70

 Never really expected to get this far.

Confronting the Inevitable

My dad has been fighting Parkinson's disease for several years now. Today, at 11:45 am PST, he tapped out of that fight. Despite the inevitability of the outcome, I and my family are discovering the crushing speed of the arrival of that long-known end.

We remain aweigh on the voyage of our own lives.

Congratulations to me, I suppose

Contrary to my own expectations, I've somehow managed to survive into official "old age"; yes, I'm 65 years old today.

Still waiting on my Medicare card to show up, of course. Fortunately I've been getting my health care from the VA for a year now, so I'm well familiar with how government health care "functions". It's only to be expected, I suppose. It'll get sorted out soon enough.

It's not all that much of an accomplishment really, just a matter of staying mobile and keeping breathing on your own. Still, there's plenty who don't manage it for all that. I'll just keep on as I have done and see what new experience today brings.

It'll almost certainly be an improvement on the alternative.

-----

Also, I don't think I've ever made an issue of this blog's age, so this seems an appropriate time for that too; a link to my first - and to be expected inappropriate - blog post from August, 2007:

https://wheretheresawilliam.blogspot.com/2007/08/and-now-for-something-more-usual.html

Friends Of The Ages

I have collected a series of advisory posts I wrote for my friend Charynn McCurdy here, because I thought I did rather well in putting together my disparate memories of lessons learned, but more because I wanted to retain easy access to my interactions with my friend.

I have had many acquaintances over my 63 years of life, but not that many friends, and of those never a friendship so unlikely seeming at first glance. What does a man nearing retirement age have in common with a teenage girl (beyond the obvious source of attraction - I'm old, not blind, and Charynn suffers not at all in the attractiveness department, but that's still not it) (really :)) (Ok, that's still not ONLY it, alright?) (Jesus Tits!)? Turns out, the differences in her and my individual assumptions makes the least consequential of our statements or beliefs shared with each other into a journey of mutual discovery, and our truly consequential revelations into shared confessionals that armor us from our personal demons and doubts (I hope they do for her too). Or perhaps this is only evidence of why my friendships have been so few, because I imbue them with over-much meaning and significance.

Every question we ask, every statement we declare, every opinion we assert to each other, in every aspect of our lives, all are influenced by and bounded within our assumptions. The unspoken, indeed too-often unasked and unquestioned, beliefs and ideas that guide how we construct our understanding of life and each other. The unquestioned assumption that right-and-wrong = good-and-bad, that truth = justice, that faith = fact. Charynn and I steadily discover that we share a belief in so many things, agree on so many different conclusions, but that we arrive at these shared convictions by means of completely different assumptions.

Do friendships go somewhere? People so often say, "Our friendship has gone ...", and then recite a time travel itinerary. My friendships seem to abide instead, the few recognizable landmarks in my passage through life. We all move on, of course, inevitably apart if history is any judge. And that's probably both good and natural, if more than a bit lonely. Experience changes our assumptions, obligations change over time, commitments tend to compete for our individual time and other resources; perhaps it's only healthy that we gradually withdraw from interaction with our friends over time. Or, perhaps it's a consequence of having over-many shared assumptions in the beginning?

Perhaps Charynn and I will be able to make the time together to discover how that question gets answered.

I hope so ...

Kodak Moment

I'm in Oregon for my son's wedding, which is tomorrow, and I volunteer to drive us over to McMinnville (about 25 miles away from Dallas) so he and my 11 y/o grandson Asher can get haircuts.  In an effort to lessen the stress levels for his almost-wife (and decade + partner) Amy, we bring my 9 y/o granddaughter Rayna along with us.  So, we're driving along, the local oldies station on the radio, and this classic from the 60's comes up in the play rotation.  Duncan and I start spontaneously singing along to the lyrics; it was one of the more emotion laden moments of my life.

I could feel the eyes rolling in the back seat the whole time.

It was great.

I've also discovered that I've been living alone for way too long.  I need to do some research and find something to help me restore my patience (which was always in short supply) and develop a better ability to focus my attention in the moment (without the usual elevated intensity of martial arts/shooting practice).  I train to keep my mental focus during crisis events; there ought to be something similar for relaxed conversational settings and the like.  There's the occasional time when it's desirable to be a competent asshole, sitting around with your family ought not be one of those times though.

More Updatedness

As mentioned here last month, I am retiring from my current place of employment.  My Social Security is set up to begin on 1 January, 2016 and my last day of work (on this job ... I am looking into an alternative potential option) will be 29 January, 2016.  My willingness to do the job correctly remains in place, but my supply of fucks to give is completely depleted.  I cannot fully express just how refreshing that circumstance is.  :)

UPDATE

So, it's now official; earlier today I fully assimilated myself into the Socially inSecure borg.  As it worked out, this was a surprisingly painless encounter with the .gov.  Beginning next year, I shall be financially dependant upon all of you who remain among the ranks of the employed.  I look forward to discovering the difference in rankness my new station in life provides.


Funny, somehow it always felt like I would have more time to prepare myself for this eventuality.  If only I could honestly use the humor/satire tag.

My Number Of The ... errr, Something

Just received official notice from the good folks at Elio Motors that I am number 4577 in line for my new car motorcycle vehicle.

WooT!

No idea when that becomes a delivery date next year, but notification of that will come as an inquiry into my desired styling and optional features a few weeks before my new auto-cycle (you pick a better description) goes down the assembly line.  I know I want a touring trailer towing package and, based on Tam's recent experience, I'm thinking a rear-view camera option too (the "luggage hatch" doesn't feature glass and, however narrow the fuselage, the rear-view mirrors still won't "see" around corners).  I'll have to see what the tunes and travelogue features offered will cost come the day, it already comes with a pretty decent sound system as part of the base vehicle package (along with ac/heat, power windows and the more usual modern vehicle creature features).

I'm excited.

I only live an hour-and-a-half from the assembly plant in Shreveport, LA; I wonder if the company would let me pick mine up from the factory?

Crown Him!

Went to the dentist again today.  Went very well procedurally, but one of the hygienists was still relating the story of how one of the partners live-trapped a marauding raccoon and took it "to the woods" recently (the treatment suites all overlook a wooded area with stuff and feeders for the local squirrel population).  So I mentioned to my guy, "Yeah, and Those Woods are where he introduced Rocky Raccoon to Mr. 22".

We thought this was giggle worthy, but the assistant (who is really good at her job BTW and takes my calling her a "professional caulking gunner" with more restraint than that deserves) got all outraged we would even think that of the other man.  Who can be heard snorting with laughter in the next suite all the while.  :)

It's going to the dentist, but I'm going to miss all this once Obamacare kicks in here in Texas.  My guys don't pump-up the prices to milk the insurance cow, so once my health insurance gets "improved" for me this hilarity will be entirely out of my own pocket I expect.  I'm gonna hafta work on my stand-up ... maybe we can work out an exchange of services deal for part of the work.

In Commemoration - Again

Upon the occasion of my 60th birthday - This.

Horizons are just the boundaries of your existential context; stretch them or pursue the alternative.

Connect The Dots

Dot

Dot

American all the way, baby!

Away Game Stats

Phil Bowermaster takes a good look at the flag as table cloth spectacle in HGTV's recent "unforced error".  I particularly like his assertion that "... concerns about flag desecration are just a highly specialized instance of political correctness" and a version of hate speech laws, which led me to opine:

I think this entire controversy can be summed up as, “How much should we regard the flag used in the HGTV presentation as a re-iteration of THE Star Spangled Banner?”

Leaving aside the whole just how large of a table are we talking here question, I think it an honest statement that Americans generally regard our national icons as possessing unique and, if not precisely sacred then at least desirable and due-of-respect, patriotic qualities. The question would seem to come down to, how far does such expression of respect extend?

If HGTV had made it explicit that the table setting was “… a piece of cloth with [flag-like] colors on it”, there wouldn’t have been anything like the response received. Far too many Americans have had family members buried beneath just such a re-iteration of a cloth with colors on it for such a casual display to be anything other than profoundly insulting to the memory of their honored dead.

At the very least, HGTV should have been aware of, and taken pains not to offend, such wide-spread and deeply felt sensibilities. As too should the commenters making light of the offense being expressed.

As if …

The Smithsonian link is an interesting source of trivia on a whole host of fronts, but what it also explicitly makes plain is that The Star Spangled Banner wasn’t always a national treasure and icon and that the progression of events that lead to it becoming so was and remains a process we Americans continue to develop. HGTV just happened to wallow all around in that process and now probably wishes it could wipe it back off again.

Cable bundling will no doubt save them, but I bet a whole bunch of network execs are calling into question the thesis all publicity is good publicity right about now.

 In an effort at full disclosure and all that, HGTV has announced:

"This was a regrettable use of our flag and it never should have happened,” HGTV said in a statement late Wednesday. “We sincerely apologize and have removed the post from our website. We want to assure our fans that HGTV is proud of the American flag and everything it symbolizes for our people.”

All of which pretty much only makes the whole thing worse.

I'm sure they do regret it, if only for the reasons I point out above.  Just as a quick strategic aside, when you puke on your plate in public like this, don't sweep it off the table, cover it decently with a transparent effort to make amends by pointing out something like the Smithsonian website I did and make a teachable moment of your apology.  Thank your audience for their assistance in expanding your base of knowledge and encourage them to do so when you inevitably prove your humanity (which is "to err") yet again on some future occasion.

Not bury it away from plain view and hide behind the sack cloth (which is colored how?).

Finally, and on a much more important note; Happy Birthday, Dad.  Our shared uncertainty about the impact of humanities carbon footprint on the world around us notwithstanding, asking anybody to blow out 80 candles all in one go still seems a bit much, so this instead.

Life As A Series Of Second Acts

I don't ordinarily go into much in the way of personal detail here; frankly, it's no one else's business and mostly too crushingly mundane and boring to anyone not required to slog through it.  Then there are days like today ...

Pushing hard on 4am this morning, it having been several years since the last time I tried, I typed in my son's name on my Facebook page search engine ... and this time he had a Facebook page of his own to discover.  When I finally rolled out of bed shortly after the crack of noon (hey!  I work the evening shift; gimme a break) and fired up the computer, there amongst the usual spam was a Facebook "Friend" confirmation from him.

I keep reading how Mark Zuckerberg can be an asshole and such, but he has my thanks all the same.

I confess I don't quite know what to do with the car now that I finally caught the bumper, so to speak.  Duncan has his own life and family in which I have no place; I think it would be rude and boorish of me to assume anything about how he and I might accommodate each other in our lives now, I only know I so very much want to do so.

As a beginning, I am writing this post as a means for he and I to re-discover each other that isn't constrained in the same fashion as Facebook is (which I don't use other than as an easy means to keep up with my daughter and her family's doings anyway).   He isn't the little boy I remember (he has a daughter of his own now) and I'm not the (same type of) fool who wandered away from him either.  Finding out who we each are and where and how we can fit together again is all unknown yet, but this is what classical strategy is really for - advancing position into the unknown in mutually reinforcing and beneficial ways.

Mostly I don't spontaneously break out in tears though.

You deservedly call another man "Dad" son, but I hope one day to have the opportunity to introduce you to the rest of your family and see where we all go from there.

Happy Birthday To Him

Just back from the Grandson's first birthday party. He's not too sure about the big guy with the mustache yet, but the goodies are ok. :)

Boy's already got damn near as many guns as I do (in my gun locker, where they'll stay 'till Mom and Dad say he's old/responsible enough). I may have to get a bigger place to hold it all at the rate I've been going though. I keep having to shove his ammo around to get to mine.

Bullish on the Future's Market

The below quotation is an excerpt from the latest e-mail from my daughter:

"... and as of last week....i have taken 8 test and they all say yes.....so i will find out on thursday if they are accurate.....and that you will be a grandfather...."

I don't think I will end up too far from the trunk when I take this pre-confirmation opportunity to publicly declare an upgrade of my personal Grandfather-tude status from "pending" to "incipient".

The Amazon account is in for a shift of emphasis in the near future it would seem. I'll have to see if I can arrange for Saturday delivery.

There is no "u" in Lara

Which would have been a screamingly funny line to deliver in the circumstances just passim. Or screaming, at least. I confess I was too chicken (or experienced with the results from previous displays of "humor") to actually express the observation. Perhaps one day the lady herself (for such she has grown to become) will read these pages and appreciate the possibilities my hesitance saved us all from.

Just returned from a two-day trip to the Dallas area. I am proud to announce that the no-longer-Miss Brown is, as I write these words, winging her way in the company of her new husband towards Barcelona, Espania and a week-long seaborne tour of the most touristy venues the western Med currently has on offer. I further have it on reliable authority that I am going to require larger digs in a year or three if I expect to hold up my end of the grand-fatherly responsibilities within the familias. Not sure what the kitties will think of all of that or, come the day, the kinder. Apparently we all are going to find out sometime in the late Spring of 2010 if himself expects to maintain his manly public reputation. I wish to place in the public record that I aver this to be an expression of feminine prescience - guns are for shooting, not jumping, he said.

One final observation; do you know how, when you first see some object of great art, that sensation you experience of "Yes, that's right. This is as it should be." can occur in the viewer? Even though there are numerous other examples also present that do the same thing, for that moment you have trouble accepting that the portrayed circumstance could possibly exist any other way. Seeing my daughter and son-in-law together instills that set of emotions very strongly in me. Indeed, that may have been the most common theme of the day, that at least in this swirl of life, things are finally as they were always meant to be. I like to think that I encouraged her to think for herself as she grew into adulthood; if the non-traditional nature of the proceedings now completed are any example, I succeeded beyond my wildest imaginings.

I feel much greater confidence as I face back towards the future. She has done well, and will do more as the dawns accumulate.