What Lies Beneath

Today I frequented what has become one of my favorite topics about which to write:  The grocery store.  The grocery store (including the parking lot), with its employees and its customers, is a microcosm of the world around the store, wherever it is located.  Rural, urban, inner city, suburban.....life in the store reflects life outside the store.

I have favorite check-out clerks and baggers and, as I've stated before, I will stand in a certain line behind many customers, just to have my groceries properly handled.  Yes, I admit to being very fussy about how my tomatoes, bananas, avacados, white-corn Tostados, apples, grapes, bread, and bags (not boxes) of cat litter are handled.  This morning, when my cart came up next to have my food items scanned, the check-out clerk, smiled wanly when I greeted her and said, "Good morning.  I'm trying to keep a smile on my face."  I responded that I understood that "we-the-public" could be demanding and ill-tempered.  She simply said, "Yes". 

Here was a woman whose eyes told one story but the smile on her face told another.  When she looked me in the eyes, I could see the stress in hers, and I felt for her.  What thoughts and feelings laid beneath her smile and greeting? 

With every trip I make to the store, I give myself a challenge to smile at as many individuals who will look me in the eye and return a smile.  Every shopping day is unique, with different results from each visit to the store.  Today, I'd say about fifty percent returned my smile and thusly looking me in the eye.  It is amazing to me the number of people who are unable to look another in the eye.  I realize that some cultures discourage or disallow certain segments of their societies to look other segments in the eye and I also realize that some demographics of our society are not comfortable looking the opposite sex in the eye.  This attitude of deference is as old as the proverbial hills.  Yet, what lies beneath, in terms of thoughts and feelings, can only be surmised and guessed at. 

Some of us are more highly skilled than others at keeping the mask perfected at all times.  The weary lines around the check-out clerk's eyes told me that maintaining her smile was taking its toll.  Some of us smile a lot, others laugh a lot......everyone's "mask" manifests itself differently, yet the end result is the same. 

What lies beneath is not always what matches the surface. 

Ancora imparo

Why?

In my state, yesterday was election day for, I guess you'd say, municipal races.  Cities, towns, townships, villages, school boards, library governing bodies......all had their elected officials determined by the electorate's choices at the ballot box.  Sadly, voter turn-out numbers were, predictably, small-to-embarrassingly tiny in scope.  This is a phenomenon that disappoints and discourages me.  These are races that are no less important than national elections, yet we, the voting public, treat these as ho-hum to non-event happenings.

Why?

Take for instance, school board elections. School board positions are vitally important in communities, yet these thankless positions are given less attention by the public than who was voted off "Dancing With The Stars."  School boards determine the course, cost, and scope of our country's children's educations and we can barely summon the energy to drive or walk to our polling place.  One local, voting precinct posted its results this morning and the totals for the school-board's three winners were depressingly low.  The three winners had totals of 58, 48 and 45, or something close to that.  It is shameful that so few people helped determine who will sit in judgment on the direction that our local high school will take over the course of the next three years.  

Whatever happened to civic duty?  We don't take the time to vote, yet we complain vociferously, citing our First Amendment rights to speak our minds but, yet, we can't get our fannies to the polls?  I would propose that the only people who should have their First Amendment rights protected, under the constitution, are those who vote......in every election.  As long as "we" keep voting, then we maintain our right to speak freely.  Not voting?  No problem, just do not plan on being protected under the First Amendment between elections.

I think this could work.  Any takers on the idea?

Ancora imparo

In Awe

I am in awe of people who pursue their passions.  People who persevere and succeed despite their shortcomings, limitations, or roadblocks.  People who shoulder through pain, adversity, trauma, frustration, nay-sayers, detractors' comments, and set-backs to go on to achieve excellence, success, personal satisfaction and a greater sense of self-worth.

Pursuing one's passion(s?) is not easy nor uncomplicated and is often accompanied by stress, sacrifice, occasional defeat, unrecognized achievement and the porcine protestations of people who would diminish the scope of the accomplishments simply out of jealousy, ignorance and dimwittedness.  But, there are those individuals who are seemingly unfazed by the digs, innuendo, snide comments, outright rude remarks, and needling of others and go on to attain recognized proficiency, triumph, and mastery pertaining to whatever endeavor(s) they have attempted.

What provides the fortitude to excel in spite of?  Preparation, practice, high degrees of well-honed skill(s), thick skin, the ability to tune out the "noise" of the crowd......all of these traits and characteristics exist in achievers, either in concert or one at a time.

Much can be learned from people who press the envelope, run a little faster, train a little harder, march to the beat of a different drummer, turn their backs on the crowd, etc.  Simplistically, I guess it is those very qualities that settled the West, put humans on the moon, broke Olympic records, or overcame physical limitations to become great, such as Helen Keller.

I am not one of "those" people......I can only  think about and write about them.

Sign me as in awe and filled with admiration.

Ancora imparo

Geriatric Modifications

Signs of getting older are all around me.

My cat, otherwise known as Cranky Kitty, needs a series of rising steps in order to get into her chair.  Now, this is not all bad because she doesn't jump easily any more and that has prevented quite a bit of cat-hair accumulation on the furniture.  Some part (or parts) of my body and/or brain tell me on a daily basis that I am no longer anywhere near the decade of being in my thirties.  I might as well take out a giant billboard on Times Square, in New York City, on which to chronicle the little and not-so-little ways I hear my body speaking to me.....mostly in complaints.  The good news about the brain not being quite so able to do mental gymnastics is that I can easily forget where my last "twinge-in-the-hinge" was.

Lately, I've realized that certain geriatric modifications around the condo could be useful to my body.  I'm already accustomed to having step-stools in many rooms so that my vertical shortcomings (pun intended!) can be overcome by me instead of calling out to Capt. SO.  These little stools come in handy on a daily basis.

The irony of geriatric modifications is evident, however, in the construction of the condo.  Our condo's builder prides himself on including, as standards, specific construction characteristics that are desirable for a certain age-range.  These standards include, but are not limited to, door handles that have a lever to push down instead of the turn-the-knob type of handle; wider-than-standard door frames that will accommodate wheelchairs, grab-bars in each shower/bath area, and slightly higher bathroom and kitchen countertop heights.

It is the slightly-higher-than-standard countertop heights that are the current source of irony in the life of my complaining body.  Granted, these bathroom countertops are ideal for not having to bend down to pick up the necessary tools for getting a person ready, whether in the morning or going out for the evening.  But.......I don't believe any designer who suggested the countertop height for people over sixty took into consideration the need to get a foot up on the countertop in order to do any podiatric work on my lowest extremity.

This conundrum is further confounded by the fact that my eyes do not quite work as well as they once did.  My contacts are great for seeing far away, but they do not work well for close-up work.  In fact, in order to read text, I need either really large print, exceptionally bright light, ungainly long arms, a personal assistant who will hold a book about two feet away from my eyes, or all of the aforementioned.  If I want to do close-up work, I must remove my contacts and don my eyeglasses. But.....since my eyeglasses have the blended lenses for bifocals, I usually end up looking under my lenses, which is the same as wearing no corrective lenses at all, which, then, necessitates having my foot very near my eyes if I want to trim a nail or see where to apply nail polish.  Simply bending over from the waist does not get my eyes near enough to my feet, hence the need to hoist my foot up on the bathroom countertop.

This is not as easy as it once was.

There was a time when I could will my leg to move, from the hip, in an upward motion that would actually get my foot to the counter.  Now I have to grab the foot by one hand,  physically pick it up and place the foot wherever I need it to be in order for my eyes to see so I can work on the foot.  My hips still cooperate with this process but the day may come when the hips are not happy to comply, either, in which case I would have to install a specially-designed, hydraulic foot lift, or hire a personal foot-assistant........or a cabana boy......or a puppy that would grow into a large, service dog.

Which one would Capt. SO prefer?  Hydraulic foot-lift, personal foot-assistant, cabana boy or puppy?

Ancora imparo

Hey, I've Heard That Before

WYSIWYG (wih-see-wig):  A computer term used to describe a system in which content displayed during editing is very similar to the final output, which might be a printed document, web page or slide presentation......otherwise known as "What you see is what you get."

In case you're wondering why the phrase, "What you see is what you get.", sounds familiar, it was first made "famous" by the comedian, Flip Wilson, and his floozy character, Geraldine from the 1960's television show, "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In".  Geraldine would frequently utter the phrase, "What you see is what you get." as she strutted her ample stuff.  This is the same show that gave rise to the careers of Henry Gibson, Lily Tomlin (Edith Ann), Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley (Who can forget her crazed and loony laugh?), and Arte Johnson (the man who always hid behind a palm-type tree and would utter the phrase, "Veeeery Eeenteresting".)  Later, the same phrase turned up in a pop song which had the refrain and title of "What you see is what you get!" 

If only that were true today.  If only we could be assured that what we do see is really what we do get......but we cannot.  PhotoShop, for one, makes reality out of illusion, trading images here and there to create deception through delusion.  Many photos are so digitized that is impossible to tell if the images were created by humans or were created from humans.  You just cannot tell.

Thusly, we have the phrase, "What you see is what you get.", that has been immortalized by the acronym, wysiwyg.  (See phonetic pronunciation above.)  I'd like to propose that for situations, television shows, and photos that are the "Real McCoy", the acronym, wysiwyg is attached somewhere in plain sight, thereby giving John Q. Public the assurance that what he is seeing, hearing, or experiencing has not been doctored in any way.  I believe the current, comparable buzzword is "transparency", a word that is vastly underutilized and, sadly, missing from our present-day vocabulary.

Yes, I have heard that before, and I'd like to hear it again!

Ancora imparo

Mr. Houdini, Can You Help, Please?

Life is curious, isn't it?  We humans make decisions - good and bad....... we humans perform deeds every minute of every day - some wise, some so-very-not-wise - sometimes forgetting that every action carries with it a consequence.....or consequences......that affect people other than the "doer" of the deed(s).   We forget that our wake-wave travels miles before it smooths out and cannot be detected.  Sometimes we act before we think.  Too bad we don't always think before we act.

And so it is with life.   

Try hard as we might, the best laid plans of mice and men do not always turn out as we envisioned or planned.  Some mess-ups are self-inflicted and some mess-ups are inflicted upon us by other people .  I'm not certain which type of mess-up is harder to deal with, although with the self-inflicted screw-ups we have no one to be disgusted with but ourselves.  Perhaps that is better, in the long run, that fuming about at someone else.

The anniversary of what would have been the 175th birthday of the late, great escapologist Harry Houdini occurred ten days ago.  Houdini was legendary in the world of illusion, kind of like our current Great Illusionist - only not with so much negative impact on our society.  Houdini was said to be able to escape any form of restraint and it was so very ironic that the one restraint that Houdini couldn't control was the restraint that his own body put upon him and he died of the effects of a ruptured appendix at the age of fifty-two.

As recent frustrations, disappointments, worries and other-inflicted mess-ups have been swirling about me as of late, I've been thinking about the genius of Harry Houdini and wished that I, too, could escape into some wooden-box with a fake bottom and just hide out for a bit.....hopefully with a good book, a better flashlight, a puppy, some great chocolate, a pooper-scooper for the puppy and a porta-potty for moi.  Upon further reflection, this probably would not work for very long because I'd want some electricity, my laptop, my two favorite pillows, a really good mattress, my cell phone, pictures of the Three Musketeers and frequent visits from my family......not to mention easy access to the Aqua RV.

I guess I won't be hiding out any time soon, but the concept of dodging other-inflicted mess-ups, other-selected bad choices, other-induced worries and disappointments does have some appeal.   With the exception of his ruptured appendix and subsequent, painful peritonitis, Mr. Houdini did have the right idea:  Let other people restrain you, break through their restraints and then go hide.....if only for a few minutes. 

Chocolate, a puppy, and a good book - now there's some incentive!

Ancora imparo

Inconsistent Ins

Capt. SO and I were outside this morning for our constitutional, luckily before the precipitative April Fool's joke from Mother Nature that now has it snowing gigantic flakes that are currently collecting on the ground.  We've changed up our routine, a bit, from past seasons of neighborhood walking and are now doing the "big hill" two or three times in a row, in an effort to improve our cardio-vascular health.  "Doing the big hill" would never elicit a Facebook "like" from either one of us but we know our hearts love the workout.  After we got to the top, on our last ascension, (Makes it sound really impressive, doesn't it?), I posed the sarcastic question to Capt. SO, "Do we feel invigorated yet?" 

As soon as the word, "invigorate" was out of my mouth I said, "Wait a minute!  If the pre-fix "in" means not or non, how it is that "in" vigorate means to infuse energy into a person or routine?"  Because Capt. SO is not nearly as fascinated with word origins as I, he smiled as if he was tracking my conversation, but I knew he really wasn't.  I silently vowed to investigate my own mystery after we ran our morning errands.  Since we'd burned so many calories with our a.m. workout, we promptly went out for breakfast and ate way more calories than we had burned earlier.  Upon returning home, of course I headed straight for my favorite tome, "Mirriam - Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition".

What I found was that, over the years, I had forgotten that the prefix "in" has too dichotomous meanings.  One meaning is "not" or "non" and the other meaning is "into".  So, while inconsistent, inconsiderate, inconsolable, inefficient, inoperative, inconclusive, insensitive, incomprehensible, inviolate, ineffective, infallible, invertebrate actually mean not consistent, not considerate, not consolable, not efficient, non-operative, not conclusive, not sensitive, not comprehensible, not capable of being violated, non-efficient, not fallible, and not having backbones, the word invigorate is one example of the not-so-common use of the prefix "in" as in "into".

Is it any wonder that people trying to learn the English language - and even those who proclaim English as their primary language - find English so very difficult to learn and master?  Why shouldn't "invigorate" mean to deplete a person's energy level to that of exhaustion, rather than meaning to infuse an individual with a feeling of energy and vigor?

Yes, we are not consistent with our "ins".  How's that for obfuscation?

Ancora imparo