When you get to be my age...

So my son and I were just sitting, periodically glancing at each other.  This is one of the classic, deeply philosophical father and son discussions.   Other meaningful father and son conversations include watching television and periodically rolling our eyes or the short but poignant flicking of wadded up pieces of paper at each other.  

Anyhow, at some point I decided to try the extremely risky tact of actually saying something.  I knew I was an idiot because Generation X-ers like bullet points and text messages while baby boomers easily become lost in their own digressions.

"You know," I said, instantly falling into homily, "when you get to be my age..."

He looked at me, rolled his eyes and flicked a piece of paper simultaneously.  Young people are so good at multi-tasking.  But it was effective and I instantly forgot what I was going to say.   Unfortunately, that didn't stop my stream of consciousness from flowing out of my mouth.

"When you get to be my age, I'm sure that you will find yourself saying things like 'when you get to be my age' to people who are your age.  Of course, they haven't been born yet but when they get to be your age and you get to be my age and you say 'when you get to be my age' they will immediately tune out.  Because that's what I always did when I was your age and somebody my age started a sentence with 'when you get to be my age.'   Of course, most of those people who were my age when I was your age are dead now."

"I don't expect you to understand this now, son," I summarized.  "But when you get to be my age, I'm sure it will make sense to you."

I looked over at him.  He was texting someone.

"Anyhow, I'm glad we had this little talk," I said and flicked the paper wad back at him.

I've learned a new language !!!

...and didn't even realize it!


"I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off, I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves..."
                                      Bob Seger

"I woke last night to the sound of beeping
Wondered what had stopped my sleeping..."
                                     Mark Cowell


So there it was, titillating my eardrum, that high-pitched beep that has insinuated itself into so many parts of our lives.   I knew right away that it was the coffee-maker announcing that it had successfully brewed the morning stimulant.  I knew this because it was three short beeps.

I thought about going back to sleep but realized that if I slept for 90 more minutes, the coffee maker would express it's displeasure at being ignored by making two slightly longer beeps to announce that it was no longer going to keep the coffee hot and was turning itself off.

But, of course, that would never happen because in 30 minutes my alarm clock would demand wakefulness by starting a series of very loud, fast beeps that would not stop until I reached over and hit the snooze button.  And it would repeat its disturbing behavior until I finally got up.

Lying there, I realized that I have become completely fluent in beep-ese, without realizing it.

One long beep followed by two short beeps means that the washing maching wants me to put my newly washed clothes in the dryer.

One short beep followed by on longer beep means that the dryer wants me to fold my warm, snuggly clothes.

One very short but very loud beep tells me that one of the smoke detectors wants me to change its battery.  The smoke detectors irritate me because the battery changing beep is so short and surprising that I can never figure out immediately which of the three smoke detectors needs changing.   Futhermore, the time between one beep and the next is random and it may be five minutes before it beeps again.  This means I have to go around the house and stand next to each smoke detector until it beeps or unless I hear the beep somewhere else. 

In the case of an actual fire, however, the smoke detectors are capable of making a infinitely long, infinitely loud beep-on-steroids forcing me to flee the house -- not just because of the fire but to save my eardrums.   I know this because one of the smoke detectors loves to go off whenever I fry anything on the stove. 

I once had a digital wristwatch with a tiny but incessant beep built in for an alarm clock.  It also had a function whereby it would make one tiny beep every hour.  I had thrown the instruction booklet away because who needs an instruction booklet for a watch and because the instruction booklet was written in 4 point type and was unreadable anyway.  And was in French, Spanish, and Chinese. 

Digital watches are designed by engineers to have the fewest number of buttons with each button or combination of buttons designed to do multiple things.  Beep.  One o'clock.  Beep.  Two o'clock.  I threw it away.

When I try to escape my beep-filled home, I walk to the garage and unlock my car by pushing a button on the automatic device that is an addition to the actual car key and adds more bulk to my key chain.  My key chain -- so full of keys and remote gizmos that it makes permanent bulges in my pants pockets.  Not to mention that I don't remember what half the keys go to.  I probably have keys to places I unlocked twenty years ago.   But that is another story.

But when I do unlock my car, it makes two short friendly beeps to invite me inside.

My car likes me.  When I start the engine, it gives me five nagging beeps to remind me to fasten my seatbelt.   It gives me two longer beeps to let me know it is getting low on gas.  This is actually the same sound that the coffee maker makes when it turns off but I know the difference because the coffee maker is never going 65 miles per hour.    

And it I try to leave the car without taking my keys out of the ignition, it tries to immitate the smoke detector.   It's attempt is a bit feeble but I haven't left my keys in the car yet.

I am bilingual!!

Samual Morse would be proud.


 

Walking the Dogs

Cast of Characters

Daisy - Part terrier, part opossum
Selective hearing when being called

Annabelle - Part shitzu, part floor mop
Buries nose into whatever she smells

Conner - Apprentice Dog-Walker

Noah - Convinced he can do anything Conner can do

Story

Timing the dog walks used to be hit and miss with more  mess than hit.  But in retirement I have been able, through my excellent and now underutilized management experience, to implement an efficient schedule. 

Short walks consist of letting them loose in the back yard and monitoring them.  But long walks require that they be on leashes despite the fact that they are no threat -- cats and even large birds ignore them as harmless.  But we live in one of those "Yard of the Month" (which we have never won) subdivisions where dog poop needs to be collected in little blue plastic bags and sent to the landfill where they will last for centuries until some future archeologists find them and wonder what kind of strange theology we had that included the preservation of canine excrement for the afterlife.

Long walks used to be easy and almost refreshing except for the fact that Daisy is always pulling forward and Annabelle is always dragging backward with her nose fastened firmly to the ground.   Long walks were even fairly good after Conner reached the age where he became determine to accompany me.

Conner is excellent about watching out for cars and when he sees one will always pull Annabelle to the side of the road and stop until the car has passed.  This works well except for yesterday when one of our neighbors came out, started her car in the driveway, then decided she had forgotten something and went back inside her house.  Despite all my explanations, urgings, rantings, and ravings, he refused to pass her driveway until she finally came out and drove away.  

But now Noah is old enough to be convinced he needs to do whatever his older brother does.  And sometimes I need to walk the dogs and it is the wrong time for the children.

This morning, for instance, the sun was just coming up and the kids had awakened earlier than usual and I had awakened later than usual.  The kids weren't dressed yet and the dogs HAD to go.  Time for stealth.

Conner and Noah seemed to be engaged with cereal and television so I slipped out of the livingroom and quietly gathered the leashes.  Instead of calling out, as usual, "Annabelle!! Daisy!! Walk-time!!," I tiptoed to each dog and whispered in their ears, "Come on.  Let's walk."   I tried to slip out the front door instead of the back so I wouldn't be in sight of the livingroom but Conner heard the click of the latch and came running.   It breaks his heart if he knows I've gone without him, so I figure, what the heck.  So what if the neighbors see him in his underwear. 

Then Noah shows up running in his little waddling way, arms out waving to keep his balance, sort of like a tiny drunk man except for the diaper.   Expecting to be left, he is already working toward a cry. 

Change of plans.  Instead of the leash, I'll take them all to the backyard.  For a brief moment, I almost believe I am going to be able to control the situation.  I was, after all, a professional manager -- although, in retrospect, I didn't control adults very well either.

Once off the porch, it's like some imaginary quarterback yelled "Hut" and they all take off in different directions.  Daisy and Annabelle run to left hoping to score some squirrels in our neighbors backyard.  Conner grabs his orange ball and kicks it toward the pond where it will float away.  Noah waddle-runs in the opposite direction but also toward the pond.

I cry out, "Annabelle!! Daisy!!  Come back!!"   But I still have my priorities straight  and give up on the ball which plops into the water and begins floating away to the left.  I ignore it and run toward Noah who thinks it is a game and runs faster toward the pond on the right.   Unlike the orange ball, I know that Noah doesn't float. 

Conner yells, "Ball!  Ball!" 

I yell, "Annabelle!!  Daisy!!  Conner!!"  My legs kick into high gear as I admit sadly that, at 65 years old, I am in danger of being outrun by a toddler.  I grab Noah, pick him up and head back in case Conner is trying to save his ball. 

Fortunately, he has already forgotten the ball.  Unfortunately, he has decided it is his responsibility to get the dogs back.  He is running across the neighbor's yard toward the dogs who are now three yards away.   He is yelling, "Gogs!! Gogs!!  Gogs!!"

I'm chasing him although it is clear that, at 65 years old while carrying a one-year-old, I have no chance of outrunning a two-year-old.   I am screaming, "Conner!!  Annabelle!! Daisy!!  Karen!!  Brian!!  Melody!!"   I'm pretty sure Karen is in the shower and Brian and Melody are still asleep, but I'm looking for reinforcements desperately.  

In the distance I see Daisy squatting in September's Yard of the Month but I'm not going back for a blue bag any more than I'm diving into the pond for the orange ball. 

A stroke of luck!  Daisy, with selective hearing, ignores me but Annabelle actually turns and starts running back toward Conner who is still yelling, "Gogs!! Gogs!!"  

Annabelle reaches Conner at the same time I do, jumps up and knocks him over.  Still holding Noah with one arm, I grab Annabelle with the other.  And breathing a sigh of relief, I see Daisy on her way back to see what the fun is all about.   We head back to the house and are almost at the porch when Daisy realizes my intention to get everyone back in the house.  This time she runs to the right. 

I become philosophical.  (Becoming philosophical was also the strategy I used in my former job when management strategies failed).  In a much calmer voice, I say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."   I flip Annabelle up on the porch in time to grab Conner's arm before he takes off after Daisy.  I pull him onto the porch, still carrying Noah.  Shut the door and herd them all into the house. 

Karen is standing there, drying her hair.  Her first words, of course, are, "Where's Daisy?"

"Fertilizing the neighborhood," I answer, putting Noah down and heading for a cup of coffee.  I know that Daisy will return in fifteen minutes or less but at this point, I'm not sure I care.

The Ninja Cat Burglar Meets His Match

FIRST A NOTE TO FRIDAY SHOOTERS -- I have just removed my Friday shootout which I posted too early and then realized I was a whole week too early.  So I'll work on a Match It for tomorrow and repost the Work Shootout next week.  Some of you, I realize, have already seen it.  Oh well. 

AND NOW TO "THE NINJA CAT BURGLAR MEETS HIS MATCH:

"In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To a river so deep
I must be looking for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross"

                        Billy Joel

Wandering at night is not quite that deep or philosophical or dramatic with me.  I just wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and realize that I'm probably not going to go back to sleep until sometime later in the day when I can sneak in a long nap.  (Which may be one of the reasons I wake up in the first place.)

3:30 am is usually my cutoff point.  If it is earlier than 3:30, it's worth doing one of my "fall back to sleep exercises."   My favorite one is to lie in bed and compose a poem.   I've written some of my best poetry during those times; unfortunately, I can never remember any of them.

If it is after 3:30 am, I grab a Coke from the fridge and go up to my office to check email, look at the overseas stock markets and futures prices, play with Photoshop, or just randomly browse the Internet for weirdness.

In order to go from the bedroom to the kitchen and then up to the office without waking up the rest of the household, I transform myself into a ninja cat burglar.   With three adults, two children, two dogs, and two cats in the house, stealth becomes my middle name.  

I'm extremely adept at finding my way through the dark house. I've lived here long enough to be able to move through the house with my eyes closed. This will be a valuable skill if I'm ever afflicted with blindness. I may not know that my shirt clashes with my pants but, at least, I'll be able to find the bathroom.

The dogs are the number one challenge.  There's no telling where in the house they have decided to sleep.  I'm not even sure they make a conscious decision.  Our dogs sometimes just walk along, get bored, and fall asleep wherever they happen to be.   But if they wake up in almost total darkness and realize there is a human in the room with them, they assume it actually is a ninja cat burglar and dutifully begin barking although in their case it is more like yipping.  

If that doesn't wake the neighborhood, I make it worse by shouting quietly (which is a trick in itself), "Annabelle, Daisy, it's me!  Be quiet!  It's only me!"  

The cats are the number two challenge.  I've come to the conclusion that our cats never sleep unless they are lying on top of me.  (Which may be another reason I wake up in the first place.)

The cats don't care if it's me or a genuine cat burglar.  They just assume that somebody has entered the room in order to scratch them behind the ears.  So they meow with impatient anticipation.   And our cats are very accomplished meowers.  I've even considered having Bill, the huge white Himalayan,  try out for the Metropolitan Opera.  I'm sure he could project to the back of the hall.

The last, but certainly not least, challenge comes from the grandchildren.  They set booby-traps everywhere.  Even blind, I know the location of every single squeaky floorboard in the house.  But I do not know where they have left their toys. 

And nothing spoils a good nocturnal sneak like avoiding the squeaking stair but then stepping barefoot on a small plastic triceratops.  

"In the middle of the night
I go crashing down the stairs
through a mountain of toys
To the barking dogs lair.

I must be looking for something
A can of Coke that I lost
Now I've wakened up the household
And they're bound to be cross"

Being excessively corny

I just finished by post for tomorrow's Hometown Photo Shootout on Sound. 

I feel (about tomorrow's post) the same way I sometimes do when I am in a business meeting and my compulsion to make a stupid, smartass comment starts working its way up my larynx like a verbal fart.  I know I shouldn't say it but the pressure is like gas pain and before you know it I've blurted out something.

In my own defense, it is never totally inappropriate and sometimes even clever.  But sometimes it is really just corny and dumb.  But it doesn't need to be said in a room full of people in coats and ties who are trying to be serious.  

Often it is just really corny.  Like tomorrow's shoot. 

People around the table stare blankly at me.  Sometimes they laugh.  Sometimes they just titter politely, particularly if I happen to be the senior manager in the room. 

I know that I am a humorous guy.  But I also know that it is more than that.  Being funny is not a bad addiction but it is an addiction.  When I think about it, it stems -- like many things -- from my mother's death when I was six.  From that early age onward, I found humor as a way of distancing myself.  There is a control aspect to it.  

I don't know if that makes sense.  

On falling out of bed

Sometime last night, I fell out of bed. I can't be more specific because, being asleep at the time, I did not note the time before hand and the clock radio was defunct afterwards. ("Before hand?" Is that a real phrase?)

I was blissfully dreaming at the time. Free entertainment nightly, directed and produced by my subconscious. Last night I was, once again, hanging out with a beautiful young woman who has been enthralled by me almost nightly for a few months now. She makes me laugh. She's affectionate although it's not usually about sex. I'm pretty sure we're engaged. Her family is usually around and seem to have adopted me as one of their own. Of course, they all change in age, nationality, personality, etc. from night to night -- this is dreamworld, after all -- but the underlying theme and foundation is there. And it is great!! Thank you, subconscious!!

So last night, my fiancé and myself were out in the woods clearing out some dead limbs and brush on her folk's land. Well, actually, I was doing the hard work and she was motivating me -- dancing around in khaki cargo shorts, flirting, teasing, taking my picture...

She became still and said, softly but clearly, "There's a snake near your left foot."

I was not alarmed. I get along pretty well with snakes, alligators, and reptiles in my dreams. When I was a little boy I used to have nightmares about trying to run from animals -- dinosaurs, wolves or bears, snakes, giant spiders. But gradually over time, I made my nocturnal peace with them. First with dinosaurs, then with mammals, and finally with reptiles and fish. Insects still bother me some in dreams.

I have a very loose theory about this. (All theories about dreams should be loose.) On the hypothesis (also loose) that everything in a dream represents a part of yourself, I kind of feel that becoming comfortable with animals sort of represents my maturing and becoming comfortable with my baser instincts. First the wild Bagman-like mammals whose trust I won over in adolescence. Then the darker more primitive reptiles. I don't know about the deep click-lacking mechanical DNA-based insects that still sometimes briefly freak me out in dreams but I assume that's coming.

BAGMAN: "Thanks for comparing me to a bear, but get on with the bleeping dream!"

So the snake at my left foot did not bother me even though it was a huge, fat copperhead. I simply nodded at it and gave it space by pulling myself up onto a stone wall with the help of an overhanging branch while my fiancé took a picture and giggled.

Then the branch snapped and a boulder on the stone wall came loose and I started falling backwards, hitting my elbow on...on...on the bedside table. Waking up can happen in a micro-second when you find yourself lying prone on thin air in pitch darkness.

Even though I am now an old fart, overweight and flabby, I still have muscle-memory from years of martial arts. I am very adept at falling down and my body always reacts (not that I do it all that often) by relaxing instead of stiffening up. A good way to avoid a broken wrist. So I submitted to gravity with a resigned grunt and waited to hit the floor beside the bed.

I didn't have to wait very long. Wham! And I was down. But it wasn't over.

The bed table had been hit by my elbow hard enough to topple over on top of me, spilling out a cup of pencil, two television remotes, the telephone, the clock radio, and a large lamp which no longer has a big ornate shade. I was lying on the floor under a downpour of objects.

There was a yelp from Daisy, our terrier-opossum mix mutt who sleeps half-under the bed and had been struck by the telephone. And there was hysterical screaming from my wife.

"Are you all right?!!!"

"I'm fine."

"Are you all right??!!!!!"

"I'm fine."

"ARE YOU..." etc. etc.

Karen was naturally more frightened than I was. From her perspective, she had heard a loud grunt and sigh and then the sickening sound of a body striking the floor and, naturally assumed that I had had a heart attack or stroke. This was followed by the succession of loud crashes and she assumed that the bed table had struck me and I had suffered a concussion. This was followed by Daisy's yelp and she assumed that I had killed the dog as well. "Are you SURE you're allright???!!!!!!!"

By then I was tired of trying to convince her that I was fine and just lay on the floor hoping that I would just fall back asleep and rejoin my lovely photographing nymph in the woods.
And then I heard Daisy growling at the phone. It had some off the hook and out of the receiver was coming the alien, female, robotic voice calling out in the darkness: "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you'd like to make a call..."

Photo Shootout - Signs

Okay, okay -- I know I've already posted the photograph above but I couldn't resist adding it again to this week's theme.

And what a diabolical theme Si has given us! I've become crazed at the insane signs we write! I can't read a sign anymore without seeing a pun or wanting to shoot it. I stop and hold up traffic. People honk at me! There is enough here to last for years!

But before I make fun of other people's signs, let me give you a tour of how we confuse the public at Charleston Center where I work. Unfortunately, I have to accept responsibility for much of these cryptic messages.

Our tour begins in the parking garage. The shot below is of the buttons in the parking garage elevator.


I have taken a close shot so you can see that, being cognizant of people with disabilities (I guess the political correct word now is "challenged") we have all the floors also marked with a number but also in braille. We want to make sure that blind (visually challenged) people are able to get quickly to their cars. What they do then...hmmm.

I guess they park their cars here.
(I looked but could not find where they put the braille...must be an old sign)

As we come to the entrance of our building, we see that we have extended the "No Smoking" zone as far away as we could. Of course, since most alcoholics still smoke and have no intention if giving it up (yet) and many of our clients are adolescents, I wonder how well this is enforced. Actually, I don't wonder at all...the sidewalk is lined with cigarette butts every morning. In fact, I think the person in the background was smoking at the time.

Being too smart for my own good, I decided to use the opportunity as a learning experience and hung the sign, below, on the front door.

No simple "No Smoking " sign for us! We provide an entire lecture. I am really embarrassed to admit that I'm the one who wrote this sign. But what gave me laugh is that it wasn't until I was posting this picture that I noticed in the last paragraph that somebody on staff with an eye for correctness has tried to erase the word "grassy". The island in back used to be grassy but it has been so tramped down by smokers and covered with cigarette butts that the grass has now all died.

Also on the front door, we inform people that concealable weapons are not allowed. But I guess that shotguns, automatic rifles, rocket launchers and things that are easily seen must be perfectly all right.

Once inside, we head for the restrooms.

Now this is a little subtle, but has caused us more than embarassment. Our restrooms are clearly and appropriately marked with handicap accessible signage. But for some reason the staff wanted separate restrooms from the clients so we put up little punch-codes (see arrow) so we don't have to share them with the riff raff that pay our salaries. However, the keypads were brilliantly installed at such a height that someone in a wheelchair could not reach them without standing up. So the staff bathrooms are indeed handicap accessible only if you can figure out how to get into them. This was not so funny a few years ago when we had our CARF survey (Commission for the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) which spends three days judging everything we do against 500 or so standards. We need to pass it in order to keep our doors open. And wouldn't you know it -- one of the surveyors showed up in a wheelchair! Fortunately there are 499 or so other standards. So we are still open. Unless you are in a wheelchair and need to go to the bathroom.

Speaking of mixed messages about accessibility. We have a service that provides translations for people who don't speak English. To make it easy for them we have signs like the one below:

Written in 20 different languages is the sentence: "Point to your language. An interpreter will be called." The only problem may arise if we get someone who speaks Tagalog. (Tagalog? I didn't even know there was a language called Tagalog? I thought Tagalog was a game played by Lumberjacks.) But --

Apparently the Tagalogians don't have a word for interpreter. So the poor guy who reads this sign understands that if he points to his language "something" will called. An immigration agent, perhaps? A government interrogator? I don't know if we have ever had a Tagalogian in our building but I know that no-one has ever pakituroed to this part of the sign.

We can then take the elevator down to leave the building...but not if it is on fire. Although, looking at the picture on this warning sign, it appears to me that the stairs are on fire. If the stairs are on fire, can't we at least then use the elevator?

Leaving our tour out the back of the building we find some staff parking lots. Since we couldn't secure them with little un-handicap accessible punch key pads, we wrote a sign:


This is an accurate sign but does not say what we wanted it to say. You have to follow the grammatical logic closely on this one. It doesn't say that owners of cars will pay for "towing expenses." It says they will pay for towing "enforcement" expenses. I suppose that would be salary of the security guards who enforce it. And it also doesn't say the owners of the cars. It just says "owners." Owners of what? It appears that it refers to the owners of Charleston Center, which would be Charleston County Government. And, by golly, that's absolutely correct. Charleston County does pay for towing enforcement! It's in the budget. But why we needed to post that information on the wall, I don't know when it would have been simpler to just write: "Staff Parking Only"

But enough of making fun of myself -- below is a sampling of other peoples' exercise of language:

______________________________

Hey! Don't Complain!
You made it this far, what's another three blocks!
It's a good workout for your arms.

Okay, I give up -- is it manual? Or is it automatic?

Speaking of parking control signs --
People are just dying to park here!

But this is one parking area to avoid
unless you want the Godfather to send you
sleeping with the fishes.

A concept which gives an ominous connotation
to the sign below:

What bait should I use?

This one seems ominous too.
Are they forming a labor union for higher allowances?
Or coming after us with pitchforks?


Jesus Saves but doesn't pay the mortgage

But thankfully grace is still free.

And apparently, so is the sign below:

The "Zen" sign - or maybe the tree is for sale

Speaking of trees - this is one sign where nobody will ever
clear out the foliage that makes it hard to read
for reasons that should be obvious.

I just like the one above...made me feel good
I wonder what the store actually sells.

Yuck

Do we really need a sign to tell us this is the end of the road?
This one is on Bull's Island where there are no cars
so I don't think there was a beginning of the road
in the first place.
The sign should actually read:
"This looks like a road but isn't one."

Any bush will do. Bring your own toilet paper.

Candid Camera. Do they have a movie of me taking a still?


This is from years back on a San Francisco trip.
Did Alcatraz really need a sign that said
"No one allowed ashore?"Another blast from the past -- Atlantic City Boardwalk
No spears or spearguns? Darn.
How about concealable weapons.

Yes, this post has driven me nuts...fortunately
in Oaxaca, Mexico mental illness is a comodity

THE END