My To-Do List

There's this app on my iPhone, or maybe it's a widget, I can never remember...which is precisely the problem. It's called REMINDERS, and it serves as a high tech to-do list, kind of like a digital age nag, whereby my wife can add items to the list whenever something pops into her head, and she can do so wirelessly from anywhere in the universe where she has an Internet connection. Fascinating. For this I have Steve Jobs to thank.

Thanks, Steve.

Anyway, my REMINDER widget is stuffed to the gills this morning, what with the big wedding shower lallapaloosa at our house tomorrow. As of this hour there are 13 items under the lavender colored heading, Honey-Do. There were 14, but I gave Lucy a bath last night so that one got checked off. Here's what's left:

1. Hang 2 wedding pics

2. Hang 2 graduation pics

3. Put covers on outlets behind cubicle

4. Replace batteries in the clock

5. Put dog bowls and dog food container away just before the shower starts

6. Fix toilet seat

7. Spot vacuum Sat. Morning

8. Vacuum shag rug using CARPET setting to see if we can get more dog hair up

9. Cut grass

10. Buy new light bulbs (ask Pam first)

11. Buy picture hanging hardware

12. Clean nose prints off the living room windows

13. Change air conditioner filters

An interesting and diverse list, reflective of my wide-ranging husbandly skill set. Although, some of them require explanation. Numbers one and two are a result of Pam's painting spree of this past weekend, as is number three. Number six is a head scratcher. The toilet seat in question isn't cracked or anything, it's just a little loose. You know, it slides around if you're not sitting still. This is apparently unacceptable. There are two separate requests to vacuum. Yes, our dog has hair, and not all of them stay firmly affixed to her. Luckily, our shag rug has specks of a tan color in it that bear a striking resemblance to Lucy's hair color. But Pam wants them gone from our rug...all of them.

 I've got number nine. I'm great at cutting grass. I should point out that number twelve is not the result of me in some advanced stage of depression, face pressed forlornly against the windows, gazing blankly at the hostile world outside. No, this also, along with four other items on the list come courtesy of Lucy, who is fond of sitting at the front windows for hours staring across the street at Pippin the Ladradoodle, her sometimes friend with his fancy electronic fence, the arrogant bastard! 

I think it only fair to say that the 13 items on this list don't hold a candle to the million things that Pam has done in preparation for this event. She has been on a mission from God for over a month now. Watching her work has been exhausting. She has been a dynamo, a whirlwind of activity. I only have a 13 item to-do list that I can knock out in one day. This particular division of labor has been decidedly one-sided. But this wedding shower will most likely redefine the genre for years to come. That's how my wife rolls.

Achmed and Abdul School Lurch

Just out of curiosity, by a show of hands, how many of you have had experience with missing a deadline? Yes, I see. Quite a few of you, it appears. Now, how many of you have ever found yourself having run afoul of the April 15 deadline for filing your income tax return? Oh dear, that's a lot of hands! So, I'm sure you're aware of what happens if you miss the IRS imposed deadline. That's right, immediately upon your failure to file your return, the penalty and interest phase of your lifelong relationship with your government begins in earnest. In other words, in the real world, there are tangible and swift consequences for missing deadlines. That's why they are called deadlines...because when you cross them...you're dead.

Not so in the murky world of international diplomacy, at least not in the age of Secretary of State John Kerry, the distinguished and very French-looking former Senator from the state of Massachusetts. By all accounts, Secretary Kerry (hereafter referred to by his nickname, Lurch) is having a devil of a time closing the deal on the nuclear treaty with the Iranians and their two cagey negotiators Achmed and Abdul. So far the talks have burned through four separate deadlines, the result of the A boys last minute demands. Lurch, desperately desiring a deal, each time issues a stern warning, but each time is dragged back to the table whereupon he makes further concessions. I imagine it goes something like this:

Imagine The Secretary of State driving a big SUV down the interstate with Achmed and Abdul in the back seat. Suddenly Achmed leans forward and flicks Lurch's ear. Achmed and Abdul then tumble together in hysterical laughter. Lurch cuts his very aristocratic eyes sternly into the rear view mirror...

Lurch: Now, you boys calm down! Don't make me come back there!

Abdul: Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it Pierre??

Lurch: That's enough! You boys quiet down or so help me, I'm going to pull this car over!

Achmed: Whoooooa! Did you hear that, Abdul? Frenchy says he's gonna pull the car over!!

Lurch: I'm giving you two fair warning! You boys don't want to know what happens if I have to pull this car over!

Abdul then reaches inside his thawb and removes a straw, then plasters Lurch with a large and extremely wet spitball. More hysterical laughter...

Lurch: That's it! I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you both. I'm pulling this car over...as soon as I find a place that's big enough...and safe enough...boy the traffic is terrible today...well, you
can rest assured that I mean business this time...there will be consequences...a man can take but so much of this intolerable...oh wait, there's a Wawa. Who wants some frozen yogurt??

A Healing Song

Today, I will attend a viewing for the father of one of my clients, a healthy, robust man in his 70's struck down by a car accident. Yesterday, a sweet, loving soul from my church passed away from complications of recent heart surgery. She was in her 40's. Such is the arbitrary, fragile nature of this life. In ways random and relentless, death stuns us. Even when we expect it, anticipate it, death stuns.

So, I listen to music. Not just any music, but the soft gentle harmonies of accapella singing. Other music is better for celebrations. Sometimes it's the clever story telling of country music. Other times, rock and roll is what I need. It's the brooding symphonies of Beethoven when I need to think, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra when I want to relax, Manheim Steamroller when I'm wrapping Christmas presents. But when I'm sad, and the specter of loss hangs over me, only the tender sound of the human voice will do.

Last month was a month of loss for me. June will, for the rest of my life, be the month that my parents died. This year was the first anniversary of Dad's passing and it weighed on me. One night I was sifting through old pictures and videos on my iPad when I found a video from 2013. Patrick's college choir of choice, The Chamber Singers, had been on tour and we had hosted them for a raucous dinner at our house. Before they left, I asked their leader, Deen Entsminger, if he would lead them in a performance of  their signature song, Lonesome Road by James Taylor. There they were, a bunch of energetic kids who had travelled 600 miles by bus earlier in the day, but still full of passion and silliness, all crammed into our overcrowded family room. Deen held out his hand and took a long, deep breath. For the next three minutes, a soulful sound filled the house and the hearts of everyone in it. The harmonies were tight and seamless, the execution flawless, which allowed us all to hear, really and truly hear the lyrics:

              Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself, 

               Don't turn your head back over your shoulder.
                 And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon
                  is shining high above the trees.....

If my house accomplishes nothing else, it will have been the home of that three minutes. Last night I learned that my mother-in-law had taken a nasty tumble, breaking her elbow. Her face was bruised and scraped. She had needed stitches to close a wound. She had tripped on an unseen landscaping log in the dark leaving her dear friend's house after bringing a meal. Before going to bed last night, I listened again.

When we don't know what to pray, God sends music.

I Did It!

I did it. I caved to the cultural and societal pressure. I took the advice of my nephew and my son. I was prepared for an hour of relentless nothingness. I steeled myself for the slow motion, yawn-inducing experience of watching grown women running aimlessly by telling myself that it was my patriotic duty. As if on cue, there was my President urging all of America to root, root root for our women. Well, I was going to do it, even if it killed me.

Our girls had already dispatched the Germans several days ago and now would be facing the Japanese. Sound familiar?  All of the studio commentators were unanimous in their opinion that Tokyo's finest didn't stand a chance. I was dubious. They looked awfully determined. While the American girls were all smiles during the pregame introductions, the Japanese looked dead serious, grim and single minded, especially during the playing of their nation's anthem, a slow dirge that must have been composed the day after Hiroshima. I became fearful of them, suspicious of the lengths to which they might go for victory.

My biggest complaint about soccer is the amount of time that players spend seemingly determined not to score. There is much pointless passing, fruitless scampering, and dramatic flailing about for no apparent purpose. So, none of the knowledge about soccer I had managed to accrue  had prepared me for what I was about to see. Within the first ten minutes, the Americans had scored 4 goals, three of them by one player, and one of those from a mile away! This is the baseball equivalent of a team hitting three grand slams in the top of the first inning, the football equivalent of scoring five touchdowns in the first quarter. The Japanese players looked shell shocked, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing, a sort of a Pearl Harbor in reverse. 

As is always the case, the best part of the telecast were the camera shots of brightly painted and wildly enthusiastic fans. I have to hand it to soccer fans, they are the absolute best when it comes to unhinged passion. 

By the end of the first half the Japanese had managed a face saving goal, but the game was essentially over after that initial burst of goal-scoring lunacy by the Americans. I had done my part. I had watched the entire first half! But then the Nationals game came on ESPN. I switched over to watch Bryce Harper hit, but I kept a sharp eye on the ticker at the bottom of the screen for any Japanese treachery in the second half. I was fully prepared to switch back if something nefarious was afoot. But it was not to be. The U.S. Won in a rout 5-2. World Cup champions! Good for them.

It's All Greek To Me!

Whenever a country as ancient and proud as Greece is about to go bankrupt, it's a big deal, and an impossibly complicated one. The fact that the final nail in the coffin appears about to be driven by a referendum is the ultimate irony for a nation that gave the world Democracy.

I have more than a casual interest in Greece. I invest money for a living and the Greek government bonds that are about to become worthless are found scattered throughout many American mutual funds. Many of the talking heads in the financial media have talked about little else but the dangers of contagion, the notion that a sovereign default by one nation may spread like chicken pox in a Mississippi elementary school. So, I have tried my best to understand this Greek tragedy. I have read all I can find from every newspaper, magazine and think tank. After nearly two months of reading, I am no closer to the truth than I was before. What a hot mess.

This is a country that fought a bloody and acrimonious civil war after WWII, with the government eventually prevailing over the Communists in 1949. The official end of hostilities didn't happen until the formal accord was signed in the 1980's. Any discussion of Greek finances can't be made without an understanding of just how divided the country is, much of the division lingering from that civil war. Before joining the European Union in 2001, Greece was in horrible financial straights after the decade of the 1990's which saw them run insanely high budget deficits every year. Membership in the EU brought access to cheap loans and an economic revival from 2001-2007.  But eventually loans, cheap or not, have to be serviced, and when the economic crisis of 2008 came calling, Greece was hit especially hard. It has been on life support ever since, and now the creditors have had enough.

It's quite hard to pick out one thing to blame for Greece's troubles. It's more like a combination of many bad habits coming together at the worst possible time. Over the last twenty years public sector job growth has far outpaced the private sector, which I suppose is inevitable when you have a government which is asked by Greek citizens to do so many things. But when a huge number of your citizens work for the government, then the public sector unions become key to every politicians' success. Accordingly, they get most everything they want, from generous leave, to insanely rich pensions. Luckily for Greek politicians, the people being counted on to pay for these pensions have yet to be born and consequently can't vote. You would think that a nation so enamored with the welfare state would be willing to actually, you know...pay their taxes. But no...the Greek black market is the only part of the Greek economy that is thriving. Off the books, cash transactions are ubiquitous in a country starved for revenue. 

Greece has everything that Bernie Sanders loves, high taxes on the rich( which don't get paid), a huge and omnipresent government involved in every sphere of daily life, universal health care, powerful unions, a relatively small military, with soldiers who have seen their pay cut by 40%. No one in the country seems much interested in making a profit or building anything. Thus freed from the American preoccupation with mammon, the Greek citizenry is free to enjoy long paid holidays, and retirement with a generous pension while in their 40's. For those unlucky enough still to be in the work force, they can look forward to receiving 14 monthly pay checks, the two extra "months" a clever scheme dreamed up by the government to keep overall monthly wages lower since the ridiculously generous pensions are based on monthly pay. Workers can also receive bonuses for simply showing up to work...on time. These are the working conditions under which Greeks labor...after five years of grim austerity. This and baklava? What a country!

So today they go to the polls to vote for more austerity, or to stiff their creditors and leave the EU, the consequences of which even its proponents don't fully understand.

The lesson for us would seem to be...don't be like Greece. A good question to ask every Presidential candidate next year might be, " What policies will you put in place to insure that the United States never becomes Greece?"

My Empty Good Sense Account

Yesterday afternoon, with the confidence that often accompanies foolishness, I took my improving neck out for a spin. Ever since the witch doctors at Tuckahoe Orthopedic put me on an expensive drug cocktail a couple of weeks ago, things had been looking up. The pain had been greatly reduced, the range of motion much improved. So naturally, me being me, I figured it was time to discover if the neck was up to a quick round of golf.

I drove out to The Hollows, a decidedly blue-collar course out in Hanover. Its claim to fame is that you can walk on without a tee time, its very easy, and they allow you to walk. I teed off at high noon. Two hours and twenty minutes, and six miles later I was done. My scorecard said 86. It was all a lie.

Ok, first of all, anyone who plays golf knows that your score seldom is a reflection of how well or poorly you played. Lots of times you feel like you hit the ball great all day but you couldn't sink a putt if your life depended on it. Therefore you think you played well, but the scorecard says 95. Then there are the times when you can count on one hand the number of quality shots you hit, but your score ends up being 86 because of several lucky breaks, a chip in bogey from 30 yards off the green and a couple of 40 foot putts that for no good reason happened to go into the hole! That was yesterday. It also should be noted that the course played to a par of 69 because of a redesign that temporarily has made a par 3 out of a par 4 hole.

But the really bad news is that it looks like I'm going to have to give up the game for a while. Every single swing I took ...hurt. I spent the whole afternoon trying to come up with a pain free version of a golf swing, three quarter, half, nothing worked. It didn't  matter what kind of shot I was trying to hit or what club I was using, every single swing barked at me. I'm no doctor, but I'm thinking that an activity that hurts is something that you probably shouldn't be doing.

It's a shame because I enjoyed being out yesterday. It was a beautiful day, not too hot. There was nobody out there, I never had to wait. I finished an entire round of golf in less that 2 and a half hours and got some excellent exercise from walking six miles. Just in case my wife is reading this...NO, I didn't carry my clubs!! I'm not that stupid. I had the good sense to use a pull cart. But there's only so much good sense in my bank account of ideas, and I used it all up on the pull cart decision. There wasn't any left when I decided to go ahead and play 18 instead of stopping at the turn since my neck was killing me. 

This morning the neck is sore. But relief is coursing through my veins as we speak, and after a hot shower, I'll be fine. Incidentally, Pam hates it when I say "I'll be fine." I don't know why it irritates her so. She seems to think that every time I say it I'm lying. But as much as she hates hearing me say it about myself, I've learned never to say it about her. Example:

Pam: I have no idea how I'm going to get everything done for the ____________! I have to go buy the ________, make the ________, clean the _________, call the __________, and I haven't even baked the _________ yet!

Me: You'll be fine.

Pam: &/;,:56/)":&/$46'cgsfzymdl&$,?:;::&;(:,:?|%}<\'fksn!,!!!!!!!

It's official...I'm an idiot

There are times in life when something happens which calls into question the actual level of your intelligence. After a while you get to the point where you develope a sense of how smart you are or at least how smart you think you are. You do this primarily by comparing yourself to those around you. While I may not be as smart as Steve Jobs, I'm pretty sure I'm a little sharper than the guy who rings up my toiletries purchase at CVS. I may not have the cognitive capabilities of Stephen Hawking, but I could probably win a battle of wits with the tattooed woman who cuts my hair at Sports Clips.

But then last night happens and you're just not sure anymore. 

As many of you know, yesterday...the 29th of June...was the third anniversary of my Mother's death. I was naturally feeling a bit down when I settled in to my recliner to read last night. I decided to find the picture of my parent's headstone/grave plaque on my cell phone that my sister Paula had sent me a while back. It had taken forever for us to get the thing finalized, and the cemetery people had finally installed it a couple of months ago. We had to order Dad's from the Veterans Administration because of his military service, so it had been a long, drawn out affair. But it had turned out well. I actually went over and looked at it on the first anniversary of Dad's death a few weeks ago, my first ever solo visit to the place. I remember thinking that it was quite beautiful. 

When I pulled the picture up on my phone, I was stunned. It was like an outer body experience. I looked closer, enlarging the picture to its maximum size to be sure I hadn't lost my mind. But there was no escaping the fact that I am an idiot. For there on my iPhone was the unmistakable evidence for all to see:

                                          Betty Dixon Dunnevant

                                      Sep 3 1930                  June 20 2012

Surely, I couldn't possibly have told them the wrong date of death. It's got to be their fault for writing it down wrong. I tried to recall the meeting with the strange woman at the cemetery. I remember how difficult it was deciding what four words we would chose to eulogized her. I remember the computer screen where the woman was typing in everything into a template to make sure it would fit. There's no way I could have told her the 20th when it was the 29th, right? Nobody is that stupid.

So, I will go over there today and find out if it was me or the pros at Westhampton Memorial Park. Meanwhile, somewhere in heaven, I would like to think that Mom is getting a good laugh out of this. She never liked cemeteries anyway. The nerve of those people trying to cheat her out of nine days! The weird thing about all of this is that I have looked at the picture of this thing at least twenty times, even went to see it in person and stared at it for fifteen minutes...and never noticed the mistake until last night. How could I have missed it?