Inertia and Body Odor

I have a difficult relationship with CVS Pharmacy. I have been filling my prescriptions there since before I can remember. At first it was because it was so convenient to my office. But over the last couple of years the place has gone downhill in practically every way. Its gotten junky, they’ve started bombarding me with texts, and the decidedly unhelpful crew that man the pharmacy have taken on the vibe of the bar scene in Star Wars. And yet, I still shop there, for the same reason that I still bank at Wells Fargo…inertia.

There might be no other force in the universe with greater influence over our day to day lives than inertia. Poorly run enterprises count on its power to keep them in business. Am I tired of the manifest incompetence of Wells Fargo, not to mention their admitted malfeasance? Of course I am. But the very thought of shutting down all three of our checking accounts there, re-establishing a whole host of auto-deposits and debits gives me migraines. Am I unhappy with the service and cleanliness of CVS? Of course I am. But, going to the giant hassle of calling the doctor’s offices and changing pharmacies feels like a gigantic chore…and they are right across the street. So in both cases I put up with a lot of unpleasantness in exchange for convenience.

So yesterday at CVS I experienced a new low. I was there around 4:30 in the afternoon to pick up two prescriptions and various toiletries. I knew full well that 4:30 in the afternoon was a horrible time to pick up prescriptions at CVS, so that’s on me. I found the toiletries without incident, then made my way to the back of the store where the Pharmacy is located expecting a serpentine line waiting on the one forlorn and irritable clerk. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was the only customer.

Over the past couple of years CVS has taken to hiring an assortment of tattooed, body-pierced, wool cap-in the middle of summer-wearing folks to man the registers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I suppose. Its just a marked change from the mostly young and energetic people I’ve become used to. The new people hardly ever make eye contact with you and when they do it is to communicate epic levels of boredom and constitutional disenchantment. But, I put up with it because…well, that inertia thing. So when I see the woman with the thick wool sack covering her entire head at the register I stroll up to tell her my last name and birthdate. I am, after all, a seasoned veteran and know the drill. But when I leaned in to pass on this information my momentum was abruptly stopped in its tracks.

People…as someone who has done his share of hard manual labor around other men, and as someone who has a lifetime of experience inside male locker rooms, I know a thing or two about body odor. But nothing I have ever encountered prepared me for the stench that greeted me at the CVS pharmacy counter. I was so stunned by the smell that I literally stepped back from the counter. A younger version of me would probably have blurted out, “Whoa!! Who died??” The mature, grown up version of me simply withdrew myself to a safe distance while wool cap girl entered my data. But, there was a problem. She couldn’t spell my name and asked for a clarification in a beautiful middle eastern accent. I cautiously leaned in to say, “D-U-N-N”. It was excruciating. When she disappeared around the corner to fetch my medicines I glanced at her co-workers across the way and one of them caught my eye and shrugged her shoulders at me as if to say, “You think you’ve got troubles? Try working with her all day.” Although this woman smelled like a cross between George Kennedy in Cool Hand Luke and the janitor at a Turkish bathhouse, she was efficient and friendly.

As I was driving home I started to wonder about her. Is she even aware that she smells? Is it a cultural thing with people from the Middle East? Maybe for them, I smell bad. My morning routine involves the generous application of a wide variety of distinct smells, from my shampoo to my body wash, deodorant and aftershave. Maybe when someone from Egypt encounters me I smell like some kind of rancid walking fruit salad. Its all what you’re accustomed to, I suppose. 

Maybe next time I’ll use the drive thru.

Doing My Job

Finding top quality Dad jokes has become much more difficult of late. Perhaps the reason is that I have published literally over a thousand of them over the years, using up the known supply. Nevertheless, I continue the search for all of you, knowing how important they are to your physical and mental health—-especially Sherri Matthews….

Old World Virtues

This has been a week. I’ve had refrigerators stop working, kids getting jobs, kids applying for jobs, having to learn new technologies at the office, a parade of appointments—most effective, some not so much—and now I face the week ahead packed with appointments set by my intrepid assistant who has now officially abandoned me for the sunny beaches of the Dominican Republic. Thank God its Friday.

In the midst of everything, two observations from my week:

My wife is fond of deriding me for my unhip musical taste. She never misses a chance to remind me of how old I am with her favorite put down, “You don’t like any music unless it was recorded at least 40 years ago!”  Although uncharitable, her comment is not entirely wrong. It is true that most of the music and musicians that I like tend to be my age or older. So, sue me. I can’t help it that I grew up listening to The Beatles. Is it my fault that the Eagles and James Taylor were huge stars when I was in High School? Am I to blame for the fact that just about the time my hormones were at the height of their destructive power I was introduced to the three Goddesses that were Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt? And what self respecting fan of great music should have to apologize for going nuts for the Count Basie Orchestra and Frank Freaking Sinatra?? So, guilty as charged. I bring this up because thanks to Spotify, I have once again fallen into a loop of some great music these past couple of weeks from the Emmy Lou Harris station. The aforementioned Goddesses are featured prominently and all week I have been treated with a memory lane of terrific songs. Among my favorites are two from Ms. Harris—Two More Bottles of Wine, and Gold.

The second observation involves the power of a kind gesture. A few nights ago, my wife hosted the first in person, face to face meeting of our neighborhood HOA since COVID—at our house. There were ten or so of them around our dining room table. I stayed clear of the proceedings, but they were busy down stairs for the better part of two hours. Of course, Pam being Pam, she had made brownies and made sure their were pens and notepads at every chair. Anyway, the next day when I came home for lunch there was something sitting on the front steps…

A beautiful orchid. My first thought was that one of the sweet pups from next door had put it there. That sounds exactly like something they would do. Later Pam found out that one of the members of the HOA board had placed this gorgeous thing on our doorstep to thank Pam for hosting the meeting and for her good work on the Board. 

Never, ever underestimate the power of simple kindness. Many times in life its the little things that matter most. Thoughtfulness, kindness, gratitude, an encouraging word are the grace notes that interrupt our otherwise transactional world. All of us need to do a better job of seeking out opportunities to exercise these old world virtues more often.

The Longing

Whenever the calendar flips from February to March I start to feel the first rumblings. Its been months since I’ve allowed myself the privilege. I’ll just call it what it is—the longing. Four months from today we go back.

So far in 2023 I have been working hard. The winter months are spent immersing myself in the complexities of my profession. Appointments, meetings, schedules to keep. I grind against a wall of equations. I devise strategies and evaluate columns of large numbers. I’ve been doing it for 41 years. I know this terrain like the back of my hand. It is not a bad place to be. I like my job, even enjoy it at times. It has been good to me and my family. I’m grateful that I landed in it over four decades ago.

But, there’s another place. Its a place I inherited from my wife. I knew nothing of it 40 years ago. While chasing her I found the place where she was born and raised. Like her, I have been in love with it ever since.

Readers of this blog have been overwhelmed with a thousand pictures of the place. You’ve all seen the water, the sunsets, the sunrises, our smiling faces, and yet we keep posting new ones because a place like this can’t possibly be adequately illustrated by a thousand pictures. Here’s what I mean…

This is the Fraternity General Store in Searsmont, Maine. Its the closest such store to Quantabacook, about a five minute drive from the cabin. This is where we go to get essentials that we forgot to get at Hannaford’s in Belfast. Its also where we order pizza, sandwiches and whoopie pies. Its also a handy place to pick up fishing supplies and a cold beer.

Sometimes we will grab lunch here. There are a thousand general stores like this throughout Maine. This one is ours. You will notice the hobby horse beside the wood stove and the cribbage board and decks of cards on the stovetop. In the summer usually those double doors, or at least one of them, are open because the place isn't air conditioned. Hardly anyplace is in Maine.

Sometimes a stray chicken will visit, and when they do you realize how far from Short Pump you are.

This is Amanda. She is responsible for making all of the baked goods and running the kitchen. The donuts, whoopie pies and blueberry muffins that she makes fresh every morning are delicious, and if you get there at the right time, still warm! I frequent FGS probably on average twice a day.

Can you blame me?

Lucy’s Idiot-syncrasies

Our Lucy is now eight years old. She has thankfully grown out of many of the psychotic disorders that plagued her youth, most of which have been well chronicled here at The Tempest. But, there is one bizarre behavior that she clings to, unmoved by eight years of education, training and experience. It involves the stairs in our house.

Neither of us are aware of anything in her past that may have prompted this particular variety of insanity. We don’t recall Lucy having ever having fallen down the steps. She has never witnessed either of us falling down the steps. And yet, every single time she happens to be upstairs and wishes to come downstairs…she insists upon a personal escort. This morning was a perfect example.

During the week, both of us are early risers. But sometimes on Saturday Pam will sleep in—this morning until a little after 9:00am. Lucy’s custom is that she never comes downstairs in the morning until both of us are awake. But 9:00am is super late for the Dunnevant house. It had been a full 13 hours since Lucy’s famous last pee call the previous evening. No doubt she had to go like the proverbial Russian racehorse. But when Pam came down the steps, she asked if Lucy had been let out yet and I replied—“Of course not!” I walk over to the foyer and there she is, in the identical position she is in every morning of her life:

Yes, her eyes always straddle that last post. She has no doubt measured out the exact spot and makes sure to stand there and no place else. At this point, there are two options. I can send Pam up to coax her down—always a bad idea. For Pam, Lucy takes her stubborn intransigence to ridiculous levels, ending in Pam yelling at the top of her lungs while attaching the leash to her collar and pulling her down the stairs. For me, its much easier. Still, she will not budge until I walk up the stairs. When I arrive at the landing just six steps away from her, she will NOT budge…

It is at this point when I must put my right foot on the next step up from the landing, lean forward, extending my right hand close to her nose and then snap my fingers …twice. Then, the spell is broken and she merrily makes her way down the steps like any normal dog would, completely without incident every single time.

The alert reader will notice the blue skids on each step of the hardwood stairs. Those were not a fashion or decorating decision. Several years ago Lucy decided that coming down the steps at all was a non-starter. With the addition of the skids we at least got to the point we find ourselves in now. I should point out that when we take her to Maine she bolts down any and all fights of stairs with reckless abandon, showing not the least bit of hesitation. Even when we took her to the Owl’s Head lighthouse and its crazy long and dizzying steps she had zero trouble…

In case the reader is wondering, she has no hesitation going up the stairs. 

I know, I know what you are all thinking. “Who is training who here??” This is a fair point. However, Lucy is about as stubborn an animal as exists on Planet Earth. If we did not escort her down the stairs, she would just stay up there and soil the expensive carpeting. Life is too short.

The Fog of War

The following is a list of things I have read in various news outlets over the past three days:

1. Vladimir Putin is consolidating his grip on power by dispatching his rivals and going all-in on the war in Ukraine.

2. Vladimir Putin is fast dying of an as of yet unidentifiable disease.

3. Volodymyr Zelensky is a petty autocrat who has moved to shut down religious freedoms, and has done absolutely nothing to curb the rampant corruption of his government.

4. Volodymyr Zelensky is the new Churchill, a symbol of freedom and champion of Democracy.

5. Russian forces are making headway and may soon overrun the overstretched Ukrainian lines.

6. Ukrainian forces are bravely holding the line despite being vastly outnumbered.

7. The feckless stance of America’s pro-Ukrainian stance in this conflict has created a new partnership between Russia and China which will have devastating consequences for the West.

8. Chinese leader Xi is headed to Moscow over concerns with Vladimir Putin’s leadership.

9. Russia has plans to soon annex Moldova, Belarus, Finland, and Poland.

10. Almost the entirety of Russia’s standing army plus conscripts are on the Ukrainian border, poorly led, running out of missiles and ammunition, with morale at an all-time low.

11. Men of draft age in Russia are fleeing the country in mass to avoid being rounded up and conscripted into the fight.

12. Interviews with the “man on the street” in Moscow shows overwhelming support for the war and frustration at the timidity of Russia’s high command.

13. Joe Biden’s secret, surprise trip to Kiev was a game changing and heroic show of support for a beleaguered freedom fighting people.

14. The air raid sirens that began blasting the minute Joe Biden appeared in public on the streets in Kiev were fake and had no military value other than making Biden look brave.

15. Joe Biden promised the Ukrainian president that the United States would continue its financial and military support for “as long as it takes.”

16. Many in Congress from both sides of the aisle are steadfastly against anything approaching a blank check for Ukraine.

This, I believe, is what is known as the fog of war.

Thank You, Mr. President

Most of America is closed today for President’s Day. Few of us will actually celebrate this oddest of all excuses for a day off, unless it is to take advantage of one of the many President’s Day sales afoot across the fruited plain. Much of our detachment from President’s Day no doubt is a result of the most recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who haven’t exactly inspired us with their intellect, imagination or energy. But it has not always been so. At various times in our nation’s history we have been blessed with incredible men who seemed perfectly matched with the gravity of their time. No one more so than Abraham Lincoln.

I have chosen to reproduce his second inaugural address below in honor of the day. It is one of the most beautifully written, honest speeches ever given by an American President, before or since. Reading it 160 years later, it has lost not one ounce of its gravity or its beauty. It still causes me to feel a mixture of shame and pride. It also makes me long for this combination of intelligence, humility and brevity from a leader.

Fellow countrymen,

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.