Packaging (cont....)

And have you tried to open a kid's toy yesterday? When we were young parents you had to stay up late to assemble things. Now you'd have to stay up into the wee hours taking things out of their boxes--otherwise the kids will have a fit waiting to hold their doll.

I can't even open the Greek yogurt my wife buys. The pull tab is useless and I end up using a steak knife to cut the top.

Remember how cereal boxes used to come open neatly and the tab slipped into the slot to keep the box closed? Remember? Now I put the cereal into big baggies with the little ridges that supposedly seal when you press them together. I say 'supposedly' since they seldom work for me--so not only are things impossible to open, there is an issue for me in closing some things these days.

But then, perhaps all this is just me....

(ROBIN UPDATE)

We were worried today because we hadn't seen the male, who usually doesn't stray far, and the female wasn't on the nest. Maybe it's warm enough to go get a decent meal. But late this afternoon I saw Papa Robin flying the perimeter of our front porch, yelling like crazy. Then I noticed he was keeping himself between the nest and another circling bird. And Mama was back on the nest.

I still think this will probably end badly, but I truly am catching hold of their outrageous hope that a nest on a former siren on our front porch will turn out well...I'm really entralled with this close encounter of a Robin kind....

Packaging

I have discovered as I grow older that there are more and more things I can't seem to open properly or easily. Am I simply getting feeble or is packaging getting more 'person proof'?

I take a allergy pill once in a while. They come on a sheet in little bubbles. You tear one of the pills away from the sheet and it helpfully says on the back--"bend here and open". I dutifully bend down that corner and the corner breaks off, leaving me with no way to seperate the rest of the backing from the pill. I try to push the pill through the back and invariably break the pill without pushing it free. Recently I've been taking a pair of fingernail clippers and with three clips cut into the bubble where the broken pill is still encased. Then I use my teeth to bite the bubble and finally get the pill--in two or three pieces, free.

Lots of stuff comes with a foil covered piece of cardboard and a handy-dandy pull tag. I'm thinking of plastic quarts of milk and salad dressings in particular. After having cramped my hand to break the seal of the top of the salad dressing or using my teeth again to bite away the red top of the milk since the little 'pull' strip breaks off before freeing it, I clinch the pull tag between my thumb and index finger and it tears clear off the cover. I try to edge the cardboard off and break a nail and finally am reduced to taking a steak knife to cut through it and peal it away in tiny pieces.

Never mind anything that comes packaged inside a large plastic bubble. I go straight to a knife with that and usually slice a finger trying to cut through it so I can get to the shoe strings. Why on earth would shoestrings have to come in tamper proof packaging?

Recently someone gave me a CD of some gospel music. It took me a broken nail, an almost chipped tooth, a steak knife and my wife just to get the plastic wrap off the CD holder. Then I broke the hinges off that trying to open it and flipped the CD out onto the floor trying to prise it out of its holder. The music ewas good though....

Is this all because of that nut job who put poison in Advil years ago?

I appreciate being made safer--but what is a nut job going to put into a CD? Anthrax? Why--to wipe out fans of Lady Ga-Ga...? Well, that might not be a bad idea....

And cheese slices that come in zip lock bags. First I have to chew off the plastic down to the zip lock and then often I can't get that open without my faithful steak knife. I'm considering getting a little holder I can attach to my belt to carry a steak knife with me in case I have to open stuff.

If we can make packaging this effective, why can't we make batteries that never loose their charge (try to get AA's out of their package lately?) and cars that run on water? To much Research and Design genius has gone into perfecting packaging and not enough into how to cure cancer or repair the ozone layer, so far as I can tell.

Or maybe it's that the technology of secure packaging has been improved but the technology of "tear here" has been sorely neglected.

I'm just not sure anymore...But then, maybe it's just me....

Preaching--if anyone cares....

I went to church Sunday. It was because of my theory that church is habitual and that the habit takes 6 months to form and 3 weeks to break. This would have been my third week....so I went to church.

It isn't a busman's holiday for me, going to church. I like to 'do' church rather than 'go' to church. So, I tried to clear my mind and not be so hyper-critical.

It was actually fine--except that it was an early service that they somehow managed to drag into over an hour. I alway shot for between 40-45 minutes. 90% of the time we met that goal, so maybe I caught them on one of their 10% sundays.

The sermon was pretty good. In fact, there were probably 2 'pretty good' sermons in there--humor, personal reflection, story telling, connection to the gospel--but it did go on and on.

The preacher, I know, doesn't preach much...he's not the Rector. So he fell foul of that--"I'd better tell them good!" syndrome. Seminarians I have known have tried to review their whole theological education in a single sermon. And then there are simply long-winded people and people fascinated by the sound of their own voice. (I might fall into that last category from time to time...)

But brevity is best. And that requires that the preacher 'trusts' the people to 'get it'. You don't have to tell them everything....Most of the people in church on Sunday have heard more sermons than any of us have preached--though after35 years of preaching most Sundays and perhaps one other time a week, I probably don't find many people listening who've heard more than I've preached. But I do trust them. They aren't neophytes to the church or theology or the Bible. Lay people are a lot smarter and more savvy than most priests give them credit for.

I, unlike most regular church goers, don't hear many sermons since I'm usually preaching. But lots of them that I hear really underestimate the theological IQ of the laity. I've been privileged to serve three churches where that IQ was quite high--which is what told me that it is better to say too little than too much. A preacher shouldn't 'explain' very much. If it has to be minutely 'explained' leave it out, I would say. That kind of thing is the thing of education, not preaching.

The pretty good sermon I heard on Sunday could have been quite good, maybe even 'very good', if the preacher had ended it sooner. I counted 4 places where I thought he had concluded and yet he went on, trying, each time, to 'explain' what would have been a fine place to end.

I think most everyone would have 'gotten it' had he ended at that first point. Or, if they didn't, they might have engaged him in conversation later. Or, they might have left a bit perplexed and mystified--not a bad place to leave people, by the way. Mike Nichols, the writer/actor/director, once said he wanted people to leave the theatre thinking about something besides where they'd parked their car.

That wouldn't be a bad way to leave church. That, in fact, would be better, for sure, than leaving looking at your watch....

Winged Hope Revisited

It's been nearly two weeks since I wrote about the pair of robins who built a nest on our front porch. When we were away last week, I worried about them because of the cowbirds.

The day before we left for Vermont I noticed a pair of cowbirds in the trees near our front porch. My wife was impressed that I knew what they were and I looked them up on the Internet to make sure I was right. I knew from experience that cowbirds will lay their eggs in another bird's nest and I was afraid these two were up to no good.

What I learned from Google is that that practice--laying eggs in another's nest--is called being a 'brood parasite'. What an apt but strange description. It seems the cowbird got its name because they tend to eat the insects that gather on cattle. And since cattle used to be driven to market, the birds learned to follow them. Cowbirds don't stay put and rely on other birds to hatch and raise their young. A really strange practice. And they stick around only long enough to see if the mother bird throws the strange eggs out of the nest. If they do, the cowbirds destroy the nest and the real nesting bird's eggs. Like I said, weird.

But when we got back, the nest was still there and the mama Robin was sitting tight. Before we left she would fly over to the nearest tree when we came out or went in the door. Now she sits stoically and unmoving. And the male, who is a really large bird, sits on a nearby tree and keeps watch. When we're out on the back deck, he fly into the low branches of the trees back there and watch us for a while. Sometimes he sings and sometimes not. It's like he's evaluating if we are in any way a danger.

There must be eggs because she is so committed to the nest. She turns her head and watches us as we come and go, but never flies now.

Now that the cowbird crisis has passed--the pair of them are probably somewhere with some cows--I'm worried about the babies. I may put cushions under the nest in case they fall out. And if they do, can we put them back? Is it the truth or an old wive's tale (why are there no old husband's tales?) that human touch will taint the baby birds and the mother won't feed them anymore? Should I get some falconer gloves or something?

Having robins to worry about is almost a full time job....

paternal feelings

The older I get, the more I think about my father. It's odd to me because when my mother died, just after my 25th birthday, I had wished she had lived instead of him.

And now, in the year of my life she was in when she died--63--I can barely remember her face and certainly not her voice. But I remember almost everything about my father.

Because the place in Vermont where we spent a week was so much like West Virginia--Bern said it was like being in WV in a 'nice house'--I thought a lot about my father.

His name was Virgil Hoyt. He lived to see my children, unlike my mother, who missed all that. And my third granddaughter's name is Tegan HOYT Bradley. What a hoot.

One of the poems I wrote in Vermont was about him. Here it is:

LEGACY

I wish I could remember
the things my father knew.
(How could I? And I wish it devoutly.)

He could go walking in the woods
and meadows and come home with wild greens
that my mother would wilt
with rendered pork fat
and we would eat gladly.

Here for a week in Vermont,
there are dandelions everywhere.
Those were the major greens
my father harvested from Nature.
The others I forget--
though I knew them once--
and wish I could remember.

I do know a lot about birds
that he taught me.
My wife is amazed at how many I know
by song and sight.
I pointed out a pair of cowbirds
last week.
She was astonished.

The Legacy of my father
is the songs of birds,
the knowing of trees,
and the incomplete list
of wild things you can
pour pork fat over and eat.

jgb/5-11-2010

a week away

we were in Vermont for a week, living in a good friend's house in Rochester, which will never be accused of being urban or even suburban. Rochester is barely rural. Being in Vermont's rural areas reminds both of us of growing up in southern West Virginia. There are no strip mines, that I know of, in Vermont, but the mountains are very similar and 'rural' is 'rural'--hence the remarkable success of Garrison Keeler and "Prairie Home Companion". Rural is simply Rural--the ethnicity might differ from place to place (there were no Scandinavians in Southern West Virginia but lots of Hungarians, Italians and Polish folks, plus the then dominant Scots Irish and African Americans.

If two guys hadn't been working on a house down the road where I walked our dog and if I hadn't, one time, drove into Rochester to get a few provisions, we wouldn't have seen another human being for a week! And there weren't many 'creatures' either. There are more birds and creatures in my back yard than on that mountain, so far as I could tell. Maybe it was too cold. It did snow in May one day and the temperature was in the 20's a few nights--but the house was cosy and wonderful--comfortable and artistic and sweet. So we read books: I read 9 books, Bern probably read more since I walked the dog exclusively. So we ate and ate well--good food and good wine. And we slept a lot. I took a nap most days and slept 9 hours each night. And it was so quiet. The house was as sound proof as anywhere I've ever been. Our dog, who barks at every little noise at home, had nothing to bark at. He was strangely silent and content to walk a few times a day, eat and sleep. To my knowledge, he read no books.

It was a quiet and dear time. My retirement has been a worry for both Bern and me--not knowing if I could be around so much and not be annoying to her. Well, there we were for a week with no other company or outlet and we didn't come to blows, in fact, we enjoyed being in each other's nearly silent company. That's good to know.

I wrote some too. Here's a poem I wrote in Vermont.

WHERE ARE THE BIRDS

We are on a mountain top in Tennessee
(Actually, Vermont, but the birth
of Davie Crockett--king of the wild frontier--
is never far from my mind....)

You can see the roof of one other house
from the deck of my friend's home.
But mostly, all you see are trees
and, in the distance, a dozen other mountains.
That's all. And yet there are few birds.

The name of this colony is "something Hawk",
(I forget exactly....)
And not a hawk in sight.
No bird songs, though I heard the distant caw
of a crow once.

Our house down south in Connecticut
(at least south of Vermont,
not nearly Tennessee or West Virginia,
where we both grew up, Bern and I)
is surrounded by birds.
There is even a pair of robins
nesting on our front porch in Cheshire.

They practically--all those birds--
sing from the dusty pre-dawn
until full darkness every day.
And our parakeets call out,
from captivity,
to the free birds outside.

So where are the birds on this Vermont mountain?
Maybe it is still too cold--in the 20's last night,
snow one day we were here...and this is May!

Or maybe they flew to Connecticut,
having heard we were gone,
to join the raucous chorus there. (jgb--5/10/10)

my dogs-final

Call it misplaced nostalgia. Call it 'seeking our youth'. Call it simply crazy...A year or so after Sadie died, we decided to get another Puli.

We talked about a Labra-Doodle--we've never really had a 'big' dog...or a lab...or another mutt. All would have been well but somehow we got enamored of another dog like Finney. So we found a breeder up near Syracuse, asked for a girl, thinking a female would be easier, but the litter only had one female and it was promised. So we drove to Syracuse, spent a night in a motel and went to see the puppies.

Puli puppies look the same coming or going. It's hard to tell which end is which. And they move like little dervishes and are hard to catch, even in a contained space. We spent a long time with the five boys and finally Bern picked up the one...the One...Bad Dog Bela.

Bela is a bad dog. He bit a good friend and we don't trust him half as far as we could throw him. He gets consigned to the car when guests come unless they are on the Bela List.

Once you are on the Bela List you will be welcomed raucously and be assured he would lay down his life for you--which he would. But the Bela List is short and it is hard to get on it.

Part of it is genetics--remember Atilla bred these dogs to be guards and alarms and to give up their lives for the sheep. On a leash with me Bela is hyper-protective. He is so adorable looking that people want to pet him but I say, "Oh please don't try". He is better with Bern. She walks him on the Canal almost everyday for a mile or so and tells me he is not nearly so aggressive as he is with me walking him.

We took him to training and had the trainer come to our house. That trainer, when we told him on the phone we had a Puli, said, simply, "Why?" They have a reputation. At one of the training sessions Bela, who performed beautifully, was sitting like the other dogs--or some of them--and watching everything very intently. There were 20 dogs or so--huge to tiny--in the room and the trainer said, "there is more DOG in that Puli than in any of your dogs. Pulis are really DOGS."

I'm not sure what that meant, but Bela seemed pleased.

He is not affectionate. Oh, when we come home he leaps and yips and goes nearly crazy--but that's because he thinks a lost sheep has returned to the fold. And when people on the Bela List try to leave he is inconsolable. He's not doing his job. When the granddaughters are here--Top of the Bela List--he stays between them and the nearest door lest a lion or tiger or bear appear unexpectedly. He is not overtly friendly to the twins, but he guards them like his life depended on it. Genetics--thousands of years of them.

He is Finney on steroids. Bern's long walks have calmed him some and he's on drugs to calm him some and calming him a lot seems to require general anesthetics.

And Bern loves him--loves him like a rock. She is much more realistic about how bad he is than I am. She is more cautious with him around strangers than I am. She's the one who locks him in the car when people are around while I'd like to see if they could make Bela's List. She knows him through and through and knows he's bad and loves him devoutly. He's seen 3 of our 4 cats die since he's been with us--he's 5 1/2 or so. His only companion feline now is Luke, our yellow cat, who, like most yellow cats is a dear. Bela tries to herd him and when Luke jumps up on something we can hear Bela barking like crazy, trying to make Luke behave. (Luke has the same name as Luke the dog who prompted these reflections and is the same color Luke the Dog was and I call him the puppy-cat because he comes when you call him--unlike bad dog Bela, who considers coming for a while--and is as loving as a dog usually is. He was our favorite of our four cats and the other three have died one after another, of natural causes. Sometimes you get lucky....The cat lovers will get on me for such an observation!)

Bela loves to sleep on 'the big bed'. That's the one thing he always reacts to. "Let's go to the big bed" one of us can say and before we get there he's on someone's pillow sound asleep.

As bad as he is, he is our companion and we love him, love him like a rock. So, we'll keep him away from people he might bite and put up with his barking--we were on the deck and there was a line of traffic, unusual enough, on Cornwall, and Bela was barking at the cars. Two turned around and went to find a better way to Route 10 and he laid down, satisfied he'd gotten rid of those Lions and Tigers and Bears.

When he's in the car with me he jumps and barks and turns off the radio and sometimes knocks the car out of gear at stop lights. Bern tells me that in her truck he sits patiently and doesn't bark. I'm not sure whether to believe her, but, hey, why not. She seems to have the nack with him that I don't.

And she loves him so, bad as he is....