August 16, 2005

Shopping on the internet for another life

I do that sometimes. Hell, everyone does that sometimes. The internet makes it easy. You sit at your desk and you click through possible job openings in related fields and, with a click of a button, you apply for jobs in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles and Chicago. All places you don't really want to live in, mind you, but they kind of have to be far away to qualify for other life status. A move to a far away place is an integral requirement for this out of current life fantasy.

Or you think, gee, what happens if the money actually comes in from whatever (inheritance, some big case, lottery, or that old mine you bought so many years ago when the price of that mineral was at next to nothing), where would you move to? And you click on real estate listings in whatever city catches your interest at that particular moment.

Today, that was New Orleans, the city of some of my mis-spent youth. I played around with the real estate listings, knowing all the while that I would really have to be out of my head completely if I decided to ever move back there or own property there. Seriously, all the mature indicia augur against any such decision. In short, it would be stupid.

But then you allow the domestic architecture to seduce you. You realize you could own a 130 year old house with a staircase that looks like this:

nolastairs.jpg

And you think to yourself, maybe it wouldn't be so bad living back down there. I mean, that house is gorgeous, isn't it?

I have never lived in a city as house proud as New Orleans. I used to love, just love, driving around and looking. To my great fortune, I was friends with some very socially prominent people down there and thus invited into some of the grander houses for Mardi Gras house parties. To see these houses was a real privilege.

I miss the houses. I miss the city. I seriously doubt I could ever live there again, no matter how much I want to fantasize about it.

My wife is so patient with me when I get like this. IÂ’m a lucky guy.

Still, that wanderlust is rising. . .

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August 15, 2005

Disaster Planning

Background

It was around 4:00 yesterday afternoon. The kids were napping, I was updating security software on the laptop, the Yankees game was on mute on the television, the a/c was humming away quietly, and classical music was playing on the radio. Then the storm hit and it hit with a fury. Lightening flashing, thunder booming, and the rain coming down fast and heavy, driven against the house by the wind.

*POP* Out go the lights, out goes everything powered by electricity. Everything. Including the sump pumps in the basement, it just occurred to me. Gotta check that tonight. Oh, well. Hopefully that will be ok.

The kids were still napping but when they woke up, just like that, they were knocked out of our century. We lit the house with candles in whatever rooms we were in -- none of the candles were left unattended. Too scary a thought. My wife ordered pizza in for dinner and after dinner we all played on the floor of the den and then all over the house. The kids were tumbling over each other like puppies. It was adorable. And the house looked pretty nice in the candle light. It was an interesting exercise, a throwback to times past.

Connecticut was hit pretty hard by this storm. The mayor of Stamford compared it to some horrible ice storm in the 1930's.

And we were totally unprepared. Well, not totally. We did have flashlights and candles, canned food and cell phones, bottled water and other things. But, we were fortunate in that we just happened to have this stuff from prior storms and prior incidents. We've done very little in the way of major storm planning.

So, I'm going to do that here and invite comments. I am fortunate in having somehow attracted some terribly smart people to my blog (why, I have no idea) and I'm going to take advantage of it now and ask for your thoughts on disaster planning.

The Plan

*Enough flashlights for every person in the house
*Extra supply of fresh batteries
*Good battery powered radio
*First aid kit
*Figure out how to open garage door when power fails
*Make sure cars are gassed up in advance of major storm predicted
*Buy a couple of battery powered camping table lights
*Establish emergency supply of bottled water
*Get shelf stable milk in small packages for Boy Child
*Make sure to have several rolls of duct tape (hey, you never know)
*In advance of storm arrival, unplug all sensitive electronics
*In advance of storm arrival, turn fridge and freezer to coldest setting and move some of the ice packs from freezer into fridge.
*In advance of storm, make sure cell phones are charged.
*Keep emergency cash in the house.
*Post list of not commonly used phone numbers on door of fridge -- power company, water company, telephone company, etc.
*Make sure that there is a princess phone for use when power outage takes out wireless phone system.
*Make sure that you have enough shelf stable (i.e., canned or dried) food for at least three meals. More than that you ought to probably get out of the house, it seems to me.
*In advance of storm, run dishwasher to make sure you have clean dishes and place for dirty ones.

*For winter, make sure that you have some wood to burn in the fireplace since the furnace will go out, according to the nice oil company lady I just spoke to. Are there viable battery operated heaters?

So, what do you all think? Missing anything important? Including anything silly?

Thanks, in advance, for your thoughts on this.

UPDATE:

Happily, after placing a call to the people who put in the sump pumps for the prior owners, I have learned that the sump pumps are on a back up battery system good for around 6700 gallons of water. I think that I will not have to worry about the basement. Which is nice.

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August 14, 2005

The box picture

Well, since you all asked, here's the picture I took of the garage, filled with boxes after three straight days of unpacking.

boxes1.JPG

Scary, huh?

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August 12, 2005

A rare time

I was detained, last night, by evil companions (a good friend and my wife) and only managed 5 hours of sleep. That's ok, all you need is five hours if you then go and mortify the flesh in the gym for about two hours. Indeed, that's also a good way to make walking later too painful to do much of. But back to last night.

I went with a dear friend who is an international expert on rare books and manuscripts and toured some of the highlights of a private book and manuscript collection at a private club here in New York City. Seeing and handling rare books is a pretty interesting experience. I don't have the rare book bug, although I probably could catch it if I let myself. Its just that I lack the time, the money, and the education. I have the inclination, at least mildly, but the inclination by itself will not a collection build. Which is good. Collections are a responsibility and I'm never really certain who owns whom. Does the collector own the collection or does the collection, which requires special care and storage and handling and security and professional care, own the collector?

This collection had some highlights and I was really very fortunate to be able to touch and admire the following:

*Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London 1771). Catesby predated Audubon and his drawings of birds and plants were so extraordinarily colorful, even after some 230 years and so lifelike. It was the first natural history of America. We didn't look at the fish, but maybe another time.

Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, & The Bahama Islands is one of the great achievements of Anglo-American science in the eighteenth- century. Catesby's great folio plates provided the means by which Europeans could view the natural produce of North American and thus were a part of the continuing discovery of the continent. Most of Catesby's figures were based on watercolor sketches that he made in the field or upon specimens made available to him in England. The work remained a major source for the study of American plants and animals through its own century and even into the next.
Source.

HereÂ’s one of his prints of the Teal (blue winged):

teal.jpg

Regrettably, when his books come up for auction, they are often bought by dealers who cut them up and sell the prints individually. I think thatÂ’s cultural vandalism, personally.

*Ptolmey's Geographica (Venice 1511). This was one of the most interesting of the renaissance version of the atlas and while they corrected some of Ptolmey's mistakes, they couldn't bring themselves to correct all of them. Especially noteworthy is that this contained the first map that showed North America, or so I'm told. A nice link here. Here's the map. Love the little putti:

ptolemymap.jpg

I think the thing that most blew me away with this printing was the title page. It was in red and in the form of an inverted pyramid, I assume in homage to Egypt. It was such a modern feeling graphical design presentation and the red was so beautiful. So exceptional.

*A couple of examples from the William Morris printing house, Kelmscott Press. These were rich, lush and detailed printings. Stunning stuff. You can see some examples here. A nice collection of information on Morris here. We then saw the 1903 printing of the Doves Bible by Cobden Sanderson, a protege of Morris, who rejected the rich and lush look for a much more sparse and very powerful look. Cobden Sanderson believed that the font stood for itself and should be powerful enough to support the work by itself. Here is the first page from the Doves Bible, one of the most famous pages in printing history, I'm told:

DovesBible.jpg

Pretty impressive, no?

*Leaving out some of the Renaissance era architectural books we looked at, at my request, we also looked at sketches and drawing by George Cruikshank, a noted satirist and caricaturist of the 1800's, in the tradition of Hogarth. The drawings were marvelous, a collection of full out water colors in exquisite detail all the way down to doodles he did, and signed, on the backs of envelopes and receipts for erasers. My favorite was a very powerful unfinished sketch for a series of illustrations for Milton's Paradise Lost. The edition was never published and Cruikshank destroyed the plates and the drawings, except for this one. It was quite a thrill to see it, to know that I was looking at something that existed nowhere else. Cruikshank also painted wonderful animals -- dogs and horses, in the best tradition of an English artist, it seems to me. The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco has a large collection of his works and many of the images are online.

We finished off the visit with an hour long drink with the curator as we chatted about wonderful rare books he had seen in the course of his long career. A very real book nerd evening. After he left, we adjourned for dinner.

All in all, an outstanding night. It is really quite an experience to hold a book published in 1511. Makes one feel a little less important in the grand scheme of things, which may not be so bad at all in our very individual focused society.

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August 11, 2005

I know nothing

IÂ’ve been musing a bit about knowledge. How do we know what we know and why do we think we know it? IÂ’m sure that philosophers and just philosophy majors have spent years and years debating these questions and have honed them down into a manageable mess. I am not a philosopher and I did not major in philosophy. Nor, for that matter, have I read much philosophy, preferring to leave my mind uncluttered to better appreciate the simple pleasures of beer and baseball, preferably at the same time. So, I bring no baggage to these questions.

My musings were prompted by a book IÂ’m reading. My dad gave it to me, I threw it into my bag and forgot about it. It isnÂ’t heavy, so carting it around without remembering I had it for several months was no hardship. I found it this week when I went digging for my as of yet not located notary stamp. Damn that stamp. Anyway, the book, One Nation Under Therapy : How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance , is interesting. One chapter in particular got my attention. The chapter on grief counseling and grief therapy.

Basically, the book asserts, the long held and widely held beliefs that you need therapy to deal with your grief, that you need to vent, to share your emotions and how you feel about your loss, is a bunch of hooey. The belief doesnÂ’t stand up to scientific review. In fact, for some, therapy simply prolongs the grief. The book notes that the 5 stages of grief that have become common cultural touchstones are in fact a distortion of the work of the shrink who came up with it. The 5 stages were not meant to apply to survivors but to people who had just been told that they had an incurable disease. Interesting, no? Pretty much anyone you ask will tell you (I know, over-generalization but, hey, its my blog) that grief and recovery from follow certain recognized pathways, right?

I paid particular attention to this because of the state my grandfather is in, you know.

Well, how is it that this is thought to be true if it isn’t? How do we “know” something? How can we be certain we know something?

We learn things by hearing them or by reading them. We rarely examine primary sources or conduct experiments ourselves. In fact, I think that for most things, we are probably three or four, at best, stages removed from the knowledge. The experiment is performed and the results are observed. Stage 1. The results are written up in a paper and presented somewhere. Stage 2. The results are then published in a journal. Maybe Stage 3 maybe just another stage 2. Then someone, maybe someone with no science training, writes an article about the report. Stage 4. That article is read or skimmed in the newspaper by the consumer. Stage 5. Public exposure of the article results in, maybe, a television appearance in which someone long removed from the experiment discusses the experiment and the results. Rarely is it the scientist. Stage 6. Maybe you’ve caught the 120 seconds of television airtime summarizing the article that summarized the report that summarized the experiment. And you become guided by it. Maybe you repeat what you think you’ve learned to your friends or co-workers, always with the authoritative phrase, “studies show” without really knowing that maybe it was just one experiment. Stage 7. And then we have public knowledge. Far removed, in 7 approximate stages, from the experiment and totally dumbed down.

That is how as best as I can figure out, knowledge becomes widely spread. At best, for most of us, we get our knowledge at Stage 4, the article. At worst, Stage 7. It doesnÂ’t have to mean that the knowledge we obtain is unreliable, but it doesnÂ’t bode well for a high reliability factor, does it, not when I break it down like this, right?

Sometimes we learn from school and from text books and from lectures from teachers or experts. Again, we are asked to accept the “knowledge” imparted in the book or from the lecture. We are asked to accept it as true. But we all know that information in this context is rarely complete and that information is often distorted by outside political forces. Take, for example, textbooks. Textbooks are often reviewed for “sensitivity” issues, for whether they may give offense to other cultures. In that regard, how can we ever accept, uncritically, anything that ever appears in a textbook, again, knowing that the contents have been, perhaps, distorted? Don’t believe me? Go forth and see what Diane Ravitch has said about some of these things (and then throw up):

*Diane on Math and

*Diane on Language Police.

So what can we do? I think that when you have the time, you should read and read critically the source material that an assertion claims to be premised upon. Grief counseling evidently rests on a very shaky foundation of science, or so the book claims in synthesizing the research of others. Don’t accept the bland “studies show” assertion. Go find out for yourself. Inform yourself, educate yourself, empower yourself.

But do it selectively. I mean, at some level, you have to trust or at least decide that the matter isnÂ’t important enough for you to spend the time researching and you might as well accept what you read. Reductio ab absurdum and you find yourself repeating NewtonÂ’s experiments on gravity or learning ancient Greek because you donÂ’t trust the Sophocles criticism you were reading. So, clearly, at some level, it canÂ’t be taken too far. I assume we all, intuitively, know what that level is. If not, good luck figuring it out.

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August 09, 2005

Comments, etc.

Comments, as I have noted before, are the best thing about blogging. Comments make it more like making love and less like intellectual masturbation.

I hit a milestone, yesterday, when Tuning Spork left me my 3000th comment since coming to MuNu. Wow. 3000 comments. I am really very grateful and a little bit overwhelmed by the number.

Rob said it the best on his blog, in referring to the people who comment on my blog:

You have, without a doubt- The best collection of "commenters" I have seen, bar none.

Rob is right. Y'all are the best! Thanks so much for making this worthwhile for me.

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August 08, 2005

Adios, Christina

Christina, at Feisty Repartee, is hanging up her spurs. I will miss her sure handed and spare writing (never a wasted word), her clever insights, her penetrating observations, her sometimes heartrending stories and the terrific anecdotes of her way too smart children. Today, we lose one of the really great ones!

Thanks for the excellent writing and wonderful memories, Christina!

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August 03, 2005

In praise of the natural

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. The kids actually were napping, the wife was working out, the nanny was off at church, the air conditioning was humming away, we were as unpacked as we need to be at this stage of the weekend, and, for the first time in four days, I sat down for more than a moment.

But, I am a man and in some ways a typical man so I could not sit down in my new den without holding the remote. The adult male pacifier. And I could not hold it without using it, of course. But I did strike gold. Conan the Barbarian was only moments away from starting. I settled in to the couch to enjoy, as if for the first time again, the theatrical stylings of the Governator.

This brings me almost to the point of this post. Bet you thought I'd never get there, did you?

While watching this subtle play on the nature of good and evil, on choice and destiny, on nature v. nurture, I kept seeing breasts. There were a bunch of woman naked from the waist up in this cinematic tour de force. Normally, I suppose, I appreciate the naked female form as much as the next red blooded heterosexual male. But something about these breasts struck me as odd. And then it hit me. These breasts were real! That's why they looked so unusual and even, frankly, so nice.

And now we do get to the point. The point is this: real, not surgically enhanced breasts are seldom seen in movies today. They have vanished, much like cigarette adds from television. So much so, that I am wondering whether the natural breast should be added to the California endangered species list, Hollywood Chapter. They should not be allowed to vanish altogether. We should take a stand and demand their return to the big screen.

Seriously, how messed up is it that real breasts stand out on the screen? How many women have undergone cosmetic surgery to "improve" their looks for movies?

I'm reminded of a scene from a movie I can't recall the name of. Steve Martin and Sarah Jessica Parker are fooling around, in LA, and he says that her breasts feel weird and she says that's because they're real.

Could we start a grass roots movement here? Small breasts for the big screen! A rallying cry!

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August 02, 2005

I am moved. In, that is.

The movers came, the movers schlepped, the movers worked hard, they nicked walls, they damaged only one piece of furniture, and they left us with our boxes of possessions all over the house, mostly in the correct rooms.

We unpacked, to a minimum level of acceptability, our bedroom. We worked until late and then went out for -- margaritas. Well deserved re-hydration.

The next morning came with no hot water in the house. Someone had turned the furnace off, kindly meant, to not burn oil without the need. I turned the furnace back on and promptly it filled the furnace room with smoke and fumes. Service call one. The oil company. Hot water was restored, bodies were washed. Happiness returned. Ten hours of unpacking later, the kitchen was done. Kitchens take a lot of time to unpack. No question about it. In the meantime, deliveries came and went and our house became fuller still.

Friday, my father came to help. He made us a little bit crazy but he was a huge help. The kids' bedrooms were done and the den and living room were unpacked, the book shelves were adjusted, and the books were put away. Cable was hooked up so we had television again.

Saturday dawned with a trip to Stew Leonard's for pick up 1.5 lbs of jalapeno poppers. That's all we ended up eating for the whole day, as it turned out. The playroom was unpacked. The gym equipment was delivered and assembled by experts. We worked until the wee hours getting everything as finished as we could.

You should see the garage. In fact, I will take some pictures so you can see how we turned a spacious two car garage into a place where boxes were sent to die. My garage is the elephant graveyard of moving materials.

Sunday, the children came to their new home. I was promptly informed, and then regularly reminded by the Girl Child, that if it "was too hard" for her at the new house, her grandparents said she could move back with them.

Yesterday, first day back at the office and lots of catching up to do.

Today, too gruesome for words at work. Oh, and my wife has left us. You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille! Jetted off to Cinncinnati. Business, she claims. But we all know what a garden of temptation Cinncinnati is. Who knows what she's doing there.

I told the Girl Child last week that when her mother went away, we could stay up late and do something fun, just the two of us. Last night, after I said good night and turned off her light, she said, "Pappa, I am sooo excited about tomorrow night!" Yay for me! I'm going to hold on to these moments as long as I can!

Another thing I'd like to hold on to? When I tell the Boy Child that I love him, in Norwegian, "Glad i deg!", his response back, "Goal die!" is too precious for me not to savor.

Finally, the kids are excited by the deer. They have seen the deer and like them. Me? I have seen the deer and concluded that, much as pigeons in the City are rats with wings, deer are rats with antlers and big ears.

More to come later.

Thanks for all the good wishes on the prior post! You all are the best!

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July 26, 2005

We have beer. We just need to find the opener

What does that title mean? It is what I figure I will be saying tomorrow night after the movers have left us with 835,003 boxes, 834,000 of which will be labeled "Misc.". I will look at the sea of boxes and say to my dear wife, "I have the beer, we just have to find the opener". And she will smite me. Being smited is not the same as being smitten, just in case you were wondering.

I am cautiously looking forward to having our house be ours. Cautiously, because I do not yet know what surprise awaits me in owning this house, although I assume that there will be many unpleasant surprises in my future. It is all part of owning a house.

In the midst of unpacking, for which I am taking off the next three days from work, we have deliveries up the wazoo, cable and telephone people coming, alarm system people coming, post office trips and town office trips to make, and generally speaking more work and appointments than I care to shake a stick at, even though I am not generally in the habit of shaking sticks at anyone. Nor should one be. You could put someone's eye out by over enthusiastic stick shaking, you know. Don't you listen to your mother? There's no talking to you, is there?

*Whap* Down, boy, down.

Sorry, I let my inner idiot take control of the keyboard for a moment and he revealed more about the inner dialogue in my head than he should of. Oh, well.

At least it isn't supposed to rain tomorrow. Today, however, is supposed to be the hottest day of the year, according to the weather people. Although tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. And I'm in a suit and tie today. Oh, joy.

Keep cool, y'all and send me nice happy thoughts as you think of me marooned in a sea of packing boxes, searching for a bottle opener.

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July 20, 2005

19 Days before the first problem hit

The bank and I owned this house for 19 days before the first problem reared its ugly drip. I got a call from my wife who got a call from the contractor that the air conditioning unit in the attic was gushing water onto the floor of the attic and screwing up the ceilings below. Enter crisis mode. Immediate call to a/c people who promised to dash over in the afternoon to see what they could do. Meanwhile, the contractor promised to do what he could do. I took the next train out to CT to see the damage for myself.

First, of course, I stopped for a moment to bang my head on the desk a couple of times. Know why? Because it feels so good when you stop.

I got out to the house just fine. Did I mention that it was in the 90's yesterday and so humid that it felt like you were swimming? Any advantage accrued by living so near to the coast was purely theoretical yesterday.

So, there I was, drowning in my clothes, looking at the pretty new patterns on the ceiling of the guest room and on the ceiling of the first floor below the guest room, when I realized, gee, it isn’t nearly as bad as I feared. The a/c guy fixed the problem easily – blaming it on an improper installation coupled with a filter clogged with saw dust – and I realized that this is only a painting problem at the end of the day. And you know what? I just happened to have a painter standing right there who could fix that problem lickety split as soon as it dried. How about that? In the great scheme of things, not so terrible.

And while I waited for the a/c guy to finish up and then to go forth to procure correctly sized filters and return with them, I hung out outside on my new property. This was probably the longest time I had been there by myself, so far. ItÂ’s lovely. Really lovely. A view of old, huge, majestic trees. Pretty little fawns. I heard what I am reliably informed was the sound of some wild turkeys calling in the woods behind. I went ahead and tasted one of the wild strawberries. I pictured my children running around the yard, chasing soccer balls with me. I painted quite the idyllic picture. I was content. Hot, sweaty, dripping, soaked through and disgusting, but content.

And to top it off, the a/c tech serviced my a/c units and told me that they were in great shape and should last for years and years. I heart good news like that.

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July 18, 2005

Random Collection of thoughts

Hi, all, I had some random thoughts which, again, don't rise to the level of a post all by themselves and I decided to air 'em all out here:

*Why would anyone ever want to swim in a lake where they do baptisms? I mean, if the water in the lake washes away all of a person's sins, why would you ever want to swim around in all that sin?

*I had forgotten how good the novels of John D. MacDonald are. He's best known for the Travis McGee series. I have, at my parents' house, all 21 of the books. I re-read one of them over the course of the weekend. That's one of the nice things about going home again (despite everyone saying you can't). Becoming re-acquainted with old books. It is like seeing old friends again. Friends you've forgotten, faces you can't place, but personalities which start coming back to you and remind you why you liked them in the first place. Tastes change over time so it is especially fine when you still appreciate the yarns you read 20 years ago. If you stumble across one of his novels, I highly recommend the experience.

*There is a farm about a half a mile from our new house. It is a very small farm. They had a sign out on Sunday advertising fresh tomatoes and corn and squash for sale. I bought some small and ugly tomatoes. They had just been picked that morning. We ate them with blue cheese and onion and fresh basil. It was sublime. It made every other tomato, the ones you buy at the super market, taste like nothing at all. It was what all the other tomatoes aspire to be when they grow up. I think we're going to be regulars at this farm stand.

*I have not been to the beach or in the water for two weeks now. I think I'm going to shrivel up if I don't get some salt air on my skin.

*It rained very hard, very briefly, yesterday. I sent the Girl Child out on to my parents' deck in her bathing suit. She danced and cavorted and gamboled out in the rain with a huge grin on her face. That was kind of magical. When did we all lose the capacity to take delight in a good rain storm? How do we get it back?

*In free moments, my mind is occupied by thoughts of death and dying, by how one dies, by how dying seems to involve a loss of dignity, by how the health care system works, by how the system processes you on your way out. I try not to draw lessons from it all. I do know that I don't ever want to be a burden to my wife or children if it came down to it. That thought fills me with horror. And I worry that I'd be too quick to check out, that I wouldn't fight hard enough, because I wouldn't want to be a burden. I wonder if the really fastidious people die faster.

*I have deer in my yard at the new house. IÂ’d like to plant roses. I hope deer do not eat roses. That would make me sad. I want masses and masses of heavily perfumed roses all over the place.

*Did I mention that my backyard at the new house is practically carpeted with wild strawberries? I heart wild strawberries.

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July 15, 2005

Not blogging today

Nope. Not me. I had an entry roughed out in my head about my experiences at the DMV in CT yesterday, including encounter with anti-semitic whacko and me telling him off, but I don't quite have the motivation to write it up today. I blame the humidity. It made my clothes feel wet walking back from lunch. It sapped my strength and sucked out all motivation.

All I want is a nap. And a drink. And a piece of chocolate. Not necessarily in that order, mind you.

Have a nice weekend, y'all. I'll give this whole blog thing another shot come Monday.

Oh, and by the way, if you are looking for someone who exhibits excellent motivation, great skills, and a sensitive treatment of some beautiful architecture, go check out Mr. Cusack's post on the Old Irish Parliament House. Great pictures, too.

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July 13, 2005

Rare books

Books and manuscripts are interesting things, I think. I spend way too much of my day reading things in electronic form. Just pixels on a screen arranged to form letters or images all to convey information. It is a rather cold and lifeless experience. To me, reading online can never replace the book. The book is a much fuller experience. The heft of it, the feeling of the papers on your fingers, the sound it makes when you turn the page, the slippery cover of a new book, the excitement of turning the page. Reading a book is tactile. Reading a screen is not.

Older books are more tactile still because they also smell different. The bindings are often nicer, too. There is something quite wonderful about a nice binding.

I have been thinking, idly, about old books and manuscripts of late. About the attraction they hold for so many collectors. Heck, even used books can become an obsession for some. Ever been to the Strand in NYC? Or browse the book sellers along the Seine in Paris? Addictive, I tell you.

But none of this would have been possible without the invention of moveable type and the printing press. Without Gutenberg, who can say just how we'd be transmitting information and ideas to large numbers of people. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Gutenberg made our world possible and without him, the world would be completely different.

At least, that's what I was thinking the other day when I found myself in the NY Public Library (Main Branch, 41st and 5th), very near my office, all by myself, except for a guard, contemplating the first Gutenberg Bible to make its way to these fair shores. They have it on display at the library. I stood there, all alone, and contemplated the page printed in 1455, the page that changed the world.

Go see it if you can. It's on display until the end of the year. I think it may be the most important thing ever to happen. If you disagree, I'm happy to debate it.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:59 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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July 12, 2005

An Episode

NOTE: I wrote the below post on Monday, July 11, at around 9:00 in the morning. Internet is down at work so I canÂ’t post it.

An episode. What an innocuous word, episode. It might just mean that the next installment of whatever vacuous television show currently in vogue is due to be aired. Or it might mean something far worse. It might mean a sudden and unexpected incident or manifestation of deterioration.

The latter meaning is what I am referring to. Or rather, what the doctors were referring to when my grandfather was hospitalized again this weekend. The medical types attribute it to an episode. All by itself, that word means nothing. It certainly doesnÂ’t function as a word should. It does nothing to explain or elucidate. Indeed, if anything, it invites further words, questions, demands for understanding. I suppose, as words go, it is a flag word in the medical community. By flag word, I mean a word that should stand up on the page and look like a big flag waving and telling the reader, hey, stop and inquire here.

He slumped over into his lunch on Saturday. He was confused. He has, in the last six weeks, lost 10% of his body weight. He lacked the strength, all of a sudden, to keep his head up. This from a man who played fullback on the Harvard Freshman team in the 1930's. He didnÂ’t know where he was. He told people, when asked, that he thought he was in Texas or Boston or Norway. ItÂ’s like heÂ’s already gone. My uncle E was with him. E is a psychiatrist and lives in California. Lots of business for shrinks in California, I gather. E is a lovely man, very bright, very compassionate. IÂ’m glad he was there to ride herd on things.

E dined with us on Sunday night. After dinner was over, he pulled me to one side and he told me that my name appeared on certain legal documents for my grandfather. I didn’t know what he was talking about. E is my grandfather’s health care proxy and also holds his durable power of attorney. E explained that I was selected by my grandfather to be the backup on both of these documents. Upshot? If my uncle is unavailable and there is a question about whether my grandfather is to be intubated, that decision will be mine to make. When my uncle asked my grandfather if he had discussed this with me, my grandfather told him, no, but that “RP is incorruptible”. I gather that is a reference to the fact that with a durable power of attorney, I could sell his house if I wanted to.

I was and am flabbergasted. E pointed out to me that this decision by my grandfather, taken some time ago, might be regarded as very sensitive in the family and was otherwise not generally known and maybe, unless circumstances required, might be better left unknown. I couldnÂ’t agree more. My grandfather has three children and six grandchildren. I think it would cause hard feelings if it was known that I was picked instead of, say, his other son. On the other hand, I feel immensely honored to have been so trusted by this man who I admire above all others. There isnÂ’t much more to say about that. Except, maybe, that I am nervous about ever having to make a decision about whether, say, heroic measures should be used to preserve my grandfatherÂ’s life. WeÂ’ve never spoken about it, he and I. I wish he had initiated that conversation since he had picked me to make that decision, under certain circumstances. I wish I knew more about his wishes. Especially now, when my uncle tells me that my grandfather lacks the competence to make these decisions or to even have the conversation.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have moments of heartrending lucidity. Saturday night, in the middle of his “episode”, he reached for my uncle’s hand and said to him, “E, it is very hard coming into this world and it is equally hard to go out of it”. I cried, just a little, when my uncle told me this. It was like the curtain got pulled back for just a moment and my grandfather was able to peer out and report back. And we were able to get a glimpse of how it is on the inside for him, said with his usual devastating understatement. He’s dying, or at least thinks he is, and in that moment communicated that he knew it. It must be a terrible thing to be able to contemplate, at a leisurely pace, your own mortality as something more than a distant philosophical construct. To lay there and review your life, weighing the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, and consider its cessation. No more kisses from children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. No more responsibility to provide, to protect, to act as pater familias, to be the head of a family.

Of course, because of the dementia, I gather that these moments are few. But I guess that while he does have them, he puts them to good use, as evidenced by his comment to my uncle.

IÂ’m glad that we went over on Friday night with my parents and my children. Four generations in his room at the rehab facility. We gathered, at my suggestion, to celebrate Shabbat with him. My wife brought candle sticks and matches and I bought challah. He sat in his wheel chair and joined us in the prayers over the bread and the kindling of the Sabbath lights. He ate his piece of challah. My dad made him.

The eating thing, or not eating thing, according to my uncle is a combination of three things which suppress appetite: pain; pain killing medication; and depression. All of which lead to weight loss and to muscle loss. This leads to loss of mobility and makes him more suceptible to infection and less able to fight off an infection if it comes. According to my uncle, this is what could end his life.

Still, hope is not over. My mother says that while she is hopeful, she is not optimistic. She spoke to him this morning and he told her that heÂ’s ready for this bad luck to be over. If thatÂ’s true, maybe he hasnÂ’t given up fighting. My uncle thinks my grandfather is at the point of no return, or close to it. They are going to put in a feeding tube to bring his weight back up. If they can, and he has the will to come back, it might work. As my mother said to me this morning, if he doesnÂ’t want to come back, they wonÂ’t be able to bring him back.

IÂ’m glad we saw him on Friday night. IÂ’m glad I picked up my son and held him so that he could give my grandfather a kiss goodnight. Thinking about that now, actually, is making me choke up. So, I think IÂ’ll stop writing now.

I have my fingers crossed. I just donÂ’t know if it will do any good.

By the way, assuming you went this far, I am not re-reading this before posting it. I donÂ’t think I can, frankly.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:07 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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July 08, 2005

London, continued

My entry on London yesterday sparked an argument on my comment board. Fair enough. We're all adults and can handle the bruising comment and the rough and tumble free exchange of ideas.

But when it comes to a reaction to what happened in London, Mia said it best. Go read her Fuck Off Letter. I have nothing to add but that I found it inspirational.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:43 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Taking things for granted

We all take things for granted. Basic things, simple things. It's normal, isn't it? You live in a routine, for the most part, and the more routine, the more dependable the thing is, the more you stop noticing it. For instance, you don't really notice each time you take a breath, do you? You don't notice the pavement you walk on, unless you trip because the frost heave has caused the pavement to twist or buckle, right? You expect the pavement to be relatively uniform in height and so you get accustomed to lifting your feet a predictable number of inches off the ground with each step. Then you stumble because the height has changed, even just a little bit.

Routine can be good like that. It can, at its best, free up your mind for other things. When you're walking, you can be thinking about anything you want because you already know that the pavement doesn't require anything even close to your full attention to be able to keep on moving along.

I like routine. No, that's too much. I am comforted by routine but I crave something else other than routine.

Ok. This damn post is going off in two or three different directions, none of which were intended when I began to click away at the keyboard.

Let me return to my first thought and leave routine and the pluses and minuses thereof alone for a bit.

What else do I take for granted? The sun coming up, the light turning on when I hit the switch, the chair supporting my weight when I sit in it, a dial tone when I pick up the phone, that my body will move when I will it to. Ah, the last one. My body moving.

Body moving is partially about health. Health is something that too many of us take for granted. And if we don't take it for granted, we only pay it lip service. We assume that our joints will work and our body will move when we command it to. We assume that and we take it for granted. Really. When was the last time you thought about moving your leg, or standing up when you were seated. When was the last time you traced your movments, slowly, to see what actually was happening? Probably not recently, if ever.

You learn something, it works, you take it for granted that it will work that way forever.

I took my children yesterday to various medical appointments. The Boy Child had his 2.5 year check up. The "Dock-her" said he was perfect. When we got home from the appointment, the Boy Child clutching his new matchbox truck or, if he's speaking Norwegian, his "ah-ah bil", ran around showing his grandmother and his sister his "art" (heart) because the dock-her listened to it, his "ouchie" because the "mommy" (nurse) gave him a shot, and his band-aid. For the record, he gained weight despite his steadfast refusal to eat and he grew. He is now 29 pounds and stands 36.25 inches tall. This puts him in the 48th percentile for weight and the 52nd for height. Like the dock-her said, perfect.

The Girl Child had a dental check up. It went just fine, as it should. She was brave, did not cry, and selected an extra toy out of the box to bring home for her brother. She also, I think for the first time, consciously spoke to me in Norwegian to avoid other people understanding what we were talking about. I think she is beginning to grasp the notion that Norwegian can be her secret language and I think she likes it. We had, by the way, the most overqualified dental assistant ever. She was a dentist herself, just graduated from dental school and temping until her post-doc program starts at NYU Dental in the fall.

On the way home, we drove past a cemetery and she had a lot of questions about death, dead people, how they were buried and why. She also wanted to stop by and visit her great-grandfather, about whom I've written before.

He is in his 90's and is a most impressive man. He's also someone who never seems to take anything for granted, not the important things, not his mind or the small pleasures vouchsafed us by our creator -- the joy of a ripe summer tomato, for instance.

But his mind is going. It's cloaked. His doctors told my mother and my uncle (a shrink) that he is suffering from mild to moderate dementia. The things he has taken for granted, that we have all taken for granted, are no longer to be treated so. He is disappearing before our eyes.

It was quite a contrast yesterday, my children in perfect health and my grandfather at the end of his.

Here's the rub for me. He is not eating and I understand that. This broken hip and confusion of the mind is robbing him of his dignity and pride. He has loads of both. I understand his not wanting to live without them. But you know what? I miss him already.

While I had the Girl Child at the dentist, my wife visited my grandfather with the Boy Child. She told me later that my grandfather's face lit up when the Boy Child kissed him. It's these little things, like kisses, that we ought not to take for granted.

You can't live your life taking note of every single thing. But every now and again, examine your world and marvel at it. It will do you good, I bet.

Sorry if this one turns out to be as confused a mess as it felt while I wrote it. But, you take the good with the bad, right? Even if the bad is a really long post.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:33 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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July 07, 2005

London

I am totally numb with the news from London. I used to live there and I know the places those cowards bombed.

londonbus.jpg

Helen, thank goodness, was not in London today.

May God's mercy and light shine down today on London.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:23 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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July 05, 2005

Returned

I am back at work today for the first day in a week (feels like a month) and back blogging for the first time in a week (feels like a couple of months).

Thanks for all the lovely comments you all left on my last post regarding the move. I'll try to update below. But since this isn't really a journal, I'm just going to do it in a series of random observations and vignettes, as is my wont, rather than tell a blow by blow account.

*We got packed up and moved out. I learned a little something about myself during that process. I packed over 50 boxes of books but only 2 boxes of DVD/Video tapes.

*I did buy a bottle of Champagne for the buyers of my house. I couldn't not. Karma, etc.

*Watching all your stuff disappear into boxes and then loaded on a truck is both scary and liberating. All the important stuff is with me: my family. The rest could just totally disappear and, sure, there would be times I'd have pangs of regret for certain sentimental items, but by and large I think it would not be a big deal. That's the thing about sentimental items. You have them because they evoke memories and the memories are the things that are precious, not the items in and of themselves. I have always opted for the things that evoke memories and not just the things for having things.

*I am a sentimental person. I don't do change well. I really don't. And yet, I have nothing but relief and happiness to be out of that house. Really. Couldn't be happier. I always like to be the last person out of whatever place we're living in. I like to be the one to lock the door for the last time and savor the poignancy of saying goodbye to a place. No poingancy here. Except for a moment. It was Wednesday. The movers had loaded everything out. I was alone in the house waiting for the cable guy to come pick up the cable box. The heavens had opened up. Rain was pouring down and all I could do was sit in the little window seat, waiting for the cable guy, hoping fervently that no new leaks would appear and that this damn house would let me go. I sat there, happy in my no sadness about leaving state, and then I noticed that the glass on the front window overlooking the street was smeared with marks. And then I had a pang. The marks were made by my children as they would wave to whoever was leaving. They would kneel on the window seat and blow kisses and wave and lean against the glass and smear it and streak it with their palms and fingers. I looked at the rain falling through the smears and listened to the rain echoing in the empty house and just for a moment, I was sad about leaving. After all, we brought our son home to this house. And then I remembered, I was bringing my son with me. No need to be sad.

*Almost every day last week I got to peek in, while the movers took lunch break, at my daughter who was at camp at the local beach club we belong to. It was her first summer there. I visited her life every day. See, as a working parent, I don't share much of my child's life. She lives her life -- at school or camp or play -- and I live mine at work. Our lives intersect for a couple of hours a day, at best. So observing her at play at camp, without her noticing on one occasion, was like a really sinful dessert. I savored it. I ate up the expression on her face as she took in the fact that I was where she did not expect to see me. I also stumbled on a truth. Science has said that the most attractive, the sweetest sound to any person is the sound of their own name. Untrue. The sweetest sound is someone else calling the name of my child. I loved listening to her counselor call her name while they had beach play time.

*The close on the house we were selling was easy. It was nice to feel rich for an evening. The lawyer for the other side was an hour late due to a flat tire.

*The close on the house we were buying was not easy. Our closing statement required 45 minutes to review to make sure it was correct. The lawyer for the sellers was on time but was a slime ball. We found water in the basement in the utility area where water had not been seen previously. That made me unhappy. I had, happily, thought to bring with me my digital camera and took a picture of the seepage. This became important later. We argued about the water. The closing took 5.5 hours. I wanted money in escrow in case it was a serious problem. The sellers did not want money in escrow. Then the lawyer told me that the basement may be covered by a warranty from Basement Systems (“BS”). Fine, I said, check with the seller. And then we had the following conversation when he (Charley) returned:

Charley: I checked with the sellers. The basement is covered by a 25 year warranty from BS.

Me: [thinking it over] Charley, would appear to have left an unfortunate ambiguity in the conversation. Did BS do work in the utility portion of the basement such that the warranty runs to that portion?

Charley: [long pause] No. [bullshit, right? I mean, that was the impression he was trying to finesse his way into, to mislead me into believing, right?]

Me: So, now I have to ask, with respect to the remainder of the basement, are we now in year 26 of that warranty?

Charley: [offended] No!

SellersÂ’ Broker to me: What do you do for a living?

Me: IÂ’m an attorney and I do complex corporate litigation. [turning to Charley]. But Charley already figured that out, right Charley?

Charley: [nodding his head] Yes, I did.

Upshot? Money is being held in escrow pending my satisfaction concerning the water.

We were exhausted at the end of the close.

*Our contractor was in by Saturday and the painting has started. I think, tentatively, that IÂ’m going to love the new house. Remember, not big on change, me. So I am kind of shocked I canÂ’t seem to locate any buyerÂ’s remorse. I think my wife is more shocked.

*Picked up a nasty cold right in the middle of this. I think it was from the stress just breaking my body down.

*The weekend was spent at the beach. I swam out to the float the club keeps in the middle of the Sound and lay out on it for 15 minutes or so while it rocked in the waves. I felt safe and protected out there. Odd, no? I think it had something to do with the motion and the sound and the light. I heart the ocean. Deeply. I used to think I preferred the mountains. I was wrong.

*We have all taken up residence at my parents. My wife and I are on an air mattress in my old room and the kids are in my sister’s old room. The Boy Child chatters at night and the Girl Child complains that his noise is “disturbing” her. I can hear her at night telling him to be quiet.

*The Boy Child is 110% stubborn mixed with the terrible two’s. He is unmovable and willing to push every single issue to the brink. I admire this “damn the consequences” attitude. He stands there, refusing to listen, and when the tone of my voice gets more serious, the thumb goes in his mouth and he starts sucking furiously as he continues to defy. The trick I face is how to get him to listen without doing anything to break his spirit. This requires more thought than I ever anticipated.

*I hate being back at the office. I miss my kids. This is not new, mind you. It is, rather, a constant refrain running quietly in the background.

*What else do I want to remember about this week? Beats me, right now. If I think of anything else, IÂ’ll update.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:58 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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June 25, 2005

The Abyss

I stand looking into the abyss and it is looking back at me. It is contained within the confines of a corrugated cardboard box.

Monday and Tuesday, the movers come to pack us for our move. Before that, Saturday and Sunday, I must scurry around the house frantically packing up all the valuables I can find to bring them over to my parents' house. I also have to get clothes and things packed for a 2-3 week sleep over at my parents' house. My parents are being very nice about the fact that a hotel for that time would be 6-8 grand and it just ain't in the budget.

Wednesday, the movers remove us from the house.

Thursday afternoon, we sell the house.

Friday, we buy the new house.

If you've ever done this before, you know that there are more than a few places where these well laid plans could go awry.

Perforce, blogging will be somewhere between light and none. Consumption of rum in the evenings may be a bit higher. Just a guess, of course, but a good guess just the same.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:40 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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