Sore Pignals...

One of the first blogs I wrote was a rant against both fortune cookies and Sleep Number beds. I still feel strongly about both – in fact, I was thrilled to get an actual fortune the other day and also thrilled to find that there were real mattresses in this year’s room at the hotel where I first encountered Sleep Numbers. My life has strange highlights, and these were two of them. Notably, PF Chang’s still gave out one more cookie than there were people at the table.

Today, I want to talk about two other revolutionary products – only one of which I can actually remember. The first goes back a ways, to my honeymoon as a matter of fact. J. and I don’t have cable at home, so we tend to watch TV whenever we go anywhere that has it. Our honeymoon was no different. Although we spent many hours in the sun, at the beach, wandering around Bermuda, visiting sites, and generally enjoying the cruise – we also spent time in our stateroom watching a marathon of Law & Order: SVU. Romantic, I know. I still remember the occasional signal lost on the rolling ship and it wasn’t long before ‘Poor Signal’ turned into ‘Sore Pignals’ simply because it was amusing. We’re odd. This should surprise no one.

Anyway – during that marathon, there also seemed to be a marathon of infomercial ads for Aqua Globes. If you don’t know what an Aqua Globe is, it’s a glass ball on a tube that you fill with water. The idea is that the water slowly runs down the tube into your plants and waters them for you. It was only about the second time the infomercial came on that I began to deconstruct it. The rants relating to Aqua Globes left J. in tears, I’m fairly sure. The first issue I took with it is that if the people in the ad were truly as idiotic as it seemed they were, I don’t think I would trust them with any glass object, let alone one with a hollow glass tube that tapered into a point. These people were insane. They would tend to their plants with so much water that there’d be an inch-deep pond where their wooden end-table surface used to be. I kept waiting for the infomercial that sold end tables with the two-inch lipped edges to save your things from falling off or, in this case, water-damaging your carpet. If you put so much water in a plant that it completely saturated the soil and then created a reflecting pool on random surfaces in your domicile, then I’m not sure that Aqua Globes were going to solve your deeper problems. Just a thought. Also, if I cannot be trusted to water my plants every few days – so they wilt and die and turn my house into a black and white image from the Depression – then how am I going to remember to fill the Aqua Globe every two weeks? And how I earth will I manage to stop filling the Globe when it’s full, since I can’t seem to water a plant without rivaling the Great Flood?

The other item is the one I can’t remember, but it has something to do with shaving or, more accurately, unwanted hair removal. The only part of the ad I can remember is, of course, in black and white. It seems typical to cast one’s life in shades of grey when you don’t have whatever As-Seen-On-TV item they are selling at the moment. It’s like the ad industry’s version of the Wizard of Oz – though I’m fairly certain the ad execs have more drugs. Anyway, the woman in the commercial is sitting on the toilet in a robe with her foot up on the bathroom sink. She has about three inches of what seems to be men’s shaving cream slathered all over her leg and she’s dragging a dry razor up her shin bone with speeds rivaling an Ariel Atom V8 500 (I’ve been watching some Top Gear lately and that’s the car topping their leaderboard at the moment for Driving Really Fast Around the Test Track). The image then indicates somehow that the woman has cut herself. Every time I see this, I’m fairly certain this woman deserves to have her leg sliced up if this is how she’s choosing to shave it. I know they exaggerate these things for effect, but when it hurtles into the realm of absurdly comical, then it’s hard for me to take any of it seriously. In fact, this commercial sunk in so much that I cannot even remember what it’s for. All I can do is surmise that we are meant to feel smarter than these people and that if we see a small reflection of our own failings in them, maybe we’ll feel better about calling in the next 10 minutes and getting a second set at no extra cost.

The more I think about it, perhaps that woman is in such a hurry because she can hear water flooding her living room from the excess water she put in her hydrangea just minutes before going in to the bathroom to drive shave her leg with her husband’s Barbasol.

In any event, I need to go read a book or do something without advertisements because even thinking about these commercials is giving me sore pignals.

Unofficiant...

This is the ceremony I wrote for my brother and his wife's vow renewal.  I thought I would share.

***

Welcome.

Before we bear witness to this renewed pledge of love and companionship, we must first pause for a moment and reflect on just what it is we are celebrating.  Joined hand in hand, these two represent a confluence of wonder and joy.  For those who do not know, a confluence is the place where two rivers come together to make a new river – one whose renown and power are oft more pronounced than the two from which it was born.  So formed is the Amazon River, the Ohio River, the Ganges – each of these finds their source in the joining of other rivers, the swirling of waters that soon become inseparable from one another.

At the point of the joining, cities thrive and grow – tying their fates to the new river, a river strong and alive from the moment of its waking.

So, too, are Jim and Marie a confluence.  Behind them, in the years of their lives before they met, they carved out their paths, tumbling over obstacles or finding ways around them. They have brought with them, rolling along in the current of their existence, their experiences and their dreams, their hopes and fears, their families and their friends.  And into the headwaters of the new life they are building together, all of these things combine to form a powerful force – one that can carry them wherever they need to go.  From these moments onward, they will share their lives and face whatever the world lays before them.

And we, who are gathered here to celebrate the strength of what they have found together, will thrive in their abundance of love and joy.  For no matter which tributary we aligned ourselves with, we are now all part of the same river – and their love and joy will be ever stronger because we, too, have joined it, adding our own.

So, I stand here to officiate something that is already official and to give voice to that which we all already know and feel.  For my brother, I have pride and not a little relief.  I always knew you were a good man with a big heart, but I was never quite sure if you would ever find someone who could draw you out of your private world and, to return to the river metaphor, open the locks so you could show the world just how special you are.  I cannot express how pleased and honored I am to be here in this place with you.  For my new sister, I welcome you warmly into our circle of family and friends.  You’ve already been welcomed, and as you are still here, I know that you belong here.  I did not know if I would ever get the chance to welcome a sister in this way, and now that I am, I could not have asked for a better woman and friend.  I cannot express how pleased and honored I am to be here in this place with you.

To you both, I offer love and gifts in my words that I have no doubt echo, in some way, the hearts of all of those who have gathered here – and even those who could not be with us today.  I cannot truly express how pleased and honored we are to be here in this place with you both.

Each of us should well know that Jim and Marie have asked us to be here today to witness this celebration because each of us plays a vital part in their lives.  The friendship, guidance, support, encouragement, and love have made them who they are and have brought them to this place; truly, if we close our eyes and listen closely, we can even hear the heartbeats and laughter of those who are no longer with us.  Jim and Marie have already begun their lives together with hearts full of gratitude for the past, joy for the present, and hope for the future and now they wish to share it with those most dear to them.

They have already come through sickness and health, through richness and poorness, for better and for worse.  On a Sunday afternoon in May, over one year ago, they pledged themselves to one another.  And now, I ask if they  are ready to affirm, to their gathered friends and family, their commitment to one another.  Jim and Marie, are you ready to once again make the pledges to which you commit yourselves to each other in love?

Exchange of Vows

“I take you
to be no other than yourself
loving what I know of you
trusting what I do not yet know
with respect for who you are
and faith in your love for me
through all our years
and in all that life may bring us
with my earnest and complete devotion
I give you my love.”

Exchange of Rings

A circle is the symbol of the sun and of the earth, of life and of the universe. It is a symbol of wholeness and renewal, permanence and peace. The rings you gave, received, and now give again are symbols of the circle of shared love into which you entered together as husband and wife.

“With all that I am, and all that I have, I once more offer this ring as a sign of my renewed vow and a symbol of a love which knows no end.”

Pronouncement

May you bless each other in your marriage tomorrow as you did yesterday; may you comfort each other when comfort is needed, share in each other’s joys and laughter, help each other in all challenges and endeavors, and find fulfillment in all your married days together.  May you, today and every day,  be the living embodiment of these words:

The way is long -- let us go together
The way is difficult -- let us help each other
The way is joyful -- let us share it
The way is ours alone -- let us go in love
The way grows before us -- let us begin

You may now share the kiss that will begin your lives together from this day forward and begin the joint celebration of all your gathered loved ones.

Mom and Me...

This past weekend, I took part in a new tradition that my mom and I began three years ago. Really, though, its roots were planted some 32 years ago when my grandmother casually asked what I wanted to collect so she’d have a better idea of what to buy me. Apparently, I chose miniatures and that answer led me to offer my mother a deal three years ago. Thus, a tradition was born.

From those early days of miniatures, I began a love for small figurines called Wades. My miniature collection became focused on these little porcelain animals – dense and glossy and always cool to the touch. Some of you may know them from Red Rose Tea. The ones I started with were small – no more than an inch high – small and swathed in earth tones and blue for the most part. Seals and beavers and mice and buffalo and something called a pine martin. The list goes on and on. There were nursery rhyme figures, too – and the longer I went, the more I realized that some of my pieces were fairly rare and that there was a whole world out there of pieces I’ve never heard of in shapes I’d never imagined. Pitchers and plates, decanters and vases. Buildings and egg coddlers, banks and dinnerware. The list seems never-ending and my collection seems ever-growing.

Sometime ago, perhaps 10 years now, I joined the Wade Collector’s Club – an international organization headquartered in England and very closely tied to Wade itself. I received a quarterly magazine and an exclusive piece every year. It was here that I started to realize that my collection was perhaps a bit more impressive than I had originally given it credit for being. Oh, I had nothing tremendously rare, but I had a lot of them. I also had a growing interest in the yearly convention they had in Camp Hill, PA. I never thought I would actually go, but one year – three years ago – I decided that I really wanted to see what it was all about. So, I made a deal with my mom. She has a few pieces herself and she also sells them. I made her a deal – I would pay for the hotel if she would buy our tickets in. We could go together on a road trip for the weekend and see what it was all about.

It was amazing. Friday night was an ice cream social, which we skipped the first year -- though we did go over and gather our goodie bags.  Saturday morning, we walked into the room in the convention center and I was floored. I thought I had a lot of Wades, but this was amazing. Wade upon Wade lay before me and it was a mad house. People everywhere haggling and ogling and my mom and I were right there with them. I spent a lot of money that first year and both years since. And it’s worth it. There were door prizes given out every hour and silent auctions were held to raise money for Parkinson’s research. Saturday night was a banquet where more Wades were given out, games were played, auctions were finished, a live auction was held, and we played English Bingo. Sunday, we went back into the convention room to see prices being cut, deals being made, and amateur sellers peddling their duplicates or liquidating their collections. A friend bought me the rarest Wade I have that first year – for a price that still surprises me because I brought it up as a joke and he was serious. A Mad Hatter advertising Guinness. Who knew?

The next year we had notes – we learned what to bring and what to look for. We knew better how it went. We brought our own food, packed amidst our clothes and my photo album of Wades. We brought bags to carry our purchases, and again, we played Yahtzee in the hotel and ribbed each other about finding better deals before the other. Again, I spent a good deal of money and came home with more Wades and more memories. And the friend bought me Supergirl and Batman and Alfred and Lois Lane. I came home and cataloged, numbered, photographed, and displayed my Wades and waited patiently for this year.

This year we had even better notes and better plans. My photos were better and my money was ready. We were first in line for the special Sunday sales and I came home again with more Wades and more memories.  The friend?  Pusser's Rum flask and the newest book of figurines and price trends.

I love my Wades...and I hope someday they will bring joy to another as they have brought to me. J. helps me with them and supports my collection, and maybe someday he'll go with me to the show.  He's helped me move them and organize them and kept me company as I’ve dusted them and told him stories about them.  He's urged me to make multiple copies of my database so I don't lose it -- for it would take a long time to rebuild the list as I have around 500 of them now.  And it is true that I love every one of them. But what I really value about this trip is not just the physical treasures I find but the time I spend with my mother. So many my age have lost their mothers or are not close to them and it’s so special to me to get to spend this time with mine. We laugh and plan, share and spend, celebrate and collaborate. We roll our Yahtzee dice, make our artistic nametags, and basically have a great time. My mother and I don’t always spend a lot of time together; we get along fine and go on shopping trips, but I tend to have more in common with my father. That makes these trips all the more special. The first year we went was right after my grandfather passed away and there was something profoundly healing in that first trip together. So, as I go to sleep tonight in my own bed, I will once again relive the weekend and smile at the two things that I brought home with me.

Whimsical Wades and mom memories.

Tears for Norway...

Tears for Norway

Pale Nordic skin,
Touched by raindrops
And water from the lake.
Shivering with gooseflesh
Brought on by rain and fear
Huddling in confusion

You shed your clothes
Hoping to swim away,
But the lake drained you
And you turned back
Knowing that you were wading
Into the cold jaws of hell

You lay still, silent
The bodies of friends
Pressing in against you
Crushing the panic within you
The rain washing away
Blood you will always feel

You could hear him
Breathing on a rock
His taunts and laughter
Still in your ears
Then the bullet came
And you heard nothing

The world is watching
Struggling to understand
Why he came for the children
Faces not Nordic, but human
Grieving for the innocence
Shed like clothes on a rocky beach

7/25/11

Meeples and Munchkins...

I once wrote about two flaws I have -- which was not to say that those were the only flaws I have ,they are just the ones that stood out to me at the time for whatever reason.  Today, I will write about another.

First, I want to say that I love playing games.  Not just computer ones, but games that involve tables and dice and sometimes little figurines.  Things that require you to determine battle results and how you will plan your strategy.  My favorite games of late are Munchkin in its many forms.  Arkham Horror (this one has everyone working together -- best game ever for reasons which will soon be clear), Carcasonne in its many forms.  And games where I can spell things.  :)  Nothing like spending hours on some random afternoon gathering cards and setting up elaborate game tableaux.

That said, however, I'm a poor loser.  It's awful, really -- I try so hard to remember that it's just a game and that I shouldn't take it personally or as if the fate of the free world depended on me winning.  Sometimes -- most of the time, sadly -- that intellectual, rational thought will not stop me from getting upset when I'm losing.  I don't ragequit or cry or anything, but I do tend to get really testy with whomever I'm playing.  The worst part is, I can HEAR myself doing it, and yet I cannot always get myself to stop.  The dilemma of emotions not having on/off switches for most of us.  My poor opponent(s) gets to be subjected to petulant Gemini and I get to dig myself into worse holes because it's really hard to play better when you're feeling sorry for yourself.

I'm not a bad player, either -- sometimes I just get a bad draw of cards or my opponent gets really lucky.  Sometimes I make mistakes (don't we all?) and sometimes the other player is better.  In any event, sometimes I whine like the dickens, only to end up winning.  It's horrible.  I can laugh about it afterwards, but what I really want to to find the magic 'Whiny Loser' button somewhere in my silly head and give it a toggle.  And then break it.

Sometimes I can fight it by just being melodramatic in an exaggerated way and just be generally goofy -- telling my opponent to leave me alone or I'll haunt his nightmares.  Begging for mercy.  Casting aspersions on his ancestors.  That sort of thing.  I have found this sort of goofy hyperbole can stave off the frustration of losing and, by extension, losing all my confidence.

I also tend to stick to games that, while they have one clear winner, tend to rely more on luck or on personal accomplishment than specifically 'Crush your Opponent' as the main objective.

So...to everyone I play games with...thank you for your patience in the face of Whiny Loser and I promise you that I will continue to work on it. In the meantime, just leave my meeples and munchkins alone.

Please?  :)

Serendipity and Ghosts...

Sometimes I see things that aren’t there.

It's true.  Out of the corner of my eye, I sometimes see shadows large or small – just a shape, a movement, a sense that there’s something there that’s just out of reach of my senses. When I turn to look, I see, of course, nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about this – perhaps because all too recently, we watched my husband’s grandmother slip into the clutches of dementia. She saw people the rest of us could not see and quietly rewrote history by some unknown guidelines that none of us knew. We couldn’t truly understand it, and it was frightening.  We ache as we watch and wonder what it is like to lose control of our faculties and be rendered to a point where we cannot tell what is real and what is the product of a damaged mind. And we wonder if, in the end, we’ll even care.

But, my own experiences with things that others cannot see is much different.  It's also been happening more often lately and while I know it could be cause for concern in another context, I honestly don’t think it is in mine.  If pressed, I think most would admit to having experienced something similar at some point, though it may not have registered. I also suspect, from a rational point of view, that because I’m looking for anomalies, I am finding them. Or it’s the heat or a stray hair or countless other things that are less resistant to reason.  I'm sure, also, that because I’m more aware of it, I’m noticing it more. I do not think it is ghosts or spirits or anything supernatural.

Or maybe I do.

Maybe I don’t know what they are and don’t really care. It doesn’t feel like I’m losing my rational mind – I never see something out of the corner of my eye and think it’s a real person. And when I turn to find nothing looking back at me, I don’t look around in a panic, wondering where whomever it was went. I just sort of shrug and move on. Nothing feels amiss in my brain or in my reality. Nothing feels menacing within my mind or without – it’s just the idea that there’s something there, but when I look at it, it leaves my perception.

I’m not sure if this blog is braver than the one about same-sex marriage, but it is certainly up there. There are those of you out there who will nod and smile at this – having experienced similar sightings before and feeling no fear at your grip on reality. There are those who will think I’m crazy – but you already do, so I’m not sure it’s dangerous for me to share. I believe all of this is harmless.

Most of you know that I am not religious in any conventional way – there is no name for what I believe in. Someday I will write about that – but for now, I will say that I believe that no matter how one might categorize it, there are things in this world that we cannot understand. There are things that don’t fit neatly into what we know and accept as real. There are forces in the world that will make you find the exact book you are looking for in a crowded bookstore just by reaching out your hand. Or something that lands a financial opportunity at your feet on the very day you were discussing money with a loved one. Or believing you saw the shape of your grandmother – gone for two years – disappear in a crowd as you leave from a visit with your grandfather in the hospital. Or something that makes you stay up way too late on the one night that a near-stranger desperately needs someone to talk to.

Coincidence. Random occurrence. Tricks of the mind. Perhaps these – but what if they are not? What if those are words and phrases for the forces of the world that we cannot explain? Do we render ourselves too vulnerable if we admit that things happen that cannot be explained through science as we know it? There is an awful lot of ugliness in the world, and it does my spirit good to believe that there is some sort of force out there that, through my own will or another’s, makes things go right sometimes. So, maybe that shadow is just a trick of the light or a tired mind – or maybe it’s something else. Either way, I will see its presence – for just a brief moment – with eyes of wonder and curiosity.

It is these moments that we praise the lucky coincidence, being in the right place at the right time, opportunity knocking, or even saying that fortune favors the blind.

Give me that which I cannot understand...blur my dreams with my reality...let me have my formless shapes...they harm no one and perhaps if we all slowed own and looked to the shadows that dance just out of our line of sight, we would find more beauty and wonder in the world...

“The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical” – Albert Einstein

“There are no coincidences... only the illusion of coincidence.” – V in V for Vendetta

Fun with Language II

A long, long time ago – like a whole year or so – I wrote a blog called Fun with Language I.  About time I did a sequel, I think.  So, for this blog, I will pick a couple of quirky things about language and talk about them, not from the perspective of an English professor, precisely, but more from that of someone who loves language and how it is used/abused/misused/infused/confused.  Like last time, I will only pick a couple of things...and save the rest for another day.
 

“What?” – I only list this one in instances when it is followed by a statement like “I was only joking” or something similar.  I think that the listener hears an implied “!” that isn’t necessarily always there.  Without the tone of incredulity, “what” simply means you didn’t hear...and an explanation of the joking nature of the statement is really not helpful as I didn’t hear whatever it was in the first place.  I occasionally get a response that explains a reference – which I didn’t hear, so explaining the reference really doesn’t help since I never heard the reference the first time around.

“Literally” – This one literally drives me nuts.  Okay, no it doesn’t...because if it did, I would be on medication at least and in some sort of care facility at the most.  And therein lies my issue with this word. Like ‘actually,’ it is misused all the time.  People are trying to emphasize, when what they are doing is rendering the hyperbole into reality.  And that’s just not right.  So, someone tells me they could literally eat a horse – Mmmhmm, I’d like to see him try.  

Profanity -- Much of what I feel is happening with language – and this brings me to profanity – is that we seem to constantly be looking for ways to give our lives meaning in the face of technology is changing so fast we can barely keep up with it.  Just the other day, for example, a friend of mine said “Firefox 5?  When did 4 happen?”  So, I think we inundate our language with superlatives and we ramp up hyperbole to make it seem more real so that it seems more fantastic.  In a world where we celebrate the minutiae of everyday life (scan a few Facebook status updates and you’ll know what I mean) that we try to make it have meaning by inflating its importance.  We use a variety of techniques to either make our minutiae stand out, or to make the more interesting aspects of our lives stand out from everyone else’s.  The problem is that it gets used so often that it loses any sort of impact, which negates the point of using it.  A well placed curse here and there can make all the difference in the world – but use it too much and it’s just a lack of creativity and can lower the perceived intelligence of the user.  I’ll give you an example...

There’s a woman where I  work who is wonderful – she is very grandmotherly and manages to remain neutral in much of the back and forth that goes on in any large business – quite a feat when you take a collective group of somewhat quirky people who have dedicated their lives to education.  I had a bad semester awhile back and was caught in some of the shadowy intrigue that is so common but shouldn’t be.  As I left to head home one night, this lovely woman walked me to the door and said, “And as for those others?  F*** ‘em.”  It was the single most profound use of a profane word that I have ever heard.  Which is NOT hyperbole.  I’m not sure I’d ever heard this woman swear, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it since.  It made my day – my whole semester, really – and it was that one word that did it.  Take, on the other hand, the countless ‘f-bombs’ (are they even bombs anymore?) that spill across my senses on any given day.  There is no comparison in effectiveness, power, or overall impact.

Let’s compare...

OPTION A:  “I think he's a sort of man people emigrate to avoid. I remember the first time I met Gerald, I said to my wife....either this man is suffering from serious brain damage or the new vacuum cleaner's just arrived. As for his family, they are quite simply the most intolerable herd of steaming social animals that I have ever had the misfortune of turning my nose up to. I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog.”

OPTION B:  “You stupid mother******”

Option B is just so humdrum, but isn’t option A lovely?  Doesn’t it just convey a fascinating level of creativity, effectiveness, and overall ‘wincing-ness’ to it?  And there’s not a single f-word in there. 

Literally.*

(*For the record, there are two words that begin with f...so it all depends on how you define ‘f-word’).

To bring it back to the start....I love a turn of phrase (insult or no) that makes me think a little...perhaps even say that tiny pairing of words that makes the speaker proud...

“Wait...what?” 

 Note:  Option A above is taken from a Rowan Atkinson sketch referred to as "A Toast to the Caterers" -- it's quite funny and well worth a watch.