.... is probably not such a good idea. Not because someone will see me doing it, no one really cares as long as the Front Desk Chores are finished and no one needs anything. It's very slow this week which translates into "an incredibly boring eight hour shift."
But trying to compose something salient and relatively personal while in an environment that does not please me only makes me want to write mean and whining things. (The redwood trees do please me but overall it's just a job site.) No one wants to read another whining monologue about my sad life lament. Read the headlines of any newspaper in the world and you can see that so much of the population would cut off a couple of toes to be working here.
Sometimes things come down to one word: Money. That is why I work and why I cannot retire anytime soon. There just is not enough money in my future to allow that to happen. It depresses me somewhat, especially since I am now at the age of retirement and so many of my peers have already retired or are planning on it very soon.
I had drinks with some friends the other night and one woman basically said I should be doing whatever it was I loved to do which is, in no way, working at a fancy "hotel." I countered with "and how would that make any financial sense since the thing I love to do is travel and see new countries and explore the world?" She was insistent for a few minutes that there were ways out there to do it, such as create a tour business in some foreign city, or become a travel writer or some other thing that I have already considered. But without a grasp on a foreign language and with the physical restrictions that come with being in one's late 60's and without financial capital to start a new business in some travel capacity and on and on, how could I make that work? It wasn't that I was deliberately trying to be negative but I simply HATE it when someone tells me "do what you love and the money will come!" From where? Heaven? The lottery? The kindness of strangers? Life does not work that way.
In the end, I should have done what my brother tells me all the time: I should have picked a profession that would have provided a pension.
Instead I am surrounded by young people in their mid 20's, working for not much more than minimum wage, too old to start a new career and not decrepit enough to qualify for any kind of long-term disability. So work continues.
Thanks for listening. Below, a photo of my work location. Gotta love those trees!
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As did so many people, I read about the eclipse of the moon that took place last night and all about the Blood Red Moon and all of that. In that small part of my brain that holds the file on "Random Scientific Events" I filed it in the front so I would realize it was happening when I walked the dogs on Sunday night.
Here is what really took place. On Sundays I work until 6:00 and therefore it is close to 6:40 as I come east on River Road, aiming for Highway 101. It was a long rainy day but just as I was about a mile from 101 the clouds scurried away for a minute and I saw this amazing huge moon and I actually said, out loud, "Holy Cow, look at that!" (I often say things out loud in the car even when Cooper is not with me. Often times they are swearing things, bad words aimed at other drivers, but last night the words were aimed at that enormous moon. No bad words were uttered.) I continued to stare at that moon until I had to resume concentrating on driving and getting home.
Once home, I took Cooper and little Hannah (a dog, not a person) out for a walk and then returned, fed them, had a cocktail and then some soup and finally it was time for their last walk of the evening, around 10:30. Imagine my surprise when I saw the moon at that time and it was less than a quarter of the full moon I saw just 4 hours before! Seriously, I stood on the sidewalk shaking my head and I said, again out loud, this time to the two dogs "What the fuck? How is this possible? I know I saw a full moon, what is going on?" The dogs had no response. Neither did I so I simply continued on, walked them, came back and went to bed and thought nothing of it.
Well, you can imagine how dismayed I was this morning when I read all about the eclipse and the red moon and on and on. I had, indeed, seen a huge moon and I did also see a quarter moon but did I put those two things together with the concept of the eclipse, which I was looking forward to? Of course not. Stupid and forgetful, yes. Major DUH moment. I was disappointed that I had forgotten the entire eclipse thing and was a bit unsettled as well. Should I be concerned about my crappy memory? Maybe. It isn't crappy all the time but ..... perhaps it isn't even outside the norm but at my age one considers these kinds of memory failures to be a portent of what's to come.
Don't tell my kids about this. They don't read this blog so it will be up to me to monitor my forgetfulness. It does give me pause, I must admit.
OK, time for bed. Another work day tomorrow. I hope I remember to set the alarm.
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This is the sort of blog that no one wants to read unless you want to read about random strangers family reunions and no one wants to do that. So feel free to cough a little and turn the page.
A few months ago I realized that the last time all my siblings got together was August 19, 2016 to toss my Mom's ashes illegally off a cliff near Sonora, California. It was a nice tossing ceremony (the park ranger politely looked the other way) and then we gathered for a dinner in a local Sonora restaurant and the best part was hanging out by the pool at the hotel in Sonora, listening to three of my brothers play soft music late into the night. Other hotel guests hung out with us and enjoyed the music as well. Some of my siblings went to Mass the next morning and were not enlivened by that experience. My kids and their mates and me did not opt for that Sunday morning church thing. We had coffee and scones instead and we were quite happy with that choice.
Whew.... so, a few months ago I contacted my siblings to see if we could all find a time to get together and this past weekend was the favored date and so we did. Jenn and Dar offered their house as the gathering and eating spot. Everyone came to Guerneville on Friday and/or Saturday and spent one or two nights and we had a great time. Some of us gathered at Autocamp (autocamp.com) on Friday because I got a good discount on trailers Airstream rooms and of course a discount makes everyone happy. People did their own Saturday morning activities and we all finally converged on Jenn's on Saturday afternoon. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and that meant the pool table was accessible and many games were played. Donna, my sister-in-law, played the first game of pool in her life! My sister Kate and I played our first game together in our lives! (I hope Kate and Donna and I can play again, soon, and perhaps become pool sharks in our waning years, although are years are not waning quite yet.) A large wine bar was set up in the garage with a great deal of wine to sample, and sample we did. Jenn made two different kinds of lasagna, along with stellar garlic bread and salad. (The meal was preceded by lots of snacks, of course.) Dessert followed, Lemon Shaker Pies (thanks to Joe and Donna) and chocolate cake and cookies and two pounds of See's Candy (thanks to Kate) and more wine.
There was a bonfire. There was endless conversation and even more laughter and family memories. Joe, Jeff and John played music and Jenn sang along and people were happy and tipsy and smiling all the time.
Everyone was back at Jenn and Dar's by 9:20 on Sunday morning for coffee and more food. (No one opted for a religious experience that morning.) I had to go to work but it was with a smile on my face. As different as we all are, all six of us share one thing in common: we usually like each other. And we mostly love each other. Yes, we sometimes argue, we sometime disagree, we often go weeks or longer without talking. But we all get along, we are all there when needed. We would all have each other's back.
And that is a good thing.
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Four years ago I read "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande and I probably wrote a blog about it. My Mom was alive then and we were in the process of trying to solve the "what to do with Mom's living situation" dilemma. Gawande had very salient things to ponder about that situation and I appreciated the book.
This book is one that everyone over the age of 40 or anyone with an aging friend or relative should read. Not that it solves anything but it gives the reader a lot to think about and some solid advice about approaching the end of life. And about approaching life in general, whether the end or the middle.
I just finished listening to the book on CD in my car and it is possibly even more relevant now, even though my Mom is no longer with us. (She died in 2017.) Maybe it's because I have been thinking a lot about getting older and about death and the best way to approach old age and all of that. (Thankfully I am in good health so it is still just speculation, except for the getting old part; that is biting me around the ankles all the time.)
Gawande discusses the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self." It seems, after simply typing those two phrases into Google, that many people have been discussing the same topic. I am finding it not just relevant to myself (and it should be to everyone) but incredibly fascinating on a day-to-day basis. The experiencing self is our moment by moment life as we experience (aka live) each episode that comes at us: this moment at work, that moment walking the dog, gazing out the window, going to the dentist, everything. We don't consciously think about each experience. Some are good, some bad, some just are there.
The remembering self is the one that guides us, it helps us make decisions, it sorts out the happy moments from those experiences and the unhappy moments and the remembering self is the part of our being that defines our feelings about what we experience.
Here is one good example: you watch a baseball game and it's a great game, your team is ahead, you are delighted in the projected outcome. For 3 hours you are happily watching the game. Then, in the bottom of the 9th inning the opposing team scores ten runs, your team loses the game and those 3 hours of enjoyment are gone. Now you view that game as terrible, nothing about it is enjoyable. You don't remember the joy of the 8+ innings, you only remember the crappy ending. Two hours later you are talking to your baseball buddy and you both agree: what a stupid, fucked up game. The experience of watching the game and enjoying it has been overtaken by the memory.
I saw this a lot with my Mom. She fell many times and at one point was in the hospital for five days and then in a rehab place for a couple of weeks and none of it was pleasant. But what she remembered, what became the truth to her was not the fall or the hospital or the rehab facility. To her it was all about how nice the people in both places were. Nothing about the pain or the terrible food, just a nice fantasy about kind people.
We all operate this way. The "experience self" should be the self that guides us but because the experiences are so overwhelming (because experience never stops) we rely on what we remember and upon that we are guided. If you have a really terrible medical procedure, like a colonoscopy, you never, ever want to have another one. But if that colonoscopy is painful in the beginning but calm and soothing at the end and the drugs made you happy, having another colonoscopy is nothing to fear because you only remember the end, not the pain. Childbirth is sort of like that as well. We remember the final push and the baby that is placed on our chest; the pain getting to that point is not forgotten but the pain doesn't define the experience.
Why am I thinking about all this? I am not sure. But it has been following me around for the past week, this experience vs memory conundrum.
Enough on this for now. However, if you haven't read "Being Mortal" please do. It is a small book but heavy in its meaning.
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What an amazing film this is from National Geographic. In 2017 Alex Honnold climbed El Capitan in Yosemite without anything except his hands and feet and mind. No ropes, no gear, nothing. And he did it in less than four hours.
As this movie begins, from the first close-ups that pan out to wide angle shots, my stomach was in knots from the fear of falling. The camera work is amazing. But what is more amazing is the simple fact that Alex climbed a shear face of a granite mountain, 3000 feet of straight up rock, all by himself. My hands sweated the entire time.
Alex is charming in his off-putting way. It doesn't hurt that he is cute and frisky but he makes no attempt to be endearing or loveable. In fact, at times he is a bit of an asshole, but we, the viewers, can let that slide a bit because we are sort of on his side. He wants to make this climb, we get that. The fact that he has some sort of armor around himself to make that happen is more difficult to accept, but we do because this is a herculean task, to say the least.
One mistake, one small mistake and he falls and he dies. Alex does the ascent several times with ropes and we see him fall, with the ropes, in the more difficult sections. When we watch him do it solo, it is terrifying.
This deserves to be seen on a screen larger than one's television. It is a short movie, about 90 minutes or so. Go see it. You don't need to be a climber to like it, you simply need to appreciate drive, dedication and obsession to get it. Yosemite and El Capitan have never looked lovelier.
Two thumbs up.
