Brain Drain

I finally saw one of the I guess it's new TV shows last night.  "Private Practice" is a medical show evidently, though I had  thought it might be  a crime show.  I also thought it had received decent reviews, but I hope that was a mistake on my part.  I might be a little biased because my viewing was a sort of default, meaning I had fallen asleep, woke up, it was on, and I couldn't find the remote.  What a disaster of a show.  A central character by the name of Addison seems to have captured the hearts and minds of every male in or near the hospital.  Two such hunks, friends of each other, are feuding because it turns out that Addison has kissed both of them in a single day. Kissed!!  She had wanted to have a child, and her present and primary stud friend wants no more children, so she succeeded in adopting a baby boy.  Another doctor goes on a tirade and tells the lovely (though I thought rather strange-looking) Addison how much she hates her and can't stand to have her anywhere near her.  She is jealous of Addison's baby because she herself is pregnant with a baby that will be born without a brain, and she, ironically, is a neurosurgeon.  Another couple of doctors, I guess, is undergoing marriage counseling, where the wise and wizened counselor holds out hope but only after the sessions morph from polite to ugly.  There is hope when there is ugliness he tells them, but the husband seems to reject this approach in favor of just live and love philosophy.  The wife gets distracted because a nine-year-old girl is brought into the ER with multiple stab wounds, and the doctor is suspicious of the teenaged sister's demeanor. (Viewers are treated to the sight of a child covered in blood, in case they need a reminder to keep watching.) The child is placed on life support, and the doctor gets the teen sister to admit that she stabbed her little sister because she wanted to know what it felt like to plunge a knife into flesh, and it turned out to be not a bad feeling at all.  The teen is dismayed when the cops immediately come in to arrest her, telling the doctor-confessor that she thought they understood each other.  It all worked out for the best, though, because the parents decide, in unison with the pregnant neurosurgeon, to donate their children's organs.  A number of other sub-plots lie in wait, and will surely erupt in next week's episode.  I can't wait: I'm so afraid that the baby momma of Addison's son will want him back. 

Some people

Heartwarming and heartbreaking-------Some people are so good, kind, friendly and helpful that they tower above the rest of us in their humanity.  I can't think of a single way that I could ever compare myself to them .They carry on in what seems to be the absence of a god.  Maybe heartfelt  compassion put into service is as close as we can get to god; then why would some have to go through such suffering so others can be  so  elevated.  What I know is that I'll never know........

A Horse of a Color

Somewhere over the far side of a rainbow veiled in haze lies a farm, with the red barn and the animals in a sunlit field, one of them a horse, a black and white horse. The promise of living there happily forever was made by a very young child.

Let it, my people, go

Memo to the former parishoners of the former St. Patrick's Church in Watervliet:   let it go.  Do not bother trying to stop Price Chopper from tearing it down.  Remember they paved paradise to put up a parking lot.  You will lose.  Time is not on your side.  You are old people, and your power has waned.  Those hallowed halls  of worship where sacred memories were formed and once revered are destined to be aisles of frozen foods and fresh produce.  Your memories will fade; some of you will   reach a stage of senility or Alzheimer's that will allow you to make the transition less painful.   You will even be able to buy lottery tickets, way better than pinning your dreams on Bingo night winnings.  Your ambassador from the Diocese has most likely already explained to you that what you once regarded as God's earthly home is in truth nothing more than a compilation of bricks and mortar, to be rightfully returned to the oblivion of the ashes from which it sprung.  Just as battleships are decommissioned, churches go through a solemn rite where the holiness once bestowed on them is formally removed; they are desanctified.   St. Patrick has already left the building.   My former church, Our Lady of Good Counsel, site of baptisms, communions, confirmations, weddings, wakes, funerals, religious instruction, and countless Masses and religious ceremonies and rituals, is now known as The Brick Elephant.  We are not able to buy food there, only occasionally listen to Baroque music.  So your fate could be worse.

WDEHTBSS?

That's my blog shorthand for "Why does everything have to be so stupid?" I used to enjoy watching "The Office" because it cleverly combined comedy with the subtleties of the human condition. I sort of lost track of it for a while, but watched it tonight. The show did not just jump the shark: the entire episode took place in a shark infested tank, worse even than the lamest of the SNL skits. The writers must all have been stoned; that's the only viable explanation for the stupidity. But then, I'm reminded of the Secret Service Agents who do drugs and consort with whores while on a mission. Are they stupid, or stoned? And if they weren't stupid before they got stoned, how could they engage in such idiotic behavior. Arrogance can't be the answer because arrogance presumes at least a modicum of pride in oneself, which could not exist among such repugnance and complete lack of thought. Their minds must have been essentially eaten away by drugs. To paraphrase Dan Quayle, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and not to have a mind (left) at all, that's even worse.

Scar

I have a scar that no one is aware of. And it's not one of those emotional or psychic scars; it's a real-life physical scar. And it's not in a concealed area either; it's in plain sight on the inside of my right wrist, about an inch and a half long, and faded now. I've had it since I was 9 years old, and it used to be longer, red, and very noticeable, when I was young and the scar was new and in its prime. At first, when people, adults, would notice and ask how I got it, I was too shy to answer, so I probably said I didn't know. Later on, doctors would ask, because I guess it did look like I tried to cut my wrist, and I had to come up with a better answer, so I would say I fell on some glass. That was partly true, but actually I was knocked down and run over by a fire engine. This is how I was scarred for life:
Back in the day, the night before Halloween was prank night. Though it was called then Doorbell Night, the activities, i.e. vandalism, were much greater than the name would imply. What was done back then with pretty much a wink and a nod would bring reporters and criminal investigation today. Probably because there was no such thing as mischief or destruction at any time other than the scary night before Halloween, adults seemed willing to overlook the damage done, and, except for the targeted victims, even seemed to condone it. People would speak rather admiringly of some of the most memorable examples of vandalism from the past. I remember my father recollecting a time when a front door was actually rigged with a concealed bucket of water which drenched the unlucky home owner. I knew of that trick from comic books, but hadn't realized it had ever been actually carried out. The village was populated with a more cohesive group of people years ago, and plans were easily conceived and efficiently implemented. Most of the homes had outhouses in the back yard, some still in use. On Halloween morning, several of those little buildings were found lying on their sides. Garbage cans formed roadblocks, car and house windows were covered with soap. So it was no surprise one Halloween season to find a fire engine in the lot next to our house, deposited there by the"big kids." Not just any fire engine, but an antique, single-shafted type with the hose basket on top. It was the 40's though, when no one much valued the antique aspect of the venerable old piece of equipment, so no one came to retrieve it for several years, as I seem to recall. It stayed there in plain sight, an attraction for us little kids, who came to consider it as part of our informal playground. A vacant lot, an unwanted piece of junk------it had to be good for something. We younger kids used to sit on it, and fancied it a stagecoach when we played cowboys and Indians, or a car when we imagined traveling, and I suppose at times, we considered it as it was, a fire engine--one that required a horse. When the novelty had worn off somewhat, some of the bigger boys, my brother included, tipped it on its side, on a slope. There was a very large iron wheel on each side: it had only the two wheels. The front had a shaft in the middle. We used to imagine a horse on either side of the shaft, but thinking about it now, I believe it must have been meant to be drawn by men. It was not very big, and there was a round metal basket on top (another story), where the fire hose would be coiled. So the fire cart is on its side, on a slope, and the long wooden shaft can be pulled up to the top of the hilly slope, you can sit on the shaft, and when someone gives it a push, the shaft, with riders, swings down the slope, and since it rests on a big round wheel, carries considerable force. A makeshift piece of playground equipment, if ever there was one. One day, I had the misfortune to be standing in the arc of the pendulum shaft when someone swung it down, hitting me in the shins and knocking me flat on the ground. My leg really hurt, and when I picked myself up and reached down to rub my throbbing leg, I saw blood streaming from my wrist, where there was a long gash caused by my falling on broken glass. That was another popular sport of the boys at the time, (always those darn boys.) Then soda was sold in glass bottles, there was no deposit, and therefore no incentive to return them, so they became part of game-time for THE BOYS, who would line them up, and throw rocks at them. So broken glass was a playground hazard which we learned to avoid, that is, unless somebody knocked you down with a fire engine. Anyway, my cut was spectacular enough that my mother considered taking me to Dr. Sproat, but once the bleeding stopped, it was decided otherwise.
Since all stories should have a moral, take your pick. They say scars never completely heal. That of course is true. They say some scars are internal, and though unseen, once incurred, always exist, though they remain unseen, also true. But what about a scar that is completely visible, but is completely unseen. The moral could be that the person with the scar has become invisible.

Attention

Like that of Willy Loman, it seemed necessary that "Attention must be paid" to the end of Dick Clark's life. After all, he'd been famous for as long as I could remember, and was older than most of my generation. When Brian Williams broke into regular programming to announce his death, I was alone, and so I waited to tell someone, not sure of what the comments would be, but some words would certainly be spoken, "some attention paid." I heard the steps on the back stairs, the door open, and waited for him to enter the room. "Dick Clark is dead," I announced. "What?" I repeated the announcement, much louder this time: "Dick Clark is dead!" A pause, then, "The car is dead?" After the third time, even louder, there was nothing left to say. RIP, Dick, I'm sure there will be plenty of attention paid, but we're exhausted.

Faces

When I was little, I used to watch my father' s face when he read the newspaper. I wondered what he was thinking, how he could sometimes become angry at what he read. I used to think that I would never be able to form an opinion, having no idea how to relate what I read to how I would feel. And I felt the same about my mother's face when she was in church. She listened, tall and remote from us kids,who looking up at her, saw on her face an expression removed from anything to do with us. I knew I was hearing the same words spoken from the altar, but I couldn't feel any emotion from hearing them. I felt left out at those times, as if I were missing something I should be able to understand. Years later, after childhood was over with, I would go to my mother's house. As the years passed, there would be more of the times I would find her sitting in her chair in the front room, looking out the window. I wondered what she thought about at those times, but I never asked her, feeling the same sense of separation as in those long-ago years in church. Maybe I felt it would be an invasion of her private thoughts, or maybe I thought I'd be unable to understand. Now I wish I had asked her more about how she felt or what she thought. Possibly she would have wanted to talk about what was going through her mind; she was a stronger person than I am.

BUGS!

There was something about Dorothy that could not be denied. When she was young, the force of her presence was accentuated by her rare, but very real, episodes of hysteria. The first such that I recall happened when she was probably about eight years old. She'd been upstairs one day in the small room at the top of the front stairway when we who were downstairs heard her piercing and ungodly screams. Ma raced upstairs to find that a June bug had latched on to Dorothy's big toe, causing her to feel pain and repulsion at the same time. It took a while for my mother to soothe her, even after the bug had been forcibly removed, and, presumably, squashed. Ma was good at that. Dorothy never forgot about that June bug, and throughout her life, would shudder at the sound those beetles make when they buzz against the screens on a summer's night.
Another summer night, several years later, we were sitting on the front porch, at least my father and I were, when hysterical screams and sobs emanated from the kitchen. Dorothy had started to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich she had made, and had bitten into a large blobby mass that she instantly identified as a scorpion. She was inconsolable, and though she seldom deliberately brought attention to herself, it was impossible for anyone around to ignore the extent of her visible distress. The entire family, and I think her friend Sandy, all took turns peering at the glob of jelly in which Dorothy pointed out the tentacles and or legs of a recognizable scorpion, as a scorpion which had come to be preserved in jelly might well appear. The offending jar was emptied and examined, but no further clues were identified. Dorothy's hysteria finally waned, either because of fatigue and or our father's intervention. Not one to become overly involved at flights of fancy or imagination, even he could not disregard the intensity of Dorothy's passionate outburst. He took the scientific approach of placing the alleged scorpion in a glass of water, saying if it were a harmless mass of strawberry goo, it would dissolve, but if it were indeed a scorpion, the remnants of its carcass would be intact in the morning. Oddly enough, I can't recall the determination of the autopsy. But I do know that we never forgot the "Scorpion Story" either.

Shark-jumping

American Idol did it tonight--jumped that big old shark. It was not embarrassing enough that they brought back James Durbin: they broke their own rules by rescuing the voted-off Sanchez (and terrified her), before she could sing for her life, though they are cold-hearted enough to let the other losers struggle through their entire sing-for-your-life numbers even when the judges know they're not going to save them. And how can Randy J. say that "America got it wrong" when the name of the stupid show is American Idol, not Judges' Idol. I smell a big old rat.

Idiocy Reigns

I don't suppose they are true idiots, but rather the symbiants who thrive on perpetuating the illusion that the spoken word can alter the sanctity of motherhood and the entire spectrum of family life in the United States of America, if not the world at large. To think that saying that a wife has never worked a day in her life denigrates the entire status of womanhood is contrary to common sense, and is a semantic exercise akin to bullying. Women who stay at home to raise their families are not workers in any sense of the definition of the American workforce. They do not collect salaries, do not punch a timeclock, have not signed employment contracts, are not eligible for unemployment benefits if their work is interrupted, nor do they accumulate credits toward retirement. But, more menacing, is the canonization of the wife and mother title that threatens to elevate it to a status beyond criticism, to be placed in a position of reverence, and spoken of only in the most idealistic tones. We have learned not to speak lightly of anything to do with Nazis, we have responsible and fair-minded adults who must say "N-word" when they want to cite a derogatory term, or when quoting a criminal perpetrator who has used the actual word. We do not need to add to the restricted list any reference to the concept of motherhood that does not come adorned with roses and sainthood. Who would dare to point out that some mothers are abusive, neglectful, promiscuous, murderous, not to say that some mothers DO NOT WORK.
Motherhood is not a job. It is not work to raise your children. It is that old cliche, a joy and a privilege. Some women work at home, at actual jobs for actual companies. Some care for the children of others, and are paid for doing so. That is work. Cooking for and clothing one's own children is not work. Children are born because someone yearns to love and care for them. That is not work. If you scrub your bathtub because you want it to be clean for your kids, that is not work, tiring as it may be. Placing clothes into a washer and dryer and pressing buttons, doing the same for dishwashing does not qualify as work. It is an easy thing to do, taking only time, not much effort. Some childless women choose to stay at home: do they work? What if they are single, and care only for themselves? We should beware of what we elevate to the position of infallibility.

F is for Frustration

Yesterday I was home, with the mission of clearing up several messy or messed up problems via the good old telephone method. First I called about a letter I received from a firm which was mailed to my name but Slingerlands address. How that happened is unexplainable. The agent was not in the office. *** Next I called our friendly Time Warner provider who had sent me a letter stating our present contract would be renewed but with a monthly increase, if I did nothing. So I called, but could receive no satisfactory answer.*** I then called "my" representative at the Home Owners Association to find out what steps they mandate before property can be sold. The uber-ogre would not tell me what I needed to do, only that the contact must be between my attorney and the HOA accounting department. My attorney called back to say that what the HOA does is essentially illegal, but they run you through the gamut so they can collect a fee. As does the attorney, of course.** I also had to check to see if the charge had been removed for the double-billing on the roof repair. Reluctantly, they did agree.*** I'd tried, but failed to schedule an appointment for one who exceeded the weight limit of the medical facilities, and she was to call me back, but didn't. ***My alleged home buyer also did not call as promised with the results of the home inspection, and any potential impact. He may have a valid reason, but I'm feeling a surge of hatred now.***Our subscription to the Troy Record is so screwed up as to be permanently unravelable. I think the only thing to do is let it expire and start over, and never pay online again, or by credit card either. ***I dug through all available records and recalibrated our IRS return so as to take advantage of considerable itemized deductions, but after all that work, it amounted to essentially the same, and we still owe $1200 or so.***I felt so frustrated I took a walk around the house, outside I mean, and when I came in and took off my coat, there was a tick crawling on my arm. Someone told me it's impossible to squash a tick, and you need to flush them, but that's not true. Ticks can be squashed. ***Homeowners Insurance rep called to ask if the Slingerlands house is vacant---they're not into insuring empty houses, it seems.***This afternoon Dave heard something chewing when he was in the bedroom. He looked up at the roof, but didn't see any rodents. Maybe it's in his head.***The only call I didn't make--yet---is about my tooth, and the ache therein. Since I've already been, over the past few years now, to a dentist, an endodontist, actually 2 of them, and an oral surgeon, and none of them has been able to help, I can't think of who to call next. I guess I'll have to live, and die, with the pain. Or maybe it's all in my head. ^delete^ delete^

Appearances

Things are not what they seem to be, nor are they otherwise. I think Buddha said that, or something like it.

CRITICAL LENS

DWTS------Not to mix the metaphors of TV shows, but I don't know who was in more jeopardy: HalfPint from her concussion or Sherry Shepherd from drowning in her own tears. She should have known that having had a child in perilous condition at birth but who is now healthy can not trump a contestant who has a parent/friend/spouse/other relative with a deadly disease. Granted, that was last week, but there must be some carryover, and she recovered so quickly when she got a decent score. Still, it must be hard to not have the support you think you have-----"They don't love me so much after all. Personally, I think all the women stars are much better dancers than the men stars. All the men seem to have to do is pose, run around and slide their professional partners across the floor. Are they dancing when they do that: I think not. The big ex-sports guy, Donald Driver, gets a standing O from the judges for looking like a pro wrestler or the hood ornament on a retro car. What they deem sexy, I would call grotesque, tongue sticking out and all. The studs are given a pass, even while the men who do try to master a few steps, like William and Gavin DeGraw, are called out for losing the beat or whatever. So Sherry, you were robbed: tell Jeffrey I said so.
I tuned in "Live" just long enough to see their new set. They're more optimistic than I would be. Howie Mandel was co-hosting so I had to turn the sound off. I don't actually hate him, I just can't bear to hear him talk. And Kelly, you're starting to repeat yourself. We know that you have 3 kids, including "he who shall be nameless,' small breasts, an "adorable' husband, and that you like to wear hats. And I bet you'll never invite Chelsey Handler back to co-host, not after she compared your man Mark to her little Chewey.

I Need A Hero Like That

Incredible feat of heroism by the Troy cops. When a woman in imminent danger of drowning is unable to hold on to a skinny rope that was thrown to her, the heroic officers risked their lives by throwing her a thicker rope. She had only minutes to go before she would sink under the water. As heroes tend to say, "I only did what anyone would have done." Hey, I could have done that. And probably even have leapt onto the boat too. It was close by.

I feel for you

I think empathy is what's left over after you take care of your own concerns. Kind of like dregs.

Cry-yi-yi-yi-ing

I used to enjoy, and later came to tolerate, DWTS, until the bathos last night. Too late for an April Fool's prank, I told myself, but surely too grotesque to be a serious show. The judges lost the last remnants of integrity, and awarded praise and points to dancers who just shuffled around the floor. That is, if their true-life confessions jerked enough tears to show how deeply they have suffered. Gavin DeGraw couldn't even utter the extent of his misery, Sherry Shepherd's face was a study in perpetual sorrow, which she somehow was able to channel into pure headbanging joy. But I do think the right person got voted out, or at least not retained. No man should wear an orange suit like that.

Field of Dreams

I know that the dream was in Baltimore, but I don't know where the field was. It was seemingly the site of a reunion or a festival, where people have come together to participate in some sort of celebration. In an area that was not tilled, but open for entry into the field, there, amidst all the people and activity, Dorothy and Dave were dancing, a smooth and lovely dance that caught the attention of all the others, who stopped to watch them. The scene soon shifts to an inside venue, where the two dancers are now dressed not in their casual attire from the field, but in beautiful clothing, he in an ivory colored suit, and she in a silvery, shimmery gown. Again, everybody stops what they are doing to watch them. They seem largely unaware, caught up in the movement of the dance. I have no persona but the vision of my eyes. I watch, enthralled by what I see.