Renewal

Sometimes just changing things around can make you feel like you have something new or you are something new.  This is one of many good or questionable concepts I learned from my mother.  

For instance, my mom used to frequently rearrange furniture instead of

 purchasing new, 

since she couldn't afford it anyway.   When I was little, it seemed like she did it all the time.  In retrospect, it probably wasn't more than once every 3-4 months.

  

However, in at least one instance I do know she made the move when I was at the neig

hbors babysitting so when I came home late and the house was dark...well I took a flying crash across the room because she had moved the footstool directly into my path.  If you're over 45 you know the kind of stool I'm referring to. It had three bars on one side with the brackets that fit around each level depending on how high you wanted the cushion to be tilted.  

This meant that when you kicked it or fell over it, it made a considerable clang, clang, clang commotion.  This ended up being my very small revenge 

against Mother's inclination to make these wholesale furniture moves without warning.  She and my dad were out in the living room in a heartbeat, he may have even had a gun with him, I don't remember because they thought someone had broken in.  But what did they find instead, li'l ol' me sprawled across the rug, trying to get the bearings to my bedroom.  I don't know if they thought it was funny but to this day I know I didn't.

That living room was the scene of many important events in my young life.  It was where the big Christmas Eve reveal occurred each year when my sister and I got our "big, unwrapped present

s" that had literally just been dropped off by Santa Claus.  (We came so close to catching him so many times.)  There are of course much 8mm journaling of these events.  

It was where I first watched black & white television (probably around 1957) on a big wooden set with a tiny but thick, green glassy screen.  If I were to guess, the actual picture size was probably about 18"x18".  It was on that tv we watched the origination of the variety show and it was on one of these, The Ed Sullivan Show, I first saw The Beatles in 1964.  To be honest, I could not for the life of me understand what all those girls were screaming about.  Here were these four guys with wierd haircuts, singing the same song lyrics, over and over and over.  I was of course in my third year of piano lessons so knew all about quality music at that point in my life, or so I thought.

We also witnessed the first of the animated adult tv show when

The Flintstones (Warner Brothers I think) premiered as an evening series, probably around 1963 or 1964.  Kids liked it because it was animated and adults liked it because it really had adult story lines.  It had something for everyone.

It was also the place where we watched the assasination of JFK countless times as well as the long days of his internment and then his burial procession to Arlington.  I'll never forget those sweet kids, Caroline & John John, just walking wherever they were told, doing whatever they 

were told, holding their mom's hands yet not really understanding what all this pomp and circumstance really meant to them; they would never see their daddy again.  When little John Jr. saluted the casket, I honestly think the entire nation cried.  I never really thought about this much but John Jr. never even knew his dad, not so he could have remembered anyway.  I think Caroline was old enough that she must have some limited memories anyway.  There probably aren't many though.

My childhood is one of those subjects I could talk about forever so I'll call a halt to this for now.

Hidden Secrets

We are having our kitchen floor replaced with the infamous cork.  

This on the high recommendation of our kids who have had two

such floors now and swear by them.  And as a user of those floors, 

I would have to agree.  

Anyway, it's a tiny kitchen but when they tear out the old floor, I have to wonder what kind of treasures or secret things they'll find under those almost 100 year old floor boards.  I am especially interested in what might be there knowing this house has been remodeled at least 2-3 times before.  

I'm sort of looking at this as my very own archaeological dig, kind of like what I witnessed going on in Jamestown, VA a few years ago.  They were digging down into the earth and every layer of dirt revealed another piece of silverware or broken serving dish or piece of a toy.  It was almost like every 100 years a new layer of dirt built up on the ground similar to the rings in a tree I guess.  It is strange though to think of artifacts that are only 100 years old.  It seems like those should still just qualify as your family's stuff.

Anyway, we'll see if we find a treasure or just a bunch of dust and bugs.  There won't be any ants though because those are being eliminated this week.  Yay!  I hate ants, they make me feel dirty.  I hate spiders too but at least they don't make me feel dirty.  I know this has nothing to do with anything else, too bad.

What If Weather Didn't Exist?

How many times during the day does someone say or ask you something about the weather or do you do same?  I know, I'm guilty as charged.  I've even blogged weather-oriented blogs - pretty boring, you're right.  So what if there was no such thing as weather or it were absolutely the same weather day in and day out?  What in the world would there be to talk about?  I must say, this bears further reflection.  

Just think of the impact.  No Weather Channel, no weather-oriented tools like barometers,

thermometers, wind guages, rain guages, etc., no satellite photos of weather because what would there be to see that we didn't already know, no Severe Storm shows on the History Channel, no death, destruction or insurance claims due to weather-related natural disasters, no pheromone release if it were always raining, no greenery if it were always sunny.  

I guess maybe that's why it didn't work out that way; at least nowhere 

but in Death Valley or maybe in the Sahara.  But even in these lands of extremes, there is some seasonal variation.  

Regardless of the reality of the world as we know it, you have to admit this is an intriguing thought.

Just Don't Open Your Mouth

So, has Obama appeared on tv more in his first 100 days in office than Bush?  Certainly he has had more planned appearances as he will tonight in a segment on 60 minutes.  Whereas Bush was captured almost daily due to the fact he repeatedly said something inordinately stupid, which came to be his M.O.  In fact, I would say Jon Stewart was responsible for giving Bush his two minutes of fame a day.  You could almost count on seeing the "faux pas of the day" when you tuned in to the Daily Show during the eight long years of the Bush joke of a presidency.

Anyway, we were talking this morning about the recent bruhaha over Obama's comment about his poor showing in the bowling alley a few 

months back.  Is there anything we can say these days that doesn't offend?  Does the public honestly think he was making fun of physically challenged individuals when he said his bowling sucked and tried to explain just how badly?

Anyone who speaks in public these days, and that includes at work or at a party, 

runs the risk of stepping on someone's toes with what they say.  I don't honestly know how you can be totally politically correct anymore because everyone has a beef.  And not only that, everyone seems to be looking for something that offends them, it's almost like a witchhunt.  And what seems like everyday, another faction of society passes another bill in Congress or in the State legislature to protect their particular narrow-minded cause, setting aside yet another portion of the English language that is henceforth forbidden to repeat out loud.

All I can say is, President Obama and all of you, mind your P's and Q's...wait, can I say that?  If not, I'll apologize in advance to the alphabet protection society.

Viewpoint from Above

I was realizing today that most of the large cities I've visited have at least one elevated hill or man-made edifice that enables you to see much of the city from above.  When I thought about all the large cities I've visited, I realized I'd seen the panoramic view of most of them.

Paris - Le Samaritan Department Store

Copenhagen - The Round Tower

London - The London Eye

San Francisco - The Hyatt Regency and Twin Peaks in Oakland

Atlanta - Some restaurant in the top of a high rise office building

Portland - Portland City Grill AND the Rose Garden

Seattle - the Union 76 tram that took you across the World's Fairgrounds in 1962

Disneyland  - The Monorail

Athens - the Parthenon

Edinburgh - Edinburgh Castle up on the hill in the middle of town

Astoria - The Astor Column (I just had to throw this one in)

The only large cities I can think of that I've visited (for more than a day) 

in which this wasn't true were Los Angeles, San Diego and Dublin.

I know these kinds of high rise viewpoints are typically tourist traps designed to reel you in.  However, I can't think of one of these views that wasn't worth the time, the effort, the money or the general experience.  There really isn't anything more lovely than a panoramic view of city lights.

I'm not sure what it is about a view that is so pleasing and even relaxing.  I know any kind of water feature, such as a river, a lake, the ocean, gives you that feeling of serenity but I feel that a broad expanse of twinkling lights can have the same effect.  I suppose that's why pieces of property that overlook either of these phenomenas command such high prices.  I'm obviously not the only one affected this way.

If Only...

If only we all lived in Star Trekdom.  I'm not saying this because I want to wear the uniforms or the hairdos or the ears or anything like that.

I'm also not saying this because I want to travel where "no man has gone

before", especially not to some of the hokey planets where they landed and got into all kinds of mischief.  And yes I still enjoy watching these silly shows, I just saw the one yesterday that took place during the Great Depression (no, not what we're enduring now) about Edith Keeler where Bones almost changed history as we know it.  Truly gripping!

What I'm talking about is the fact that if any crew member was ill or injured, 

for the most part, all they had to do was run a little dohickey over them and 

they perked right up.  I don't know if it was supposed to repair or replace but whatever it's magic was, those little plastic or cardboard devices they used worked wonders and I'd like to have one right now to cure this cold crap in my head.  That's all.  I know, that was a lengthy, drawn out way to say I don't want to be sick.

Through the Baby Monitor

Does it ever occur to you that you have very few opportunities for true privacy anymore?  What with cell phones and iPhones that can reach you most anywhere, computers that can reach you in even more places, to baby monitors that enable you to watch and listen to your baby/toddler sleep to television that can bring you all the news that's fit to "print" from everywhere in the world, news like the recent oil and deadly chemical spills in Australia to China's leadership's concerns about the American economy to the few remaining uncivilized tribes left in the Amazon or New Guinea.  Not even the almost extinct snow leopard who lives in the Himalayas of Tibet has privacy anymore, it has been captured in the Blue Planet DVD set after months and months of photographers sitting and waiting with cameras posted throughout the suspected territory.  

We live in an amazing time and I think we're easily spoiled with the overload of information at our fingertips.  I can remember when I was young and had a rock and roll trivia type question I wanted answered, I would call the radio station, or one of a more scientific nature I would call the reference librarian at the local library (our encyclopedia set was very old - I think my parents bought it the first year before I was born, in 1950, the year they were married).  

I was listening to a group of techies talking at lunch on Friday when they were talking about the tenuous nature of the Web, how it's been constructed without any structure 

per se and everything that's done to add to it threatens to weaken or collapse that structure.  In eavesdropping on their conversation, it occurred to me that we have collectively build a net-based house of cards.  The question is,

 when will the last card be the last straw?

It's an interesting, dreary, gray day and I'm obviously in a reflective mood.  However, baby boy will be awake any minute so I'd better wrap this up.  Thus capping another day of journaling my meandering thoughts.  I do love this limitless (or maybe not) net diary.  

Living the Nightmare

Has anyone thought about the fact that we are going to become the generation who will continually ask each other if they lived through...the great economic slowdown or the big, ugly recession or the pseudo-depression of the 21st century?  We already have a bunch of events like that in my generation, events that trigger memories and nostalgia.  There's the Apollo moon landing, there's the Kennedy, the King and the Kennedy again assasinations, there's the Vietnam War peace marches, there's the Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan, there's Mt. St. Helen's erupting, there's the Columbus Day Storm (hurricane), there's probably other stuff too but this was the big stuff.

Now we have this economic meltdown when all of the money we've been saving for so many years is turning into dust before our very eyes.  As an HR Director, what a great year to have a 401(k) participation target!  NOT!  

Anyway, if you think about the photographs from the first "Great Depression", I'm starting to watch for the families living in cars, hobos hopping the freight trains, more hitchhikers, empty, boarded-up houses, abandoned beat up and stripped down cars; you have to wonder if it's going to go that far.  I don't see anything or anyone stopping it.  We have become our own worst enemies and that fear feeding upon itself is exactly what is taking us down.  If we were in one big petrie dish, we would create a truly fearsome/fearful organism.

Love of Life

When you think about this term, certain people come to mind.  We've just been watching the highlights of Red Skelton on OPB and he definitely fills the bill. He more than anyone else I know, would crack up at his own jokes, sometimes even before he actually said it.  It is unfortunate that kids these days don't even know who he is because they are too young to have seen any of his 20 year variety show.  As they just mentioned, he never made his shows available through Nick at Nite or any other syndication so his productions are truly a hidden treasure.  His tenure was only slightly shorter than that of Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan.

They demonstrate essential slapstick, and these various skits and sketches were so funny and s

pontaneous that the majority, if not all, the very famous guest stars break character repeatedly as these skits play themselves out.  I'm talking about Cesar Romero, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Jerry Lewis, Wally Cox, Tim Conway, Jamie Farr, John Wayne, George Gobel, Telly Savalas, Raymond Burr, Mickey Rooney, Jack Jones, Robert Wagner, Tiny Tim, Martha Raye, Janet Leigh, Mike Conners, James Drury, Eva Gabor, Audrey Meadows and Gene Barry...

not to mention Clem Kadiddlehopper, Freddy the Freeloader, Heathcliff & Gertrude (seagulls), 

San Fernando Red (the honest politician), Mean Little Kid, etc.  He must have had over 30 or 40 characterizations with one of the most elastic faces in history.  

In my opinion, this is exactly what the world needs more of now...laughter.

  

Some Kind A Paradise

Here we are at the beach, our new internet is all hooked up, new and additional cable channels have been added, the decades old bed has been replaced with a much improved model and a new futon couch with a full size support-o-pedic matress has been ordered and will be here by the end of the month.  

I'm online in one of my favorite places and loving it.  The sun was out, the sky and water were blue and everything went according to plan. 

It's supposed to get really cold and snow in the next couple of days but I 

hope they're wrong about the snow at least.  We saw so many huge tanker ships late this morning under the Astoria/Long Beach bridge, it was like a watery highway.

Apparently the Japanese container shipping company, K-Line, is no longer going to run freight in or out of  Portland.  Yet another example of the recession quickly going depression impacting so much.

We tried watching "Les Parapluies des Cherbourg" (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) from Netflix

but it was so wierd.  It was like a regular script all set to music.  There is 

no way I could have sat through an hour and a half of that.  Now it's Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in "Ghost Breaker", almost over. 

 Then we have all sorts of video potluck to choose from, including "Planet Earth".  How's that for eclectic?

 This is the weekend where we spring forward, I much prefer the Fall when we get to go back in time.  I can use every extra hour I can get.  

Time to get more work done.

Free To Be Me

I am so frequently reminded of my status as an "early Baby Boomer".  Apparently that means I was growing up in the '60's and music was my life, all of which is true.  It's interesting how all of us who fall in these various age groups can effectively be lumped together as one giant conforming unit who all think and act the same because we all have the same "core values" as I heard today.  

I also learned today that the reason my kids (Gen X'ers) are both the way they are is because 

they were repeatedly lied to as they were growing up.  Not just by

 me although apparently getting divorced was lying, but by the government (politicians), by schools, by the corporate world; so that apparently excuses their behavior and attitudes.  The rest of us just need to deal.

Hm.

I also learned today that by 2010 1 in 4 people in the U.S. will be Hispanic.  And in 2016, 30% of the world economic demographic will be Hindi or Mandarin Chinese.

Hm.

I think this is further proof it's time for me to retire by 2016 because I am too old and tired to try to figure out how to deal with all these dynamics.  I didn't even mention the Millenials or the brand new, 3-year-old Generation Z.  It's all so much psychobabble for me I'm afraid.  It's easier to just roll with the flow.