The Monday Evening Discussion (Short Version)

 The question was posed by a friend of mine, he being of a philosophical stripe. 

"Would you rather live 100 relatively healthy but dull, boring years, or 50 exciting, action-filled years with a number of major, debilitating illnesses or injuries?"

"Could I not," I replied, "settle for a compromise of 75 or 80 years with the occasional peak or valley excitement wise, and maybe some minor illnesses or a couple of root canals?"

"Dude," He retorted, "why would you settle for that?"

"Because," I torted right back, "it's what I've grown to know and I'm comfortable with it."

Feast Where You Find It

 

Gimme Back My Hard Earned Junk

Someone has sewn up all the holes 

In my pre-ripped and worn jeans 

And now I'm a little bit confused

Someone has sanded out all the scratches and gouges 

In my distressed dining table

And I am not amused

Someone has cleaned out all the stains 

In my factory soiled antiqued rug

And taken away the appeal of it looking old and used

Everything in my home now looks shiny and new

No more character blemishes can be seen 

In my hand-planed hardwood floors

All my chairs are now solid

The stretchers have been refitted and re-glued

My guests will no longer feel as if they are in danger

Of falling off them

I'm at a loss at what to do

A guy works hard his whole life long

To acquire the finest beat up products one can buy

Hours spent in search of the best artificially tattered artifices

To create the best shabby-chic thrift-shop stylishness

Only to have it all taken away

By some unknown philistine

It's just not fair 

  

Thanksgiving Day

This was a tough Thanksgiving. 

As I have written at various times throughout the year there seems to have been a dark cloud overhead at times. An extremely dark cloud.

Close friends of mine have become widows and widowers. Close friends of mine have experienced grief I am unable to comprehend.

And truth be told, I never want to have to experience myself.

It puts everything I have had to endure this year, everything I might consider a hardship, into perspective. 

And reinforces an ages old adage: Do not fool yourself for a second that there is any guaranty of happiness. Make your days count, make your words count, make your actions count.

Be grateful for every moment you can share with the ones you love.

In The Gym In The Morning...With The Over 50 Crowd

 Getting up and going to the gym in the morning when you are over 50 is a must do for several reasons.

For starters, waiting until after a full day of work to get to the gym results in a much less enthusiastic workout. Not only have your batteries run down by the time you get there, but the wait to use equipment is 10X more than what it is in the morning.

Actually, the wait is 100X more than what it is in the morning, because in the evening there are hoards of young people crowding the gym and clustering around every rack, bench, machine or weight station, much less the aerobics equipment - that is not the case in the morning.

The kids generally sleep in, while those of us with more than five decades under our belts get up.

Secondly, not only is the gym much less crowded in the morning it is a whole heckuva lot cleaner. In fact if you go to a gym in the morning that has not been thoroughly cleaned overnight, you need to find another gym. 

BTW, for my purposes "morning" is the time between 5:30am and 9:00am. 

Third, you will be much more comfortable socially in the morning simply because you are more likely to find yourself amidst your own kind at that time - by "your own kind" I of course mean people over fifty trying to maintain at least a modicum of fitness without hurting themselves.

Which leads directly to fourth.

Fourth is the benefit of being able to share in a game I call Injury roulette. If you are over fifty and working out (in the morning or in the evening, or whenever) you are very likely going to pull or strain or over-torque some part of you that you do not want to pull or strain or over-torque.

It just happens, no matter how careful you are, no matter how much you stretch, no matter how often you swear to yourself you are going to take it easy and not delude yourself with the belief you can still do what you did when you were thirty.

Lastly, you get to either eavesdrop on or participate in conversations that are spectacularly different that those you may have had in gyms when you were younger.

Remember the conversations that you had in the gym when you were younger? They usually contained words or statements such as "personal best," or "heavy day," or "you got this," and of course, "Those Zubaz look great on you."

BTW, Zubaz can still be purchased - https://zubaz.com/ (unpaid plug)

Conversations in the gym when you're five decades in contain words or statements such as "probably a tear but could be an impingement," or "appointment next week to have it drained," or "Are you trying to hurt yourself?" and of course, "Those shoes look comfortable, where'd you get them?"

Dragons On The Doorstep

 

Belove

 

Riding The Light Rail

The light rail is quiet in the evening

Same as it is in the morning

Everyone trying to get their heads together in the morning

Shuffling paperwork or reading some primer or another 

For work or school or both

Too focused on mentally preparing for the day ahead

For conviviality

Everyone trying to decompress in the evening

Looking at their shoes and contemplating dinner

Worn out, or stressed out, or both

Too unraveled from the long day behind

For conviviality

Dry Cold Rain

 

It had been an exceptionally arid Autumn. 

Arid and cold (insert ex-wife joke here).

The lawn was covered with dead leaves that created a rather interesting gray-brown and burnt orange mosaic visible from the elevated deck. 

When the first drops of the light rain began to fall the large drops striking the crisp leaves made a sound not too unlike the finger-snapping one might hear. 

If one were surrounded by a crowd of finger-snapping people.

Snapping their fingers slowly, methodically, melodically.

The Happiness Found In The Unselfconscious Life

 He wasn't certain that he was going through an identity crisis 

Which may be attributable to the fact 

                        That he was never really certain of anything

Except that right there, the not being certain bit

Being middle-aged and all, he was often asked for his experienced opinion

Sadly however, he always begged off having to speak

On the pretext that he was not at all that experienced

                       For someone middle-aged

His entire worldview had been shaped by newspaper and magazine articles

Or television shows and the cinema

The experiences of others, as they were written or acted out

Not experiences of his own, whether real or imagined

Maybe, just maybe

He could opine on which fast-food restaurants had the best fries

And the cleanest bathrooms 

             (Never had both occurred in the same establishment he often said)

The point is, all digression aside, though he may not have been certain of much

It had never occurred to him it might be a crisis situation 

It was just his identity, nothing more, nothing less

And he didn't feel much need to be anything else

He reasoned it had gotten him this far, being uncertain

And what with being middle-aged

               (An obscenely underappreciated demographic)

He saw no reason or gain in making any changes now.

Nature's Palette (The Yellows & Oranges)

 

As Per The Agreement

 She was wearing a deep scarlet short-sleeved knit top buttoned from her waist to her collar, and a shiny black pleather skirt. As she walked past him the sound of her boots on the wooden floor and the rustling crackle of her skirt caught his attention.

His ability to mask his astonishment was admirable. 

"What," he thought to himself as she strode through the busy cantina, "were the final words we spoke to one another that last day in Chula Vista? First one who spots the other has to pay for dinner? Something like that?"

He was certain she hadn't seen him, and just as certain that the odds on them both being in the same small cantina at the same time in a place over a thousand miles and ten years from where they last saw each other had to be beyond calculation.

"This is either an off the scale coincidence, or she's tracked me down for some reason. Guess I better make my way to the bar and find out which it is."

He pushed his chair back and stood up without taking his eyes off her. She had taken a seat at the left hand side of the bar, away from the crowd that was gathered around the lone television. She was focused on the menu in front of her when he approached.

He stood over her right shoulder for a few beats before he realized she was too involved in the menu to notice him.

"Hello Mrs J," he said casually with an even more casual smile. "Still dreaming about handsome firemen bursting down your door in the middle of the night?"

She turned towards him as an incredulous look appeared and disappeared on and off her face within microseconds - being able to instantaneously conceal their reactions and emotions was one of the commonalities that had made up the initial mutual attraction.

"My fixation on firemen disappeared soon after you did Mr J. -  Are you still on the trail of the elusive French femme that longs to be swept off her feet by a paunchy American car salesman?

He smirked. "Touché. I suppose I owe you dinner as per the agreement?"

"Yes, yes you do. Good to see your memory hasn't faded with your looks. Is there anywhere decent to eat in this pleasant little village?"

Pointing back towards the front door of the small cantina he retorted, "There's a respectable restaurant across the street and down a few doors. I'm fairly certain if I vouch for your character they'll allow us to dine inside."

"How regal." She said as she got off the bar stool and stood next to him. "Shall we?"

The bartender, who had been enraptured by whatever the crowd surrounding the TV was watching, suddenly appeared in front of them. "Pardon my inattention Mr Jonikas, did you wish to order this young lady a drink?"

He smiled at the bartender and replied, "This is no young lady Ralphy, this is my wife. We are going down to El Jaibo for dinner. Do not forward any calls, eh?"

Raphael stared at the heretofore never mentioned Mrs J and nodded his head.

As they walked towards the door Mrs J. pondered to herself how long the husband she hadn't seen in over a decade had been waiting to use that line.

 

Depending Upon Your Disposition At The Time...

 

Everybody's Got At Least One Ghost

Maybe it's a certain smell like dirt after a light rain

Or a sound, like the noise made by heels striking a tiled floor

Maybe it's a hairstyle, or a walk, or an shuttered bookstore

Whatever it may be, everyone has one or more

Reminders of a ghost that still lingers in your head

Living rent-free in the back of your mind

Still chiming in with the stray unwelcome comment 

From time to time

The ghost of the one that got away 

              Or the one who could not stay

The one that arrived too soon 

              Or the one who arrived a little too late

Just when you've finally been able to move on

You catch a glimpse of someone who could pass as her twin 

One that you catch glimpses of in places she's never been

The voice you hear in restaurants above the raucous din

Reminders of a ghost that still lingers in your bed

Living rent-free in the back of your mind

Still chiming in with the same unwelcome lament

From time to time

The ghost of the one that got away

                 Of the one who could not stay

The one that arrived too soon

                 Or the one who arrived a little too late

Countdown From 817 Million To One

 That's it. That is the approximate number. 

Of what you ask?

Of the average person's chances of being killed by a shark.

Of the average person's chances of winning an Academy Award in any of the acting categories.

Of the average person's chances of writing a book that will become required reading in a classroom.

Of the average person's chances of being the sole winner of a lottery jackpot worth over 200 million (after taxes).

Of the average person's chances of being fluent in Liki. Liki is an Austronesian language spoken only on the island of Liki, one of the 17,000 islands that make up the Indonesian archipelago.

Of the average person's chances of winning a gold medal in the Olympics...for surfing (yes, surfing is an Olympic sport).

There may be a few people who question the validity of the above listed events occurring within the oddly specific range of 817 million against listed here, so allow me to assure you they are all completely unverifiable (literally, I just now made them up based upon my perception of how probable each of them might be based on the planet's current population exceeding 7.7 billion divided by supposed (to me) occurrence of each.

Which, therefore means they are as legitimate as any paranormal investigator's claim to have seen a ghost or any  psychotherapist's claim of unlocking repressed memories or the torsion field hypothesis.

So yeah, all of those admittedly false statements I wrote are as legitimate as several other unproven (or even frequently scientifically disproved) things hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people, fervently believe. 

Maybe I should start writing for the Enquirer or Weekly World News.

NOTE: I might be way off about the death-by-shark odds.

Set Your Focus On The Little Plastic Lamb

  The above gravestone is located in Fort Morgan, Colorado. It marks the final resting place of twins Jane and Philip Dick. 

Jane lived but a scant six weeks. I imagine her parents were nearly inconsolable, their grief assuaged only by the survival of the male of the pair, Philip.

Some people reading this will immediately recognize his name, and might, upon seeing the little plastic lamb placed by an unknown prior visitor (and I'll assume, admirer), smile a little at the tribute.

For those who do not recognize the name of the man who lived but 53 short years, I direct your attention to the movie Blade Runner, or maybe the movie Total Recall. 

From his fertile imagination sprang forth those stories, and many, many more.

I mentioned to fellow fan J.E.R. the fact that he was interred just an hour north of the area we reside, and he immediately agreed that we should make a pilgrimage of sorts and pay our respects. 

So this morning J.E.R. settled behind the wheel of his 4 banger and drove us up to Fort Morgan (kinda fun being a passenger these days btw, get to see so much more of the countryside).

We paid our respects and then enjoyed a late breakfast on this unseasonably warm Fall day at a small local restaurant - the Home Plate Cafe - the chorizo and eggs is highly recommended.

The Rare Excitement Of Subtlety

 

Inventory Of The Last Choice

 She had been very particular about the dates she accepted                Laborers were out, as was anyone associated with retail                         She had narrowed her choices down to                                                           Dentist and Pharmacists                                                                             For obvious reasons  

               When she was found in her apartment                                                    By a concerned co-worker                                                                  The little empty sienna-orange bottles                                            Littered her bedroom

        The co-worker stopped counting at a hundred                                             The coroner's people                                                                           Would be much more thorough