Stupidity on Steroids

You'd think that having lived to attain senior citizenship, I'd be less shocked and outraged by the behavior of the people I live among, as if age brought some kind of immunity from selfishness and stupidity.  You would, of course, be wrong.

Having persevered and plugged away at the government's healthcare website since its inception, a musician friend of mine triumphs and obtains coverage for himself and his wife.  After five years of being uninsured and still struggling desperately with the medical costs of a broken wrist, they can now afford to see a doctor. And for this, they are unfriended by fellow musicians who disapprove of the health care bill and disagree with their choice.  With friends like that, so the old saying goes, who needs enemies.  I'm happy to see that the vast majority of response posts are positive and that even the handful of negative ones are respectful - I put in my own congratulatory two cents and am pleased to do it - but it does set me to wondering about where this kind of hate and stupidity come from and how anyone in anything like their right mind could condemn and chastise another for a simple health care choice.  How did we get to a place where nothing, including the freedom to have health insurance, is free from the ugly taint of politics?   What kind of person unfriends a fellow musician over their opportunity to stay healthy and not go bankrupt?  What kind of sick mind accuses a friend of being a welfare-grubbing parasite?  It's stupidity on steroids.  And yet a part of me is not surprised.

Friendship is a delicate thing.  It requires patience and tolerance, loyalty and common ground.  It doesn't just survive if neglected and it's not genuine if it can be discarded over differing opinions.  It makes room for individuality and it understands pain and suffering.  It stands by you and wishes you good health.  Always and unconditionally.

Anything less is not worth keeping.

Six Apologies Later

It took two days to shake off the reprimand - it had been harsh, unexpected, unwarranted - and rather than protest or fight back or even defend myself I had simply shut down.  The injury was being scolded and unjustly punished.  The insult, which, to be clear, I added myself, was accepting it - seething with resentment - but accepting it. Where is the old woman who wears purple when I really need her, I wondered.

The doctor, of course, had spit his venom out and immediately moved on as soon as his temper tantrum was over.  Six apologies later, however, I was still feeling bitterly put upon and angry, a childhood holdover I can't seem to let go of.  Too often blamed for or accused of things I didn't do as a child, I came to be frightened of raised voices and I didn't suffer being punished at all well.  Why, I still wonder, is it necessary to demean and verbally abuse someone to make a point?  And the apologies....well, they were a little on the hollow side, all laced with what he considers his brand of Epsom Salts humor - no admission of wrongdoing, just a simple poultice to remove the sting of his tone of voice - as if to say, My only error was in expressing myself badly.
I can't help but wonder if he really believes words have so little power. 

My mother was fond of inflicting punishment physically - as long as my daddy wasn't home - but it was her words that cut the deepest and caused the most damage.  The bruises healed over, disappeared, or faded with time but the verbal abuse left permanent marks.  The scars of her jealousy and resentment and bullying never did.  Like the doctor, she rarely took the time to find out the truth or the facts, self righteously jumping in with both feet before she tested the water, condemning with an arrogant imperialism common in bad parents and bad employers.  Like the doctor, she wore us down with time and pressure and the inability to please. Unlike the doctor, she never lowered herself to an apology, false or otherwise.

So I take the verbal beating, trying to convince myself that all that really matters is that I know I'm innocent, telling myself that my knowing is enough.

 It isn't, but it's what I tell myself.

Later, when he realizes he was rude and unfair, hotheaded and just plain wrong - when he tries to make it up to me - I'll be casually gracious and tell him it doesn't matter.

I'll tell him I understand and have already forgotten it.   I don't and I haven't, but it's what I'll tell him.

No Refunds

Grab a plate and throw it on the ground.

Okay, done.

Did it break?

Yes.

Now say sorry to it.

Sorry.

Did it go back to the way it was before?

No.

Now do you understand?

No, you can't take back your words.  
Once you've said them, there's no refund.
 - Francine Chiar

Preaching to the Choir

The little dachshund rolls over on his back and grins at me while his tail thumps, thumps, thumps against the floor.  The motion and the noise prove too much for the kitten - she comes slinking around the corner, goes into pounce mode with her back end twitching and her eyes big as saucers - there's a second or two of pigeon cooing noises to serve as her advance warning system, then she springs like an eagle after an unsuspecting fish.  The  little dog gives a soft woof of surprise but on the whole is unfazed, idling giving a quick, little kick that dislodges her and then looking up at me for approval.

Who's a good boy, I say and his tail thumps a little harder, Who's a good boy to tolerate that rude little kitten.

I think of this later as I sit easily enough around a table at one of our upscale restaurants - without my camera and acutely aware of how unnatural it feels to have idle hands - to celebrate the birthday of a friend and fellow photographer.  I'm proud of myself for accepting the invitation and actually putting myself out in public minus a shield - still, I'm grateful for my unrestrained dinner companions and the fact that I'm called on to contribute very little - the conversation is loud, at times raucous with a great deal of unreserved laughter mixed in with the escargot and wine and pan sered trout.  I stay far longer than I'd intended and leave still thinking about how we interact with each other, how strangers become friends and friends become enemies and how obliging common ground can be.  To sit at a table of like minded people, artists all after a fashion and most certainly liberals and animal lovers, is like a warm welcome home.  It makes me feel a tiny bit hopeful, perhaps even a little less suffocated by the tightness of the Bible Belt in which I live.  It may be preaching to the choir but a little harmony never hurts.

Later that night as I crawl beneath the covers and navigate in and around a multitude of sleepy, warm, little bodies - none willing to give up an inch of space on the bed, can my little ones be republicans? - I congratulate myself for my evening out and drift off to sleep with a peaceful mind.

Lost & Found

Despite the astonishing level of ignorance on the social media site, I've never gotten into an active debate or really lost my temper over a posting until this:

Hey Dog Lovers,
The next time you see a dog running loose in the street, evaluate whether they look abused, lost, helpless etc.
My dog, who is a wild pack-dog, descended from the Native American dogs before us White folk came here, Carolina Dog, Dixie Dingo, has escaped from time to time....he always comes back! 
If they look well cared for, collared, good chance they are going to go home soon! If you pick them up, you are creating more problems!
Just last week when it was so cold, I arrived home at 10:00 after my restaurant job. I had an armful of stuff to take into the house...I open the door, Ellerbe takes off. A few minutes later, E returns and a car with a nice man and woman ask me if that's my dog! Yes!
They were gonna pick him up! 
I would have been really disturbed and worried about E had they succeeded! 
Don't be overly do-gooders!

I responded:

 Of course he "always comes back" until the day he doesn't. Dog running loose - whether needy or abused or not - are in peril and in violation of the leash law. Please don't blame or accuse people who pick up loose dogs and tell them they cause "more problems". Some of us don't like scraping dead animals off the streets.
I have a friend who makes banners.
Perhaps we could have her make signs for the non-needy, non-abused looking dogs that are running loose - "Please don't try to help me, I'm on my way home, and I'm immune to being hit by cars or getting lost". Owners could attach the signs to the collars and we'd never be accused of being "overly do gooders" or "creating more problems" than we solve by picking up a dog at large. I'll get right on that. Oh, and to be clear - if, God forbid, any of my dogs ever got out, they are NOT immune to traffic or getting lost so I'd pray that someone would be kind enough and caring enough to pick them up and bring them home. I wouldn't be offended.

I wonder if she'd be kind enough to tell me where she lives so we can watch for and not help her dog.  

And by the way - I'd have dropped that "armload of stuff" and gone after him in a heartbeat.  

It's not rocket science.
 

Friends for Now

Two hours into the whole remote access thing on my computer at work, I begin to see details of patients who aren't our's flash onto my screen - a very clear violation of privacy laws - and I suspect, an indication that the wretched non-English speaking wing nut in Pakistan now controlling my computer can't tell his ass from a hole in the ground.  The third hour proves me right when the connection is mysteriously broken without any repairs having been made.  Then with a kind of third world persistence, he calls back and asks that he be re-connected.

I am silent, trying to fashion a response that will convey my disgust and still qualify as "Playing Nice" as the doctor likes to tell me.  I fail.  

He asks again.

In your dreams, I say finally, I want an American supervisor.

He sighs.  Audibly.

Then stiffly attempts to talk me out of it.

Then finally - resentfully - agrees.

The American supervisor, grimly unapologetic and sounding as stressed as I'm feeling, finally comes onto the line but it takes another two hours and several re-starts before anything is resolved.  In the meantime, chaos reigns all around me and I almost miss the slickly inserted suggestion that the problems are not the fault of the software but somehow self-inflicted. 

That tears it - I'm headachy, out of patience, four hours behind, mad enough to spit, and I sense the old woman who wears purple tugging at my sleeve.  She gives me strength and I lay into the supervisor with everything I've thought about his overpriced, under-performing, useless, non-responsive trash software since day one.  And the morons who designed it.  And what's laughingly called tech support.  Especially tech support. But somehow, through it all, I remember where I am and my tone stays level and quiet.  When I'm done there is a moment or two of dead air and then to my amazement, he apologizes. Four times.  For the flaws in the system, for the time it has taken, for what he refers to as a less than perfect support staff and finally for his own lack of manners.  There's something suspiciously like sincerity in his words - I have so few work related non-scripted conversations that I barely recognize someone being genuine - but I'm positive they don't teach humility in his tech support classes and after my rant and raving, I'm suddenly at a loss for words. Not to worry though, he steps up to fill the empty space.

Friends? he asks almost shyly, Log off and then log in again and let's see.

I do as he tells me and the system responds - not with the "blazing speed" our new internet provider has promised but not like molasses uphill in a blizzard either - but rather somewhere on acceptable middle ground.
My southern self thinks it would be a good thing to apologize in return but my yankee self reminds me that I was justifiably provoked and overrules the inclination.

Friends, I agree cautiously but the old woman who wears purple gets the last word.  For now, she adds with a sly, satisfied smile.

The Polar Vortex

The serenade starts right after I crawl into bed and just begin to get warm, two or maybe more stray cats just under the front window, caterwauling as if it's the end of the world.  This operatic aria wakes and distresses the dogs who make a mad rush for the sunroom and begin to howl into the darkness in desperation.  The cats are not impressed and continue to sing - if this be song - and eventually I have to leave my warm bed and trudge to the front door to shoo them away.  I pray that they will find someplace reasonably warm and protected on this freezing night and I curse those who abandoned them. If anything in this life is true or certain, I hope that it's that there's a special place in hell for those sorry excuses for owners who neglect and abuse animals and children.  A thousand years of hellfire is far too mild and lenient a penalty.

Morning comes without much relief but the pipes haven't frozen and the car starts.  By noon, it's still bitter cold but not hurt-when-you-breathe, eyes-tearing-up, every-nose-hair-frozen kind of cold.  There's not much wind and the sun is really trying.  And there's nothing to shovel.  It could be worse, I remind myself, as I listen to a public radio story about a bike messenger.  In Milwaukee.  Where it's two below with 14 inches of snow on the ground and the wind chill is minus 40.  If you're a stray cat in Milwaukee, you're probably already dead.  It's warmer in Anchorage, Alaska then most of the midwest, the radio continues - something called a "polar vortex" is wildly out of control - and it's headed in this direction.  When I get home, I drag several of my dog and cat crates outside and fill them with old towels and blankets and some leftover straw and place them under the crepe myrtle, near to the heating unit and out of the wind.  I hope the strays will find and make use of them and with a little grace, survive the night.  Again, I think of hellfire.

Winter is a mean season, a killing season.  You save those you can, build shelters and pray for the rest.

Except for bike messengers who don't have the good sense to call in sick.

A House For One

The little house on Stafford Street, a clapboard two story with tiny, awkwardly designed spaces, sat on a small corner lot in a small New England town, a stone's throw from Main Street.  The halls were narrow, the staircase treacherously steep, and all the windows were painted shut.  It felt as if it had been built upward, squeezed from without like a tube of toothpaste so that moving from one corseted room to another required all your attention or you risked bruising an unsuspecting hip or elbow.  It was here in this house where I first began coming to terms with with my husband's addiction to alcohol as well as my part in it and it was no great surprise that it became, over time and struggle, a house for one.

Living through three rehabs and finally one long and painful separation gave me my first genuine taste of freedom and living alone.  After the initial shock and anger wore off and I'd overcome what I'd always seen as the impossible logistics of caring for multiple animals while working - it was just under 65 miles from Leicester to Framingham and even with the turnpike, an exhausting and tense drive to make twice a day - I discovered that single life wasn't the hell I'd imagined or feared.  The concept of coupling had been thoroughly driven into me by family and by society and I was an expert at keeping secrets so it took several years to decide to buck all the values I'd been taught.  I had, as it turned out, still several more years to go before I fully and honestly
comprehended what I was dealing with but here in this crooked little house, I took my first real steps - AlAnon three times a week, Aftercare at the hospital, counseling - all aimed at repairing my damaged mind and soul and learning to let my husband struggle on his own, without my well intentioned but sadly mistaken attempts to fix him.  I worked, I came home, I went to meetings, I read, I spoke out.  But most of all I discovered that a partner doesn't make you a person.  When push comes to shove, although we can surround ourselves with friends and sponsors and healthy people, we're still in it alone.  Someone may throw a lifeline, but we sink or swim by our own efforts.

The crooked little house became a metaphor for living with addiction - it was difficult to navigate, full of unexpected twists and turns, too small to be comfortable.  And I blamed it, conveniently choosing to forget that I had chosen it, not vice versa.  I would bump my head, trip on the stairs, or slam my knee and curse viciously when all I really had to do was watch where I was going and pay attention to the obstacles.  When the time came, it wasn't hard to leave behind but I missed the quiet, the solitary-ness, the hard won peace of mind.  I had no idea it would be another decade and two more states before I saved up the strength to try again.

Life is full of oddly built little houses, crooked journeys and peculiar people.  Take what you need and leave the rest.

The Ferryman

Well, I declare, my grandmother said with a sigh as she finished Aunt Pearl's latest letter, Linc Patterson passed away.  She folder the letter and looked thoughtful.  And here I was thinkin' he was too damn mean to die.

Lincoln the ferryman?  my daddy asked curiously, peering over the top pages of the morning newspaper, Old "Manners" Patterson?

One and the same, Nana said with a small smile in my direction, Ninety-six and never a kind word. I 'spect the devil'l have a time of it now.

When I was growing up, Linc Patterson had been a working ferryman for longer than most islanders had been alive.  A small man - wiry, compactly built and without a shred of humor - he had been known for being gruff,
tactiturn, impatient and volatile.  Especially with drivers who were new to the ferry, especially if happened to be low tide when the slip felt like a long and treacherous ski jump covered in slick seaweed.  The two twin paths of wire mesh leading down to the scow were supposed to provide traction but weren't much reassurance and Linc, standing with his his arms crossed defiantly, scowling and snarling, wasn't much of a guide.  On one particular morning, we were second in line behind a low slung station wagon with New Jersey plates, the back end weighted down with luggage and dog crates, kids hanging from every window and a pair of tourist parents looking nervous.  Nervous turned to outright apprehensive when they began the descent to the scow with Linc violently motioning them forward, shouting directions between curses and stamping his feet.

Gon' drag that back end, sure as shootin', Nana muttered, Ol' Linc gon' have a goddam heart attack.

Exactly as she predicted, the station wagon reached the end of the slip and the back end scraped with a tense shriek.  The driver froze and slammed on the brakes and the heavy car shimmied drunkenly, lurching toward the side of the slip.  Linc howled like a madman, snatched off his cap and threw it to the ground.

Goddam tourists!  he yelled, You there!  Straighten her out and get a move on!

The shocked driver just stared.

Linc retrieved his cap, clamped down on his pipe with a death grip and began walking up the slip toward the station wagon.  There was menace in every step and by the time he reached the car, things had gotten very quiet.   While the shaken driver rolled down his window and began chattering an apology, the ferryman stood impassively, thumbs hooked into his suspenders, eyes glittering.  Finally he took his old pipe out of his mouth and inelegantly spat.   Even from where we sat, second in line, we could see the tourist wife cringe.

Fine day for a crossin', Linc began amiably enough, But only if you kin git this goddam bucket of bolts on the goddam ferry.  

The driver continued to stare.

Now turn yer goddam wheels, the ferryman growled, straighten her out and git yer goddam sorry ass on the goddam ferry.  Or we'll push her over the goddam side!  You hear me, New Jersey?

Somehow this abuse got through and the driver did as he was told.  The station wagon lumbered onto the scow and was positioned - first on, last off - and Linc gave my grandmother a nod and an impatient wave.  The old Continental eased aboard with a grinding but familiar snarl as the back end scraped the slip and bounced free.
An oil truck and a tractor followed suit, each handing the ferryman the fare as they passed.  When he was sure there were no more passengers, Linc nodded to Cap and the little tug began to ease itself away.  The driver of the station wagon, still flustered but now on somewhat solid ground, emerged from his car and confronted the ferryman, wallet in hand.

What's the fare? he asked.

Linc considered the question.  Twenty dollars, he said finally.

The tourist took a step back.  The sign said a dollar for a passenger car! 

The ferryman narrowed his eyes and spat.  'Pears to me, he said finally, if you already know the fare then it's a waste of breath to be askin', you damn fool!

Now look here, fella, I don't know who you think you are....the tourist began but the words died when Linc leaned toward him.

I'm the one who got your sorry ass on this boat, he said quietly but clear as a bell, And I'm the one who can git you off.  That's who I am.  Fella.  Fare's a dollar.

The driver hesitated, then held out a dollar that Linc righteously snatched but it seemed that the driver wasn't done.  It's not right for you to talk to me like that, he said stubbornly.  The ferryman laughed grimly, wadded up the bill and jammed it into the pocket of his oilskins.

They pay me to git fancy city folk across this passage, he said shortly, Not fer my table manners!

And that was how, on a bright blue summer morning between Tiverton and East Ferry, Linc Patterson earned his nickname.  And kept it until the day he died.





  

The Subdued Side of Sixty

It's a cold and cloudy New Year's Eve day.  Rather than join in at one of the local hot spots, I opt for a covered dish supper at the local coffee shop where the celebration will be low key and non-alcoholic and the music will be gentle.  Here on the subdued side of 60, there's no need for bright lights and noisemakers to welcome in a new year - I'm content to have it slip in while I'm sleeping.

I'm not much for resolutions either.  I can't recall a single one that I made and kept and the whole process has begun to seem silly.  I can find enough guilt in just living one day to the next, no need to formalize it.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but since I don't drink and don't care to spend intimate time with those who do, drunkenness doesn't have much to recommend it.

All in all, it's pretty much just another day on the calendar only with fireworks.  Waiting for the dogs to make their last patrol of the night, I stand shivering on the back deck and watch the sky light up with reds and blues and whites and greens.  The colors explode against a background of stars.

The sun comes out the first day of the new year, a good sign, I tell myself even though it's still bitterly cold.
Here we go, 2014.  Behave yourself.  Keep your head down and your eyes on the road.