What I don't notice until it's not there....

I have tinnitus--ringing in the ears. I've had it for years now. It's not a problem because it sounds like crickets...a pleasant sound to hear, very soothing and calming.

I only notice it (having grown used to background noise of crickets on a soft, summer afternoon) until it isn't there.

I don't know why my head is silent from time to time--atmospheric pressure, lack of congestion, time  of day--I just don't know. But from time to time the crickets fall silent and I notice they aren't there.

I don't notice their singing. It's simply the soundtrack of the movie of my life. But when they fall silent, as they have right now, the silence gets my attention.

Something to ponder: what in your life do you notice only in its absence?

Love, perhaps, or affection or compassion? I'm not sure. I have to ponder that as well.

And I've typed long enough that the crickets are back. In a few moments, I won't notice that they're back. It's only when they're not there that I notice their absence.

Strange, I'd say. Some people I'd imagine are so angry or depressed or self loathing that they only notice when those feelings aren't present.

But I can't be sure since I don't have those feelings, or hardly ever. I only notice anger and depression and self-loathing when they show up, from time to time.

The crickets, though, I've come to a peace with them, except when, from time to time, they aren't singing. Then I notice....

naming storms

Since someone names storms, I think there could be some creativity in that. Like this: storms named after characters from Shakespeare's plays.

Ariel, Banquo, Caliban, Desdemona, Edward IV, Falstaff, Goneril, Hamlet, Iago, Juliet, King Henry, Lear, Macbeth, Norfolk, Othello, Prospero, Queen Cleopatra, Romeo, Shylock, Touchstone, Ursula, Viola, Witches (from Macbeth)....

I'll admit, English major that I am, it took me 45 minutes or so to come up with A-W. Then I blanked. I couldn't think of a Shakespearean character that started with X. I finally googled 'Alphabetical Lists of Shakespearean characters' and had about 200K hits!

So, I had wasted 45 minutes making my list only to find I could have done it in no time!

And there is this: there are no X's or Z's on any of the lists.

I had Yorick for Y (though he's only mentioned by Hamlet and doesn't actually appear in a play) but my blank on X and Z was well founded.

This is about the most use I've found for my BA in English Literature for several decades.

Hopefully, there would be less than 24 storms that needed names and if there was a 24th, it could be Yorick ('alas poor....')

Stay tuned. I might try to come up with a storm list of Biblical characters: I've got Adam, Bathsheba, Cain, David, Elisha already. F I'll have to think about for a bit. Then Goliath, Herod, Isaiah, Jesus (for goodness sake!) K is a momentary problem, Leah, Moses, Noah, Obidiah, Pilate (or Peter if you like), Quinireus, Rachel, Solomon, Titus, Uriah, Virgin Mary, Widow of Nain, X, problematic, Yahweh and Zachariah,

Can you think of a name beginning with F or K or X in the Bible? I'm at a loss.

Lucky to know that BA and my Theological studies are not wasted. I can come up with names for storms out of all that study and cost. Those years are not wasted--thank God!

"Punkish"

Is that a word you use? I'm not referring to a genre of rock music or people who dress like Goths or a bully.

Punkish as I use it is a way to describe how you feel physically. I grew up being asked, "how do you feel?" by over protective, older parents of an only child. The word I would use (it must have been taught to me by those two good folks--Virgil and Cleo, my parents) when I felt kind of achy and foggy and out of sorts was 'punkish'. "I feel punkish," I'd say and I'd get soothing voices and sweet hugs smelling of my parents' scents (tobacco and sweat from my father, lavender and flour from my mother) and be asked if I wanted to go to bed or needed an aspirin or something warm to drink.

Yesterday, from the time I woke up (nearly 10, by the way, something that's sweet about being retired...I only set the clock on Monday night and Saturday night to make it to my 9:30 Tuesday group or church wherever on Sunday) I felt 'punkish' and told Bern enough times that she  gave me a hug and a soothing voice (Bern's scent is of soap and slightly of garlic--I've always been attracted to anyone who smells slightly of garlic) and asked me if I wanted to go to bed and have a nap. Which I did, from 2 pm until 4:15 pm with my Puli dog, snoring beside me. (Bela will take a nap whenever and wherever he can get it. He's sprawled out about five feet behind me as I type this and snores occasionally. Lord, to be able to sleep like a Puli dog! That would be a blessing....)

And when I woke up, I wasn't feeling 'punkish' any more (though I still felt a bit groggy for about an hour). A nap will usually fix a punkish feeling. I don't know why but have learned over the years that sometimes a nap is exactly the right medicine for 'punkishness' (a work my Spell Check hates and  hates).

So, if ever you are achy and foggy and out of sorts, this is what I'd recommend: a two hour nap.

No charge for the advice. It is my purpose in life to blot out the scourge of 'feeling punkish'....

A milestone missed...

It didn't occur to me until a moment ago, when I posted the 802nd post I've ever posted that yesterday's post about the impending storm was the 800th of all time.

I like milestones: birthdays, anniversaries, unbefore reached events.

But, like the storm that never really happened--oh, we had maybe 6 inches of snow and brutal winds and it is as cold as...(all the ways of completing that comparison, I realized after thinking about it for a few minutes, are either politically incorrect or, worse, inappropriate in general.)

Any way, it is very, very cold.

But like the blizzard that didn't show up, not noticing the 800th post was pretty much a non-event. But when I get to 1000--probably sometime this summer or early fall--I should create a celebration or liturgy or event of some kind.

Milestones deserve to be noticed and attended to.

Only 200 more of these to wade through--or, more accurately 197 more--before the fireworks and parade and somber speeches.


Something to look forward to....

or not....

Not for the faint of heart....

I had a long conversation with my friend Jack at a Christmas Eve party about growing older.

Jack is around my age--a year younger or older, I can't remember, but then one of the things about growing older is you can't remember things sometimes.

One of the interesting things about entering the second five years of the 60's is that often strange, inexplicable pains occur for a few hours and then disappear as oddly as they appeared. One day a few weeks ago, my right hip and left ankle hurt whenever I walked. I could have called the doctor but since the pain went away by afternoon I would have gone in and told him where it hurt for five hours but didn't hurt anymore. Today, this tiny inverted wart of a thing on my right thumb has been throbbing since I got up. But now, as I'm typing this, it suddenly doesn't hurt at all.

Jack agreed with me that unexplained body pain is part of getting older. A shame it is that just as we become wise, our bodies start to hurt.

I went to college with a guy whose name I can't remember (I am 66 and so is he and probably can't remember my name) who had all sorts of theories about 'body pain' which he claimed to have and assumed I did at well. Well, I didn't and if anything hurt (which it seldom did) a joint or two would make it stop. (Now that marijuana is legal in Colorado, I can admit openly that I have smoked it and, unlike Bill Clinton, I did inhale. I don't think I've smoked weed since our first child was born--38 years that would be--though I've been around people smoking it quite a few times. But if it was suddenly legal in Connecticut, I think I might give it another try....)

I wish I could remember my college friend's name so I could try to find him and ask, 'how's that body pain thing working for you now. He had red hair and a red goatee and dated one of the young women who came to St. Gabriel's Episcopal Mission, which is how I knew him. Of course, if he was having the body pain thing in his early 20's, maybe he didn't live this long.

Cramps are another thing that I have more and more the older I get. I wake up with cramps in my calves from time to time, and even worse, cramps in my thighs. But the worst cramps are the hand cramps--not so much 'cramps' as 'freezing'. When I drive a long distance, my hands begin to freeze around the steering wheel...and sometimes when I use the mouse too much to play Hearts or Internet Checkers I'll get a hand ending up looking like a claw.

All of this, my friend Jack (whose name I still remember) agreed with, item by item.

Who was it that said: "Getting old isn't for sissies...."

Whoever it was had lived long enough to gain some modicum of wisdom and experience some inexplicable body pain. God bless them, they were so, so right....

But I'll take the body pain as opposed to the alternative--that place where pain is over.

Was it WC Field's tomb stone that said, "All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia"?

I'll take Philadelphia, thank you and put up with the inconveniences of growing older.

The Storm

OK, it's 9:14, no matter what my blog tells you--I think my blog timer is Pacific Coast Day Light Savings time--it seems to be 4 hours behind the reality of when I'm writing. I don't know why, which doesn't surprise me at all since "I don't know why" about most everything in my life.


Which is why I spend so much time pondering stuff. Pondering is the only answer to not knowing 'why'....

But at 9:14 p.m. in Cheshire, the reality of the storm is taking shape. I went out to smoke a cigarette in my hat, scarf and coat and these tiny snowflakes, ice like, were blowing into my face the whole time even though I was under the roof of our back porch. Tiny snowflakes, to me, usually mean a s**t load of snow. And wind like that is a sure harbinger that the weather folks got this one right.

So, who knows what will be waiting in the morning?

I plan to drink some white wine and sleep late after having our Hoppin' John a day late.

Hoppin' John is what you need to eat on New Year's Day below the Mason-Dixon Line and I bought all the ingredients in Baltimore but since we left at 5 to come home, it didn't work.

Hoppin' John is four things: pork of any kind (we had ham) black-eyed peas over rice and some cooked green--kale or turnip greens or collard greens.

The greens are for 'money', the ham is for health (some rich irony there) the black-eyed peas are for challenge and the rice stands for contentment. (I may have some of that wrong, but you get the point.)

That's about all you need for the next year of your life: health, challenge, money and contentment. What else could you ask for?

So, a day late, I am full of hoppin' John and waiting to see what tomorrow brings in regard to the Storm.

Bern asked me why The Weather Channel and the local channel named the storms differently. Our local news outlet is only up to B in the naming since this is only the second winter storm for us. The Weather Channel (which Bern loves, loving as she does severe weather of any kind) names all the storms in the country. They're up to G already and it's the second day of the new year. Maybe this winter they'll get to Storm Zeus, who knows.

I hope you're warm and safe and the power doesn't go out for you. Winter is like this in New England--you never know.

But the wind and the tiny snow crystals blowing horizontally is pretty exciting.

I'd predict a foot before it's over tomorrow afternoon.

Stay snug. Don't wander out in the weather. Have some wine. Relax and sleep late.....

Happy Storm to you....

It's New England, for heaven's sake!

On the New Jersey Turnpike there are these huge message boards every few miles. Sometimes the warn that you are approaching congestion or an accident and you should be aware and slow down.

On the way back from Baltimore, starting in southern New Jersey, they all said, one after the other in yard tall letters:

WINTER STORM WARNING
     THRU FRIDAY
SNOW AND HIGH WINDS

I'd read the weather forecasts too, but their was a CAPITAL LETTER sense of  terror and looming doom in the messages of the Turnpike Authority. I would have rather known the Rose Bowl score....

I used to think, growing up, that New England Folk were made of sturdier stock than folks like us in the mountains. I imagined everyone had snowshoes and would jack their cows up out of snow drifts twice a day to milk them and everyone had a snow plow and they would plow around the maple trees to tap for syrup in sub-zero weather and nothing  could deter those Hearty dwellers in the states above NYC. That's what I always thought.

I thought you'd ask a New England-er, "cold enough for you?" and they'd reply, "Hell no! And we need more snow!"

Since I've lived here now for over 30 years, I realize how wrong I had been.

Every time some whines to me about 'how cold it is' or 'how slick the roads are' or 'Lordy, Lordy, it's going to snow a foot!' (and lots of people whine about that stuff)...I just say, "It's New England for heaven's sake, get over it...."

Get a grip, New England. This isn't the Bahamas and we live here in order to be 'sterner stuff' than those warm weather sissies....