Weekend Update

Letters. We get letters.
We get lots and lots of letters.

Isn't it amazing that more than 50 years after they sang this on the Perry Como TV show, it still sticks in my mind. Anyhow, unlike Perry, I don't get lots and lots of letters and I certainly have no requests to sing the song you like best. But this being the weekend I thought it would be a good chance to catch up on a couple of responses to some posts.

First Jaki wrote after reading about my reaction to Robert's "innovative" diving suit design involving a fishbowl as my helmet, which also included a picture of an old dive suit that might have been stretched to fit me if I was content to never breathe out and forgo having blood circulate in my limbs.

She wrote: "Just wanted you to know that I had no part in the designing of the Dive Suit. Fact is I cried when he poured "Goldie" out in the back yard on the frost ridden grass, even the gravel was cold. As far as the "suit" part - that guy has been hanging in my laundry room for over 2 years now, can't imagine why he has no head nor where it could have gone but he seems pretty content to just hang there. I'll work on getting Robert to REALLY look into this project a little more SERIOUSLY."

I doubt that she will have much luck changing this mad scientist, but good luck to her.

And yesterday I was talking with my mother who had just read my ramblings about my body's not quite classical proportions in my last post.

"I think you were very unfair to yourself in your blog," she said. "You don't have a big head."

I thanked her for her totally unbiased opinion, but explained that it wasn't my idea but some street artist in Paris who had yelled it at me.

She obviously was still doing her motherly bit to help improve my self esteem, forgetting that a few days earlier she had told me she laughed til she cried reading about me scooting across the floor because my knee was a mess and I couldn't get up.

"And lots of people's arms are longer than their legs," she said.

"But my sleeve length is 35 inches, and my inseam is only 28," I said.

"Oh," she said. "You really do have short legs. I never noticed." Well, at least she tried to make me feel better.

And overhearing that phone call, the lovely LK piped in, "Even my legs are longer than yours."

And my bride, obviously also worried about my self esteem, quickly added, "But you do have a long trunk."

It's nice that the women in my life are trying to make me feel better. And I am a tad sorry they aren't a bit better at it. But, it doesn't matter. I am pretty comfortable with the hand I've been dealt (even if there are stubby fingers at the end of it).

In fact, in that earlier post about the big head, etc, I had meant to also write about the time I went to get the car serviced. A woman and her little girl were ahead of me at the counter when the girl turned around, opened her eyes wide and pointed.

"Look, Mama," she said. "He's got a fat tummy!"

Probably just as well I left it out. I'm pretty sure none of the women in my life are going to try to disabuse me of that one.

Coming to Grips with Myself

Now that I am retired, I have more time for navel gazing, although in my case I need a mirror in order to gaze at my navel. But today in the shower it occurred to me that I am spending far too much time worrying about the width and circumference of my body rather than its proportions.

I thought of this because I caught myself gripping the shower floor with my toes as I shampooed. Until I married Linda, I had not been aware that I spend much of my time gripping floors with my toes, holding on fiercely as if I am unconsciously afraid that gravity might stop unexpectedly and I could end up floating away.

I now find myself doing it quite often, but there are definitely certain times I grip with my toes - brushing my teeth, loading the dishwasher, chopping food. I don't know why I do it, and I don't even know if other people do it. It's not like I am going to be at a dinner party and say to the table, "Hey, do any of you unconsciously grip the floor with your toes like I do?" Actually, given what most people think of me, there isn't any reason not to ask.

My personal hunch is that I am a toe-gripper because my body is just plain out of proportion, and not just around the waistline. For example, we were in Paris once and a street artist yelled out at me, "Monsieur, vous avez un tres grand tete." I then made the very big mistake of translating for Linda who to this day reminds me that my head is very large.

But it's not just the head that's big. My arms are very long. In fact, my shirt sleeves are 25% longer than the inseams of my pants. So the combination of short legs and long arms overall contributes to a pretty good sense that I am more directly descended from tree-dwelling apes than, say, almost everyone else in the world.

Take a look above at the Vitruvian Man that Leonardo drew. If you were to draw a circle around me standing in that pose, it would end up shaped more like a lightbulb, with another somewhat smaller lightbulb at the top. And the box he's in would definitely be more of a trapezoid than a square.

Leonardo made lots of notes about the proportions of the human body. Here's how I rated with some:

The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.
This means that I should be about 7 foot 6. Which is pretty good news because it means that according to the charts my weight is correct.

The distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height.
That's a tad more realistic. Now I should only be 6 foot 10. But at least now I will be going to the Tall side of the Big & Tall Shops, not the section that screams lack of willpower to the world.

The length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height.
Unfortunately, with my stubby fingers I now should be 5 foot 6. Back to the diet and the other side of the store.

But my favorite is this one.

The distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third the length of the face.
Given where my hairline is today, this means that I now should be roughly the same dimensions as the Charlie Brown balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I guess that artist in Paris knew what he was talking about.

Instrument Landing

My parents may not have had a lot of money when I was young, but that never stopped them from finding a way to make sure I received such important things as music training.

Unfortunately, at the time my musical destiny was being decided, the Lawrence Welk Show was a big hit in the US and so I ended up being trained to play the accordion. This instrument has gone from being very popular in the 50s to being one of the least liked half a century later. And I can tell you it was not the instrument of choice at anti-war rallies in the 60s.

It was so in vogue when I was young that even a little place like Rutland had an accordion school, where dozens of us would troop off to Mr Coutermarsh's with dreams of mastering "Lady of Spain" and eventually graduating to very fast polkas.

There was one problem for me, though. To play any musical instrument well requires a good sense of rhythm and tempo, which I lack. But that was trivial to the other requirement of playing the accordion well - physical dexterity and coordination. Even thinking about it now, I am amazed I was able to play it at all since it required playing the melody with your right hand, pulling the bellows back and forth rhythmically and playing the bass with your left hand on those silly little buttons you cannot even see. Let's face it, this is one of the few musical instruments where you literally have to strap yourself into it.

Nonetheless I did persevere and learned to play some easy songs poorly. But I am pretty sure that somewhere around 1958 my folks abandoned their dreams that I was going to replace Myron Floren if he and Lawrence ever got into a fight.

My own dreams lasted a bit longer. In 1965, the same year that Mick sang "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" and Sam the Sham did "Wooly Bully", I convinced some friends who were forming a band that a fairly unskilled accordionist was just what they needed. Two rehearsals later they convinced me to go solo.

A few years later during my university days, I would go to parties and jealously watch guys pull out their guitars and they would soon have people sitting around listening to them, some times even singing along. It seemed so unfair that they could get away with it. If I even brought my accordion along with me, people insisted I leave it outside. In the years of the countercultural revolution, the old squeezebox just wasn't going to cut it.

Oh well, this all came back to me today because I passed a second-hand store that had an accordion prominently displayed in the window. I looked at it quite a long time, and was wondering how much I could negotiate them down from their $280 price tag.

But then I thought about it. If anything, I am surely going to play less well now than I did before. Even more importantly, Linda and I have just spent a couple of nice weeks together while she was on holiday. I just don't think I want to add accordion stress to our life together. I don't even think it would help were I to learn to play "Smoke on the Water".

The Diving Bell and the Walrus

Our friends Robert and Jaki have been amazingly generous in sending Linda and me a deep-fat turkey fryer. It surely makes us just about the only people in Oz who can (and would) just drop that big bird in a bubbling pot of oil and pull it out fully cooked a little later.

And as long as I can continue to cope with the side effects of my cholesterol medication, I think we can anticipate being the envy of our friends who may eat healthier, but seldom happier.

But there is another side of Robert that is starting to worry me. You may recall that he and I were going to explore starting a new website that would make great use of his talent for solving and inventing and my talent for blathering. Kind of like the Mythbusters show only he does all the work and all I do is stand there and point at him yelling, "Hey, look at that."

Our first project was to solve the problem of how to get me under water with them when they come out here. It's a problem because the last time I looked the Big and Tall store had run out of XXL wetsuits. And even were I to find one, I cannot but imagine that every shark in the Pacific that got a look at me would think their most secret walrus dreams had come true.

To tweak Robert's inventiveness, I proposed that he make one of those old-fashioned diving suits. You know, the kind of suit Cuba Gooding wore when he played the first African-American to become a US Navy diver. (Which also proves that Hollywood will make movies about just about anything they hear of. By the way, the Oscar-winner Gooding rescued this bobble in his career by subsequently appearing in such hits as Pearl Harbor, Snow Dogs and Norbit.)

Anyhow, back to Robert. That picture at the top of this post appears to be the best he can do as a suggestion for a helmet. And although he swore to me that he really is quite good at building things and inventing solutions to mechanical problems, I am fast losing confidence. This is how he suggested getting around the "drawbacks" of diving with a fishbowl on my head, especially one that measures less than six inches at the open end:

I think we can solve this problem

Option 1 - By having LK work some of her training procedures on you. As she should be able to convince you that with a little lubrication your head will go in the helmet (fish jar).

Option 2 would be to have a shrink work on you, you know the kind of guy that does the shrunken heads. I think you have a tribe in Australia, if not we can get one from the Amazon to come in to do the deed.

The air supply (fish tank pump) will limit how deep you can go under water. LK will have to find an extension cord long enough to plug in the air supply. Her option, will the cord reach the dive site?

I would say "Back to the drawing board," but this seems to have never even made it to that stage. Of course, I could just use an ordinary wet suit if I lose weight, but I have as much confidence in that happening as George W Bush getting his face on the dollar next year. And eating deep fried turkey isn't helping the cause one single bit.

But thanks anyway, Robert. And by the way, you really should get out here soon before our native head shrinking tribes disappear.

Assembly Required

Every once in a while, life has a way of giving you Before and After pictures. Yesterday was one of them.

You see we bought a new stand for our TV and it required assembly, so for what seemed like hours we were working together trying to make sure that the screw we were using to attach the shelves was in fact Screw A6 and not A4. We weren't doing too badly. Unlike my previous assembly attempts, holes lined up, screws fit, the front bit wasn't facing the rear, etc. All went smoothly, that is, until the final bit, which required putting the glass shelves on.

Up until that last step, we were able to sit or stand and just attach things by turning the stand on its side. But once the glass shelves were on, it was too heavy so we had to get on the floor to finish off the job by putting in the final six screws for the top shelf.

I can hear Linda saying, "What's this 'We', Gimpy Man?" for my knee doesn't like ground level. So LK volunteered to kneel down and put in the last screws. And of course, as if there is some divine law that no self-assembly can ever go smoothly, that was when things didn't line up properly and the last two screws wouldn't go in properly. Linda was trying her best, but I decided I was just the man for the job. So knee be damned, and down to the floor I went, too.

Of course, I had no more luck than Linda, but that didn't turn out to matter so much in the end. For within a few minutes, virtually simultaneously, pain struck both of us. Linda got a cramp in her foot and began doing a reasonably good impression of a python trying to catch a ferret.

But I wasn't paying much attention for at precisely the same moment, my knee felt as if various parts of it were snapping loose from whatever holds them in place and they were now spewing hot flames down my leg. I needed to stand up promptly, but of course I couldn't just do that because my knee no longer believes in practicing straightforward standing up.

So while Linda is slithering in one direction, I'm scooting across the carpet like a dog with a bad case of worms until I can reach the couch and use its arm to drag myself up. The good news - neither her foot nor my knee seemed to have come out with longer term problems from the moment. The better news - no one was filming us. The best news - we decided we would finish next day and have drinks now instead.

We'll find out today whether the stand will hold the TV without two of the screws in it. I'm pretty sure it will. In the meantime, I can't get past remembering some of our more passionate times when we were first together - that's the Before picture. The After is what happens now when we get down on the carpet for an entirely different type of screwing.

Talking 'bout a Resolution

That's a kookaburra I saw on my walk this morning. They're a type of kingfisher and have a wicked sort of laugh when they make a noise. Even with all the parrots, cockatoos and other birds around here, these are my favorites, and it was fun seeing it.

OK, enough stalling. I promised New Year's Resolutions for yesterday and here it is today and I am writing about birds instead of ways to improve myself in 2009. I am pretty sure that this is surprising no one who knows me. I am hardly known for my rigorous attempts at self-improvement. But a deal's a deal. So here goes.

My New Year's Resolutions

1. Avoid the Lures of Retirement

After three months of retirement, I am perhaps enjoying it too much. Not having anything to do really does have its appeal. Of course Linda would suggest that being retired and not having anything to do aren't exactly the same thing, but that's another discussion.

However, I am aware that perhaps I am embracing the lifestyle a little too vigorously. My first clue was when Linda asked - quite seriously - if I was going to become one of those weird old guys with no hair on top of their heads and a long pony tail down to their butt. I think this question arose when she realized I haven't had a hair cut since, well, some time before I retired.

So just to make sure I don't become a latter day hippie, I am adopting these resolutions, all subsets of #1.

1A) If I shake my head and hair gets in my eyes, I will get a hair cut.
1B) At least once a week, I will wear a shirt with a collar, if only for a few moments.
1C) I will wear socks at least once a week, also. And that doesn't include the little sockettes that I wear with sneakers. However, it will not be necessary to wear socks and shirts with collars at the same time.
1D) To avoid falling in a rut, I will not follow the same routine every morning. Today, for example, I fed the cat before I made the coffee. Tomorrow, I will make the coffee first.

2. Start the South Beach Diet for the Seventh or Eighth Time

I love the South Beach Diet except for the fact that I can't eat the food I like or drink booze for the first two weeks. But it does make me lose weight, undoubtedly because I can't eat the food I like or drink booze.

Anyhow, I am going back on it. You can tell because I have been carbo dumping for the past two days, eating breads, crackers, pasta - anything made of flour. If it weren't for the fact that I am gimpy, overweight and out of shape, you'd think I was getting ready to run a marathon.

And of course, there is the interesting issue that every time I go on this diet, I eventually go off it and return to my original weight. I am not sure why I choose to go through the pain of dieting one more time knowing its benefits are almost surely going to be temporary, but I think the ability to think in this way is part of the same gene that contributes to overeating.

3. Write Letters to My Friends Whom I Haven't Been in Touch With Lately

This was my New Year's Day project. It is now January 3rd and I've obviously had to revise the time line. I hope to do it some time by the end of the month. But I am realistic. If I just get some of it done eventually, I will be happy.

4. Prioritize the Three Resolutions in the Order in Which I Will No Longer Do Them

I am not being fatalistic about all of this, but after 60 years I am realistic. But now that I've laid these out for all to read, I not only will feel guilty about not living up to them, but I will be embarrassed as well. So I need to figure out which goes first. It will probably be based on which is the least embarrassing to admit.

Anyhow, progress reports as the New Year rolls on.

The Year in Review

And so we have ended a year that, for me, will be unforgettable (except of course when I start forgetting just about everything). I would like to write today about some of the top things that happened to me in 2008. By tomorrow, I suppose I need to rustle up a resolution or two. Otherwise I won't know why I'm feeling guilty when I begin to ignore them the day after tomorrow.

#1 Life Changes

My new motto: Work to live, don't live to work. Or better still, don't work.

Retiring was the big change in my life this year. And after three months of it, I cannot say how much I am enjoying the time to do things that have nothing to do with spreadsheets, budgets and presentations.

One of the happiest realizations I had when I left the company was that I would never again have to wake up knowing that I was going to tell someone I liked that they didn't have a job anymore. It was by far the worst thing about my job. With what is going on in the economy and the industry right now, there is no way we could have protected all the jobs in the company. So good riddance to that, and condolences to those who still have to deal with it.

#2 Family and Old Friends

Should auld acquaintance be forgot? I don't think so!

This was a year when Linda and I were able to spend more time than usual with family and friends. Lots of great moments - a fantastic 60th birthday in Rutland with so many people stopping by; a special week in Disneyland with Lily who got to meet for the first time her great grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin; a wonderful visit to Andy and Doni at their beautiful home just a few (hundred) miles outside Toronto; a chance to spend time with our oldest friends on the planet, Walt and Terri, and pick up right where we left off; a great tribute to me and two other retirees at the dinner for the company's European meeting, where I also got to see so many of my international friends; and a lovely farewell party here with the people with whom I had worked so many years.

If nothing else happened, just being able to spend time with these people would have made 2008 a wonderful year.

#3 New Friends

It is especially encouraging to learn that there are still friendships to be discovered and built upon. I've written elsewhere about meeting Jaki and Robert. Against all odds, we remain in touch and will no doubt do so for a very long time. Tomorrow I will share Robert's latest suggestions for my diving suit. You will see why I like him. You will also see why it's probably going to take a while before I get to go diving.

#4 Travel

I'll say it first. We overdid it. But in our last year of company-paid trips it just seemed daft not to add on a side trip here or there. Let's just say that my frequent flyer points are close to being able to charter my own jet after a year in which we were in Prague, Bangkok, Phuket, Honolulu, New York City, Boston, Rutland, Helsinki, Anaheim, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Toronto, Lisbon, Milan, Verona, Venice, Dubrovnik, Corfu, the Amalfi Coast and lots of other Italian ports, Monaco, Majorca, and Barcelona plus all those places in Alaska with such charming names as Skagway.

I find that I really don't miss my old job. I think travelling to all those international meetings, though, will be the exception.

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So, 2008 is gone. We put it to bed last night with Lily, Matt, Rachael, Jason, Lora and Shirley. It was a very pleasant night. LK did up an American-style picnic and barbecue, and we were lucky enough to be able to watch the fireworks from our backyard.

Good luck in 2009 to all our family and friends, old and new.