Temporally Challenged Weekend

This past weekend there was some kind of time flux going on around my house.  Both my wife and I got the date and times of a couple of events totally screwed up.  She was very late to a baby shower she initially thought was on Sunday and then came downstairs to make breakfast on Saturday and realized she had 30 minutes to get to the shower which was 45 minutes away.  High adventure followed as she tore around the house and then flew out the door.  Fifteen minutes later I was helping her negotiate with the car’s navigation system over the phone.  On Sunday we were scheduled to go down to Rhode Island for my nephew’s birthday party.  I thought it was at 2pm and we received a call at 1:30 from my sister wondering where we were for the party which began at 1.  I was intensely embarrassed and very angry at myself as we flew down to the party, arriving disastrously late.  We later figured out when I received the invite from my sister I told my wife the party was from 1 “to” 3 and my wife wrote down “2” to 3.  I was still extremely disappointed in myself.  Being on time is something I take a lot of pride in.  I actually feel very anxious and out right angry if I am going to be late for something.  This was something of a challenge early in my marriage because I married a Panamanian gal.  Panama is a beautiful country and the people are some of the nicest I’ve ever met but as a culture they are incapable of being on time.  It’s something that doesn’t seem to bother them.  You can only imagine the clash of priorities when my wife and I first got together.  It came to a head early in our marriage.  We were supposed to go to the battalion commander’s house for a party.  As a junior officer, I could not be late, something I reminded my wife of several days before and constantly the day of the party.  As we got closer to the time she was no where near ready despite several warnings that I would leave without her.  She still puttered around and was not ready.  I left without her and arrived on time.  After several days of sleeping on the couch we talked about it and I explained how important timeliness was to me.  She has gotten much better over the years and now gets exasperated when some of her Latino friends exhibit their typical tardiness.  We used to host parties and invite groups of friends from both the military and the Latino friends we seemed to acquire whenever I was stationed.  If the party was at 8pm, by 8:15 all the military friends would be there.  They would start leaving around 11 and that’s when most of the Latinos would be arriving – it made for some really long parties.  The rest of the weekend was very restful.  I even completed the first of the many 1000 piece puzzles that I received as Christmas gifts.  I was proud when I looked the puzzle up and found out it was an “advanced” level difficulty (I don’t know if that meant advanced for kindergarteners but what the hey, I still took a little pride).  The puzzle, pictured below, tugged at my heart because it was of three dogs.  The three dogs in the picture reminded me of Buddy our current dog, and two dogs that died a couple of years ago that we absolutely adored, Skyla and Estrella.  It was kind of eerie and appropriate to have all three together and the picture was an almost perfect depiction of how they would interact if they were together.  I’m sure the person who gave me puzzle thought he same thing, it was a lot of fun putting them together.  My wife wants to frame the puzzle and put it over Buddy’s kennel.

From the left, Skyla, Buddy, and Estrella, together at last

Friday Night's Alright

Last night my wife made plans for us to meet up with some friends in Worcester for pizza and beer.  Friday night is always pizza night and this was a nice change up for our normal routine.  I got home and was told we would be meeting this couple and had to leave immediately.  I was kind of hoping for a little bit of respite but when my wife has a plan - she is not to be denied.  We ended up arriving and waiting for for about 15 minutes for the other couple.  After a half hour the third couple joined us and we had a fantastic time as stories and jokes were flying.  The restaurant was owned by an Italian guy named Luigi is also the hairdresser for all the females in the crowd.  Luigi has reached almost legendary status and he enjoyed coming over to visit where the wives all treated him like a rock star.  He seemed harmless and did send us over a free dessert.  As dinner was winding down and I was preparing to get in the car and head home, still tired from no break after work, my wife and another revealed they wanted the group to head over to another bar where Latino music was scheduled to be played.  The other husband and I agreed that this must have been planned ahead of time by these two.  My wife abjectly denied any such thing and offered as proof that she did not wear dancing shoes, thin evidence in my book.  The guys got revenge when we showed up at the other place and found out it wouldn't be opening for another hour.  Not to be denied the wives quickly shifted plans and we headed to a Japanese restaurant, of all things, where a live band was supposed to be playing.  When we arrived the band was just setting up and after 45 minutes it was clear they weren't really sure how to with several people from audience offering advice.  This became so funny I decided I had to wait and see what they could do.  When they finally did take the stage they all wore 70s era costumes to include some really atrocious wigs.  As anyone in my family will tell you I have no musical ability, whatsoever, but even with that limited ability I could tell these guys were almost historically bad.  There was a high level of unintentional comedy which in itself was kind of entertaining.  This was a group of 20 somethings because as they tried to play 70s music it was obvious they were lost.  Still as we headed home I had to smile because it had been a very entertaining evening.

Female Respect

I was raised by my mother to respect the female gender.  She was a strong willed and very powerful influence on my life.  She was a victim of abuse at the hands of her brothers when she was young and struck out on her own at a very early age.  She was adamant that I, or any other male, should never hit a female.  She made this a baseline of my upbringing.  This was challenging because I grew up with three sisters who tested this edict to the extreme.  Growing up in a female dominated house (even the dog was a female), my father was gone at an early age, had it benefits though.  While I'll never understand females completely, they guard some of their secrets too well, I think I'm a better man because of it.  I have never struck a female, never will, and have complete contempt for any "man" who would.  I raised my own son the same way and I know he was sorely tested by his older sister almost from birth; much more so than I was by  three sisters.  It's a testament to his courage that he never hit her, I know he wanted to.  Saying all this, I find it distressing to watch some of the social "norms" I see in today's youth.  Maybe its a result of more equality between the sexes or a product of of too much rap music (I try to blame most of society's ills on rap music).  There just seems to be a lack of respect, with women referred to in derogatory manner by a lot of young men.  I was in the locker room last night after my work out and two young men came in and started squawking to each other about the women in their lives.  This went on for a couple of minutes, oblivious to anyone else in the room.  They never failed to refer to their women as "bitches" and that what they needed was a good "slap upside their head".   I was seated and facing away from them.  When they said this, I couldn't help myself, I snorted in derision fairly loudly. The loudest of the two then said to me, "You got a problem, old man!"  This was not the brightest thing for him to say at that precise moment.  I stood up, turned around, and gave him the same look I'd given a couple of thousand young Soldiers, the same age as this punk.  I told him, "I don't, but you might." I don't think he realized how much bigger than him I was.  He kind of paled and beat a quick exit along with his other skin headed buddy.  An elder gentleman sitting across the way said thank you as I was leaving.  I felt good because I thought my ability to intimidate had waned with the years.  I thought they might try to jump me in the parking lot but they had beat feet like the cowards they are.  I'm glad I didn't have to explain to my wife how I got into a fight, at my age.  I hope those idiots learned something, I kind of doubt it.

Tree Take Down and Mixed Messages

Last night was the one of the days I dread each year, the day we have to take down our Christmas tree.  I fight doing it until the tree represents a really serious fire hazard in part because I don’t want to let go of Christmas.  I think this tree reached that point last week. I loved coming home and being able to see the tree as soon as I turned the corner.  My wife finally put her foot down last night and the tree was defrocked of all ornaments and I was then faced with the daunting task of getting it outside.  The tree seemed to have enjoyed its stay so much that is had really spread out.  This coupled with a full water basin, since it stopped taking in water shortly after Christmas, made this a challenge.  Buddy was enjoying the adventure and was charging in to assist me whenever he felt it was most appropriate.  This usually meant the worst possible moment for me, but I do love that dog.  After I crawled out from under the tree, I went downstairs and came back with a set of pruning shears.  Three cuts later and the tree was out the back door.  Buddy was a little disappointed with the anti-climatic termination of the fight.  Earlier in the day I made reservations for my wife’s annual return to visit her folks in Panama.  She really does hate cold weather, something she reminds me of semi-constantly.  We had plans to go down to Panama together in March to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary along with her parents’ 60^th.  She had been dropping some fairly definitive hints over the last few days (coincidently with a cold front) that she wanted to go down early and have me join her there for the celebration.  So when I came home with her ticket she responded with tears and said she felt bad leaving me alone for so long.  When I reminded her that this was exactly what we had agreed to the night before she said that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to miss me.  This is the confusing thing about dealing with the female of our species.  I go out and do exactly what she asked for and she gets emotional and upset.  She has such a big heart that she was honestly upset but this morning she seems to have recovered (it was 15 degrees outside).  She leaves in a couple of weeks and I’ll spend the time leading up to that fending off light hearted accusations that I have a woman in the wings waiting to come in and warm the bed in her absence (she seems to think they’re lurking in the tree line out back).  I’ll really miss her because she’s a tiny person but she fills up the house and my heart when she’s around.  Buddy, I’m sure, is looking forward to more quality time with me and a certain lack of structure in both of our lives during her absence.

Parades – What’s Not to Like?

I was Actually in this one - I'm standing at Base of Right Flagpole - Yellow Striped Pants

I wrote yesterday about the love I have for parades in general.  I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire where parades took place regularly, Memorial Day, 4^th of July, Veterans Day, a Fireman’s Parade and a couple of others that I can’t recall.  What I can recall are the feelings these parades elicited from a young boy.  Some of best memories I have are of watching these parades make their way through the main streets of my hometown.  I can clearly remember a huge sense of pride when I saw my father, a Cub Scout leader, break ranks from the parade and wave to me.  I think I committed at that time to becoming a cub and then Boy Scout, if for no other reason than it would allow me to march next to my dad in a parade.  That never happened because for some reason he left scouting by the time I was of an age to start, never quite figured that out.  I do remember the biggest highlight of any parade for me was when the Soldiers marched by.  I guess the cosmos was trying to tell me where I was headed but I thought the Soldiers were the coolest thing by far in any parade.  I still remember seeing my first tank in a parade in a different town, it tore the hell out of the pavement – which to a seven year old kid was just simply awesome.  My generation was raised by the survivors of World War 2 and the most popular game I played as a kid was called Army where we would split into two warring factions with our toy guns and stalk each other.  I’m sure political correctness or video games have replaced that tendency.  In the long decades since that childhood I have marched in countless parades, including two presidential inaugural parades.  I have pretty much tapped out the well of actual participation; it is definitely a spectator sport for me now.  For that reason I bemoaned the coverage of parades offered to the television audience.  It has gone the same way as coverage of the Olympics and many other sports.  The announcers talk --- all --- the --- time.  They cut away from the actual parade to give us innumerable background, usually aimed at heartwarming, stories.  This first started when NBC began broadcasting the Olympics and seems to have become the paradigm for coverage.   Two other channels had promised commercial free coverage of the parades but they were mysteriously blocked by the cable company when the broadcast channels had the parade on, hmmm.  It’s almost as if they think we’re tuning in to watch these clever stories and listen to the “trying to make a name for him/herself” announcer (thanks Chris Berman for that) instead of the actual event.  There were a couple of marching units approaching (yes, one of them was bagpipes) when they cut away for some nonsensical story about a band mopping floors to make it to the parade and then John Naber (personal hero of my youth whom I actually met – but I digress) was telling us about the guy in charge of dispatching the marching units.  We end up missing a large percentage of the parade because of these antics, yes, including the bagpipe band, damn it.  My brother in law, a member of the sports media, laughs when I hold forth on the descent of sports coverage into this miasma.  He says, they know you’re going to watch anyway, they’re going after people who wouldn’t watch without this garbage.  Well they’ve gone too far.  I’m voting with my absence.  I still love parades though!

Attention to Detail and Parades

Yesterday I sat down to watch this year’s Tournament of Roses parade, something I try to do every year, hangover permitting.  I noticed something when I started making comments to my wife about the lack of precision in some of the marching units.  Something that is drilled into all Soldiers, me included, is the importance of attention to detail; making sure all the small things are done correctly.  This is, of course, very important in the military where the small things have a tendency to rise up and bite you in the ass at the least opportune moment.  This tendency was further distilled in me with an assignment to The Old Guard, which guards the Tomb of the Unknowns, performs military funerals in Arlington National Cemetery, and ceremonies throughout the nation’s capitol.  Precision is demanded and raised to an art form in that unit, a truly zero defects outfit.  I served in a leadership position charged with ensuring the incredibly high standards were met and maintained.  I was interviewed for an article in the Smithsonian magazine about military funerals at Arlington.  The author and I viewed a couple together and he asked me about the notes I was taking.  I told him about some minor problems I noticed with the funerals that needed to be corrected, a slight ripping (not sounding like one shot) of the volleys and how several of the Soldiers were late in a several movements which should have been done in unison.  The author just nodded and later when I read the article he marveled that I noted anything in what, to him, had been a flawless ceremony.  I thought at the time, “Civilians!”  Later in my career I was in charge of training officer cadets.  One of the easiest, yet hardest to accomplish, drills involved attention to detail.  I put one of the cadets in charge and told him/her to have everyone show up in the same uniform with their equipment positioned in the exact same fashion.  Being cocky college kids, they figured this was easy and the leader would just tell everyone how he/she wanted them to show up.  The first thing I did when they did assemble was to inspect.  I found, each time, multiple, although small, differences on each cadet.  This became a torture session for the leader whose people had failed so miserably in this simple task.  I would then give them 15 minutes to fix the problems I had noted.  Invariably it took three or four inspections before they finally were even close to meeting standards.  While this was painful for the cadet leaders and left them wondering why I was being so “picky” they were learning valuable lessons they would need in their military careers.  They learned to check to ensure guidance was met, to enforce standards, and to assume responsibility for their mission.   While this is all well and good, this tendency, drilled into me for nearly three decades, has robbed me, to a certain extent, of the pleasure of watching a parade or a ceremony without noting the errors being made.  I can even find issues with the rockettes.  This is something simple but at the same time, I felt a sense of loss, something else sacrificed to a military career, extremely minor though it might be. 

Happy New Year

We had a low key but very enjoyable New Years Eve last night.  We stayed at home and hosted several couples for a late dinner and then dancing.  My sister and her husband came up and they're always a lot of fun, even if they had to leave early.  What I liked most about the evening is that we were all about the same age and the conversations were easy, the benefits of shared life experience.  I've never been a big fan of New Years Eve, probably too big a come down after the high, for me, of Christmas.  My wife on the other hand, is a New Years Eve fanatic.  She is a product of her culture which reveres late night partying, something I always felt was a huge point in her favor.  A couple of weeks ago she said we were not going to do anything on New Years Eve.  I told her that I didn't believe her and that she would change her mind.  Shortly before Christmas she revealed that she wanted the low key evening at home with these friends.  She threw herself into making the dinner, something else I really admire about her.  Once she decides she wants to do something she commits on a fundamental level that's impressive to watch, if somewhat scary if you get in the way, which I have an almost innate ability to do.  It's what I bring to the fight.  She baked a huge pork shoulder as well as many of the traditional New Year's Eve dishes of her homeland.  She had me searching the internet for the correct recipes and baking times and temperatures.  Google gets a big assist on the dinner.  She was nervous about it the whole day but it turned out fabulous.  Around 11:30pm she connected via video skype with her mother's home in Panama where her family was gathering for a party.  It was kind of neat sharing the party over such a long distance.  They had on shorts and t-shirts and all the doors were wide open.  We were a little more warmly dressed and all of our doors were closed since it was in the 30's outside.  As midnight approached we had on the Times Square scene for the countdown.  We were going to share it at the two locations but apparently midnight comes two minutes earlier in Panama so we missed out on that.  Both of our kids called and that completed the night for me.  It was a great way to usher in the new year.  This morning was a little difficult but we rangered our way through it and woke my daughter at the ungodly hour of 11am to get some more i-phone advice.  I'm guessing she was not extremely pleased by this but as always she was a trooper.  Buddy the Wonder Pooch spent most of last evening in his cage as his party skills have not progressed to the point he realizes jumping on female guests and stealing food is acceptable.  I'm not saying it never worked for me but, I digress.  He did make several appearances as the folks in Panama demanded his presence.  Today he triumphed when we presented him with the huge pork shoulder bone with generous hunks of meat still hanging off it.  He took it out onto the deck and spent three hours reducing it to shards.  So Buddy's year is off to a good start, just like my wife and I.