The Planet of Genii

My grandson constantly amazes me. His brain works on a rarified level that seems to indicate he emigrated from another planet.

Now, lest you zip off a critical e-mail to me, assuming I'm saying my granddaughter is less intelligent, just hold on. She has her own brilliance—artistic brilliance—which I will be extolling for years to come.

But Boston. Ah, Boston.

The other night the three of us were having our ritual Tuesday dinner at Denny's. He said, "When I grow up, I'm going to have a business that is a spa for animals. It's going to be named S'Paw. Get it? spa[w]. And the apostrophe between the "s" and the "paw" will be a pawprint."

I was flabbergasted. Would you please tell me what eight-year-old child thinks like that?! A lemonade stand? Sure. A life as a fireman or policeman? Sure. But a spa for animals with the logo already defined?

I'm impressed.

Following One's Passion

When I consider men who would be suitable to date, one of the first factors I consider is how they would mesh with my family. Would my children respect this man or think he's a buffoon. My sons love me very much—would they think this man was worthy of me, or think I had settled for less, maybe even far less, than I deserve?

I look at profiles on Match, and read about potential dates' interests. And the thought that comes to mind is: is following a passion, in and of itself, a good and admirable activity? Does it matter if the passion is an oddity? Does the fact that it's your passion and you've figured out a way to follow it negate the fact that it's somewhat off the beaten path?

Must I be comfortable with your passion, or does my belief in you enable and allow me to just be supportive of your passion rather than worrying about identifying with it?

If a man plays, for example, alto water glass in an eight-person water glass ensemble, and I think a water glass ensemble is just a little wierd, does that a) put the kibosh on the potential relationship; or b) function as one negative mark, to be weighed with and against all the other negative and positive marks that are amassed; or c) have no bearing — suck it up, it's just something he likes to do?

If you feel awkward saying to your friends that your new man plays alto water glass, do you simply not tell your friends about that aspect of your fella, or do you think maybe this is not the fella for you?

When husband #1, FOMC, and I had already agreed to separate, he decided it was time for us to go to a Marriage Encounter weekend (even though I had been asking and he had been declining for years!). One of the mantras of Marriage Encounter in the early 80s was "Feelings are not good or bad; they just are."

Is it the same thing for passions? A person's passions are neither positive nor negative, good nor bad, they just are? Does the goodness come out of following the passion, whatever it may be?

Okay. I'm old.

I went to lunch with three colleagues today. We went over to Donato's and used a $5 off coupon for some great thin-crust pizza.

I should set the stage by telling you I believe all three of these colleagues are under 30. One is, I believe, under 25. They're young. I'm not.

We were sitting, chatting and waiting for our pizza, when a fast, loud song came on the sound system, I heard the youngest of the three say something about liking cake. My mind was on the fact that tomorrow is monthly birthday cake day at my workplace. We get these cakes from the wife of a colleague, and the cakes are fabulous. I immediately piped up that I love the cakes this woman makes.

My lunch companions all burst into gales of laughter. They were talking about the band "Cake", whose song was being played all around us. I had never heard of the band "Cake".

I just had to laugh at this prime example of age disparities and life experience.
_____

Further, not only am I old, I am no judge of age. My colleague told me she and our best work buddy, both of whom I judged to be under 30, are actually approaching 32. And the young woman I surmised was under 25? Over 25 by a couple of years.

So does that make me seem to be 55 or younger?

Dating as a Memory Exercise

I've had two dates with a Very Nice Guy. And a third is scheduled. I am happy. I am elated. I have a whole new outlook on life.

Living alone has its good side and its bad side. The good is that I can drop my clothes on the floor and nobody complains. Oh, wait—maybe that's the bad. There's no one to shame me into picking up and putting away my clothes at bedtime.

The real bad side is the loneliness and isolation. I tend to use Facebook to counteract that isolation, and now that I admit that trait, I wonder how many other people (single or coupled) use it the same way.

One of the characteristics of the early stages of dating someone is all the facts you tend to exchange. Things like where you grew up and how many siblings you have and where you've lived and what jobs you've held and why, exactly, your ex did you a favor when he broke up with you.

As you're sitting and listening to the recital of these facts, you have to be focused. You have to not be thinking about the clever response you're going to come out with when he comes to a stopping point in his recital. You have to be focused on what he's saying, and you have to be tucking those facts away for future use or reference.

I may have mentioned that I got marked down on my recent performance appraisal at work for doing the daily crossword puzzle during [boring, seemingly unnecessary] meetings. (Okay, so the "boring, seemingly unnecessary" insertion is mine and was not included in my appraisal.) I explained to my manager, who is in his mid-40s, that after a certain age people, especially women, need to strive constantly to keep their brains alert and working. We are counseled and advised to work a variety of puzzles each week. Sudoku, crosswords, and other logic puzzles all exercise different little niches in our brains and help ensure that we won't forget our own names by the time we're 80.

But it occurs to me that dating over 50, over 55, and soon, over 60, performs the same function. I don't want to seem like I'm not paying attention, so I pay extra careful attention. Instead of trying to remember the word for "Diagonal line, on a bowling score sheet" ("spare"), I try to remember his mother's name, his brothers' names, his cousin's names, his relationship to x or y, what he majored in at the university, where he lived when he was first married, and the rest of the encyclopedia that is his life, thus far.

I'm wondering if I can slack off on the crosswords now that I've changed my focus from word puzzles to life puzzles.

Is there a market for Memory Lessons for [Over-50] Daters?

The Oneness of Music

Many thanks to PianoLady for passing this quote along to me tonight.

From Muriel Barbery's "The Elegance of the Hedgehog":

"A choir is a beautiful thing"

. . .Every time, it's a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there's this life we're struggling through full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck -- it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing. Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion. Even the singers' faces are transformed....I see human beings, surrendering to music.

Every time, it's the same thing, I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing. So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it's just too much emotion at once: it's too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I'm no longer myself, I belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir.

When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant. It is so beautiful.

In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song.

Six Ways You Can Help Haiti

I am deeply concerned with the effect of yesterday's earthquake on the Haitian people. Today I share with you Chris Sacca's post detailing six ways we can each pitch in to help.

How can we not help?!

Two Skids Forward; One Slide Back

Or: Doing My Part to Help the Local Economy

Let's start off by admitting that I put a lot of miles on my car each week. A lot!

On a normal work day, I log no fewer than 120 miles. On Mondays, with the drive to Akron for work and then Cleveland for rehearsal, it's about 175 miles. And then little jaunts like the post-Christmas visit to my mother in Western North Carolina add about 1300 miles to the odometer. To net it out: When I left Tucson at the end of February, 2008, the odometer showed 52,000 miles. When I took the car to the dealer for maintenance today, the total was over 133,000. That's a lotta miles.

My daily required commute to the office requires an enormous outlay for gas. I fill the car up every other day, and use mid-grade. The car's specifications indicate high-test is required, but as most of my miles are "highway miles", I cheat and just use mid-grade. When you add up all those gallons, and put them together with the wear and tear and monthly maintenance required because of the excessive mileage, it's no wonder that I can't seem to get ahead on my credit card bills. I'm spending a ton o' money on my commute.

I've complained for the past two weeks about not being able to get up my driveway through the accumulated snow. When I got the estimate call from the dealer today, my colleague suggested the reason I couldn't get up the driveway was not the snow, but rather my bald tires.

Today's Acura service visit mandated new tires (Michelin at $1200+ or Bridgestone at $980? I chose Bridgestone.), a new battery ($130+) and new windshield wiper blades. (At $30+, that's chicken scratch!) There will, of course, be other charges—change the oil, top off the fluids, … .

The only good news out of all this is that I've got a sound, reliable, safe car that should last me at least another three years or, thanks to the real estate crisis and my need for cash two years ago, until it's paid off.

The funniest part will be the call I receive in three days from the sales department of Acura of Boardman. A nice young man will offer to give me back everything I spent today if I trade my car in. Nice dream. Oops—no can do.