering from than onto a rickety old wooden chair, from whence she was headed for the large cast iron wood burning stove where, having imperfect balance, she could topple and kill herself.
“Vivienne, get down from there right now!” my wife screeched in a harsh voice.
Vivienne, of course, ignored her.
The dog had settled somewhere between us, her dark gaze moving from one face to the other as we further danced our long tango of love in the 21st Century. Though she may not have known the words, the dog seemed to be getting the gist. She turned her regal head and somberly regarded the high flying child on her precarious perch with a look that said, “Please fall, Devil Child, and thus end this reign of terror”
Rochelle removed our daughter from the heights and placed her on the floor where Vivienne renewed her assault on the canine population with emphatic vigor. The dog shook her off and stood by the window looking longingly at the great outdoors.
“What does Vivienne’s lack of impulse control have to do with your writing about getting thrown in jail for a DUI?”
“Poetic License.”
“Are you trying to irritate me?”
“Oh, after ten years of marriage, I no longer have to try.”
“Ha, ha, now you’re being funny. 2 weeks ago you were Mr. Cranky Pants, and now you want to be funny.”
If I was being funny, she didn’t seem to find the humor in any of it.
“Look,” I said, the very soul or reasonableness. “Vivienne suffers from N.I.C. and so does her dad. I was just trying to make light of the situation, that’s all.”
“I think I liked you better when you were depressed.”
“No, Dr. Moses fixed me.”
“And when you weren’t blogging.”
“Hey, it was your idea to get me blogging, there’s no putting the genie back in that bottle, Sister.” She also loves it when I call her ‘Sister’. “Have you actually read the blog?”
“No,” she had to admit. “But I heard enough about it at work today. All the nurses read it. They think you’re fucking hysterical.”
“Every artist loves to be admired,” I admitted.
“I’m going to go read the blog,” she said and picked up Viv and headed to the computer room.
The dog came over by the couch and stood in the perfect position to have her butt rubbed.
Naturally I obliged her.
“You don’t mind if I blog about you, do you, Kebu?”
“I have a brain roughly the size of your fist. I can’t waste precious gray matter on extraneous concepts like blogs.”
“You fascinate me endlessly,” I told her.
“Likewise, I am sure.”
“What is it you do think about?”
“I spend most of my time dissecting and cataloguing smells,” she told me.
“I believe you.”
“This world is an amazing cornucopia of odors. I find it fully engaging. For instance I could smell the anger on The Woman when she came in. And I could smell the fear on you.”
“I’m not afraid of my wife.”
One of the things I am best at is lying to my dog.
“No, of course not,” she agreed.
I scratched her butt some more and we let the subject of fear ebb away like briny water from a tidal pool.
“I like to think about food,” she admitted.
“I’m with you there.”
“That recent batch of Biscotti you made is most delicious.”
“Perhaps you’d like a piece.”
“Or two.”
“I live to serve you. All this fussing and fighting with the missus has given me a raging hunger.”
I heaved myself off my blessed couch and lumbered towards the cookie jar. I had a few more minutes to live before the wife returned from reading my blog, and so I figured I might as well spend it doing something I was really good at; feeding Italian cookies to a dog.
Monday, March 28, 2011
NO IMPULSE CONTROL
When my daughter became fully ambulatory at the age of 14 months or so, her purpose in life morphed from putting every small object she could lay hands on into her greedy little mouth, into hovering near wherever I was and darting her fat little hands onto whatever I might be holding.
You would think this would be cute. But you would be oh so wrong.
It lost it’s cuteness quotient pretty quickly I can tell you.
If I was doing a crossword puzzle, she would grab the puzzle, then the pen. If I was enjoying a cup of tea, she would grab the cup, then the tea spoon, then the tea bag. It made the most mundane tasks seem like such an endeavor that it really began to get my dawber down.
She evidenced a special fascination with my glasses, and my glass case. If I held her she would poke her fingers first in my mouth, then in my moustache, then in my nose, slowly working towards her real objective; my glasses. Then quick as a snake she would grab the frames of my eyeglasses, twist cruelly and yank them off my head, making certain that her oily, grubby fingers were sure to smear the spectacles.
And there was no safe place for my glass case. If I left it on the kitchen counter, she would boost herself up and yank it down. I finally resorted to placing it in the middle of the dining room table, only to find her sitting atop the table some time later. She had moved her choo-choo train over near a dining chair, climbed up the choo-choo and thence to the chair, and thence to the tabletop. Where she had then clambered out and seized her big prize; Dad’s eyeglass case.
What made this all the more depressing was that she had just learned how to blow her nose (and don’t you know a toddler get’s a lot of practice blowing her nose because, you guessed it, she is a total sneezing, coughing, germ-producing pathogen who has invaded our living space with the sole purpose of being ground zero for the next great influenza epidemic). And inside my glass case I keep a nice clean, soft chamois, specifically designed for cleaning my nice, new eyeglasses. And because she has just learned to blow her nose and she has a runny nose all the time, she delights in opening my glass case, yanking out the chamois, thrusting her beak in it and honking like the beejeezus.
Then she looks up at me as I frantically remove her from heights of the table and says, “Goo grirl.”
This is her baby-speak for “Good girl”, which is what we say whenever she blows her nose in a more appropriate item, such as a Kleenex or hankie.
What are you gonna say, “Bad girl”? I mean she has just done what you have been training her to do, which is blow her snot filled nose. It just happens to be in my nice clean chamois. And so every time I clean my glasses now I get a glue-like residue of baby snot smeared across my glasses and I think to myself: “What the fuck did I do to deserve this?”
Let me assure you that a middle aged man crying is not a sight for the weak of heart.
It was not long after the chamois smearing incident that I was sitting on the sofa with the Sunday crossword and a cup of tea (while wishing for something stronger, say, hemlock) and Vivienne The Terror approached. She hovered near me, eyeing the tea cup. He hand began to edge towards it.
“Don’t do it,” I told her.
He hand hesitated a moment, her eyes locked on mine, and then the hand, inevitably, began to slither forward once more.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned her.
She paused for only a moment and then the hand shot out, as quick as a cobra skewering a rat, and she latched hold of the tea mug. Of course it spilled all over the coffee table as I became unhinged and slapped her wrist in a vain effort to unlock her grip.
“That’s not being a good girl,” I told my beautiful, willful, persistent daughter, vainly seeking to make some sort of intellectual connection. “That’s being a Bad Girl.”
It dimly occurred to me that in some previous lifetime I had liked, no, even adored, Bad Girls, in all their incipient glory. But this was not what I meant when I talked to my dark-eyed daughter.
At which point my better half Rochelle joined the conversation from where she had been listening to this mockery from the kitchen.
“Her brain is not fully formed,” my wife instructed me.
“Go back to your place in the kitchen,” I told her. “I’ve got this totally under control.”
“That would explain the tea all over the carpet and your calling our daughter a ‘Bad Girl’, I suppose.” She was mopping up the spilled tea as she said this, and gently re-directing our daughter away from her elderly father.
I often ignore my wife and this was just another occasion where I did so as I addressed my daughter; “Vivienne, when Dada says No, he means No.”
My wife was still speaking to me and though I was trying to drone her out I heard something like; “She can’t understand you. Her brain is not fully formed. She has no impulse control.”
This last phrase caught my notice and, unwittingly, I turned my attention to The Wife. “Say that again,” I commanded because it makes me feel good to tell my wife to repeat things.
“She has no impulse control. Her brain is not fully formed. She’s only eighteen months old."
Rochelle can get away with saying stuff like this because she is Physical Therapist and know everything.
“NIC,” I said.
“What?”
“No Impulse Control.”
A fortnight later I was sitting in the group holding cell in the Sonoma County Jail after a 62 hour bender. Things had ended badly with a lot of broken glass and twisted metal. There was a dull throbbing behind my eyes, and the inside of my mouth felt like I had rinsed it out with battery acid. Someone, I’m not naming any names here, had vomited on my crotch and not bothered to clean it up. Somewhere along the line I had lost my right sock and shoe. But on the plus side I had acquired a bitchen-looking Maori tattoo that ran the length of my left forearm. It burned like hell.
The man sitting across from me had lost his teeth to a lifetime of meth addiction. I could smell him from six feet away and it wasn't a good smell. His hair stuck out at crazy angles and his left eye wandered lazily from pillar to post. He was holding an animated conversation with a point just above my head. The gist of the conversation seemed to be; he had not meant to stab that bitch, he would never stab that bitch, he, in fact, really loved that bitch.
For not the first time in my life I was glad I was not that bitch.
Seeming to acquire a new focus his eyes settled on mine. “What’s your excuse?” he demanded.
“My brain is not fully formed,” I told him.
“Huh! I’ve heard that one before.” He snuffled indignantly.
“No, it’s true. I suffer from NIC.”
“Enayewhat?”
“No Impulse Control.”
“Oh, the judge’ll like the sound of that.”
I was hoping he was right, he sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
When my daughter became fully ambulatory at the age of 14 months or so, her purpose in life morphed from putting every small object she could lay hands on into her greedy little mouth, into hovering near wherever I was and darting her fat little hands onto whatever I might be holding.
You would think this would be cute. But you would be oh so wrong.
It lost it’s cuteness quotient pretty quickly I can tell you.
If I was doing a crossword puzzle, she would grab the puzzle, then the pen. If I was enjoying a cup of tea, she would grab the cup, then the tea spoon, then the tea bag. It made the most mundane tasks seem like such an endeavor that it really began to get my dawber down.
She evidenced a special fascination with my glasses, and my glass case. If I held her she would poke her fingers first in my mouth, then in my moustache, then in my nose, slowly working towards her real objective; my glasses. Then quick as a snake she would grab the frames of my eyeglasses, twist cruelly and yank them off my head, making certain that her oily, grubby fingers were sure to smear the spectacles.
And there was no safe place for my glass case. If I left it on the kitchen counter, she would boost herself up and yank it down. I finally resorted to placing it in the middle of the dining room table, only to find her sitting atop the table some time later. She had moved her choo-choo train over near a dining chair, climbed up the choo-choo and thence to the chair, and thence to the tabletop. Where she had then clambered out and seized her big prize; Dad’s eyeglass case.
What made this all the more depressing was that she had just learned how to blow her nose (and don’t you know a toddler get’s a lot of practice blowing her nose because, you guessed it, she is a total sneezing, coughing, germ-producing pathogen who has invaded our living space with the sole purpose of being ground zero for the next great influenza epidemic). And inside my glass case I keep a nice clean, soft chamois, specifically designed for cleaning my nice, new eyeglasses. And because she has just learned to blow her nose and she has a runny nose all the time, she delights in opening my glass case, yanking out the chamois, thrusting her beak in it and honking like the beejeezus.
Then she looks up at me as I frantically remove her from heights of the table and says, “Goo grirl.”
This is her baby-speak for “Good girl”, which is what we say whenever she blows her nose in a more appropriate item, such as a Kleenex or hankie.
What are you gonna say, “Bad girl”? I mean she has just done what you have been training her to do, which is blow her snot filled nose. It just happens to be in my nice clean chamois. And so every time I clean my glasses now I get a glue-like residue of baby snot smeared across my glasses and I think to myself: “What the fuck did I do to deserve this?”
Let me assure you that a middle aged man crying is not a sight for the weak of heart.
It was not long after the chamois smearing incident that I was sitting on the sofa with the Sunday crossword and a cup of tea (while wishing for something stronger, say, hemlock) and Vivienne The Terror approached. She hovered near me, eyeing the tea cup. He hand began to edge towards it.
“Don’t do it,” I told her.
He hand hesitated a moment, her eyes locked on mine, and then the hand, inevitably, began to slither forward once more.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned her.
She paused for only a moment and then the hand shot out, as quick as a cobra skewering a rat, and she latched hold of the tea mug. Of course it spilled all over the coffee table as I became unhinged and slapped her wrist in a vain effort to unlock her grip.
“That’s not being a good girl,” I told my beautiful, willful, persistent daughter, vainly seeking to make some sort of intellectual connection. “That’s being a Bad Girl.”
It dimly occurred to me that in some previous lifetime I had liked, no, even adored, Bad Girls, in all their incipient glory. But this was not what I meant when I talked to my dark-eyed daughter.
At which point my better half Rochelle joined the conversation from where she had been listening to this mockery from the kitchen.
“Her brain is not fully formed,” my wife instructed me.
“Go back to your place in the kitchen,” I told her. “I’ve got this totally under control.”
“That would explain the tea all over the carpet and your calling our daughter a ‘Bad Girl’, I suppose.” She was mopping up the spilled tea as she said this, and gently re-directing our daughter away from her elderly father.
I often ignore my wife and this was just another occasion where I did so as I addressed my daughter; “Vivienne, when Dada says No, he means No.”
My wife was still speaking to me and though I was trying to drone her out I heard something like; “She can’t understand you. Her brain is not fully formed. She has no impulse control.”
This last phrase caught my notice and, unwittingly, I turned my attention to The Wife. “Say that again,” I commanded because it makes me feel good to tell my wife to repeat things.
“She has no impulse control. Her brain is not fully formed. She’s only eighteen months old."
Rochelle can get away with saying stuff like this because she is Physical Therapist and know everything.
“NIC,” I said.
“What?”
“No Impulse Control.”
A fortnight later I was sitting in the group holding cell in the Sonoma County Jail after a 62 hour bender. Things had ended badly with a lot of broken glass and twisted metal. There was a dull throbbing behind my eyes, and the inside of my mouth felt like I had rinsed it out with battery acid. Someone, I’m not naming any names here, had vomited on my crotch and not bothered to clean it up. Somewhere along the line I had lost my right sock and shoe. But on the plus side I had acquired a bitchen-looking Maori tattoo that ran the length of my left forearm. It burned like hell.
The man sitting across from me had lost his teeth to a lifetime of meth addiction. I could smell him from six feet away and it wasn't a good smell. His hair stuck out at crazy angles and his left eye wandered lazily from pillar to post. He was holding an animated conversation with a point just above my head. The gist of the conversation seemed to be; he had not meant to stab that bitch, he would never stab that bitch, he, in fact, really loved that bitch.
For not the first time in my life I was glad I was not that bitch.
Seeming to acquire a new focus his eyes settled on mine. “What’s your excuse?” he demanded.
“My brain is not fully formed,” I told him.
“Huh! I’ve heard that one before.” He snuffled indignantly.
“No, it’s true. I suffer from NIC.”
“Enayewhat?”
“No Impulse Control.”
“Oh, the judge’ll like the sound of that.”
I was hoping he was right, he sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
COD-LIVER OIL FOR THE SOUL
(When the Dirty Diaper Dad last left you he was in the able hands of Dr. Moses, the Naturopath, seeking respite from his broken brain. I take up where I left off.)
I learned from Dr. Moses that naturopathic medicine differed from allopathic medicine (that is, western medicine) in one fundamental way. Whereas western medicine treated the symptoms of a sickness, usually by prescribing drugs for it, naturopathic remedies sought to address the core, underlying, cause of the sickness. And to do this it was necessary, obviously, to find out what the real problem was. He told me the medication I was taking for anxiety/depression only treated the symptoms, and that, in fact, one of the meds was actually harmful to my liver. Something my doctor had never mentioned.
When was the last time you spent 90 minutes with a physician? In my experience the doctor rushes into the examining room, spends as little time with me as possible, finds out what is wrong with me, prescribes some medication and then rushes out to see his next patient because, invariably, he is running behind schedule. I’ve never spent 90 minutes with a physician. That is, until my session with Dr. Moses. Over the course of an hour and a half we went through a detailed medical/mental history. He was very thorough. He asked me about my goals for my body and my mind. Once he had a good picture of who I am and how I got to where I’m at, he gave me a detailed overview of how my system worked, explaining that it was his goal to get my system in balance.
He told me that there were 5 or 6 key markers he could test for and then determine exactly why I was undergoing the symptoms that I was experiencing. And even though my current medication was pretty heavy stuff he encouraged me to not quit cold turkey, but rather to gradually wean myself off them while at the same time brining on line natural supplements and vitamins that would treat my underlying condition.
It all made a lot of sense to me. I asked him had he treated men with similar problems and he answered that he absolutely had, though no two cases were identical.
I left his office with vie vitamins and supplements and, just as importantly, a sheet of paper detailing my plan to get better. For someone like me, having the plan in hand was almost as important as anything else. I could look at this plan when I got wiggy and remind myself, “Oh yeah, I do have a plan to get better, and I have a doctor to work this plan with me.”
That’s important for a neurotic, self-absorbed guy like me. Even though I don’t act like it, I don’t like to be alone. I want help, even though I usually won’t ask for it. And after my meeting with the good doc, I felt I had help and I had a plan to get better.
Funnily enough, one of the supplements I went home with was Cod Liver Oil. Now, when I was a lad my mother made us swallow a tablespoon of this hideous elixir most mornings during the winter. It tasted so bad you would have to gulp down a glass of orange juice right afterward. And then as I sat at my desk in St. Gregory’s Elementary School in my scratchy corduroy pants I would keep burping up the awful taste of the Cold Liver Oil all morning. But here’s the great thing; now Cold Liver Oil is made with different flavors – I chose Orange naturally – and it hardly has any taste at all.
This is what I call real progress.
Just when you think there is no hope for mankind, what with tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns, global warming and the decline of America, then you discover that some smart chemist has been working behind the scenes to make Cod Liver Oil you can actually swallow.
Is life great or what?
(When the Dirty Diaper Dad last left you he was in the able hands of Dr. Moses, the Naturopath, seeking respite from his broken brain. I take up where I left off.)
I learned from Dr. Moses that naturopathic medicine differed from allopathic medicine (that is, western medicine) in one fundamental way. Whereas western medicine treated the symptoms of a sickness, usually by prescribing drugs for it, naturopathic remedies sought to address the core, underlying, cause of the sickness. And to do this it was necessary, obviously, to find out what the real problem was. He told me the medication I was taking for anxiety/depression only treated the symptoms, and that, in fact, one of the meds was actually harmful to my liver. Something my doctor had never mentioned.
When was the last time you spent 90 minutes with a physician? In my experience the doctor rushes into the examining room, spends as little time with me as possible, finds out what is wrong with me, prescribes some medication and then rushes out to see his next patient because, invariably, he is running behind schedule. I’ve never spent 90 minutes with a physician. That is, until my session with Dr. Moses. Over the course of an hour and a half we went through a detailed medical/mental history. He was very thorough. He asked me about my goals for my body and my mind. Once he had a good picture of who I am and how I got to where I’m at, he gave me a detailed overview of how my system worked, explaining that it was his goal to get my system in balance.
He told me that there were 5 or 6 key markers he could test for and then determine exactly why I was undergoing the symptoms that I was experiencing. And even though my current medication was pretty heavy stuff he encouraged me to not quit cold turkey, but rather to gradually wean myself off them while at the same time brining on line natural supplements and vitamins that would treat my underlying condition.
It all made a lot of sense to me. I asked him had he treated men with similar problems and he answered that he absolutely had, though no two cases were identical.
I left his office with vie vitamins and supplements and, just as importantly, a sheet of paper detailing my plan to get better. For someone like me, having the plan in hand was almost as important as anything else. I could look at this plan when I got wiggy and remind myself, “Oh yeah, I do have a plan to get better, and I have a doctor to work this plan with me.”
That’s important for a neurotic, self-absorbed guy like me. Even though I don’t act like it, I don’t like to be alone. I want help, even though I usually won’t ask for it. And after my meeting with the good doc, I felt I had help and I had a plan to get better.
Funnily enough, one of the supplements I went home with was Cod Liver Oil. Now, when I was a lad my mother made us swallow a tablespoon of this hideous elixir most mornings during the winter. It tasted so bad you would have to gulp down a glass of orange juice right afterward. And then as I sat at my desk in St. Gregory’s Elementary School in my scratchy corduroy pants I would keep burping up the awful taste of the Cold Liver Oil all morning. But here’s the great thing; now Cold Liver Oil is made with different flavors – I chose Orange naturally – and it hardly has any taste at all.
This is what I call real progress.
Just when you think there is no hope for mankind, what with tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns, global warming and the decline of America, then you discover that some smart chemist has been working behind the scenes to make Cod Liver Oil you can actually swallow.
Is life great or what?
Friday, March 18, 2011
MR. CRANKY PANTS RIDES AGAIN
Friends have mentioned to me that I have not posted to my blog for some time. I could say that I haven’t been inspired or that I have nothing to say. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is that I lost the use of my mind last month and only recently regained it. A massive depression settled upon me in February and it has made writing, and much else in my life, seem superfluous.
Those of you who know me well, or have read this blog faithfully, are probably commenting, “Gee, Dirty Diaper Dad, we are not under the impression that you are a hotbed of good mental health. On your best of days you are a work in progress. And, honestly, you don’t have too many ‘best days’ as far as we can tell.”
And I, ignoring your biting sarcasm (which, I should tell you, seems a little beneath you) would agree with you. But this latest mental meltdown was unlike my usual stuff. I’ve battled the Black Dog – to use Churchill’s moniker – since my teens. I’ve done talk therapy, chemical therapy, and when nothing else has proven effective, I’ve called upon a large and diverse collection of self medications. I’ve done physical exercise like a demon since my mid twenties solely to achieve the dopamine effect it produces. Hey, I’m nothing if not resourceful.
Still, from mid-February on I was in the grip of a gloom I couldn’t shake. I was moping about the house like a broken-hearted teenage girl. I was saddened for no discernable reason, I was angry at the world, and even though I was working out an hour a day in the vain search for the dopamine high, I was putting on weight at an alarming rate.
And, just to make the effect completely horrific, the inside of my head felt as if some wire had shook loose and was sparking against the inner wall of my skull.
Needless to say I was a real pleasure to live with during this period. I ignored my wife. I barked at Vivienne when she did the things a normal toddler does – steal the dog’s food, bath in the dog’s water bowl, hurl herself at sharp objects, clamber up bookcases. I even rudely bumped the noble Akita out of my way when all she did was follow me around in the eternal hope that I would give her a piece of biscotti.
My wife is a physical therapist who is currently attending Sonoma State to attain certification as a health care navigator. As part of this study she is exposed to a large swath of alternative healing methods. And thus, she sat me down one day and said, “Bubba, you need to see somebody about this depression.”
“Nobody can help me,” I told her. Mr. Positive Thinking I am not.
“You need to see your therapist,” she said.
“What’s he gonna do?” I am noted far and wide for my imitation of a whining, petulant child.
“He’s helped you in the past.”
“That was then, this is now. And nobody can help me now. I am well and truly screwed forever.”
I know this sounds pathetic and it seems sad that an adult could really think this way, but it was a true reflection of my inner torment.
“You need to see your therapist,” she reaffirmed and I grunted acquiescence. “And then you need to see someone else as well, because this latest bout of depression is different from your usual gloom.”
“I’m screwed forever.” After a lifetime in search of a personal outlook I had finally stumbled upon my mantra, and this was it. “I’ll go see David (my therapist) but no one else.”
Ignoring me she said, “I think you should see the Naturopath, Doctor Moses.”
A relative of ours had suffered from a mysterious stomach disorder for years. Allopathic Medicine – that is, Western Medicine – did nothing but throw greater quantities of pharmacology at the problem, and she didn’t get any better. After hearing Dr. Moses lecture to her class at SSU, Rochelle had brought her to see him. In short order he had identified the causes of her discomfort and prescribed natural supplements and cures. Wonder of wonders, after years of suffering and western medicine run-around, she was cured in short order.
“Dr. Moses can’t help me,” I told my wife. And why did she insist of interfering in my life? Couldn’t she see I was doing just swimmingly on my own? Geehsh, some people are such busybodies.
“Well, Mr. Cranky Pants, that’s what we’ll find out,” she said. “Because you’ve got an appointment with him next Friday at ten in the morning.”
“I don’t want to go to a naturopath.” I didn’t even know what it was, but I wasn’t buying any of it; new things frighten me. But I couldn’t tell my wife this because I am also afraid of showing others how I really feel. I’m super well-adjusted you can tell.
“And I don’t want to live with a depressed, angry retired guy. But, ha ha, the jokes on me! Because that’s what I’ve got.”
“Sarcasm does not enhance your natural beauty.” She seemed angry and I thought this might calm her down.
“And yet, sarcasm is all I’ve got to get through this interminable winter living with you, The Mopester. So you can either try seeing Dr. Moses or you can try living alone, without me and Vivienne.”
See, I told you she was angry.
On Tuesday I saw my therapist and he sided with my wife, the dirty bastard, telling me he was delighted that I would be visiting the naturopath later in the week, as it sounded as if my present mental condition was likely due to some chemical imbalance in my system. I began to suspect that the world was aligned against me in a sinister cabal. And as Friday and my appointment with Dr. Moses (and what kind of name was that anyway? Did he look like Charlton Heston and have a great wavy beard and carry around stone tablets upon which he prescribed herbal supplements? Could he part a path through the quagmire of my depression as he did the Red Sea?) approached I perseverated on the supposedly inflated cost of his services – because, wouldn’t you know it, our health care system doesn’t pay for anything but allopathic healing – and Mr. Saved The First Nickel He Ever Earned began to complain to me about the waste of money this visit would be. And I probably wouldn’t get a damn thing out of it anyway and I had better things to do, and so I picked up the phone to call Dr. Moses and cancel this stupid appointment that my wife had pushed me into.
And it was at this precise moment that my moral compass glided silently into the kitchen on soft paws, yawned cavernously, showing her sharp canines and bone-cracking rear molars, licked her lips, sniffed the air for freshly baked biscotti and asked, “What are you doing, Pack Leader?”
“Nothing,” I said and guiltily put down the phone.
“You wouldn’t be cancelling that appointment with that nice Jewish Doctor would you?”
“What do you know about that?”
“Just because I don’t talk a lot, doesn’t mean I don’t hear everything that’s said.”
I walked to the other side of the kitchen and leaned up against the counter next to the cookie jar. “I wasn’t cancelling the appointment.”
What do you call a man who lies to his dog?
Pathetic, that’s what.
“I am in the grips of the worst depression I’ve ever faced,” I told the dog. “I’m already on two types of medication, both of which seem to have passed the point of efficacy, and I am scared that this new doctor won’t be able to help me either. And then I will be fresh out of solutions and staring at living the rest of my life with my brain permanently scrambled.”
“It is at moments like these,” Kebu said, “that I am glad I am a dog.”
“You don’t get depressed, ever?”
“It is not in my nature. I try to live in the moment.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yes, lucky me, indeed. Long runs with you in the freezing rain as you, unsuccessfully it seems,try to excise your many demons, the child yanking my tail, and those wild turkeys parading through our yard like they own it.”
“My wife is fed up with me.”
“You’ve been a wretch.”
“She’s threatening to leave me if I don’t get straightened out.”
“As much as I owe all my allegiance to you as Pack Leader, I will be accompanying The Woman if she departs.”
“Not you too?” Did it get any worse than this; even my dog was leaving me.
“Yes, me too. Though you are undisputed leader of this pack, I just adore The Woman. I would even tolerate The Child to be with The Woman.”
“But I make your biscotti.”
“You humans play dirty, don’t you? Still, I’d rather live biscotti-less than be without The Woman.”
“So I guess I will be seeing Dr. Moses after all.”
“Only if you want to maintain your position in the pack. You’re no good as leader the way you are.” Her gaze shifted to the cookie jar beside me. “All this talking and thinking in cogent patterns has tuckered out my tiny canine brain, might we refresh ourselves with a piece of your world-class biscotti?”
And so it was that on Friday I found myself in the naturopath’s office at the appointed hour. My brain hurt. I was anxious and dry-mouthed. I was trying to keep an open mind. I was trying not to be pessimistic and judgmental.
I wasn’t having a lot of success at anything lately.
Dr. Moses walked up and introduced himself. I followed him back to his office. The lighting in the office was soft and inviting. His children’s finger paintings adorned the walls. I sat in a really comfortable chair. I looked at the doctor. He didn’t look anything like Charlton Heston; he was 20 years my junior, trim and professional looking, with beautiful prematurely gray hair that swept back from his forehead. His eyeglasses were the most stylish I’d ever seen; they made me instantly envious.
In short, he looked like a guy who totally had his shit in one sock. I began to relax. Moses looked like a guy who totally knew what he was doing. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe this guy could help me. For the first time in ages the nasty metal band that encircled my brain began to relax. I took a deep breath and settled deeper into the comfortable chair.
Maybe I was going to be alright after all. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but maybe their was actually some hope in my life.
He asked me what I knew about naturopathy. I had to admit that I didn’t know one damn thing.
He smiled and said, “Jeff, let me tell you how I work.”
And so began my adventure with the good doctor Moses. And I’ll tell you more about it the next time I write in this bog – which I promise will be sooner rather than later, now that I have regained the use of my mind.
Friends have mentioned to me that I have not posted to my blog for some time. I could say that I haven’t been inspired or that I have nothing to say. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is that I lost the use of my mind last month and only recently regained it. A massive depression settled upon me in February and it has made writing, and much else in my life, seem superfluous.
Those of you who know me well, or have read this blog faithfully, are probably commenting, “Gee, Dirty Diaper Dad, we are not under the impression that you are a hotbed of good mental health. On your best of days you are a work in progress. And, honestly, you don’t have too many ‘best days’ as far as we can tell.”
And I, ignoring your biting sarcasm (which, I should tell you, seems a little beneath you) would agree with you. But this latest mental meltdown was unlike my usual stuff. I’ve battled the Black Dog – to use Churchill’s moniker – since my teens. I’ve done talk therapy, chemical therapy, and when nothing else has proven effective, I’ve called upon a large and diverse collection of self medications. I’ve done physical exercise like a demon since my mid twenties solely to achieve the dopamine effect it produces. Hey, I’m nothing if not resourceful.
Still, from mid-February on I was in the grip of a gloom I couldn’t shake. I was moping about the house like a broken-hearted teenage girl. I was saddened for no discernable reason, I was angry at the world, and even though I was working out an hour a day in the vain search for the dopamine high, I was putting on weight at an alarming rate.
And, just to make the effect completely horrific, the inside of my head felt as if some wire had shook loose and was sparking against the inner wall of my skull.
Needless to say I was a real pleasure to live with during this period. I ignored my wife. I barked at Vivienne when she did the things a normal toddler does – steal the dog’s food, bath in the dog’s water bowl, hurl herself at sharp objects, clamber up bookcases. I even rudely bumped the noble Akita out of my way when all she did was follow me around in the eternal hope that I would give her a piece of biscotti.
My wife is a physical therapist who is currently attending Sonoma State to attain certification as a health care navigator. As part of this study she is exposed to a large swath of alternative healing methods. And thus, she sat me down one day and said, “Bubba, you need to see somebody about this depression.”
“Nobody can help me,” I told her. Mr. Positive Thinking I am not.
“You need to see your therapist,” she said.
“What’s he gonna do?” I am noted far and wide for my imitation of a whining, petulant child.
“He’s helped you in the past.”
“That was then, this is now. And nobody can help me now. I am well and truly screwed forever.”
I know this sounds pathetic and it seems sad that an adult could really think this way, but it was a true reflection of my inner torment.
“You need to see your therapist,” she reaffirmed and I grunted acquiescence. “And then you need to see someone else as well, because this latest bout of depression is different from your usual gloom.”
“I’m screwed forever.” After a lifetime in search of a personal outlook I had finally stumbled upon my mantra, and this was it. “I’ll go see David (my therapist) but no one else.”
Ignoring me she said, “I think you should see the Naturopath, Doctor Moses.”
A relative of ours had suffered from a mysterious stomach disorder for years. Allopathic Medicine – that is, Western Medicine – did nothing but throw greater quantities of pharmacology at the problem, and she didn’t get any better. After hearing Dr. Moses lecture to her class at SSU, Rochelle had brought her to see him. In short order he had identified the causes of her discomfort and prescribed natural supplements and cures. Wonder of wonders, after years of suffering and western medicine run-around, she was cured in short order.
“Dr. Moses can’t help me,” I told my wife. And why did she insist of interfering in my life? Couldn’t she see I was doing just swimmingly on my own? Geehsh, some people are such busybodies.
“Well, Mr. Cranky Pants, that’s what we’ll find out,” she said. “Because you’ve got an appointment with him next Friday at ten in the morning.”
“I don’t want to go to a naturopath.” I didn’t even know what it was, but I wasn’t buying any of it; new things frighten me. But I couldn’t tell my wife this because I am also afraid of showing others how I really feel. I’m super well-adjusted you can tell.
“And I don’t want to live with a depressed, angry retired guy. But, ha ha, the jokes on me! Because that’s what I’ve got.”
“Sarcasm does not enhance your natural beauty.” She seemed angry and I thought this might calm her down.
“And yet, sarcasm is all I’ve got to get through this interminable winter living with you, The Mopester. So you can either try seeing Dr. Moses or you can try living alone, without me and Vivienne.”
See, I told you she was angry.
On Tuesday I saw my therapist and he sided with my wife, the dirty bastard, telling me he was delighted that I would be visiting the naturopath later in the week, as it sounded as if my present mental condition was likely due to some chemical imbalance in my system. I began to suspect that the world was aligned against me in a sinister cabal. And as Friday and my appointment with Dr. Moses (and what kind of name was that anyway? Did he look like Charlton Heston and have a great wavy beard and carry around stone tablets upon which he prescribed herbal supplements? Could he part a path through the quagmire of my depression as he did the Red Sea?) approached I perseverated on the supposedly inflated cost of his services – because, wouldn’t you know it, our health care system doesn’t pay for anything but allopathic healing – and Mr. Saved The First Nickel He Ever Earned began to complain to me about the waste of money this visit would be. And I probably wouldn’t get a damn thing out of it anyway and I had better things to do, and so I picked up the phone to call Dr. Moses and cancel this stupid appointment that my wife had pushed me into.
And it was at this precise moment that my moral compass glided silently into the kitchen on soft paws, yawned cavernously, showing her sharp canines and bone-cracking rear molars, licked her lips, sniffed the air for freshly baked biscotti and asked, “What are you doing, Pack Leader?”
“Nothing,” I said and guiltily put down the phone.
“You wouldn’t be cancelling that appointment with that nice Jewish Doctor would you?”
“What do you know about that?”
“Just because I don’t talk a lot, doesn’t mean I don’t hear everything that’s said.”
I walked to the other side of the kitchen and leaned up against the counter next to the cookie jar. “I wasn’t cancelling the appointment.”
What do you call a man who lies to his dog?
Pathetic, that’s what.
“I am in the grips of the worst depression I’ve ever faced,” I told the dog. “I’m already on two types of medication, both of which seem to have passed the point of efficacy, and I am scared that this new doctor won’t be able to help me either. And then I will be fresh out of solutions and staring at living the rest of my life with my brain permanently scrambled.”
“It is at moments like these,” Kebu said, “that I am glad I am a dog.”
“You don’t get depressed, ever?”
“It is not in my nature. I try to live in the moment.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yes, lucky me, indeed. Long runs with you in the freezing rain as you, unsuccessfully it seems,try to excise your many demons, the child yanking my tail, and those wild turkeys parading through our yard like they own it.”
“My wife is fed up with me.”
“You’ve been a wretch.”
“She’s threatening to leave me if I don’t get straightened out.”
“As much as I owe all my allegiance to you as Pack Leader, I will be accompanying The Woman if she departs.”
“Not you too?” Did it get any worse than this; even my dog was leaving me.
“Yes, me too. Though you are undisputed leader of this pack, I just adore The Woman. I would even tolerate The Child to be with The Woman.”
“But I make your biscotti.”
“You humans play dirty, don’t you? Still, I’d rather live biscotti-less than be without The Woman.”
“So I guess I will be seeing Dr. Moses after all.”
“Only if you want to maintain your position in the pack. You’re no good as leader the way you are.” Her gaze shifted to the cookie jar beside me. “All this talking and thinking in cogent patterns has tuckered out my tiny canine brain, might we refresh ourselves with a piece of your world-class biscotti?”
And so it was that on Friday I found myself in the naturopath’s office at the appointed hour. My brain hurt. I was anxious and dry-mouthed. I was trying to keep an open mind. I was trying not to be pessimistic and judgmental.
I wasn’t having a lot of success at anything lately.
Dr. Moses walked up and introduced himself. I followed him back to his office. The lighting in the office was soft and inviting. His children’s finger paintings adorned the walls. I sat in a really comfortable chair. I looked at the doctor. He didn’t look anything like Charlton Heston; he was 20 years my junior, trim and professional looking, with beautiful prematurely gray hair that swept back from his forehead. His eyeglasses were the most stylish I’d ever seen; they made me instantly envious.
In short, he looked like a guy who totally had his shit in one sock. I began to relax. Moses looked like a guy who totally knew what he was doing. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe this guy could help me. For the first time in ages the nasty metal band that encircled my brain began to relax. I took a deep breath and settled deeper into the comfortable chair.
Maybe I was going to be alright after all. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but maybe their was actually some hope in my life.
He asked me what I knew about naturopathy. I had to admit that I didn’t know one damn thing.
He smiled and said, “Jeff, let me tell you how I work.”
And so began my adventure with the good doctor Moses. And I’ll tell you more about it the next time I write in this bog – which I promise will be sooner rather than later, now that I have regained the use of my mind.
Friday, February 18, 2011
BAD SINGING
I listen to music constantly. Everything from Van Morrison to The Boss, from Coldplay to Miles Davis. I listen to rock music when I am exercising my body, and smooth Jazz when I am exercising my brain while doing crossword puzzles. Music is ubiquitous in our household, to the point where our 18 month old daughter Vivienne stands in front of the stereo speakers, swaying back and forth in a semblance of rhythm that is already far superior to what I will ever attain. They say that white men can’t jump, but in my case my totally earthbound state also implies a disturbing inability to match the tempo of whatever is playing on the radio.
I read an article once that claimed that music activated more centers of the brain than any other activity, 6 in all as I recall. But, for me anyway, the center that music seems to activate the most is my memory. I hear the first strains of NORWEGIAN WOOD and I am immediately transported back to Christmas week in San Mateo, circa 1966. My sister got the album RUBBER SOUL for Christmas and she played it over and over as we lay on the floor playing board games. Neither of us ever tired of the album even though we were wearing that vinyl out. We read and re-read the liner notes, memorized the words, picked our favorite songs.
The audacious opening guitar licks of Led Zeppelin’s WHOLE LOTTA LOVE brings me immediately to the smoky confines of a funky turd-brown Ford Fairlane station wagon streaming along Skyline Blvd through the Redwood trees in 1970. I am with my two best high school buddies, John Peterson and Paul Gilleran, and if I didn’t have their friendship I would be a total outcast and loser. But in Peterson’s parents’ station wagon, smoking Panama Red and listening to the blistering rock of Santana, the Zep and so many other great bands, I can almost forget for a time how truly miserable my adolescence is.
Play any song from James Taylor’s MUD SLIDE SLIM AND THE BLUE HORIZON, and I am magically transported to Madison, Wisconsin in the fall of 1971, in love with a terrific girl and holding her hand as we stroll through the University’s arboretum, the sheer glory of the red and gold trees reflecting my own inner fire.
You get the idea. When my teens came along rock and roll was busting out all over, and so music sort of defined my youth, and necessarily, my sense of self. Music was the background to everything that was going on through my life. We played music at parties; we played music when we were mellowing out and when we were all jazzed up. So there is sort of like a movie soundtrack going on in the background of my life.
Now, I don’t consider myself unique in this regard, I assume that everybody who was around at that time had the same experience of music being a quasi-transformative influence on one’s life. And so I am always surprised to meet people who listen to talk radio or NPR. Whenever anybody is talking on my radio, either in an advertisement or with the news, I change that channel lickety-split, and keep changing it until I get some music. I don’t like disembodied voices talking to me –they might say something I don’t want to hear – but I really get off on disembodied voices singing to me.
So you might think that with all this music going on in my life that I would have a real bent towards the musical arts. And alas, fine friend, this would be another case of your begin dead wrong in public. Because it’s not that I am completely tone deaf, it’s just that I am the nearest thing to it. But it’s not my fault; it is genetic. And if you doubt that, I present exhibit A, my older brother Stephen.
When Stephen was fourteen and thought he was going to grow up to be a priest rather than a real estate lawyer he went to Maryknoll Seminary, where choir participation was a mandatory part of the studies. And Stephen loved choir. He loved to sing. The only problem was that his voice was so bad, and so loud, that it stood out among the sweet clarion-like tones of his fellow seminarians like a loud fart in a yoga class.
The choirmaster, Father Junipero we will call him, upon hearing my brother’s dulcet tones, stopped the practice and methodically went from pupil to pupil having them sing a few notes until he came upon my brother. Cringing mightily at my brother’s vocal feats, he informed Stephen that he was excused from practice.
“But I like choir,” my brother said. It was really the only part of the seminary experience he did truly value.
“Yes,” Father Junipero said. “But, nonetheless, you are excused.”
“When can I come back?” Stephen asked.
“Hopefully, never.”
And so my brother’s choir experience was ended, and shortly thereafter his seminary experience as well, for he left Maryknoll to return to the secular life.
Like my brother I can’t sing and I can’t play a musical instrument. And just to prove that point, when I retired from gainful employment I determined that I would take singing lessons. And just to fully realize my inner Billy Joel, I would also take piano lessons.
For the next year I took singing and piano lessons. And I was a really good student, as you can imagine with one of my obsessive nature. I rented a keyboard and played all the time. I sang constantly, I really practiced. But in this case, practice did not make perfect. At the end of a year all I had succeeded in accomplishing was the near destruction of the fragile sanity of my elderly teacher.
I will never forget our last lesson together, in the cluttered studio of my sweet natured teacher, a woman in her 70’s with a slight Viennese accent, a beautiful voice and a rich history of training concert ready singers and musicians.
I was standing at the music stand, booming out discordant notes as she played the piano. After one particularly disturbing note she stared down at the keyboard, completely flummoxed. Though game to continue, I did sort of feel bad having brought this innocent woman to such a state.
“Mister Finn,” she said, very polite as she delivered the bad news. “Perhaps the music is not for you.”
“But I practice all the time,” I told her, sounding disturbingly like my brother at choir practice. If practice was all it took I would have been Elton John by this point.
“Practice is not your problem, Jeffrey. No,” she sighed and looked out the window, no doubt thinking of other, less musically impaired students she had trained in her glorious European past. And now here she was in Sonoma County trying to beat some musical sense into a tone-deaf middle-aged musical Neanderthal.
“You are painter, are you not?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you stick to the painting,” she said as her hands straightened her sheet music, perhaps to keep from pulling her hair out.
“What about my piano playing?”
A visible shudder ran through her slim frame. “No,” she whispered. “No, no piano playing for you, Jeffrey.” She looked me dead in the eye and delivered the grim news. “You stop now with the singing and the piano playing, Jeffrey. It is best for all.” Meaning the rest of humanity, no doubt.
So that is how melodiously talentless I am – a women I paid to give me lessons actually fired me.
One final cap on the Finn melodic epoch.
About ten years ago we were hosting Christmas at our home here in Santa Rosa. As my brother Stephen arrived I pulled him into the den. From the mantle I took down Xeroxed copies of some Christmas music.
“I’ve got a great idea,” I told him. “You and I are going to entertain everybody with some Christmas tunes.”
“You’re right,” he said, his eyes alight. “That is a great idea.”
“And to make it even better, I got these,” and I handed him one of those cheap disposable microphones you buy your kid for his birthday party.
Stephen awarded the plastic and foam mike the same wonder Indiana Jones reserved for the Holy Grail. “I love microphones,” he informed me.
“I thought we’d start off with Adestes Fidelis, you know, Come All Ye Faithful.”
“How did you know that was my favorite Christmas song?”
“Just a hunch. And you know Latin, right, from high school?”
“I love Latin.”
“Well, what I thought was, we’d sing the first verse in English, kind of soft, I think it’s what the Italians call Sotto Voce.” I have no clue what Sotto Voce means, but it sounded good to me.
“This sounds better and better.”
“And then we’d really let ‘em have it with the second verse, sung in Latin. We sing this louder, you know, because they can’t understand Latin, so we have to emote a little more.”
To Finns louder is better.
“I totally get where you’re coming from,” he agreed. “This is going to be great.” And he really believed it. He looked like he had just received the swellest Christmas gift ever.
Later during the festivities I motioned for Stephen to join me at the center of the room, right in front of the Christmas tree, where no one could miss us. Once I’d gotten everyone quieted down we crooned our way through the first verse of the hymn. We thought we sounded like Bing Crosby though it was probably more akin to Rosanne Barr on steroids.
It was gratifying to see the rapt looks on all our relatives’ faces; akin to the jaw-unhinged stare you get when viewing a really bad collision on the highway. We definitely had everyone’s attention. As we swung into the second verse, in Latin, we amped up our vocals. People appeared visibly stunned. They’d never heard anything like this before. And, safe to say, no one had anticipated while making the drive up from the Bay Area, that their Christmas would include such a treat as this!
As we blasted out the triumphal hymn, in Latin no less, my mother gazed out the window with a look that said, Why didn’t I strangle them at birth? My next-door neighbor’s dog began to howl and the car alarm went off on my nephew’s SUV in our driveway.
One of the grandkids began to weep, and put her head in her mother’s lap, sobbing, “Make the bad singing stop, Mommy.”
And when we finished, my dear sister, who is acutely attuned to everyone’s mood, jumped up from her place on the divan and yanked the microphones and sheet music from our hands, spun around and sang out loudly in a false-happy voice; “Time to open gifts everybody!”
And thus ended Jeffrey and Stephen’s Christmas recital.
I listen to music constantly. Everything from Van Morrison to The Boss, from Coldplay to Miles Davis. I listen to rock music when I am exercising my body, and smooth Jazz when I am exercising my brain while doing crossword puzzles. Music is ubiquitous in our household, to the point where our 18 month old daughter Vivienne stands in front of the stereo speakers, swaying back and forth in a semblance of rhythm that is already far superior to what I will ever attain. They say that white men can’t jump, but in my case my totally earthbound state also implies a disturbing inability to match the tempo of whatever is playing on the radio.
I read an article once that claimed that music activated more centers of the brain than any other activity, 6 in all as I recall. But, for me anyway, the center that music seems to activate the most is my memory. I hear the first strains of NORWEGIAN WOOD and I am immediately transported back to Christmas week in San Mateo, circa 1966. My sister got the album RUBBER SOUL for Christmas and she played it over and over as we lay on the floor playing board games. Neither of us ever tired of the album even though we were wearing that vinyl out. We read and re-read the liner notes, memorized the words, picked our favorite songs.
The audacious opening guitar licks of Led Zeppelin’s WHOLE LOTTA LOVE brings me immediately to the smoky confines of a funky turd-brown Ford Fairlane station wagon streaming along Skyline Blvd through the Redwood trees in 1970. I am with my two best high school buddies, John Peterson and Paul Gilleran, and if I didn’t have their friendship I would be a total outcast and loser. But in Peterson’s parents’ station wagon, smoking Panama Red and listening to the blistering rock of Santana, the Zep and so many other great bands, I can almost forget for a time how truly miserable my adolescence is.
Play any song from James Taylor’s MUD SLIDE SLIM AND THE BLUE HORIZON, and I am magically transported to Madison, Wisconsin in the fall of 1971, in love with a terrific girl and holding her hand as we stroll through the University’s arboretum, the sheer glory of the red and gold trees reflecting my own inner fire.
You get the idea. When my teens came along rock and roll was busting out all over, and so music sort of defined my youth, and necessarily, my sense of self. Music was the background to everything that was going on through my life. We played music at parties; we played music when we were mellowing out and when we were all jazzed up. So there is sort of like a movie soundtrack going on in the background of my life.
Now, I don’t consider myself unique in this regard, I assume that everybody who was around at that time had the same experience of music being a quasi-transformative influence on one’s life. And so I am always surprised to meet people who listen to talk radio or NPR. Whenever anybody is talking on my radio, either in an advertisement or with the news, I change that channel lickety-split, and keep changing it until I get some music. I don’t like disembodied voices talking to me –they might say something I don’t want to hear – but I really get off on disembodied voices singing to me.
So you might think that with all this music going on in my life that I would have a real bent towards the musical arts. And alas, fine friend, this would be another case of your begin dead wrong in public. Because it’s not that I am completely tone deaf, it’s just that I am the nearest thing to it. But it’s not my fault; it is genetic. And if you doubt that, I present exhibit A, my older brother Stephen.
When Stephen was fourteen and thought he was going to grow up to be a priest rather than a real estate lawyer he went to Maryknoll Seminary, where choir participation was a mandatory part of the studies. And Stephen loved choir. He loved to sing. The only problem was that his voice was so bad, and so loud, that it stood out among the sweet clarion-like tones of his fellow seminarians like a loud fart in a yoga class.
The choirmaster, Father Junipero we will call him, upon hearing my brother’s dulcet tones, stopped the practice and methodically went from pupil to pupil having them sing a few notes until he came upon my brother. Cringing mightily at my brother’s vocal feats, he informed Stephen that he was excused from practice.
“But I like choir,” my brother said. It was really the only part of the seminary experience he did truly value.
“Yes,” Father Junipero said. “But, nonetheless, you are excused.”
“When can I come back?” Stephen asked.
“Hopefully, never.”
And so my brother’s choir experience was ended, and shortly thereafter his seminary experience as well, for he left Maryknoll to return to the secular life.
Like my brother I can’t sing and I can’t play a musical instrument. And just to prove that point, when I retired from gainful employment I determined that I would take singing lessons. And just to fully realize my inner Billy Joel, I would also take piano lessons.
For the next year I took singing and piano lessons. And I was a really good student, as you can imagine with one of my obsessive nature. I rented a keyboard and played all the time. I sang constantly, I really practiced. But in this case, practice did not make perfect. At the end of a year all I had succeeded in accomplishing was the near destruction of the fragile sanity of my elderly teacher.
I will never forget our last lesson together, in the cluttered studio of my sweet natured teacher, a woman in her 70’s with a slight Viennese accent, a beautiful voice and a rich history of training concert ready singers and musicians.
I was standing at the music stand, booming out discordant notes as she played the piano. After one particularly disturbing note she stared down at the keyboard, completely flummoxed. Though game to continue, I did sort of feel bad having brought this innocent woman to such a state.
“Mister Finn,” she said, very polite as she delivered the bad news. “Perhaps the music is not for you.”
“But I practice all the time,” I told her, sounding disturbingly like my brother at choir practice. If practice was all it took I would have been Elton John by this point.
“Practice is not your problem, Jeffrey. No,” she sighed and looked out the window, no doubt thinking of other, less musically impaired students she had trained in her glorious European past. And now here she was in Sonoma County trying to beat some musical sense into a tone-deaf middle-aged musical Neanderthal.
“You are painter, are you not?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you stick to the painting,” she said as her hands straightened her sheet music, perhaps to keep from pulling her hair out.
“What about my piano playing?”
A visible shudder ran through her slim frame. “No,” she whispered. “No, no piano playing for you, Jeffrey.” She looked me dead in the eye and delivered the grim news. “You stop now with the singing and the piano playing, Jeffrey. It is best for all.” Meaning the rest of humanity, no doubt.
So that is how melodiously talentless I am – a women I paid to give me lessons actually fired me.
One final cap on the Finn melodic epoch.
About ten years ago we were hosting Christmas at our home here in Santa Rosa. As my brother Stephen arrived I pulled him into the den. From the mantle I took down Xeroxed copies of some Christmas music.
“I’ve got a great idea,” I told him. “You and I are going to entertain everybody with some Christmas tunes.”
“You’re right,” he said, his eyes alight. “That is a great idea.”
“And to make it even better, I got these,” and I handed him one of those cheap disposable microphones you buy your kid for his birthday party.
Stephen awarded the plastic and foam mike the same wonder Indiana Jones reserved for the Holy Grail. “I love microphones,” he informed me.
“I thought we’d start off with Adestes Fidelis, you know, Come All Ye Faithful.”
“How did you know that was my favorite Christmas song?”
“Just a hunch. And you know Latin, right, from high school?”
“I love Latin.”
“Well, what I thought was, we’d sing the first verse in English, kind of soft, I think it’s what the Italians call Sotto Voce.” I have no clue what Sotto Voce means, but it sounded good to me.
“This sounds better and better.”
“And then we’d really let ‘em have it with the second verse, sung in Latin. We sing this louder, you know, because they can’t understand Latin, so we have to emote a little more.”
To Finns louder is better.
“I totally get where you’re coming from,” he agreed. “This is going to be great.” And he really believed it. He looked like he had just received the swellest Christmas gift ever.
Later during the festivities I motioned for Stephen to join me at the center of the room, right in front of the Christmas tree, where no one could miss us. Once I’d gotten everyone quieted down we crooned our way through the first verse of the hymn. We thought we sounded like Bing Crosby though it was probably more akin to Rosanne Barr on steroids.
It was gratifying to see the rapt looks on all our relatives’ faces; akin to the jaw-unhinged stare you get when viewing a really bad collision on the highway. We definitely had everyone’s attention. As we swung into the second verse, in Latin, we amped up our vocals. People appeared visibly stunned. They’d never heard anything like this before. And, safe to say, no one had anticipated while making the drive up from the Bay Area, that their Christmas would include such a treat as this!
As we blasted out the triumphal hymn, in Latin no less, my mother gazed out the window with a look that said, Why didn’t I strangle them at birth? My next-door neighbor’s dog began to howl and the car alarm went off on my nephew’s SUV in our driveway.
One of the grandkids began to weep, and put her head in her mother’s lap, sobbing, “Make the bad singing stop, Mommy.”
And when we finished, my dear sister, who is acutely attuned to everyone’s mood, jumped up from her place on the divan and yanked the microphones and sheet music from our hands, spun around and sang out loudly in a false-happy voice; “Time to open gifts everybody!”
And thus ended Jeffrey and Stephen’s Christmas recital.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
TRUTH AND BEAUTY
I met with my old friend David at our usual haunt, the IHOP in Petaluma. We have been friends for close to thirty years and thus we rarely discuss the superficial any longer. We used to spend time trying to figure out a solution to the apparently inexorable decline of western civilization but have finally thrown up our hands in failure. So we are left to discuss the vital matters of truth and beauty.
David was telling me of a film that had moved him to tears and it got me thinking about the works of man that had moved me in a similar manner. When I returned home from my time with David I went to my bookcase and pulled down BELLE CANTO, by Ann Patchett. I plopped myself down on the couch and started reading. Within the first five pages I had goose bumps on my arms and tears in my eyes.
This was art.
There is a room full of 18th & 19th century artwork on the second floor of the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. When I walk in there my heart skips a beat and my jaw goes slack with awe. Down the street and across the river at the Louvre there is a gallery devoted to sculpture. I wander around it in a daze, lost among the marble figures and wondering at the grace and splendor around me.
Around 2001 I went with 4 others to see the musical AIDA on Broadway in New York. We were all weeping by the intermission, and the truly tragic events hadn’t even unfolded yet. It was the staging, the voices, the music, the passion; the sheer inventiveness of humankind that had struck us dumb and weepy.
Occasionally I will rerun one of my favorite movies -- MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, SHAPKESPEARE IN LOVE, ROMEO AND JULIET, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, KEY LARGO, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN -- and inevitably I end up sitting alone in a dark room sobbing into my hankie; moved to tears by the tragedy, the comedy, the folly of man, and the truth and glory of our ability to stage and present these emotions.
Long ago I memorized the T.S. Eliot masterpiece, THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PROOFROCK. At moments I will recite to myself the immortal first stanza, beginning;
“Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table”
And my stomach turns over and my arms dimple with goose bumps.
What is it that causes this reaction in me?
Perhaps nothing more than being human, and being able to recognize what makes humanity so great. Our emotions, our caring, our love, our feelings. Our innate ability to express ourselves to another, and thereby reveal something of who we are. To pull the curtain aside on our own self, our pain, our sorrow, and our joy and love.
And when presented truly, and artfully, this engenders in others a truthful and beautiful reaction.
So that’s what David and I talk about now. We can’t prevent the ongoing destruction of our environment, or the folly of our leaders. But we can take a moment to revel in the seemingly indestructible and everlasting ability of mankind to write, sing, paint, act and otherwise tell the truth of our kind.
Man is a glorious beast.
I met with my old friend David at our usual haunt, the IHOP in Petaluma. We have been friends for close to thirty years and thus we rarely discuss the superficial any longer. We used to spend time trying to figure out a solution to the apparently inexorable decline of western civilization but have finally thrown up our hands in failure. So we are left to discuss the vital matters of truth and beauty.
David was telling me of a film that had moved him to tears and it got me thinking about the works of man that had moved me in a similar manner. When I returned home from my time with David I went to my bookcase and pulled down BELLE CANTO, by Ann Patchett. I plopped myself down on the couch and started reading. Within the first five pages I had goose bumps on my arms and tears in my eyes.
This was art.
There is a room full of 18th & 19th century artwork on the second floor of the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. When I walk in there my heart skips a beat and my jaw goes slack with awe. Down the street and across the river at the Louvre there is a gallery devoted to sculpture. I wander around it in a daze, lost among the marble figures and wondering at the grace and splendor around me.
Around 2001 I went with 4 others to see the musical AIDA on Broadway in New York. We were all weeping by the intermission, and the truly tragic events hadn’t even unfolded yet. It was the staging, the voices, the music, the passion; the sheer inventiveness of humankind that had struck us dumb and weepy.
Occasionally I will rerun one of my favorite movies -- MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, SHAPKESPEARE IN LOVE, ROMEO AND JULIET, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, KEY LARGO, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN -- and inevitably I end up sitting alone in a dark room sobbing into my hankie; moved to tears by the tragedy, the comedy, the folly of man, and the truth and glory of our ability to stage and present these emotions.
Long ago I memorized the T.S. Eliot masterpiece, THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PROOFROCK. At moments I will recite to myself the immortal first stanza, beginning;
“Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table”
And my stomach turns over and my arms dimple with goose bumps.
What is it that causes this reaction in me?
Perhaps nothing more than being human, and being able to recognize what makes humanity so great. Our emotions, our caring, our love, our feelings. Our innate ability to express ourselves to another, and thereby reveal something of who we are. To pull the curtain aside on our own self, our pain, our sorrow, and our joy and love.
And when presented truly, and artfully, this engenders in others a truthful and beautiful reaction.
So that’s what David and I talk about now. We can’t prevent the ongoing destruction of our environment, or the folly of our leaders. But we can take a moment to revel in the seemingly indestructible and everlasting ability of mankind to write, sing, paint, act and otherwise tell the truth of our kind.
Man is a glorious beast.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
SLUGGO
My wife and child went to Florida for five days for a family reunion and while they were gone I morphed into a big fat slob.
Now, sure, I took the dog on a couple of six mile runs, but more for her sake than mine, and I even did yard work one afternoon. But basically I spent the entire time lolling on the couch in the dark eating bowl after bowl of popcorn and watching basketball on the television. Occasionally I would stir from my stupor long enough to fix a meal, park myself in front of the computer playing Spider Solitaire, or go to the gym and soak in the Jacuzzi, but none of that can really be considered a gainful use of my time.
And when I thought of all the high-quality acts I could be performing, like painting a picture, discovering the cure for cancer, or even just sticking to a diet, it made me sort of disappointed with myself; but not enough to change my direction.
What it is about myself that makes me think I should be responding to some higher calling, when obviously the rest of the world is content to eat Pringles while lazily scratching themselves and watching Jersey Shore?
Is it my parochial school upbringing that makes me such an unrelenting judge of my life? Or good old American work ethic? Or is it just in my nature to carp incessantly about my perceived failures, all the while missing the bounty of what I have achieved, or, more likely, been blessed with?
I don’t pretend to understand this. And yet by now, you’d think I would have found at least a clue.
Something tells me I am probably not going to be finding a clue any time soon.
The noble Akita just wandered in from where she had been sunning herself on the deck and stood by my chair so I could scratch her butt just the way she likes.
She licked her chops and seemed strangely unencumbered by self study.
My wife and child went to Florida for five days for a family reunion and while they were gone I morphed into a big fat slob.
Now, sure, I took the dog on a couple of six mile runs, but more for her sake than mine, and I even did yard work one afternoon. But basically I spent the entire time lolling on the couch in the dark eating bowl after bowl of popcorn and watching basketball on the television. Occasionally I would stir from my stupor long enough to fix a meal, park myself in front of the computer playing Spider Solitaire, or go to the gym and soak in the Jacuzzi, but none of that can really be considered a gainful use of my time.
And when I thought of all the high-quality acts I could be performing, like painting a picture, discovering the cure for cancer, or even just sticking to a diet, it made me sort of disappointed with myself; but not enough to change my direction.
What it is about myself that makes me think I should be responding to some higher calling, when obviously the rest of the world is content to eat Pringles while lazily scratching themselves and watching Jersey Shore?
Is it my parochial school upbringing that makes me such an unrelenting judge of my life? Or good old American work ethic? Or is it just in my nature to carp incessantly about my perceived failures, all the while missing the bounty of what I have achieved, or, more likely, been blessed with?
I don’t pretend to understand this. And yet by now, you’d think I would have found at least a clue.
Something tells me I am probably not going to be finding a clue any time soon.
The noble Akita just wandered in from where she had been sunning herself on the deck and stood by my chair so I could scratch her butt just the way she likes.
She licked her chops and seemed strangely unencumbered by self study.
Friday, February 4, 2011
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
About a year ago I was re-financing my home and the lender sent out a Notary to witness my signing of the documents. She arrived at our home in a sleek silver Mercedes as Kebu, our large grey and black Akita, announced her welcome with ferocious barking. I opened the door and greeted a chic, middle aged Oriental woman, with graying hair and stylish glasses. Her business card told me she was of Japanese descent and her accent, when she introduced herself, told me she was not born in the USA. I asked her where she was from and she told me Tokyo.
In a very business-like manner we established ourselves at the dining room table and I set about signing the forms. As we went about our work we chatted about this and that, inconsequential small talk as we got through the tedious business of signing multiple copies of legal real estate forms. Kebu sat beside me, watching it all. After a short time, our visitor noted the dog and so, big show off that I am, I put Kebu through all her tricks. The woman nodded with approval.
“Your dog is an Akita,” she said.
“Yes. There must be many Akitas in Japan.”
“Ah, yes, but not so well trained,” she said. “Sign here.”
I scribbled my signature.
“In Japan the dogs are headstrong. Akitas are not very easy to train.” She looked at Kebu suspiciously, as if my dog might at any moment revert to true Akita form and begin acting up. “Sign here,” she told me.
I obediently signed where indicated.
“Well, I trained Kebu from the moment I got her,” I said. “I knew I had to tame her at a young age, or, as you say, with an Akita it would be hopeless.”
She paused as she leaned over the documents, a puzzled look on her face. “Sorry, what did you say your dog’s name was?”
“Kebu,” I said helpfully. “It means hope in Japanese.
“Sign here,” she said. “And here.” She gave a faint shake of her head as if to knock some nonsense out. She had a cryptic smile on her lips.
I signed, once, twice, with a flourish. I was getting pretty handy at this signing business.
“In Japanese,” my guest said, “the word for hope is Kebo, not Kebu.”
She sounded faintly like a school teacher when she said this. And since I am an immature adult who has authority issues I got my umbrage up.
“You’re kidding,” I told her, though she didn’t look like the type to kid.
“No, so sorry. But Kebo is hope in Japanese.” And she stressed the last syllable. Again a faint smile crossed her face. “Sign here.”
I signed. For some reason I didn’t like where this conversation was heading.
“But my wife got the name Kebu from a Japanese/English dictionary.”
“So sorry, but your wife is wrong,” the woman informed me and she ducked her head in embarrassment. “Kebo is hope, not Kebu.”
I looked over at my dog, who was giving me a flinty stare, her ears pointed forward and the hackles on her back flexing upward.
“Sign here.”
I signed.
“Then what does Kebu mean in Japanese.” I asked, thereby breaking one of the cardinal rules of life; never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.
The woman paused in her work, straightening up from where she was bent over the table. She looked at the dog, she looked at me. “Kebu means nothing. No word.”
When she said this her eyes did not meet mine; her gaze wandered out the front window to her shining car.
I didn’t believe her for a minute.
“Sign here,” she said.
I put down the pen. “What does Kebu mean?”
“It is unimportant,” she said.
I settled back in my chair and crossed my arms. I was on signing hiatus.
She read my posture and so said, “Kebu means, like a wind. I am not sure how you say in American.”
“Wind? Like a gale or hurricane. I thought that was Kamikaze?”
“Sorry, wrong word.” For a very classy, put-together, professional woman, she suddenly seemed uncomfortable. “Breaking wind,” she said at last.
“What?” This was getting worse and worse.
“Sorry. Stinky bottom wind,” she said. And then, just to cement the image, she held her nose with one hand while waving her other hand back and forth behind her fanny.
I sat bolt upright. “You mean I’ve been going around calling my dog Fart?”
This was simply appalling.
“Yes, very unfortunate name. Japanese would never call a dog by this name. Kebu is stinky bottom wind.” Her cheeks slightly reddened with embarrassment,
Obviously deeply apologetic at having to inform me of this unfortunate circumstance, she looked at me with a glum expression.
I looked back at her, I am sure, with a look that said I wish I had never brought this up.
And then we both looked at the poor dog. “Very well behaved dog,” she said in way of some mollification. “Best behaved Akita I’ve ever seen.”
Apparently this was the consolation prize for naming my dog Stinky Bottom Wind. Yahoo.
My guest regained her crisp demeanor and, leaning back over the table, handed me the pen and the documents.
“Sign here,” she told me, and I did. Again and again.
When finally we had finished, we exchanged farewells and I saw her out. Returning to the dining room I found the dog leveling a flat gaze at me.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I told Kebu. “Your mom picked out the name. I wanted to name you Mariko.”
“Are you the pack leader?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.” At the moment I didn't sound too pack-leaderish, I had to admit.
I sat down and tried to scratch her ears, but she wasn’t having any of it.
“The pack leader,” she said, “is responsible for everything that goes on in the pack.”
“I would never have knowingly named you Stinky Bottom Wind.”
“Please don’t say that name again.” A visible shudder ran up and down her thick hide.
“We must never speak of this again,” she informed me.
I was only too happy to agree. “It never happened. Your name is Kebu, and it means hope.”
We sat silently, considering this for some time.
“You know what would take this bitter taste right out of our mouths.”
“Let me guess.”
“That most recent batch of biscotti you made has just the right crunchiness, don’t you think?”
“I wondered when you’d get to this.”
“Why don’t you get us a piece?”
I went into the kitchen and took a piece of biscotti out of the cookie jar. Kebu had followed me and was watching my every move with an intensity that would have scared the bejeezzus out of anyone but a seasoned pack leader like me.
I bit off a small piece and fed it to her. She crushed it between her powerful jaws, the thick muscles moving beneath her black fur defining her skull.
I took a bite of and savored the anise flavor. Kebu was right; it had just the right crunchiness.
About a year ago I was re-financing my home and the lender sent out a Notary to witness my signing of the documents. She arrived at our home in a sleek silver Mercedes as Kebu, our large grey and black Akita, announced her welcome with ferocious barking. I opened the door and greeted a chic, middle aged Oriental woman, with graying hair and stylish glasses. Her business card told me she was of Japanese descent and her accent, when she introduced herself, told me she was not born in the USA. I asked her where she was from and she told me Tokyo.
In a very business-like manner we established ourselves at the dining room table and I set about signing the forms. As we went about our work we chatted about this and that, inconsequential small talk as we got through the tedious business of signing multiple copies of legal real estate forms. Kebu sat beside me, watching it all. After a short time, our visitor noted the dog and so, big show off that I am, I put Kebu through all her tricks. The woman nodded with approval.
“Your dog is an Akita,” she said.
“Yes. There must be many Akitas in Japan.”
“Ah, yes, but not so well trained,” she said. “Sign here.”
I scribbled my signature.
“In Japan the dogs are headstrong. Akitas are not very easy to train.” She looked at Kebu suspiciously, as if my dog might at any moment revert to true Akita form and begin acting up. “Sign here,” she told me.
I obediently signed where indicated.
“Well, I trained Kebu from the moment I got her,” I said. “I knew I had to tame her at a young age, or, as you say, with an Akita it would be hopeless.”
She paused as she leaned over the documents, a puzzled look on her face. “Sorry, what did you say your dog’s name was?”
“Kebu,” I said helpfully. “It means hope in Japanese.
“Sign here,” she said. “And here.” She gave a faint shake of her head as if to knock some nonsense out. She had a cryptic smile on her lips.
I signed, once, twice, with a flourish. I was getting pretty handy at this signing business.
“In Japanese,” my guest said, “the word for hope is Kebo, not Kebu.”
She sounded faintly like a school teacher when she said this. And since I am an immature adult who has authority issues I got my umbrage up.
“You’re kidding,” I told her, though she didn’t look like the type to kid.
“No, so sorry. But Kebo is hope in Japanese.” And she stressed the last syllable. Again a faint smile crossed her face. “Sign here.”
I signed. For some reason I didn’t like where this conversation was heading.
“But my wife got the name Kebu from a Japanese/English dictionary.”
“So sorry, but your wife is wrong,” the woman informed me and she ducked her head in embarrassment. “Kebo is hope, not Kebu.”
I looked over at my dog, who was giving me a flinty stare, her ears pointed forward and the hackles on her back flexing upward.
“Sign here.”
I signed.
“Then what does Kebu mean in Japanese.” I asked, thereby breaking one of the cardinal rules of life; never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.
The woman paused in her work, straightening up from where she was bent over the table. She looked at the dog, she looked at me. “Kebu means nothing. No word.”
When she said this her eyes did not meet mine; her gaze wandered out the front window to her shining car.
I didn’t believe her for a minute.
“Sign here,” she said.
I put down the pen. “What does Kebu mean?”
“It is unimportant,” she said.
I settled back in my chair and crossed my arms. I was on signing hiatus.
She read my posture and so said, “Kebu means, like a wind. I am not sure how you say in American.”
“Wind? Like a gale or hurricane. I thought that was Kamikaze?”
“Sorry, wrong word.” For a very classy, put-together, professional woman, she suddenly seemed uncomfortable. “Breaking wind,” she said at last.
“What?” This was getting worse and worse.
“Sorry. Stinky bottom wind,” she said. And then, just to cement the image, she held her nose with one hand while waving her other hand back and forth behind her fanny.
I sat bolt upright. “You mean I’ve been going around calling my dog Fart?”
This was simply appalling.
“Yes, very unfortunate name. Japanese would never call a dog by this name. Kebu is stinky bottom wind.” Her cheeks slightly reddened with embarrassment,
Obviously deeply apologetic at having to inform me of this unfortunate circumstance, she looked at me with a glum expression.
I looked back at her, I am sure, with a look that said I wish I had never brought this up.
And then we both looked at the poor dog. “Very well behaved dog,” she said in way of some mollification. “Best behaved Akita I’ve ever seen.”
Apparently this was the consolation prize for naming my dog Stinky Bottom Wind. Yahoo.
My guest regained her crisp demeanor and, leaning back over the table, handed me the pen and the documents.
“Sign here,” she told me, and I did. Again and again.
When finally we had finished, we exchanged farewells and I saw her out. Returning to the dining room I found the dog leveling a flat gaze at me.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I told Kebu. “Your mom picked out the name. I wanted to name you Mariko.”
“Are you the pack leader?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.” At the moment I didn't sound too pack-leaderish, I had to admit.
I sat down and tried to scratch her ears, but she wasn’t having any of it.
“The pack leader,” she said, “is responsible for everything that goes on in the pack.”
“I would never have knowingly named you Stinky Bottom Wind.”
“Please don’t say that name again.” A visible shudder ran up and down her thick hide.
“We must never speak of this again,” she informed me.
I was only too happy to agree. “It never happened. Your name is Kebu, and it means hope.”
We sat silently, considering this for some time.
“You know what would take this bitter taste right out of our mouths.”
“Let me guess.”
“That most recent batch of biscotti you made has just the right crunchiness, don’t you think?”
“I wondered when you’d get to this.”
“Why don’t you get us a piece?”
I went into the kitchen and took a piece of biscotti out of the cookie jar. Kebu had followed me and was watching my every move with an intensity that would have scared the bejeezzus out of anyone but a seasoned pack leader like me.
I bit off a small piece and fed it to her. She crushed it between her powerful jaws, the thick muscles moving beneath her black fur defining her skull.
I took a bite of and savored the anise flavor. Kebu was right; it had just the right crunchiness.
Monday, January 31, 2011
LOSING IT
My dear 87 year old mother calls me on the phone every few days to tell me that she is losing her marbles.
We enjoy repetitive conversations about her finances, insurance policies, supposedly missing checks and just about anything else that preys on her mind during the small hours of the morning.
Now, I should tell you that my mother has always been the sharpest knife in the drawer. You couldn’t get anything past her as a kid. She possessed an all-seeing eye, an acerbic tongue, a sarcastic sense of humor, and the ability to look right through you and see just what it was you were hiding. There was no fooling her; she was smart, on top of the world and nobody’s fool.
When I talk to her now and she is full of doubt, vague worries, and the dreadful sense that she is sliding down the slippery slope towards dementia, well, it fills me with a clammy fear – and not just for her, but for me as well. For after all, if life can take down this rock of a woman, what’s it going to do to her most flawed offspring?
I was standing by the kitchen sink telling my wife that I was worried about my mom losing it. Since Rochelle is a Physical Therapist who works quite often with geriatric patients she had an interesting perspective.
“Your mother may be slipping a few gears,” she said. “But the fact that she thinks she is losing ground is really a sign that she still has it together.”
“How so?”
“Believe me, the people who are losing their minds think they are fine. If you can tell you are slipping, that means that you’re still fairly cogent.”
I don’t know,” I said. “My mom is pretty confused.”
“Is she wrapping potatoes in Reynolds Aluminum Wrap and shoving them in the microwave to bake?”
“No.”
“Does she mistake her daughter for her favorite sister, 20 plus years deceased?”
“Well, no.”
“Has she smeared fecal matter in her hair?”
“Good God, no!”
“Then, trust me, she’s not losing it.”
“Is this the new litmus test of mental acuity; have you given yourself a shit shampoo lately? If the answer is no, then you’re still with it. But if your answer is yes, then you probably don’t remember it anyway.”
“It’s a lot to look forward to, isn’t it?”
“I can tell that I’m slipping,” I confessed, because I live in Universe Jeff, where it is always all about me, all of the time.
“Yeah, well, you’re probably not the best barometer of mental stability.”
“I spent all last week looking for my reading glasses.”
“Are we going to go through that again?”
“I thought I had left them at the gym and I was pestering the people there every day asking them if anybody had turned them in. And all the time they were in….”
“The laundry basket,” she said. “I know; I’m the one who found them, remember?”
“Right, the laundry basket. I must have looked through that basket at least three times, because I knew that I had laid my jacket on it when I ….”
“Came home from the gym,” she said and she was tapping her foot in the impatient way that she has when someone obtuse is really annoying her.
“Right, but how did I miss them?”
“No doubt one of the enduring mysteries of the world.”
“And remember when I had that bright idea to take all our spare keys and hide them.”
“In case robbers broke in while we were on a ski trip,” she said. Her jaw was making a peculiar motion, like she was grinding her teeth.
“You’re doing that funny thing again with your jaw,” I told her.
“Golly, wonder why?” And she stopped doing it. I am really helpful in correcting her imperfections that way.
“And so what happened with all those keys?” I asked her.
“They all disappeared!” she said and slapped her forehead in mock wonder.
“That’s right! Exactly! I put them all in that special hiding place and we spent the next 2 years trying to remember where.”
“Not us, you. You spent the next 2 years trying to find them. I always assumed that some super-smart robbers slipped in here while we were in Beaver Creek and stole our spare keys just to mess with your head.”
“You’re not pretty when you are being sarcastic,” I told her, and not for the first time. I’m a saint to stay in this marriage.
“What could I possibly have to be sarcastic about? You’re convinced because you’re mom is slipping a gear or two, that you must be losing your mind too. But hey, Planet Earth to Planet Jeffrey, she is 87 and you are 57!”
“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be happening. I’m losing stuff all the time. I could be suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
Man, now I was really depressed. I saw a bleak landscape stretching in front of me; the Rest of My Life, lived in diapers, drooling, not knowing my children from my siblings. I felt a spasm of tightness like an electrical current glance across my chest and whereas normally this brief pain would have caused me to worry about having a cardiac event – and me only 57, it’s not fair, I tell ya! – now, it felt vaguely reassuring. I mean, who wouldn’t take a quick exit through a seismic shift in your left ventricle, rather than facing decades of embarrassing dementia? Sign me up in a heartbeat.
“And if you do have Alzheimer’s, Darling, won’t it be extra special for me as I get to change your poopy diapers?” She said this in a sweet voice but her jaw was starting to grind away again.
“That’s not even funny,” I told her.
“No, it certainly is not,” she said as she turned to leave the room. “Oh, and if you’re not doing anything this afternoon, why don’t you look for the spare keys? You haven’t turned the house upside down since I found your glasses while doing the laundry.”
And so I was left to contemplate the inevitable slide into the grave. First my mother would lose her mind, and then she would die. Then I would lose my mind and then I would die.
It was enough to make a strong man weep, this slow unwinding of the funeral shroud before my mind’s eye.
It was at this critical juncture that the most well-balanced of the sentient beings in Chez Finn sauntered into the kitchen, her nose testing the air for a scent of food.
“Got your dawber down?” asked Kebu the Akita.
“My mom is losing her mind, and I am dying,” I told my dog while I scratched her velveteen ears absently.
A rumbling growl deep in her throat signaled her contentment with the ear rub.
“A piece of your home-made Biscotti would brighten your outlook, I am sure,” said the dog.
“You’re probably right,” I agreed and opened the cookie jar. “I’ll bet you’d like one too.”
“Well, now that you mention it, sure, why not?”
We stood there chewing thoughtfully on our Biscotti. “Life ever get you down, Kebu?”
She did that funny little cock of her head like she was listening for the sound of dangerous predators in the distance.
“I’m a dog,” she told me. “I try to live in the moment.”
“I wish I were a dog,” I said.
“That would be a disaster," Kebu said. "Who would bake our Biscotti?”
Trust a dog to keep matters in perspective.
(a note from DDD – for those of you who read this via email, check out my blog location for new paintings of the torrid twosome; view at www.dirtydiaperdad.blogspot.com)
My dear 87 year old mother calls me on the phone every few days to tell me that she is losing her marbles.
We enjoy repetitive conversations about her finances, insurance policies, supposedly missing checks and just about anything else that preys on her mind during the small hours of the morning.
Now, I should tell you that my mother has always been the sharpest knife in the drawer. You couldn’t get anything past her as a kid. She possessed an all-seeing eye, an acerbic tongue, a sarcastic sense of humor, and the ability to look right through you and see just what it was you were hiding. There was no fooling her; she was smart, on top of the world and nobody’s fool.
When I talk to her now and she is full of doubt, vague worries, and the dreadful sense that she is sliding down the slippery slope towards dementia, well, it fills me with a clammy fear – and not just for her, but for me as well. For after all, if life can take down this rock of a woman, what’s it going to do to her most flawed offspring?
I was standing by the kitchen sink telling my wife that I was worried about my mom losing it. Since Rochelle is a Physical Therapist who works quite often with geriatric patients she had an interesting perspective.
“Your mother may be slipping a few gears,” she said. “But the fact that she thinks she is losing ground is really a sign that she still has it together.”
“How so?”
“Believe me, the people who are losing their minds think they are fine. If you can tell you are slipping, that means that you’re still fairly cogent.”
I don’t know,” I said. “My mom is pretty confused.”
“Is she wrapping potatoes in Reynolds Aluminum Wrap and shoving them in the microwave to bake?”
“No.”
“Does she mistake her daughter for her favorite sister, 20 plus years deceased?”
“Well, no.”
“Has she smeared fecal matter in her hair?”
“Good God, no!”
“Then, trust me, she’s not losing it.”
“Is this the new litmus test of mental acuity; have you given yourself a shit shampoo lately? If the answer is no, then you’re still with it. But if your answer is yes, then you probably don’t remember it anyway.”
“It’s a lot to look forward to, isn’t it?”
“I can tell that I’m slipping,” I confessed, because I live in Universe Jeff, where it is always all about me, all of the time.
“Yeah, well, you’re probably not the best barometer of mental stability.”
“I spent all last week looking for my reading glasses.”
“Are we going to go through that again?”
“I thought I had left them at the gym and I was pestering the people there every day asking them if anybody had turned them in. And all the time they were in….”
“The laundry basket,” she said. “I know; I’m the one who found them, remember?”
“Right, the laundry basket. I must have looked through that basket at least three times, because I knew that I had laid my jacket on it when I ….”
“Came home from the gym,” she said and she was tapping her foot in the impatient way that she has when someone obtuse is really annoying her.
“Right, but how did I miss them?”
“No doubt one of the enduring mysteries of the world.”
“And remember when I had that bright idea to take all our spare keys and hide them.”
“In case robbers broke in while we were on a ski trip,” she said. Her jaw was making a peculiar motion, like she was grinding her teeth.
“You’re doing that funny thing again with your jaw,” I told her.
“Golly, wonder why?” And she stopped doing it. I am really helpful in correcting her imperfections that way.
“And so what happened with all those keys?” I asked her.
“They all disappeared!” she said and slapped her forehead in mock wonder.
“That’s right! Exactly! I put them all in that special hiding place and we spent the next 2 years trying to remember where.”
“Not us, you. You spent the next 2 years trying to find them. I always assumed that some super-smart robbers slipped in here while we were in Beaver Creek and stole our spare keys just to mess with your head.”
“You’re not pretty when you are being sarcastic,” I told her, and not for the first time. I’m a saint to stay in this marriage.
“What could I possibly have to be sarcastic about? You’re convinced because you’re mom is slipping a gear or two, that you must be losing your mind too. But hey, Planet Earth to Planet Jeffrey, she is 87 and you are 57!”
“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be happening. I’m losing stuff all the time. I could be suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
Man, now I was really depressed. I saw a bleak landscape stretching in front of me; the Rest of My Life, lived in diapers, drooling, not knowing my children from my siblings. I felt a spasm of tightness like an electrical current glance across my chest and whereas normally this brief pain would have caused me to worry about having a cardiac event – and me only 57, it’s not fair, I tell ya! – now, it felt vaguely reassuring. I mean, who wouldn’t take a quick exit through a seismic shift in your left ventricle, rather than facing decades of embarrassing dementia? Sign me up in a heartbeat.
“And if you do have Alzheimer’s, Darling, won’t it be extra special for me as I get to change your poopy diapers?” She said this in a sweet voice but her jaw was starting to grind away again.
“That’s not even funny,” I told her.
“No, it certainly is not,” she said as she turned to leave the room. “Oh, and if you’re not doing anything this afternoon, why don’t you look for the spare keys? You haven’t turned the house upside down since I found your glasses while doing the laundry.”
And so I was left to contemplate the inevitable slide into the grave. First my mother would lose her mind, and then she would die. Then I would lose my mind and then I would die.
It was enough to make a strong man weep, this slow unwinding of the funeral shroud before my mind’s eye.
It was at this critical juncture that the most well-balanced of the sentient beings in Chez Finn sauntered into the kitchen, her nose testing the air for a scent of food.
“Got your dawber down?” asked Kebu the Akita.
“My mom is losing her mind, and I am dying,” I told my dog while I scratched her velveteen ears absently.
A rumbling growl deep in her throat signaled her contentment with the ear rub.
“A piece of your home-made Biscotti would brighten your outlook, I am sure,” said the dog.
“You’re probably right,” I agreed and opened the cookie jar. “I’ll bet you’d like one too.”
“Well, now that you mention it, sure, why not?”
We stood there chewing thoughtfully on our Biscotti. “Life ever get you down, Kebu?”
She did that funny little cock of her head like she was listening for the sound of dangerous predators in the distance.
“I’m a dog,” she told me. “I try to live in the moment.”
“I wish I were a dog,” I said.
“That would be a disaster," Kebu said. "Who would bake our Biscotti?”
Trust a dog to keep matters in perspective.
(a note from DDD – for those of you who read this via email, check out my blog location for new paintings of the torrid twosome; view at www.dirtydiaperdad.blogspot.com)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
PIE IN THE SKY
Prior to the holidays I took a pie baking class through the Santa Rosa Rec. Now, on the face of it, you might think this was a good thing. You might even be tempted to say, “Good for you, Jeff. You are finally making some constructive use of your overly abundant free time. Maybe you are even going to, at long last, not make a total hash of this whole retirement thing.”
But, alas, you would be mistaken. For you would not be giving full weight to my obsessive personality, which can take even the most benign subject – like, say, pie baking – and make an evil of it.
I was overcome with the need to make the perfect pie crust. You would be surprised how difficult this is, even with expert instruction – in the form of the baking class – from a veteran pastry chef.
Now if you could make the pies in some magical kitchen where once they were baked, tasted and then they miraculously disappeared, then that would be what we call a good thing. But the kitchen at 4714 Muirfield Court is not a place where the paranormal occurs. When I bake a pie it does not vanish after one bite. No, it sits on the counter or in the fridge and it says, “Eat me.”
And because I was raised by Depression-era parents who convinced me it was sinful to let even one bite of food go to waste – because, in Sub Saharan Africa, don’t you know, there are Pagan Babies with their distended stomachs sticking out in front of them like a man with a basketball under a tee-shirt, and they are starving, and if I throw away even one morsel of food, then I am as good as killing them.
Ask anybody who went to Catholic school in the 50’s and they will confirm that this is the truth. I can still see those Pagan Babies with their basketball stomachs and their protruding belly buttons and their stick-like arms and legs. And, let me tell you, I finish everything on my plate, ‘cause I don’t want to be the one responsible for killing them.
Apple pie, berry pie, French apple-almond tort, pumpkin pie, peach pie.
I baked ‘em all, and my poor wife and I had to eat ‘em all. We were inviting people over just on the off chance we could send them home with a pie. We were eating pie for lunch. I was having a slice with my morning tea. We were eating pie at 9 p.m while watching television.
And then bolting upright in the middle of the night to dash to the bathroom and hurriedly shovel Tums in our mouths in the vain hope of reversing the acid reflux the late night slice of pie had induced.
We were simply bilious with pie.
I was feeding pie to my daughter when the wife was gone. I was feeding pie to Kebu to the point where she was following me around the house with an alert expression on her face and a look in her eyes that said; “You know what I think this would be a good time to do? Have another piece of pie!”
This lasted until the poor dog had midnight diarrhea – and wasn’t that some fun taking her out back in the windy rain 6 times between midnight and five a.m!
So not only did I make myself and my wife sick, I made the Akita sick. All because I couldn’t stop myself from baking pies. I gained 9 lbs over the holidays. I began to look like a big, fat piece of chunky apple pie.
So, no, the next time you come over to our house, we won’t be serving pie for desert. For, like a heroin addict, I can’t stop at one pie. At this point I am just trying to take it one pie-less day at a time.
But I have found a substitute. I am perfecting the perfect Italian biscotti. And Kebu is quite impressed with the first few batches.
Prior to the holidays I took a pie baking class through the Santa Rosa Rec. Now, on the face of it, you might think this was a good thing. You might even be tempted to say, “Good for you, Jeff. You are finally making some constructive use of your overly abundant free time. Maybe you are even going to, at long last, not make a total hash of this whole retirement thing.”
But, alas, you would be mistaken. For you would not be giving full weight to my obsessive personality, which can take even the most benign subject – like, say, pie baking – and make an evil of it.
I was overcome with the need to make the perfect pie crust. You would be surprised how difficult this is, even with expert instruction – in the form of the baking class – from a veteran pastry chef.
Now if you could make the pies in some magical kitchen where once they were baked, tasted and then they miraculously disappeared, then that would be what we call a good thing. But the kitchen at 4714 Muirfield Court is not a place where the paranormal occurs. When I bake a pie it does not vanish after one bite. No, it sits on the counter or in the fridge and it says, “Eat me.”
And because I was raised by Depression-era parents who convinced me it was sinful to let even one bite of food go to waste – because, in Sub Saharan Africa, don’t you know, there are Pagan Babies with their distended stomachs sticking out in front of them like a man with a basketball under a tee-shirt, and they are starving, and if I throw away even one morsel of food, then I am as good as killing them.
Ask anybody who went to Catholic school in the 50’s and they will confirm that this is the truth. I can still see those Pagan Babies with their basketball stomachs and their protruding belly buttons and their stick-like arms and legs. And, let me tell you, I finish everything on my plate, ‘cause I don’t want to be the one responsible for killing them.
Apple pie, berry pie, French apple-almond tort, pumpkin pie, peach pie.
I baked ‘em all, and my poor wife and I had to eat ‘em all. We were inviting people over just on the off chance we could send them home with a pie. We were eating pie for lunch. I was having a slice with my morning tea. We were eating pie at 9 p.m while watching television.
And then bolting upright in the middle of the night to dash to the bathroom and hurriedly shovel Tums in our mouths in the vain hope of reversing the acid reflux the late night slice of pie had induced.
We were simply bilious with pie.
I was feeding pie to my daughter when the wife was gone. I was feeding pie to Kebu to the point where she was following me around the house with an alert expression on her face and a look in her eyes that said; “You know what I think this would be a good time to do? Have another piece of pie!”
This lasted until the poor dog had midnight diarrhea – and wasn’t that some fun taking her out back in the windy rain 6 times between midnight and five a.m!
So not only did I make myself and my wife sick, I made the Akita sick. All because I couldn’t stop myself from baking pies. I gained 9 lbs over the holidays. I began to look like a big, fat piece of chunky apple pie.
So, no, the next time you come over to our house, we won’t be serving pie for desert. For, like a heroin addict, I can’t stop at one pie. At this point I am just trying to take it one pie-less day at a time.
But I have found a substitute. I am perfecting the perfect Italian biscotti. And Kebu is quite impressed with the first few batches.
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