Wednesday night – Lent

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Greetings from Dulles airport.. I’m down in DC today at a client meeting.. Lots of smart people.. interesting topics.. I’m loving my job now.. and happy for that..

At  lunch today I heard someone talking about Ash Wednesday .. I have to  confess, even though my family is half Catholic.. I really don’t understand the rituals  of Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday., Maunday Thursday. but I find them fascinating. I really approve of the Mardi Gras idea of partying before periods of self denial.. Not sure I get the self denial part .. I do know that a part of Ash Wednesday is deciding what you’re going to give up to .. I’ve been thinking about that all day..>  A couple of months go I remember writing on a radio piece I’d heard on the ‘Wisdom of Quitting’ .  In that spirit.. I’ve been thinking about what I would quit for Lent if I were going to quit something. I know you’re supposed to give up soemthing you like.. but you can go without. Things like chocolate or sushi come to mind.. but those are too easy. Actually, my two real thoughts here are giving up 1) worry and/or 2) saying yes. ,, Now you might say that neither of those meet the criteria “…soemthing you like.. but you can go without” .. but I’d argue they do.. I am addicted to both…..

  1. On Worry.. when there’s nothing to worry about.. I make stuff up.. it fills some deep need in me to occupy my mind with all the bad things that can happen. It’s wired into my chromosomes.,, maybe wandering the desert for 50 years.. and the trials my tribe has faced since.. have  gave all my kindred a deep need to worry about something.    Maybe I can just shut that off for a month and see what happens. I have tired this before.. with some success.. so why not ?
  2. On ‘saying yes’.. I’m totally hooked on ‘new’.. I love new problems and new people.. so much so that I often pt more effort into ‘new’ than into nurturing the relationships I already have.. or finishing the projects I’ve always taken on. T  It’s like an emotional Ponze scheme.I use  the promise of the next new thing to get me through  the hard work of managing what I have on my plate. That leads to worry (see number 1)  I’ve been at this so long that the world has found a way to keep presenting me with fresh new opportunities for ‘Yes’ ..    What would happen if I said.. ‘no’ .. or even ‘maybe’ just for a month…. Or maybe even just waited 24 hours before saying ‘yes’.    I’ve promised myself I’d try to do this in the past.. But somehow.. I’ve always lost my resolve..

Ooops.. plane is boarding.. guess I’d better decide.. Hmmmm

I think I’m going for numeber 2 for my fantasy give it up for Lent pattern.. Limited ‘Yes’  for the next 30 days.. Who knows.. maybe thta will help with worry too..

 

OK.. more later..

nite all, nite sam

-me

ps. Check out these geat pictures of Gabe on the MMU website.. 

 

 

 

Tuesday night – Fat Tuesday

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Fat Tuesday, What a name for a day. ?! . I never really new it as that.. I grew up thinking about Mardi Gras. My fathers family had deep ties to New Orleans.. My great grandfather settled there from somewhere in Eastern Europe. My grandfather was raised there until his family moved to Central America.. First to Nicaragua.. and then to Honduras,  were my Dad and his brother, Bird,  spent their early years. When my Dad’s family moved back to the US, they lived in Georgia until he graduated from High  School.. Sometime after that the family moved back to New Orleans. That’s where my grandparent, uncle, great aunts and uncles all lived until they died. I still have my Aunt Brig. and a bunch of great cousins there.

I remember New Orleans being about a 5 hour flat and hot drive from Houston.. It wasn’t too bad in the winter.. I remember times when It might actually be in the 40’s or 50’s.. I also remember as we got closer to the city, the road went over swamps.. I remember great cajon food.. before cajon food was something you could find anywhere..   I can even remember folks speaking cajon and creole on the radio.. but that was back in the 60’s..

It was a strange, almost religious thing for us to go to Mardi Gras. .. I can’t even remember how many times we went.. it seemed like every few years.. but I suspect it was much  less than that.  My uncle Bird was really into it. He was part of a Krew.. a team of folks that put a float into the parade. I remember thinking how cool it was that here we were in the deep south watching a parade with white people. black people and even jewish people like us  all dressing up and throwing stuff to the crowd. We’d sit there shouting “throw me something mister !” . then fight each other for what came our way.  I liked the cheap plastic beads.. bu what we really treasured were the dabloons.., cheap plastic discs in a variety of shiny colors. Each had the mark of the Krew who through them. My uncle Bird had books an books of them.. some , I guess.. were rare..   He always showed us those with pride.

I also remember eating this weird cake.. King cake, they called it.. i had a plastic toy cooked into it somewhere. it was lucky if ou got the toy.. thinking back, it was lucky that you didn’t choke.. I remember going through the French Quarter with my folks.. We stop by and eat oysters and poboys at Mothers.. maybe get dark, bitter  coffee with chikoree and bignets at Morning Call… I remmeber it snowing once in Jackson Square..on Mardi Gras.. Snow in New Orleans ?!?!  My dad even took us into some of the strip clubs.. now that’s a real treat for a preteen kid !!

I guess the whole idea of Fat Tuesday  is to get everythign out of your system before the sterner time of Lent.. I never really ‘got’ Lent.   Given that Jews are raised to feel guilty all the time, I never quite understood the need to set aside a specific time for it.. . I always thought it particularly  funny that New Orleans.. a city with real party in its blood ,made the show of celebrating before Lent…. which they seemed to party through anyway. Now that I think of it.. many places around the world have something like that.. Carnival, Fasching, Fettisdagen.. Gosh.. How come more places in the US don’t have soemthing like Mardi Gras ?!

Anway.. Happy Mardi Gras everyone.> As they say. laissez les bon temps roulez !

 

nite all , nite sam

-me

 

 

Monday night – orbit

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I left Endicott before 6AM on my way to Ithica to pick up Diane. On the way there I heard that today marks the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s historic orbital space ride.

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He wasnt the first guy in space.. but he was the first human to circle the earth three times in space.. It makes me happy to see him still alive and kicking at the 50th commemoration of this . I grew up in the afterglow of that event Glenn was a hero to me and my generation. So much so, I learned this morning, that NASA wouldnt let him fly again lest they lose such an important figurehead. In effect.. his success grounded him… Something to meditate on, I suppose..

Since I was driving by myself in the predawn hours, my mind also wandered ot another important Orbit.. in 1979 I was an exchange student in Vienna Austria. I was teaching English at the Gymnasium IV on Graffstarhemebergasse (right opposite the Bozendorfer piano factory). At the time I was totally hooked on Orbit gum.. not only that..for reasons I cant remember, I refused to through away any of the labels.. For that the kids, and my school friends branded me Orbit. in fact.. my freinds in Gymnasium IV form VI-A still call me that..

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They gave me this goblet to remember them by.. and I certainly do remember them20120220-203406.jpg

I often wonder where those kids are these days. Im hoping that our painstaking translation of Pink Floyd songs from English to German and back has helped them all in their careers…

Heres to us all keeping our orbits stable !
nite all, nite sam
-me

 

Sunday night – Presidential

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We’re here in Endicott.. which means we get to watch TV>. I say ‘get to’ because we don’t really have TV at home.. I mean, we have a TV.. but it’s just hooked up to the XBOX>. no cable or antenna into the house.. It’s not that we can’t get cable.. it’s that we choose not to have it.. because.. we know we’d watch it all the time. So.. when we’re at a place that’s blessed with real live cable.. we dive in like glutton’s.. that means two bad scifi movies last night.. some reality TV (parking wars ? pawn stars ? .. and I thought our show was dumb !).. but today we watched Mad Men.. (never seen it.. it was about the JFK assassination.. it was brilliant !). a movie about Jefferson, a movie about Lincoln.. and a movie about Marie Antoinette… It took me a little while to figure out the theme.. but the frequent lame car dealership ads with Presidents Day themes finally broke through. even the TV channels were doing the presidents day thing (ok.. so Marie Antoinette’s not really a president.. but she wasn’t far off)

I found all of these things strangely moving. The Man Men treatment of the JFK assassination took me immediately back to being 4 years old and watching it on TV… barely understanding what was going on. The Lincoln story resonated deeply with me.. the story of a tortured and principled guy trying to do what he thought was right was deeply moving. More so was the story of how his son Willie’s death of typhus fueled Lincolns depression.. and from that forged his resolve to free the slaves. Jefferson’s pointless bickering with Adams that robbed them both of peace and satisfaction in what they both accomplished..Flawed and great men , all.

I know I’ll never be great.. I just hope to be that interestingly flawed…
here’s my start in that at least.

With that TV priming, I had a really fun president’s day eve.. Diane took off with Linda for a girls night out in Ithaca.. .. so Dave and I hung out this afternoon and went to check out a flea market an used book store in Owego.. .. Later on.. Dave went with me to a talk I was giving at U of Binghampton. About 100 students showed up on a Sunday night in the middle of a three day weekend.. amazing..

It was mostly made up of engineering students.. A great group of geeks and geekettes.

Here’s my hostess and good freind Wendy.. (she used to be at IBM)

 

 

Afterwards one of the students, Jennifer came up and gave me an origami turtle.. I named him ‘Clinton’  because it was almost President’s day.. and because he was red.. I don’ think I’ve ever gotten a cooler after speaking gift !

I ran into several old freinds at the talk.. My freind Tom was there with his wife.. Tom’s now ding a PhD. at BU.. .. He has a very cool ghost in his house…   and sings opera (Tom.. not the ghost) if memory serves.

My good freinds the Chen’s also showed up. It’s Emily the hatted one’s ) birthday.. she  just became a black belt in kkarate.

The talk I gave went fine.. but I talked to long.. I did get to hang out afterwards and tlak to the students which was really good fun..

Then Dave and I drove home… it was great getting to hang out with him for most of the day..

OK.. I need to get up early.. so I’ll end here.. more tomorrow..
nite all, nite sam !
-me