No News Today

Sometimes I think of things I'd like to blog about, and I jot them down -- well, keep track of them, anyway. Typing on a keyboard attached to a computer with a word processing program isn't actually "jotting," is it? Anyway, I just consulted that list, all the items of which are at least a year old, and was confounded by these three:

Dirty martini

Clean kitchen towel

Doctor office, waiting room, magazine flip

No idea whatever. Because of my recent illness, I haven't had a martini in over a year. I like them only ever so slightly dirty, but that doesn't seem like much of a topic for contemplation, much less conversation.  The clean kitchen towel doesn't ring any bells either, and I suppose I was going to make a crack about people flipping through magazines in doctors' waiting rooms, but I don't know why, except, perhaps, because I myself do not flip through magazines.

When I pick up a magazine in a waiting room, I turn to the Table of Contents at the front to see if any article appeals to me. If so, I open to that page. I do notice that many people tend to flip backwards, which seems rather silly, but I'm still not sure there is anything here to blog about.

So, I guess I won't write about any of those things today.

Spell Bound

I have seen a television commercial a number of times for State Farm Insurance in which they continue their (somewhat ridiculous) theme about assisting people, attempting to draw a parallel between assisting people with insurance claims and scoring an assist in a basketball game. In the commercial, apparently to spotlight the teamwork concept, someone says, "There is no I in assist."

Really?  How are they spelling that? Assyst? Or maybe they mean a cyst.

If you doubt it will cause school children to misspell the word, remember how many thought that relief was spelled R-O-L-A-I-D-S.

Just Shout

Speaking of Spartan Village, we had a problem with some very noisy neighbors in Apartment J when I lived there (in E).  J was right above my next-door neighbors in D, and we started to enlist other neighbors in our cause to do something about it.  The people from D said they'd talk to the people in C, the man in I would talk to the people in H, and they assigned K to me, since it was directly above me. I had never seen the person from K and, in fact, for a long time thought it was vacant because I never heard anything from that apartment.

I walked down to check the names on the mailboxes and was disappointed to see that the person in K was named Yoshihara.  In my experience, foreign students do not like to get involved in matters of this sort, but I planned to give him or her a try.

A day or two later I looked out my front window at the parking area for our building and saw a Japanese woman washing the windows in her car.  I assumed she was Yoshihara, so I took a deep breath and went forth to try to recruit her.

I said something like, "Hello," and she turned to look at me.  I pointed to her apartment and said very carefully, "Do - you - live - there?"  She just sort of stared at me, but I carried on.  "Those - neighbors," I said a little more loudly, pointing at J, "are - very - noisy."  She nodded her head.  "We - want - all - the - neighbors - to - get - together - to - complain." I used broad gestures, and since she was looking at me so strangely, I followed the universal law that if someone doesn't understand you, you say it louder.  Finally Ms. Yoshihara said somewhat tentatively, "I would be willing to join with you."

Her English was perfect, and I suddenly asked curiously, "Where are you from?" to which she replied, "Hawaii."

So that explains why she stared at me as if I were nuts, because shouting English at a fellow American is kind of a crazy thing to do.

No Phone

I keep my own personal Book of Lists, not necessarily of "curious things" of which Wallechinsky's original boasted, but such things as every address I've lived at, every job I've had, every state I've been to, and so forth. (The longest is the list of casinos I've gambled at.)

There is one missing piece of data that bugs me: I can't remember the phone number I had when I lived in Spartan Village, Michigan State's apartment complex for graduate and married students.

My wife and I took a joy ride last Friday, just to get the stink blown off us, as my mother used to say, and happened to find ourselves in the general neighborhood of Spartan Village.  When I lived there, the telephones were provided by the University, with 355- as the exchange, and the numbers went in order as you went down the line of apartments.  I wondered if the numbers were still the same, so I insisted my wife drive to the building I once lived in. Although MSU is still on break, I saw a light on in Apartment E of my building and boldly approached. My knock was answered by a tall young man of some foreign persuasion who seemed curious but friendly, and I began by saying, "This is going to seem real weird, but I used to live here."

That delighted him, for some reason, and he invited me in. I explained what I wanted and why, and so that he wouldn't suspect me of wanting to stalk him, I asked for just the last four numbers of his phone number. I figured I would know it when I heard it, even if it was 30 years ago. But the number he gave me, which he read off the telephone itself, had a zero in it, and I know my number didn't have a zero in it.

The young man invited me to sit down and when I declined, invited me to stay and have supper with him. Poor guy. Christmas break can be a lonesome time of year.

My wife still can't believe I had the nerve to do that.  Moxy, she called it.

Well, yeah.

Starting Afresh in the New Year

That illness I spoke of last April is, I sincerely hope, behind me now.  Finally.

From March to November, five hospitalizations, one major surgery, and plenty of at-home care, provided by a few visiting professionals but mostly provided by my loving, saintly wife who learned so much about pills, needles, drains, infusions, nutrition, and general nursing that several of my doctors thought that she must have a medical background.  But no, just a loving interest in her patient.

The medical types seem convinced I was near death, and if that was really true, then my beloved wife saved my life.  I could not have recovered without her.

My wish for everyone in the new year is that they have a spouse (or someone in their life) even half as dedicated and wonderful as mine.

Thanks, JB.  Now, let's get back to enjoying our retirement.  There definitely is travel in our future.