Bad, Bad Grandchild, Meaner Than the Junkyard Dog

 

A few weeks ago we received an invitation to come to “grandparents day” at the School for Very Bright Children where our bratty, trouble-making grandchild attends kindergarten. Are we going to attend? Does the Pope bring all his Cardinals to watch the bull fight?

Perhaps we will wear t-shirts that say

We don’t know Random Grandchild!

There is no Genetic Connection between us and this child!

Will adopt your grandchild for food (as long as food is organic)!

I have been told that RG is hanging out with the worst child in her kindergarten and giggling inappropriately.

My theory is that her peer is an extrovert and a show-off, and that RG  (very introverted)  has turned herself into a “sidekick” and “hanger- on” to get attention and applause in a parasitic manner.

I have also heard that she is being mean to other kids, and becoming a bit of a bully.

No doubt, there is probably some little David-like child in her class, and she is turning on this poor child to torment him or her.

As her Mommy (birth mother) is a teacher in the same school, Mommy is hugely embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior.

This reminds me of a story, and a possible strategy, though it is one that would horrify the mommies.

Perhaps You Can Just Let Me Live My Life

RG again. Grandpa is collecting on a flash drive all the “RG stories” he wrote about me. (Don’t believe half the stuff he writes about me, either.) He plans to put them on a flash drive and attach a note that say, “Give to RG when she turns 15.”

As he reasonably accurately noted (for once), when I was three I said to Mommy, “You are deciding too many things for me. I am almost grown up. I should get to decide more things for myself.”

Anyway, I’ve read all his stories already. He thinks I will want to know about what I did when I was young when I get older because his parents and grandparents didn’t write down their stories for him to read. (That’s why he made up a bunch of stupid stories about his relatives.)

Here’s the thing Grandpa doesn’t understand. My mommies already have sixty-eleven million digital photographs of me. They have documented every inch I’ve grown and every cute word I’ve ever said. They have measured every pound I’ve gained (though I am still very slim, thank you very much), kept track of every shot the mean doctors poked into my arm or my butt.

I have to be the most documented child in the history of children. (Except for all the other kids in my kindergarten, of course.)

Suppose I decided to run for President some day. (Don’t worry; I’m moving into a new dimension instead.) But if I did all my political enemies would be poring over all the documentation collected on me. I can just see the headlines: RG Pooped her diaper on the way to the park at the age of three! Do you want to elect this woman President?

Look, Grandpa, I appreciate how you are collecting all your stories to have the mommies hand to me when I turn 15. But how about you just let me live my life?

V3 Rides into the Sunset

As I’ve mentioned, V2, who reads only memoirs is pretty in a wan, ethereal way. Her younger sister, V3, is attractive and vigorous, and always strikes me as very presentable and conscientious about making a good impression on customers and fellow workers. (This description fits my wife as well.)

However, I was a bit surprised the last time I encountered V3. I was parking my little car in the main library’s underground parking garage. I looked up and saw her roll into the garage on a large, impressive motorcycle.

When I was in my twenties, I thought it would be cool to own a motorcycle, and I rode on the back of a couple of friends’ motorcycles a few times.. However, I was quite aware that if I tried to ride one myself I would kill myself in very short order. My brother, more adventurous than I am, owned a large BMW for a while. However, one day he took a jolly spill. Aside from a few scrapes, he was not injured, but he said to himself, A fellow could kill himself this way and sold the bike a few weeks later.

I am not really surprised at women riding motorcycles, either. When my wife and I owned a pre-press business, two female employees owned and rode motorcycles.

However, I had never thought of V3 as a biker sort of gal. I walked over as she parked and said hello. I noticed that she owned an unusual brand of bike (which I don’t remember) and that it looked exceptionally spiffy and well appointed. I asked her about it.

“I think most motorcycles are kind of ugly and offensive,” she said. “I spent a lot of time choosing one that not only runs well, but also looks very tasteful and attractive.”

Which struck me as fine, but also very feminine. If my wife were into motorcycles, that is exactly how she would approach choosing her steed.

I am all for equal rights for men and women, and to the extent that a man can be a “feminist” I think I qualify. However, there is no doubt in my mind that there are innate differences between men and women that pop up in all sorts of odd ways.

Part 5: Tattling on the Drama Queen

Later, after I met her younger sister, V3, I once asked V3, “V2 once hinted to me she had been an alcoholic? Was she?”

V3 laughed and replied, “No, she is such a drama queen. Sometimes she likes to get all melodramatic about herself, but as far as I know she never had had a drinking problem.”

New Perils of Pauline post for those skipping over the once in a while changing permanent post starting my blog. Shareware contribution tied to the railroad tracks.

Quick Notes

We are heading off this morning to see the mommies and Random Granddaughter. I don’t have much time to write and may not until next week. We spoke with Mommy last night (RG’s birth mother).

My daughter has started graduate school and is having a hard time with her first class, which involves fairly advanced calculus. She is studying like crazy and feeling very stressed. She mostly wants to be left alone to study, so we won’t bother her.

RG is doing fine with kindergarten, though as an introvert she is somewhat stressed by all the social interaction. There is more, but I don’t have time to describe now, but overall she seems to be doing fine. Her cross-country competition is over. Pete was worried about her being injured. I communicated the concern to Mommy. She is aware of the issues.

RG is still taking piano lessons and seems to enjoy them.

Sylvie, their wonderful cat, has had health issues. She is getting older, has oversensitive skin, and may be developing cancer. Her condition is very unusual and the vets are a bit puzzled. This is sad because she is a remarkable cat, extremely extroverted and loving.

That’s all I have time for. My wife will get up soon and start yelling at me if I am not ready to go.

Book Notes

Book notes for Pete and David.

Pete, you suggested I read Gold Coast, by Nelson DeMille. I just finished reading it. The book was very stimulating, entertaining, thoughtful, and well-written, and I plan to read the sequel. I thank you for the suggestion.

The main lesson I drew from reading it was not to get involved in a ménage à trois with a Mafia don and my wife, not a kink I am likely to pursue. (My wife has made it clear to me that if I am not faithful to her, I am not likely to live for a long time. I don’t think she would bother to hire someone from the Mafia to help her hit me.)

I presume you are adhering to the same sensible policy in regard to your lovely bride.

Pete, in turn I will suggest two possible books for you to read. They are not exactly like Gold Coast and I don’t know if you will like either book, so please don’t put out a contract on me if you read either and find you don’t like them.

One is called Vertical Run, by Joseph Garber.

The other is Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry.

David, on more than one occasion, you have suggested I read The Road to Wellville by T. Coraghessan Boyle. I just checked it out of the library and I have started reading it.

It does indeed seem to relate in a deep way to my family’s history. (My paternal grandfather was a big fan of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.) Although I have only started reading the book, I do already sense a connection and it does bring back moving memories.

 

The Heavy Door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife tells me that I am a very negative and pessimistic person. She is just as negative and pessimistic as I am, but she refuses to admit it. Every morning when she gets up, she grimly says to herself, I will be positive and optimistic.

Front Door with Inset

It takes her a couple of hours and several glasses of tea for her determination to take effect.

 

I meant to write this story about five years ago, when our house was being built. I was optimistic, but I am finally getting around to it now.

 

My wife is a person with a highly developed aesthetic sense. It is very important to her to be surrounded by things she finds beautiful. For example, our garden is full of many nutritious food plants, but it is also full of beautiful flowers. It took four years for the garden to reach its full flowering. We are now harvesting our fruits and vegetables, which have been abundant, and sniffing the flowers, which are beautiful and provide beautiful scents.

 

When we were working with Tom, the contractor we hired to build our house, my wife said, “We will purchase the front door and bring it out to the construction site.” She said this because she didn’t want any old door. She wanted a door that represented us and our values and aesthetics.

Tom, the contractor, a very nice guy who did a good job for us in building the house, explained that we should purchase two doors: the permanent door and a temporary door. The contractor would use the temporary door during construction because it might accidentally get damaged. He would only install the permanent door near the end of the job.

We found a “door store” near where we lived on the mainland.. The large showroom includes racks and racks of doors in various sizes and designs. Many of the doors have glass or plexiglass decorative insets.

My wife, as is typical of her, spent hours studying different doors and beautiful decorative insets until she found just the right ones; a combination that would create a front door that would say “Us” to the world. We also picked out a cheap temporary door. Both doors were very heavy. Two strong employees helped load them into the back of my wife’s pickup truck.

We took the doors home, to the duplex we owned at that time with daughter and her partner on the mainland. Again, they were too heavy for us to lift by ourselves. Fortunately, some teenagers were playing football in an empty lot across the street. We asked them if they would lift the doors and put them in our garage for us. Welcoming the opportunity to show off their youthful strength, they cheerfully lifted the doors and put them in the garage. It took two of the husky young men to carry the main door.

We delivered the doors to the work site. We got our next door neighbor at the time, Tim, to help us get the doors into the truck. My wife has a bad back; it was not very safe for her to help me lift the door. I could not do it by myself.

The contractor said to take the “real door” back as he could not store it safely at the work site. It was a little irritating to drive the door back to the duplex where we lived and get my neighbor to help me unload it again.

The contractor typically worked on three houses at a time. At the time, his business was going well and he had a fairly large work crew. One Saturday morning we arranged to deliver the “real” door to the island. Terry the foreman, was supposed to meet us at the work site at 9 am.. To get there on time, we had to get up at 5 am in the morning. I arranged with Tim, our next door neighbor, to help me load the door in the truck, even though it meant he had to get up at 5 am on a Saturday morning. My wife had taken a dislike to Tim before she ever talked to him because he always had a dozen cars sitting on his front lawn, most of them in various states of assembly, dis-assembly, and repair. My wife thought Tim’s constant auto repair projects made our neighborhood look like a white trash headquarters. But, in fact, Tim proved to be a very pleasant neighbor in various ways, not least when he cheerfully agreed to get up at 5 am on a Saturday morning to help me load the door into our truck.

We loaded the door at 5 am, caught a ferry, and arrived at the work site about 9 am. The not quite finished house stood empty. There was no sign of Terry. We knew Tom, the contractor, was off island on other business. We did not have a phone number for Terry, the foreman. We sat around the work site in our truck for about an hour, extremely frustrated and irritated.

In the early days of his blog, David Rochester would write little stories about the irritations and frustrations of his life I called “Rochesterisms.” This was clearly a Rochesterism; not really a disaster, but certainly maddening.

We debated what to do. We were irritated at the prospect of making the long trip back to the mainland, unloading the door, and doing it all over again another day.

We drove the five miles back into the nearest town on the island. We stopped at a pleasant coffee shop and had some tea and pastries to console ourselves in our irritation and frustration. Having a house built is a stressful and anxiety producing activity. My wife and I stared at each other in gloom. We wondered if we should drive the five miles out to the work site just in case Terry the foreman had arrived. We decided to take the trouble.

In gloom we drive the five miles in silence. We drove down the gravel private road to the site where our house was being constructed. There was no sign of Terry the foreman.

We trudged up the driveway to our truck. Just as we got up to the truck, we saw Terry’s truck pull up.

He got out, explained that an problem had occurred at one of the other work sites. Apparently a building inspector had decided the other house did not meet code, and Terry had been forced to rush to the site and deal with the problem while his boss, Tom, was out of town.

We drove our truck back down the driveway.

Terry, the foreman, is a man of average height and build, as am I. I prepared to help him lift the door. Terry lifted the door by himself and carried it to the house by himself and propped it against the wall next to the construction door and my wife and I stared in amazement and admiration.

“There,” he said. “I’ll have the crew install it on Monday.”

My wife and I thanked him effusively, got back in our truck, and drove back toward the ferry dock, our load lighter and our hearts singing.

 

Sweet Peas

 

 

 

 

Volunteer

My wife and I have a large garden. Some of the garden is fenced. Most of the plants growing behind the fence are food plants, though there are flowers as well. The fence is to keep the “critters” (such as deer and bunnies) who eat our food plants away, though there are some flowers behind the fence. We will be electrifying the fence this winter to keep the raccoons (all named Rocky) away from plants and chickens, as the raccoons just climb over the fence. Some bunnies crawl under the fence. I shoot the bunnies with a pellet rifle. The chipmunks run in and out of the garden. The Friendly Neighbors thought the chipmunks were cute until they counted 21 chipmunks, all eating their peas. Then they put out rat traps until they were down to 0 chipmunks. We have about five chipmunks; at the moment we tolerate them.

Some of the garden is not fenced. Mostly we grow flowers that the critters don’t care for. We also grow some food we don’t like that much, such as one variety of blueberries we planted but my wife made faces at when she tasted them. She said, “The critters can eat these berries; fine with me.” Then she complained because the critters ate the leaves as well. The critters don’t follow the gentle rules my wife sets for them.

However, some plants just plant themselves. For example, we have a sunflower plant growing by itself outside the fence.. We also have some chard that planted itself behind the fence. Useful plants that plant themselves are known as “volunteers” to gardeners.

 

During my working life, I had 17 different jobs. That just counts the full-time jobs. I was unhappy in all of these jobs, and never well-suited to any of them. I also had at least that many supplementary part time jobs, as well as various transition jobs to keep me going after one of the full time jobs ended unhappily. Some of these supplementary jobs were OK, but none could be depended on for very long.

Over that same period of time, I have had one spouse and one child. Well if you count my daughter’s “out of law partner” as I call her, because my daughter and her partner have never tried to have a “gay” marriage, maybe I have had two children, one adopted. And, of course, I have had one granddaughter, the inimitable Random Granddaughter, now five years old, and starting kindergarten at the private school for very bright children next month.

Like us, the Friendly Neighbors have been married for 43 years. However, they each had one other spouse. Mrs. Friendly Neighbors’ first spouse became ill and died. I asked Mr. Friendly Neighbor about his first spouse. He is usually a very articulate and self-possessed person, but he looked very awkward and embarrassed at my question. Then he said, “Sometimes when you are young, you make dumb decisions.” I didn’t ask any more questions on the topic.

Some of the reasons I was ill-suited for all my jobs were that I suffer from:

1) attention-deficit disorder;

2) hyperactivity disorder;

3) dyslexia (in a mild form);

4) narcissistic personality disorder (in a mild form), a problem perhaps endemic in my family;

4) compulsive disobedience;

5) compulsive unwillingness to pretend that emperors with no clothes are well dressed.

More or less by accident, in my last two jobs I found myself teaching adult education classes, teaching people who were the most part not very computer literate how to use and understand computers. I gradually (after a rough start) became fairly skillful at this work. It took care of problems 1, 2 and 3 fairly well. When I was teaching, I was
a) Telling my students I was likely to get distracted from what I was supposed to be doing and I didn’t mind if they said to me, “Please get back on track to what you are supposed to be doing,” thus snapping out of problem #1.

b) Moving around the room, scribbling with white board markers, paying attention to different students as they worked on their computers, telling jokes (helping compensate for problem #2).

c) Laughing with good-humored self-mockery when I made mistakes writing words on the white board, and quickly erasing the mistakes and writing corrections on the white board (compensating for problem #3 to some extent).

d) Telling dumb jokes and dumb stories to a captive audience (helping indulge myself in #4 without too much problem, perhaps, though it was often a close call).

e) Almost getting fired in both jobs. Just lucky, I guess, that I didn’t get fired. (I have been fired from an earlier job. I never finished telling that story.) I got out of my next to last job just in time and retired from my last job just in time. Just lucky I guess.

f) Same as e).

I thought about teaching computer classes as a volunteer. However, I observed:

I.) Been there; done that; don’t need to get stuck in a rut.

II.) There is a woman on our island who is teaching computer classes for not very computer-literate people. Some of what she does is volunteer; some of what she does she gets paid for. She clearly does not want to share the work with me and has tactfully and gently communicated that preference.

I am comfortable with that.

My wife, can’t stand to have anybody else tell her what to do because she is so severe and so obedient to her inner boss. When she retired she went to work for herself, keeping her house and her garden in immaculate order, often speaking severely to the house, to the garden, and to herself. She also volunteered for the organic farmer’s market on Saturday morning, serving coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, and bossing herself around. She also volunteered at a senior center where she provides respite service for care takers of people who care for victims of Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia, where she practices being kind and patient. Then she comes home where she practices being kind and patient as well as severe and strict on me.

I have volunteered for the local church at the invitation of the Kindly Neighbor, where I help them split wood to donate to elderly people and people down on their luck through losing their job or illness or other misfortunes as a heat source in the winter. As the Kindly Neighbor is a great expert on wood, this volunteer work suits him very well. I enjoy it well-enough but it was not really that fulfilling for me, as I am not as fascinated with different varieties of wood and how to split them as he is.

A few months ago, my wife and I took a class sponsored by AARP (which used to stand for “American Association of Retired Persons” but now just stands for AARP–really) about driver safety for older drivers. The class costs a small fee. Many automobile insurance companies provide a small discount to elderly customers who take this class.

As I took the class, I thought:

α) This is a well-organized and well-organized program.

β) I can do this.

Yesterday, I went for a interview to be accepted as a volunteer for the program. The interview was a a location on the island about an hour away from where I live. (I live on a long island, though not the place in New York state known as “Long Island.”) I drove carefully. I thought it inappropriate to be killed in an auto accident on the way for an interview to be accepted for teaching a class on driver safety for senior citizens. I made it alive.

I hit it off well with the volunteer coordinator. He asked me to attend a class he is teaching in September, and teach one unit of the class so he can observe me teach. If he is pleased with how I do, the next step will be for me to attend a two-day volunteer training orientation. If I do well enough at that, after that I will begin teaching driver safety classes as a volunteer teacher. I will have to concentrate carefully so I can live that long and not fall prey to my various flaws and deficiencies while I am doing this volunteer service.

 

 

 

Don’t Mess with a Boy Named Sue; Don’t Mess with a Finnish Sissi

 

It is unnerving that I have outlived my old treadmill. Just as there is something wrong with white lavender, there is something wrong about lasting longer then my treadmill.

When we originally purchased it, we expected the treadmill to outlast us and told the salesman our expectation. He assured us the company made quality equipment, mostly aimed at the professional gymnasium market, not the gimcrack home market. I expect the cheap treadmills sold at Wal-Mart and Costco to fall apart after a year or two. However, the fitness equipment shop that sold me the treadmill is no longer in business.

The manufacturer is still in business and still makes treadmills as well as other exercise equipment.

The motor expired on my old treadmill. When I called the manufacturer’s technical support line, the representative first told me he wouldn’t talk to me if I were not working for a gym and after I became insistent, told me they no longer provide motors for the model I bought and indicated complete indifference to my situation.

I sent the company’s President a letter expressing my opinion about their unwillingness to support a device I purchased for several thousand dollars with the expectation it would last longer than I. I did not get a reply. I was not surprised.

Despite efforts at resuscitation by a repairman, my old treadmill now rests in a landfill. I was not surprised when a CD player I bought for a couple of hundred dollars failed and could not be repaired, but the complete expendability of an exercise device costing thousands of dollars still horrifies me a bit.

We bought a new treadmill a few months ago after quite a bit of research into the reliability of the company and the equipment they sell.

Our new treadmill came with a heart monitor. The treadmill just isn’t happy unless it is displaying my heart rate on the monitor to inform me if I am in the proper cardiovascular “training zone” for my age.

If my heart is pumping too slowly, I am not developing enough heart strength for when I will need to flee pursuing coyotes this winter. If my heart is pumping too vigorously, I may collapse on the treadmill.

The premier heart-monitor company is named Polar. (As you will shortly see, this name is quite apt.) Polar is located in Finland.

I have had doubts whether the country of Finland actually exists. It sounds like a country that Dr. Seuss might invent. However, my daughter assures me that Finland is indeed a real country. One of her best friends, Annina, a college schoolmate for two years, is Finnish. I have also doubted that the language of Finnish actually exists. Annina, for example, speaks six different languages. I have met Annina. She speaks English better than quite a few Americans speak it. I have no doubt that her French and her German and her Spanish and her Russian and, of course, her native Finnish are equally fluent and impeccable.

Finnish is supposed to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, perhaps even more difficult to learn than Chinese. My cousin Joanna Nichols became fluent in Chinese and as a result became a millionaire. I presume that if child genius Random Granddaughter some day becomes fluent in Finnish AND Chinese, she will become a billionaire.

However, Joanna never learned Finnish. My brother, who majored in linguistics and became fluent in French and German and Wolof, never learned Finnish. I have never met a non-Finn who knows Finnish.

Anyway, my theory was that there is no actual Finnish language. Finns, I figured, are cuckoos who pretend to speak an incomprehensible language as they insert themselves into other countries, perhaps engaged in a sinister plot to take over the world.

However, both my daughter, Mama, and her partner, Mommy (as they are known to our granddaughter) spent a week in Finland with Annina and her husband, and they heard and observed Finns all speaking Finnish to each other and accomplishing useful tasks of everyday life, indicating there is a real language and not just a charade to con gullible non-Finns.

Finns are also known for a characteristic known as sisu, the only Finnish word I knew (until a few minutes ago).

Wikipedia describes sisu as follows:

“Sisu is a Finnish term translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. It has been described as being integral to understanding Finnish culture. The meaning is equivalent in English to “having guts”, and the word derives from sisus, which means something inner or interior. Sisu has a long-term element in it; it is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain it.”

In trying to look up the Finnish term for “sissy” I discovered that “sissi” in Finnish refers to elite military forces in the Finnish military, more or less equivalent to units in the United States military such as “Green Berets,” “Special Forces,” or “Seals,” or in England as “SAS” [Special Air Service], in other words, people you don’t want to irritate by referring to them as “sissies.”

If one is trying to learn Finnish in Finland, it would probably not be a good idea to get these words mixed up.

The Finnish word for “sissy” is nynny. As this word is close enough to the English word “ninny,” I can remember it in case I suddenly find myself in Finland. I will point at myself and say loudly as soon as they approach me with cross-country skis and parkas: “Nynny! Nynny! American nynny!”

My new treadmill came with a sensor belt for detecting my heart rate. As the belt picks up the heart rate, a radio transmitter sends it to the treadmill. The treadmill then displays it on the console.

Here is the problem. In the morning, before I start using the treadmill, I take my shirt off and strap the Polar sensing belt around my my chest. The strap is COLD. Even after I hold the strap under running hot water–recommended by the Polar Corporation, as the sensors work better if wet so they conduct the electrical signals from one’s beating heart more effectively to the sensor–the belt immediately feels icy cold to my bare chest–I then squeal and whine in agony as the cold strap hits bare my bare skin.

Actually, truth be told, after a few minutes my body gets used to the strap and then I laboriously plod away on the treadmill watching my heart rate get up to as high as 130 beats per second. This chart from the American Heart Association shows recommended heart rates for exercise and training for different age groups.

 

However, I dread that initial moment of icy contact and put off engaging it as long as I can, muttering “Nynny, nynny, nynny,” to myself.

For age 65, the training zone is 78-132 beats per minute. I usually plod along at about 120 bpm. The maximum is 155. I don’t know what would happen if I went over 155 bpm; I am not planning to test it.

I went to the Polar Corporation web site to see if they might be able to help me.

The Polar Corporation has web sites for many languages. Finnish, of course. English, naturally. I am not surprised there is a Chinese language site as well. On the web page for English speakers (and I presume for the web pages for all the other languages) Polar Corporation has a discussion section where customers can ask questions and discuss training problems. The typical question runs something like,

I am training for a marathon cross-country ski race where all the competitors cross the tundra during a blizzard, pursued by polar bears. My polar heart-rate monitor is not holding up very well under these conditions. It tends to freeze up and stop after only two hours or so of sub-zero skiing or if chewed by a bear.

The Polar Corporation has a corporate slogan on their web site: Listen to Your Body. I don’t think Polar Corporation wants to hear my body whining and kvetching about how their sensor strap causes me to squeal from a moment or two of chill.