What's So Hot About 2014?

Recently I read something about 2014 being on the way to being the warmest year on record.  I'm not sure where I read it, and I am trying to kick a habit, so I can't tell you for sure.  I think it was a headline for a newspaper article, and the only "paper" paper I read is the one and only ISLAND PACKET, Serving the Lowcountry. soooo....  (But I may have read it as a headline on the online version of a newspaper, and I look at three of them on a not-so-regular basis).

Oh, and the Packet's status as the only "paper" paper in my life is changing.  I took advantage of an offer from The Wall Street Journal for 12 weeks for only $12.  The only issue is that I had to give them a credit card authorization to automatically charge me $32.49 per month after this special introductory rate runs out, unless I cancel my subscription before they submit that charge at the end of the 11th week.  Now, I won't forget that, because, while I like the The Wall Street Journal, there is no way it is worth $389.88 a year.  Over the years, I once paid $149 for a year ( I believe it was 2006, but I could be off by 3 years or so....) but never more than that.  Where was I?  Oh, yeah, "... the warmest year on record..."

I still am not sure where I read that, I should look it up, but there's that habit.  The habit?  I am trying to stop looking up every thing that slips my mind for more than a moment by "googling" it on my smart phone.  I swear it is causing me to lose faith in my own memory.  I fear becoming completely reliant on Google for remembering everything for me.  I'm even tempted at times to "google" where I left my socks, and, pray tell me what I will have to do when I misplace my smart phone and it doesn't ring when I borrow someone else's phone to call mine so I can find it, and so on..., and don't tell me about that locator app you can put on your phone, I know the FBI is involved in that one somehow, so I have no intention of even "googling" what that app is much less putting it on my phone.

So, the gist of the article was that, globally at least, the average temperature on Earth will set the record for the warmest recorded.  The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations Agency, announced this as a "preliminary finding."  It became mind-numbingly detailed about the increase of

What's So Hot About 2014?

1.03 degrees in the average temperatures from January thru September of 2014 above the 1961 to 1990 reference period, yada, yada, yada....  My point is that everyone I know who lived in North America has pointed out that last winter was one of the coldest or snowiest (or both) winters they can remember,  This winter is shaping up to be even worse (tell those poor people in Buffalo, NY where more than six and a half feet of snow fell in a day or so this is the warmest year in recorded history.  Tell everyone in the Midwest who are seeing snow in November and freezing temperatures nearly every night since the beginning of November.  People, people, people, this average temperature stuff is slippery.  You cannot tell me it's getting warmer than ever when we keep having harsher and harsher winters.

Try telling me.  I now own a "space" heater, purchased to supplement the heat produced by our nearly new heat pumps (these really ought to be called "no heat pumps," but that's another story).  And I live on the South Carolina coast! Why did we invest in this machine from space?  The mah-jongg ladies were unable to get warm when we hosted last week!  Now, they were sitting at a tablee on a ceramic-tiled floor (not known for its warming properties) adjacent to our screen porch on one side, and backing up to an expanse of four windows approximately 18 inches above the floor, and extending five and a half feet up from there facing west in the morning.  These were not exactly prime conditions for staying toasty warm, but we did buy a "space" heater (What do these things have to do with outer space, anyway?).   Don't believe everything the United Nations tells you.

P.S.  Yes--you guessed right--I did "google" the article after all.  It produced "about 15,600,000 results in 0.44 seconds," only slightly faster than the half hour it would have taken for me to remember where to look for the article.

Stealing Stradivarius

Stealing Stradivarius

If I were going to write a novel, I'm pretty sure what its subject would be.  The villain of the piece would be an Itzhak Perlman look-alike who wants to add a touch of larceny to the great man's legacy by nearly getting caught with the item in question, then slipping away.   As I watch the story unfold, it occurred to me that such thefts must have happened many times.  These instruments have been so rare for so long.  I am not sure how many I would indicate are in existence today, I have seen a list of six hundred and fifty, but heard estimates as high as eleven hundred.  There have been fakes discovered.  Dendrochronology (the science of determining the age of wood) has proven the age of various impostors, proving they really weren't made of wood harvested in the 1600's.

The modern ear is apparently losing its ability to pick out the real thing in blind listening tests.  It's true.  That special sound said to be specific to the instruments manufactured by the Stradivari family in the late 17th and early 18th centuries is hard for audiences to pick out in live performances.  I know which violin would be the one that disappears as well.  It is the Baumgartner (yes, they have names, these violins).  You see the Baumgartner is presently on loan to Iryna Krechkovsky until 2015.  The Baumgartner would vanish in the last week of the loan's term.

One reason I have selected this one is the striking coincidence in this name--my hair stylist is named Iryna, and I have an appointment with her again tomorrow.  Imagine Iryna K. sighing as the days of December dwindle down to the single digits (even today, she has only twenty-three days left before she must return it to the Canada Council for the Arts).

The villain would recruit my hair stylist to impersonate the actual Iryna K.  She would step backstage on the night of the 3rd-to-last performance for Iryna K. and make off with the Baumgartner, giving it to the Itzhak Perlman look-alike, who will disappear.  Why my hair stylist?  Well, it turns out one of the most difficult tasks for an impostor Iryna is to be able to pronounce her own name with precisely the correct number (and quality) of "rolls" the "R" that must be sounded when saying the name.  Only a person of this same first name would be able to pull it off.  Of course, all the while, my hair stylist Iryna will have been duped by this man into believing he is really the renowned violinist, who has tragically misplaced his own Strad and wants just one more time to play a Stradivarius (of course he has to  trick her into it, my Iryna would never stoop to theft--grand or otherwise).  She would do it  to honor one of the final wishes of an artist of his stature.... (yes, he would tell her he has only a short time to live--hey, he's a villain, what can I say?).

When she wakes up on January 1st and learns that "Itzhak" did not return the Baumgartner by December 31st, she realizes what has happened.  She recruits a trio of her customers (I'm thinking one of them would be a handsome sixty-ish guy with curly grey hair and, well you know...) to help her get it back and restore the honor of the other "Iryna."  To do this, the hair stylist Iryna and her customers put together a scheme to steal the real Itzhak Perlman's Stradivarius (named Soil, after the Belgian Industrialist, Amedee Soil), knowing the fake "Itzhak" will be unable to resist the chance to obtain another (given that one of these "Strads" has sold for more than $13 million) when the hair stylist Iryna contacts him to find out where she can fence her newly-acquired Stradivarius.  Once he shows up, they can spring their trap and recover "Baumgartner."  Of course, nothing ever turns out exactly how it's planned now, does it?        

A Moment of Inattention, A Place Lost

A Moment of Inattention, A Place Lost

It's so unlike me.  I can't understand how it happened.  The recording regularly interrupted the muzak of the call waiting to apologize for keeping me waiting, but pointing out that the Social Security Administration oversees benefits for more than fifty million people and that they were taking the calls in the order received.   (So, Wait Your Turn!)

This went on for forty minutes before I began making dinner.  Grilled flounder is usually cooked on foil, I was told.  Just apply some non-stick spray and place the flounder,  skin side down, on the grill after seasoning, of course.  You can't really over-season fish, or so the contributor at Cooks.com had observed in the recipe I found when I posed the question--"What the heck do you season flounder with when you grill it?" to Google.  I know, I'm supposed to say I googled it, but I am being circumspect about grammar and usage today, having read and written a good deal about grammar and usage in the past few days.  (That's yet another draft lurking on the underside of this collection.  Right now I am working on three of them, and am not satisfied that any of them is "finished."  Suddenly, I feel the need to finish things I publish here?).

Back to last evening--I was ready to shift my attention to the grill, which I had to light with a log lighter as the sparking mechanism that usually ignites the grill is either hibernating in the "cold" weather we've had, or has succumbed to corrosion due to near-constant habitation by humidity.  I almost chose "erosion" back there, but the waves have not been lapping at my grill--they remain at the beach, wearing away our piped-in sand which must be brought in about once every eight to ten years in a process known as beach restoration.  I guess the theory is that the sand being sucked up about a half-mile or so out in the water was once our sandy beach, and piping it in as a slurry, then repeatedly running it over with giant bulldozers to wring the water out and flatten the surface is a "restorative process."  Tell that to all the crustaceans, who--if they survive the crushing force of the bulldozers--find themselves lying in the sun (with eyes having no lids or lashes to deal with all that light and dry sand) instead of lying beneath fifteen or so feet of water.  I'm thinking they don't feel "restored" at all.

Where was I?  Oh, lighting the grill, so I maneuvered through the door, holding the log lighter, squeezing the phone between my chin and collar bone and administering a light hip-check to the dolor.  I lit the grill, and waited five minutes more (with at least eight repetitions of the abject apology, accompanied by a preventive scolding if the selfish desire to move ahead of any of the fifty million others being served by the Social Security Administration, who apparently are all on hold, should be starting to form i my dulled consciousness induced by all this muzak, constantly interrupted, etc., etc., etc.).  After waiting five minutes to heat up the grill, I quickly wire-brushed it and was ready for the flounder.  I went back into the house and got the two pieces of flounder, now sitting on little aluminum foil rafts awaiting the voyage on the grill.  I placed each on the grill one-handed (the other hand was still holding the phone).  I then realized I had no tool with which to move the flounder around with on the now-hot aluminum foil and grill.  I walked back into the house, hung up the phone and picked up a spatula and started back out to the grill.  As I reached for the door, I realized it, I was missing something.   I actually had a hand free to turn the knob and push the door open.  My hips were not required for this maneuver, and nothing was squeezed between my chin and collar bone.  I had hung up the phone.  No multitasker here.  An hour of holding wasted.  I have lost my place in line.

It's morning now, and I am ready to call the SSA again, although I find it increasingly difficult to stop myself from reversing those initials I just mentioned.  OK, where's that number--I wonder if I could just hit redial.  OK, I am on hold again, waiting my turn.

What's for breakfast, an omelet perhaps?  Where's that frying pan?  The Pam spray...Oh, and eggs, a little cheese, pooh, and there's some green pepper I can slice up and saute in that other little frying pan if I pull that out and light this burner.  Now, if I turn this burner on....    

Perspective--Things You Don't Like And Things You Do

Perspective--Things You Don't Like And Things You Do

Think about something that drives you crazy. Now, think about something that makes you happy. Does it change your perspective on the former? 

Something that drives me crazy is the political attack advertising we are subjected to during the election season here (I'm not certain how long that is, but my guess is it's six months long--probably just seems that long).  I'm sure many of you share the same opinion--they spend all their time calling each other spineless, lying, cheating scoundrels, while all the while evading the question as to how they really will do anything or support anything.  Ours were like a series of cannonballs lobbed at each other.  One would accuse the other of something egregious and evil, then the other would reply calling his or her opponent a liar, and deny whatever he or she was accused of doing, then pointing to the opponent and calling him or her a liar and a chest, and on and on and on...

Ours was especially gruesome as the attackers were buying time on local radio and TV stations that broadcast to both their own state and ours.  Thus, we were hearing all this malarkey about an election in which we DO NOT HAVE A VOTE!  (Sorry about the screaming, but this does drive me crazy.  

Now the problem is I have to name something that makes me happy and I can only think about THOSE STUPID ATTACK ADS!

I think I am going to have to do something to get them off my mind... 

So, I have just returned from a walk around my house.  I am refreshed.  What did I do?  I ate two toot rolls (the only sweets I could find), a stepped out on my upstairs balcony and felt the chilly breeze (it's in the 50's here and I am only wearing a long-sleeved tee shirt), and watched the fading afternoon sun as it descended behind a building across the inlet.  Then I grabbed a book of poems off the shelf in our bedroom and read two of my favorite poems by Billy Collins--"The Lanyard" and "The Trouble With Poetry."  (I'd write them right here, but you can go to youtube and type in the title of the former and its author.  You'll get a reading by the author).   So, now I am relieved.  Have these three little escapes have made me "happy?"  Well, not exactly, but I am happier so I think this handles the second part to the prompt up above.  Now has it changed my perspective on those "attack ads?"  DUH?

OK, OK...  Let's turn that question around.  Has thinking about those attack ads changed my perspective on things I like?  No, apparently not.  So, no harm done, I suppose.  I won't be moving to Australia as the next election year rolls around after all.

Loving Yourself

Loving Yourself

Love to love you
What do you love most about yourself? What do you love most about your favorite person? Are the two connected? 

"Love about myself?"  I thought you weren't allowed to "love yourself."  That would reflect a massive ego or something called narcissism, I think.  Maybe I should look that one up.  "Having an excessive interest in oneself or one's physical appearance."  So much for liking my body for deciding to cooperate in reaching my goal weight this year.   Yes, I dropped a few pounds--well, if you've had a reasonably close look at me (say within a hundred yards or so) you'd say I had to lose quite a few--I could go on, but the point is that excessive focus on oneself is not a good beginning to any interaction.  So, I am a little stuck.  Loving something about myself is not so good, right?

But some amount of self-love is necessary for growth and survival.  Narcissism is more about the degree of self-love,  We all need enough self-love, just not so much.   So what do I love about myself?  Let me see, I think I'm....

Maybe this will work better in reverse.  What do I like most about my favorite person--OK, "love" most about my favorite person.  She swears--I am not making this up--that I once told her with a straight face that what I loved most about her was that she loved me.  I think you might now be able to better understand why this prompt gives me so much trouble.  I'm running around in circles here.

I guess the important thing to learn was right in front of me all the time.  The starting point is to love yourself.  Then move on to the people that love you, then....  Don't over-analyze, just do it--of course they are connected.  I just can't tell you exactly how.

Saturday Mornings Remain A Treat Or Should I Say Retreat?

Saturday Mornings Remain A Treat Or Should I Say Retreat?

It's quiet now, just me and what I'm thinking.  Saturdays when I arise before the rest and the business of this busy day has not yet been declared.  It feels just as true as it did when I was working.  A brief respite, a quiet cup of coffee, with no other obligation.  Sure, I can go out and get the paper.  For someone else to read, nothing's urgent to me at moments like this.

I'd rather sit and look about, watching water roll back to our inlet, wondering where it's been this time since the tide rolled it out some hours ago.  Is it the same water now, just back from a visit to the Sound?  I can't see how it would be kept together once it went into the Sound.  Even the creatures that inhabit these waters may not wind up here in the same place when the great force of the tide pushes the sea back in.   They could have spent their entire lives until today out in the Sound, or in some other inlet not so far away.  Today they'll spend in ours.  I imagine they feel as if they are sheltered here in our shallow space.  Here, the sun warms them, and there are no waves to toss or push or pull them this way and that.  Things are calm and peaceful, do they enjoy this sort of day and place.

Oh, they may be eaten by something larger, caught by larger creatures of the Sea--we've spotted dolphins feeding in our inlet--more than once a mother and its young.  Perhaps places like this are where they're taught to hunt for food.

The creatures washed in here by the tides might be even be caught by people fishing from the occasional bateaux that float in and cast their bait.  For most this will only be a misadventure--once caught, they're quickly released.   Released because they exceed a size limit for their species, or a bag limit for the fisherman, or simply because the fisherman values more the catching of the fish, not taking it home as food.  But today's chillier than most, so the fishermen will be scarce.  

If they escape all that hunting going on during this day, then they'll once again wash out to sea, perhaps never to return.  We believe these creatures lack a consciousness, so they don't think about where they've been or where they're going, they just exist.  Like some humans (perhaps all of us at some times) living without reflection, just plodding through their days.  But what if they have this consciousness?  What do they think of these daily visits?  Do they look forward to new places, or do they long to return here to our small space, where they can rest, a retreat for some who might just enjoy these visits like I do a quiet Saturday morning.

Make A List

Make A List

If you had to make a list of all the things family members would need to know if you suddenly went away, what would it include?  Accounts, passwords, poems, feelings never shared.  It would be too easy to just turn on the maudlin faucet for this one, so I am just spinning out the obscure details that have started popping up since I heard for the second time, "I need to know about that," from a certain someone.

The subject at hand was the explanation for a fund available to each of us (my wife and myself) from my former employer since I had been a certain age when they eliminated their own medigap plan for retirees 65 and over in 2000.  Creating this fund relieved my employer of the necessity to go on administering a plan for a population of retiring employees that will, for lack of a better expression, die off slowly over the coming forty to fifty years.

Leaving a lump sum to cover such a plan for a year or two when purchased on the open market let my employer drop this plan a bit less painfully.  Do companies really feel pain when they eliminate a costly benefit?   Probably not, but a sense of fair play does show up in decisions like this one made by my former employer.

The other subject it raised was a savings plan (including some company match) that same company set up when it had (a few years earlier) eliminated health benefits for retirees under 65.  I need to create an easy-to-follow file for accessing that one.  

That leads to the various pensions that trickle in from older former employers (are the employers I worked for and left earlier in my career "older employers?").   Well, that depends on who's working there now, but I expect all the employees are younger than yours truly.  The employer itself has also been in existence longer now than it had been when I left them, so are they an "older employer?"  The company I most recently left has been around for more than 160 years, so it is, in fact, my oldest employer.   They are all my former employers, but some are "former-er" than others, and one is the "former-est" (Don't look at me, "more former" and "most former" don't sound much better to me).  If indeed she survives being married to me that long, she'll need some guidance on how to contact these pension funds to stop my pension and claim her surviving spouse's benefit.

I am satisfied that Social Security will over-communicate with her on the subject of those survivor benefits.  I have been buried in paper over just becoming eligible for medicare, so if they are still in existence when I expire, she will get all the help she needs from then for Social Security and Medicare benefits.  I have to go back for just a second--"expire"--isn't that just the best expression for kicking the bucket you've ever heard?  It has lots of layers.  Is it like an old magazine subscription that expires and stops showing up?  Or is it like an out-of-date prescription medication hanging around your medicine cabinet too long--too old to be trusted any more?  OK, there's a rabbit trail we don't need to follow.  (Or is it like a free offer on some kind of free product its maker wants you to get hooked on?)

Back to the list, do you have a list of all your latest passwords for accounts, newsletters, web sites, e-mail accounts, old blogs--set up, but abandoned for a while, etc., etc.  How else will they ever find out the balance you owe or they owe you if you don't provide usernames and passwords (BTW. "username" does not yet pass muster with s p e l l  c h e c k e r s,  i t  s h o u l d  b e " u s e r  n a m e--isthatenoughspacesforyou,spellcheck?).  Come to think of it, BTW probably doesn't work for the spellcheckers either (note the space eliminated in the name of spell checkers, I may just win this one).  I kid you not, I just went to spell check and I got this message--"An error occurred while trying to perform this function, please try again later."  Yes...

Then there are the mysteries of bill payer functions in your checking account.  What's the difference between autopay of e-bills and automatic recurring payments, and what about autopay of minimum payment due on certain credit card accounts?  Some of this I set up myself and can't exactly explain.  Maybe this one needs some work before sharing....

Old email accounts--how many of you have set up an "ad/junk mail receiving account?  Some of these web sites want us to use our email address as a username, which allows them to send a multitude of ads, special offers and other useless news about special rates to Aruba in July, etc.  I have a different email I never really visit that gets all that junk.  Old blogs--I have set up and not really made public a blog or two over the past few years where works in progress are stored--you may not believe it, but there even worse poems I have written that are sitting there in case I ever want to try to salvage them.  

It goes on, but I have to stop for a while and go somewhere.