Waiting for the Next Hummingbird

Who are we kidding? Life is not a bowl of cherries, it's more like a bag of rotten grapes. Okay, fine, so once in a while there is a cherry, but while you're eating it, someone else is slogging through a quagmire of spoiled grapes hoping to make wine, only it's rancid.

I bring you this sour, dour news after just a brief foray into the outside world this morning. What I learned is that things are bad all over, and not just in my own Plavix-ridden body where the slightest tap on my skin results in a swollen, angry, multi-colored bruise worthy of Mike Tyson -- either in or out of the ring. No, my problems are nothing compared to the horrors other people endure and which are documented ad nauseum on varying platforms by the media, including deaths of entire families, devastating fires of biblical proportions, child molestation by priests and pediatricians, stabbings of innocent tourists by terrorists and sexually inappropriate behavior towards women by seemingly every man alive.

The moral of the story which I tell myself daily and try to remember: Happiness is like a hummingbird. One minute it's suspended right before your eyes, flapping its little wings faster than the speed of light, then you blink and it's gone. Then it's back and hangs around for awhile -- maybe long enough to snap a photo -- but then it's gone again. Enjoy it while you've got it and don't waste time bemoaning the fact that it's fleeting. Recognize that you are happy right now, and quit your bellyachin' about the gloom and doom waiting in the wings. There's always plenty of time for tears, so don't taint the good times with the bad.

Private Lives, Facebook Lies

Facebook continues to crack me up! No joke, it's a hoot. Today my news feed featured a photo of someone I know who is celebrating a birthday, accompanied by the message, "Thanks to someone who inspires us to be good as we can be!" Naturally it elicited the usual stream of birthday wishes from his loyal followers.

What it did not menton is how this particular person was cheating on his wife, the mother of his new baby, for two years, eventually fathering another child with his mistress and finally divorcing his wife. But hey -- publicly he's an inspiration to us all!

Sugar Highs and Lows

Today was just one of those days. Hot, muggy and gloomy, with sort of bad things happening to several people I am close to, it begged for a pick-me-up. I was desperate. Think, I told myself, what did I do in years gone by to cheer up my family? I baked.

So I baked. The chosen item was Snickerdoodles, which are cookies that everyone loves. Plus they're fun to make. They came out great, actually beyond great, they are fabulous, delectable, delightful and delicious. But nobody's problems disappeared, and I ended up with a sink full of dishes.

To Err Is Human

What does it mean when someone laughs at a story you begin with the statement, "Something terrible happened to me the other day," and that someone is a close friend? I recently had this experience with not one, but two friends -- same story, by the way-- and I must say it depressed the hell out of me and dampened my feelings for both of them.

Compassion and empathy are  important human qualities I have in abundance. Too much, really, since I feel for others to such a degree that it seriously impacts my quality of life, one might say pathologically so. If it's a close friend or family member I often feel their pain even more than they do, and if it's a total stranger I've only read about in the news, I can still break down in sobs. So it's a real shocker when I don't get a shred of compassion back from the people who are allegedly in my "circle of trust."

I am not a serial killer, pathological liar, sociopath, pederast or thief. I am in reality a pretty nice person. My greatest failing is that I don't abide the obese, and if you knew why you'd give me a pass. Yet I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I can call on in an emergency who might give a damn, and I'm betting the same is true for most others, unless they are very wealthy or hold a position of power.

Yes, to forgive is divine. Most of us can do that, but barring a lobotomy, the hurt remains.

Loosening Family Ties

As the saying goes, Blood is thicker than water. This is supposed to mean that family ties are stronger than all others. All I can say about that is, Ha! Also, Ha, ha, ha -- that's a good one!

My husband is an identical twin. He and his brother are very close emotionally and live just 19 miles apart. They grew up close and stayed close and are closer than ever now that they are in their sixties. But one of them votes Republican and the other Democrat. Still, they remain devoted to one another.

Recently a first cousin of theirs came to town. Their fathers were brothers. When they were kids, all of them played nice and were good friends. Now all grown up, the visiting cousin is a rabid lefty, almost pathologically so. She made a point of visiting the Democrat twin but flat-out ignored the Republican, although she did include his Democrat son. Afterward she was all smiles on Facebook about reuniting with her wonderful cousins, omitting the fact that it was only the ones who vote like she does.

All this "family is great stuff" is such BS. Some family members are indeed devoted to one another, but it's not the shared blood that does it, it's the kindred spirits. News Flash for cousin Nan: Believe it or not, many Republicans are people worth knowing.

Repo Man

I was working on a painting in my second-floor art studio, trying to decide between yellow and pink, when I heard -- and then saw -- a huge flatbed truck rumbling down our quiet little country lane. He must be lost, I thought. But then to my surprise, the truck backed into our driveway. My husband was downstairs, and I heard him go outside and say to the guy, Are you looking for something? He replied, I'm here for the Audi. And so began our descent into either The Twilight Zone or Hell -- take your pick.

Turns out they come for your car after 90 days with no payment. At least that's what the Repo Man said; I had no idea since I have never had a car repossessed. Hey, I never even saw the movie. What this had to do with us was a mystery, as Mitch and I looked at one another and then back at the guy, shrugging and saying, What the heck are you talking about?

The 2018 Audi A4, this one right here, Repo Man said, standing a foot away from the vehicle under discussion. I've got to take it.

Suddenly I realized that I had not received even one bill for the car since we leased it last April.  As the family bookkeeper I saw them all and paid them all, always on time or certainly within a reasonable grace period. But one thing I did not do was ever write a check for a bill I didn't get, and I hadn't gotten any for my beautiful new Hunter Green 4-door sedan with the luscious Chocolate Brown leather interior. Sure, we wrote a check at the dealership when we leased the car, but since then, nothing.

So, you just show up without warning? I asked Repo Man. Pretty much, he mumbled, head down and avoiding eye contact. I just get my list in the morning and go out and get the cars.

This is ridiculous! Mitch said. We pay our bills. Don't we? He looked to me for assurance. If we get them, I said.

Eventually, after 35 minutes of listening to VW Leasing in Liberty Heights, Illinois tell me dozens of times how important my call was to them and that a customer service representative would help me as soon as possible, a woman named Jenny asked in a chirpy voice how she could help. All of a sudden nauseous and a bit faint, I handed the phone over to Mitch and poured myself a glass of tomato juice, straight.

Jenny insisted they had been billing us. Then you must have the wrong address, Mitch said. They didn't. So where are the bills? Mitch asked. You tell me, Jenny answered. Meanwhile, all this time the poor Repo Man was standing outside in the driveway.

I went out and asked him if he wanted anything -- a glass of water, or coffee, or maybe some tomato juice? My offer of tomato juice made him burst out laughing, and suddenly he changed from a threatening, bearded, tattooed, scary biker-looking dude with big biceps into a nice young man with no upper teeth. It's just my job, he explained. Don't take it personal.

Back inside, Mitch was finally making progress with Jenny. He had convinced her we were not deadbeats and she agreed to take our car payments for the last three months over the phone. (Mitch threw in a fourth just for good measure.) Jenny said to tell Repo Man he was free to leave, but he hung around for awhile, answering my questions about his job: Did he like it? You meet a lot of different types -- some nice, some not so nice. Did anyone ever come after him with a gun? That's what you hear, but not around these parts. Had he ever had any trouble at all? If they give me attitude, I just take the car and leave.

After a while we shook hands and Repo Man got into his truck and drove away, leaving my Audi in the driveway. In retrospect, I was glad we hadn't give him any attitude.

Our Universal Addiction

We all put so much stock in computers and barely give a thought to them being wrong, despite having evidence to the contrary from time to time. For example, yesterday 118 people in Spain read my blog. Really? Why would that be? It's either that or the statistics program in my computer that tracks my readership is totally screwed up.

My money is on the latter, since there is no reasonable explanation that anyone could dream up why Spanish readers would be drawn to yesterday's film review of Leave No Trace. I am not Spanish, don't speak Spanish, and don't even like Spanish food. I have been to Spain once, if you call the city of Barcelona "Spain." (During my brief time there everyone I met said, "This isn't really Spain.")

This morning our power went out for about 15 seconds, just long enough to miss it if you blinked. But it was enough time to totally freak out our modem, and my computer. I spent the next two hours trying to get back online, when suddenly it hit me: it doesn't matter. So I went and made some breakfast and read the paper instead, but the whole time I was upset because my computer wasn't working.

Clearly I have a new addiction, one as powerful as any other addiction but condoned by a society and culture that is also addicted. We'd all be in really big trouble if some evil genius from another galaxy figured out how to mess with our power supply.

Film Review: LEAVE NO TRACE

Devoted dad and daughter.

It almost feels wrong to write a review of Leave No Trace, the stunning independent film by director Debra Granik, kind of like laughing at a funeral or eating a pastrami sandwich during Ramadan. The film is so intensely beautiful to look at and simply experience that words can't come close to capturing its meaning, or answer the deep questions about how we should spend our lives here in this paradise called Earth.

The story, adapted from a book that was based on a newspaper article about something that really  happened, concerns a sad ex-Marine with PTSD (Ben Foster) and his teenage daughter Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), both deserving an Oscar for their amazingly authentic performances. Years ago they abandoned society to live, hidden, in a densely wooded park on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, making weekly trips into the city for supplies bought with government disability checks.

They've created a sophisticated camp where they cook their meals and sleep huddled together in a tent, barely visible to the naked eye. Dad home-schools Tom and teaches her survival skills, and so she's smarter than others her age. Of course what they're doing is deemed illegal by our society, and one day their idyllic life is abruptly ended by the harsh barks of a police dog and torn apart by a whole mess of park rangers.

The devoted pair is separated and questioned by the authorities, who we instantly dislike even though they are doing good work. After all, if the homeless suddenly could populate our national parks at will, soon enough they'd be covered in trash, the forests depleted for firewood and the animals killed for dinner. Leave No Trace highlights the plight of all those "nutty" people who refuse to fritter away their lives staring at computers or talking on cell phones, watching TV or shopping at the mall, driving in traffic to cubbyholes where they'll push papers and figure out how to make more money to spend on their measly weekends, holidays and allotted vacations. Underneath it all is the question we each must answer: Who are the misfits -- the people who live off the grid or the rest of us?

Dad and daughter are reunited and, through the vast web of social services, given a place to live and work to do, but it's not to last long. The lure of the woods calls them back, and once again they are hungry, cold and homeless, but somehow able to breathe easier.  Eventually things change in a big way, as they always do, but you'll have to see for yourself and decide if it's for the better or for the worse. 

72 Hours in Crazyland

If these folks are your best friends, you've got a problem.

I am a fan of the TV show called Grey's Anatomy, which I started watching about two years ago when I was recovering from my hip replacement surgery. I liked it for the medicine, and for the superb acting, cutting-edge music and interesting stories, although there was much about it to hate as well. I got off the couch soon enough and stopped watching it, but wouldn't you know something else got me down -- this time it was a heart attack -- and I was back on the couch for a few weeks, at which time I checked in with the gang on Grey's again. Now I'm hooked and watch it on Netflix on the nights my husband is out of town.

A few days ago I had the thought, "I wonder if anyone else hates Maggie as much as I do," Maggie being a character on Grey's that makes my skin crawl. She can't act and is borderline creepy, yet is suddenly being presented as the love interest of the hottest doc in the hospital. So I looked on Facebook and found a closed fan group devoted to the show and clicked "Join Group."

My first indication that something was amiss came when I received an "application" to fill out before being allowed to enter the group. It was in essay form, and asked three questions I had to answer, in 250 words each, about my feelings for the show and its characters. "Hmmm," I thought, "this is sorta nutty," but I did it anyway.  About a week later -- a whole week! -- I received a message saying I had "passed the test" and I was in. And let me tell you, it was quite a scene. I only lasted three days before heading for the exit, but what I learned in there was almost life-changing.

For example, did you know that many, many -- and I mean many -- folks live, eat and breathe Grey's Anatomy? They watch it over and over -- all 14 seasons, with 24 episodes each -- and can recite chunks of dialogue from personally meaningful episodes. They cry over this couple breaking up or that couple getting together. They reminisce about the highs and the lows. They post pictures and GIFs of their favorite scenes. They ask who's the hottest guy, who would you want to have dinner with, what would you tell this character or that character, and on and on. They also talk about their own problems -- "My boyfriend left me and I'm going through hell!" -- and seek advice from others who obviously would know because they watch the same show. ("I need some happiness from my Grey's peeps.") All of this goes on non-stop, day in and day out, with almost no time off for sleeping.

The scariest part is that many of those people are permitted to vote in our political elections.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

While we each have our own little personal lives to live, nobody can dispute that news we hear about the lives of others often plays a huge part in how we feel and behave. Sometimes it's for the good, like when the young boys trapped in the cave in Thailand were rescued by all those heroic men who risked everything to get them out. That was heart-warming and life-affirming and certainly put a smile on all our faces, except for one friend of mine who never heard about any of it and didn't care because it had "nothing to do with her" and besides, she was busy deciding what color to paint her kitchen.

The Bad

Then yesterday something really bad happened, and I would never know about it if I lived in the hinterlands or if those damn reporters didn't think it imperative to tell us every last thing that happens in every corner of the world in order to up their ratings. Anyway, we all found out about the sickening sinking of a tourist boat caught in a sudden summer storm on a lake in Branson, Missouri. The debacle was caught on video cameras by witnesses, some in lakeside restaurants, drinking and munching on appetizers and groaning about the horror as the boat went under the waves and the lives of 17 people, many of them children who likely had been so excited to ride on a boat on a big lake, ended right in front of them.

The Ugly

As for the ugly, several nights ago for no apparent reason, although I must have hit it somehow, the top of my right hand blew up, instantly red and angry and looking like it was about to burst open and unleash the entire contents of the universe. After ruling out an insect bite or sting since there was no evidence of such and no insects around, I attributed it to my taking Plavix, a blood thinner that causes internal bleeding at the slightest provocation. (It's still ugly but I'm alive, not trapped in a cave or lying lifeless under 80 feet of water.)

A Somewhat Gross PSA

Some topics are too disgusting to talk about, so are rarely talked about. One of those is earwax. There, I said it.

Your ear is really in the middle of things!

Several days ago I got some water in my ear while shampooing in the shower. A common occurrence, many people experience it after swimming in the ocean, a pool or a lake, or anytime they have been submerged underwater, like getting waterboarded at Abu Ghraib. Usually it clears up in a few minutes, maybe half an hour. But my ear was clogged all day and overnight. The next morning, at my wit's end, I made an appointment with our family physician to see if I had some sort of ear infection.

He took a quick look and saw that my ear canal was totally blocked, with, you guessed it, earwax. (Yuk.)  Suddenly I realized that I had not been hearing very well out of that ear for a long time, a fact I only noticed when on the phone and needing to switch to my other ear. Hey, great, I wasn't going deaf after all!

A simple (yet creepy and mildly uncomfortable) procedure in the doctor's office alleviated the problem in about 15 minutes, and netted a giant wad of ---- gulp --- earwax that had been lodged inside my head. Well, inside my ear canal, but still that's located in my head, which contains my brain, and that's not anything I want to fool around with. I was unhappy that I had seen it, due to its grossness, but very happy it was gone. My hearing instantly soared from about 20% to 100% in that ear.

According to the researchers at Ascent Audiology & Hearing, "Many adults have conductive hearing loss in just one ear, and instead of seeking treatment for the cause of their temporary impairment, they use their good ear while waiting for the issue to resolve itself. Studies indicate that delaying or forgoing treatment could lead to permanent hearing loss, so rather than take a wait and see approach, have the issue taken care of by a physician or audiologist immediately. Our findings suggest that audiologists and physicians should advocate for early intervention and treat these middle ear conditions."