Ruminations on Mortality

It may have something to do with my impending retirement in 213 days and my sixtieth birthday in just 549 but I’ve been in a dour mood lately. The past two weeks have seen the death of two gifted young actors more than half my age and their demise has served to highlight the fragility of our human existence. There are so many things that can go wrong with our bodies it’s a marvel any of us manage to survive much less reach old age. Since proper sanitation and nutrition have made it possible for more people to live well into their 70ies, 80ies, and even 90ies degenerative diseases have come to the forefront and more and more we are learning that it is the life-choices we have made or had made for us that are the determinative factors. The diet we ate in our teens, the music we listened to, and the life-styles we chose serve to influence whether we have heart defects, high blood pressure, hearing loss, or bone density problems in middle age. Heredity can predispose us for many ailments but the choices we make serve to shape how severe the health consequences will be.

I have fought a life-long battle with chronic allergic sinusitis and asthma. It’s an inherited disorder but the fact that I developed allergies and their severity was greatly influenced by the fact that woman of my Mother’s generation were taught to use baby formula rather than breast-feed their babies. I reacted to wool at the age of seven days and became allergic to virtually everything you’d expect to find on a mixed family farm. My reactions for the most part were of a respiratory nature with the exception of the eczema that marked my first contact with wool. In the last five years food allergies have also manifested. Health has been defined as an absence of awareness of the well-being of one’s body. By that definition I’ve never been healthy a day in my life. On the other hand there would seem to be no absolutes in life; one can allow oneself to be defined by one’s troubles or one can rise above them and get on with life in spite of them.

Before a computer and the internet entered my life I managed to read 60 to 70 books a year; this past year I managed 20. I formerly read a newspaper daily; two on weekends; today I get my news online. My radio used to be on and tuned to CBC from the moment my clock radio came on in the morning until I fell asleep with the sleep timer engaged; now I listen to iTunes Podcasts. When the sinuses ache and breathing causes wheezing and whistling sounds it is easy to allow oneself to become sedentary and sit back in front of the TV or a computer screen. The World Wide Web is a fantastic smorgasbord of delights. Virtually anything you’d want to know or explore is available and for the most part it’s free.

Although I live near Toronto where two competing alternative newspapers are published weekly I read the Austin (Texas) City Chronicle because it’s available as a .pdf download for free. I formerly read hardcopy editions of both local weeklies until someone named Heather bought Chapters Books and decided she didn’t want freebies cluttering space that could be used to sell stuff. The fact I no longer visit the store weekly has cost her over $1000 a year in my custom—her loss is Amazon’s gain; their prices are cheaper as well. It was in the Chronicle I learned that this week saw the release of a remastered Live CD by Townes Van Zandt. He was known to me but until I went searching I had not been aware that he was a native Texan. Townes is in a long line of performers who died preternaturally: Jeff Buckley, drowning; Harry Chapin, plane crash; Stan Rogers, plane crash; Chet Baker, drugs; Elliot Smith, gunshot; Nick Drake, drug overdose…. Townes was born with a silver spoon but suffered from Manic-Depression which was treated with Insulin Shock. Again one has to wonder which was worse; the illness or the treatment. In any case together they served to make him an erratic performer and acquaintance. His CD Rear View Mirror is available for $15.99 on Amazon Canada or $11.98 from Waterloo Records in Austin Texas--$16.90 at Chapters online by the bye.

When it comes to podcasts on iTunes there is an embarrassment of riches available and my eclectic interests ensure that I continue to download 3 times faster than I listen. Just yesterday I transferred 9 GB of material to my Archos Player. Perhaps when I hit the road I’ll get a chance to catch up. It’s gotten to the point that I’m afraid to go looking because I keep finding irresistible discoveries. Take today, American Public Radio has on offer a 2-hour podcast called Weekend America—at least it’s only once a week. Being a German Canadian Farmboy from Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia I have no background in women’s issues or the challenges of being Black in America. Accordingly it would never have occurred to me that Black Females in the US are being confronted with the conflict of whether they should support the first Woman with a chance of becoming president or the first Afro-American; until I listened to the latest podcast that is. And being a WASP I have no concept as to whether any or all of the previous designations are offensive or politically incorrect. It just seems to me that whatever Whitey gets used to calling those people becomes offensive over time. To me it’s the pejorative tone with which words are used that makes them offensive though some words such as the N word and f@#k are innately offensive, simply in bad taste.

Another change in my life is a developing predilection for attending church online. There are myriad choices available but I opt for either Duke Chapel or Grace Cathedral:

http://www.chapel.duke.edu/media/

Duke has a five year archive of services and concerts that may be streamed at will.

Got my camera out this morning and connected the wide-angled lens to attempt to get some more pictures of our new corridors. Here’s a view of my front entrance:

My Weekly Scribble 08-01-25

I bought my laptop for use when I go on the road.  When my desktop broke down in November I embarked on a crash course in learning how to do everything I was accustomed to doing there on a laptop and making it work on a Vista Platform.  With the pressure of the Christmas season I haven’t gotten around to taking the desktop console in for repairs so bit by bit I’ve been connecting my laptop up to peripherals.  It’s said to be important to run a laptop battery down to failure at least once a month so I suppose this will be this month’s calibration.  The power cord is one obvious connection.  Next, the printer and the Ethernet cord.  Tiring of the landscape view after 7 years with a pivoting screen I figured out that I could run my external screen from my laptop.  It works, but Windows ability to remember the settings after it comes off sleep mode are unpredictable.  Tiring of the sound quality from the internal speakers I decided to put up with a cable sticking out of the front of the case and hooked up my 6-channel system.  I feel fortunate that the built in Bluetooth capability allows me to operate my wireless mouse without any additional plug-ins. 

 

A laptop with a 17-inch screen isn’t all that light for resting on one’s legs in bed; and to prevent overheating it rests on a piece of heavy cardboard.  Upon unplugging the power cord the most immediate discernable change is the drop in screen brightness.  Next is the almost immediate drop in the battery power icon’s remaining power gauge; one can almost see it descend.  The battery capacity is supposedly 2 hours; I haven’t actually tested that out but if I do the computer automatically goes into hibernation to save one’s work.  I’m testing my reader’s patience here; those who don’t have laptops are busy yawning at this point and those who do are already initiated.  I enjoy the art of putting my thoughts into digital print but if I actually have readers out there in cyberspace I’d appreciate the occasional comment just to let me know that I’m not writing on a desert island and throwing messages in a bottle—so to speak. 

 

At the moment there’s no lack of power in my background music as Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand, his Eighth, is playing on my theatre system.   Disk one has just finished and I’ll get up now to put in the second one and while I’m at it I believe I may have overdone the level on my sub-bass woofer.  The second disk begins with piccolos and light strings so it will be a while until I find out if I’ve reset things properly.  Mahler is the master of dynamics understanding that for a crescendo to have impact it must be proceeded by a quieter passage and for a tutti to shock quiet must precede—something most modern rock bands don’t seem to understand.  In this symphony Mahler blows his entire wad at the outset by beginning the piece with a 150 piece orchestra, a pipe organ, and 600 to 700 voices playing and singing as loud as possible.  He also understands, though, that whispered notes are equally as dramatic and engages in dramatic mood swings from periods of almost silence to rapid increases in volume and tempo.  His crowning achievement for me though is the last movement of his Second, Resurrection Symphony which is, in essence, a 40 minute crescendo.  Anyone who has seen 2001:  A Space Odyssey has heard the initial moments of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra with its thundering timpani but if you drop the entire tone poem into a CD Player you’ll find that it too has periods of light pizzicato and woodland murmurings. 

 

This evening I can say that my E-mail in boxes are totally empty.  I’ve arrived at Friday night in past weeks with an overload of over 100 messages but for the moment I’m on top of it.  I’m slowly migrating my various online subscriptions to web mail in preparation for my travels.  

 

****************************************************************

 

At that point my battery power gave out before the laptop did Friday night.  I had to finish draining my battery to exhaustion Saturday morning.  As anyone with a laptop would know, it takes a long time to recharge a laptop battery when it’s in use. 

 

Not much happened this week.  The usual customer complaints, miss-placed parcels, creative addressing, mindless E-mails from upper management, system break-downs, and employee concerns.  I made up for an entire week of eating in the previous week by going out to eat three times this week—Chicken at Swiss Chalet, Fish and Chips at the local pub, and Chicken Cacciatore at East Side Mario’s last night.  I just had to kid them about whether Haggis was on the menu—apparently it’s not an Italian dish! 

 

Having my property in Nova Scotia surveyed seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving.  The surveyors responsible for drawing up those 250 year-old deeds were accurate within a fraction of an acre but somehow the registration of my property surveys resulted in a nearly doubling of my assessable property.  Either I’m being assessed twice for the same land or for someone else’s.  Either way getting it corrected will be a hassle.  Just thinking of it appears to have depleted my batteries again as I was contemplating a return to bed.  Instead I believe I’ll backup a few iTunes Podcasts to my Archos Player.  I was actually able to reduce the space on my laptop hard drive by half. 

 

A look out my window shows that dawn has reached our realm and the day is overcast.  A look at the weather report reveals that few people would be sunbathing even if the sun were out.  It would seem to be a good weekend to spend reading and catching up on some more TV.  I’ve started watching CBC’s Geologic Journey; these guys make science and geography look sexy, where were they when I was studying these subjects in school.  As I probably learning that it was impossible for man to ever reach the moon and that the earth was about 5000 years old.  Since then estimates of the earth’s age have increased to 5 to 7 Billion years!  God’s an old geezer. 

 

Next week I get to get up early and go to work to babysit a bunch of company PDT’s which are getting an online update and wash out the office refrigerator.  The latter an entirely thankless task as although those remains may be moldering away in there woe betide the one who turfs them.  As long as nothing attacks.  I can look forward to a future of long hours of data entry updating our office letter carrier route files—apparently no one else has the patience for the task.  Things could be worse; at least I’m to get a computer dedicated to that task alone. 

 

 

Weekly Update January 20

By some quirk the sun is out today though it’s much too cold to make being out and about enjoyable. Unlike the same period last year the bare grass outside my windows is brown and dead; exposed except where windrows of snow plowed from parking lots loom dirtily. A cold gusty wind is blowing out of the west making it feel even colder. Of course it’s an ill wind that blows no one good and I’m taking advantage of this cold snap to defrost my deep freeze keeping my food on my third-floor balcony. Being single and having no offspring to stand with the door open there really isn’t that much build-up of ice but it’s a chore I feel obligated to perform yearly in the name of appliance efficiency. Already the third level is starting to drip but it’s the top grid in an upright deep freeze that collects the most frost and has the least ventilation. Uprights are less efficient than chest style freezers but the food is much more accessible. I’ve learned to store like goods in cardboard boxes and old metal fridge drawers. It’s a job that takes patience and care as one false move with a sharp object could be fatal for the appliance. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I close it up, turn it on, and feel heat forming on the outer frame indicating that the inside is cooling once more. Unfortunately this freezer is old enough that it lacks the noise dampening features of later models so it will whine and vibrate away for the next 24 hours while it re-establishes deep frost.

Yesterday I spent my usual lazy, restful Saturday but today I’m uncharacteristically active. Listening to an episode of Quirks and Quarks in iTunes I learn that the old saw about it being too cold to snow is not strictly true; it can snow, it’s just that at lower temperatures the air is incapable of holding much moisture—the high arctic is one of the driest places on earth. Although I haven’t finished reading my comics yet I have done my usual morning browse and listened to some podcasts. The deep freeze is busy dripping; I’ve made coffee and put up a loaf of potato bread in my baker. My crock pot is filled to the brim with slow cooked Irish Stew; for once I managed to judge the amount of vegetables exactly so I have nothing leftover to deal with. The beauty of this recipe is the requirement that the cover not be disturbed until the meal is cooked. Now I need to wash up the preparation utensils. There’s no easy way to clean a garlic press though if you let it dry out it gets even tougher.

Of the week past I have little to report beyond the usual round of endless mail and flyers, rude and demanding customers, and tedium in between. I began watching The Tudors and reviewed it for my sister blog. I’ve been working my way through this sixth season of Smallville and last night reached the Marriage of Lex Luthor and Lana Lang. It had never occurred to me until the priest began the marriage vows that Lex was short for Alexander any more than I’d matched Xander in Buffy with that name. While on the topic of the movies I would note the death of 25-year-old Brad Renfro; yet another casualty of the Hollywood celebrity mill. He is known for his role in Apt Pupil with the future Gandalf, Sir Ian McKellen but my favourite memory is of his performance in a smaller movie called The Cure in which he befriends a young neighbour who is dying of HIV.

Yesterday I essayed the task of renewing/replacing the trial version of Norton Internet Security that came with my laptop. For all its shortcomings as a resource hog and its unwillingness to run software I have valued and the lack of drivers for old hardware Vista’s uninstall manger removed my old Norton versions completely to the exacting satisfaction of Norton’s Anti-Virus 2008. I would also note in passing that unlike the endless problems I’ve had in the past with Norton firewalls and security software Norton Internet Security 2007 performed seamlessly and without incident for me on Windows Vista. I would have continued using it but I wasn’t ready to stomach the nearly $100.00 price tag so I went with the plain Anti-Virus Ware.

I’m down to the upper layer of ice in my freezer which is now dripping away like icicles on an eaves trough in spring. My bread is out and it’s time I moved on to other tasks.

Singing the Blues

Just finished reading the sale flyer for my local grocery store/fruit market and I’m feeling rather like an anachronism. There is barely anything on offer I’m interested in buying. I’m a cook-from-scratch kind of guy. I’ve been baking my own bread for forty years; I make my own salad dressings, mayonnaise, and mustard; and bake cakes, muffins, and pancakes from scratch. I can honestly say I’ve never owned a TV Dinner or cake mix. So what does my favourite store have on offer? Pages of ready-to-eat meals, frozen prepared foods, and snacks for something called the Superbowl—is there a recipe for that I’ve missed? Is it a soup or a salad?

Then there’s the organic food section. There may be something to the whole food movement but I’m more in favour of buying locally—have you ever tried to buy local strawberries in season? Some of the most polluted real estate around is in our own high-arctic and despite their low rate of precipitation the pollutants rain out of the sky. Although I’m all in favour of minimizing the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, the humane treatment of animals, and healthy feed practices I question whether transporting fruit and vegetables out of season half way round the world is ecologically sound. Somehow it just seems to be a scam to overcharge the consumer to me.

I realize that more and more people seem to eat out or buy in these days from fast-food restaurants and retailers feel forced to offer easy alternatives to keep the consumer coming back but in the process they force traditionalists such as myself to wade past aisles of ready-made food, frozen prepared meals, and empty snack foods. It is getting more and more difficult to find the basic building blocks of a well-cooked meal free from processed foods loaded with additives. The day I found frozen Kraft Dinner in a neighbourhood store I knew I wouldn’t be going back—it’s faster to cook that one from scratch.

Victor Davis 1964-1989

Victor Davis, CM died in 1989 at the age of 25 after being run over by an automobile outside a nightclub in Montreal. A few months earlier he had announced his retirement as an Olympic Athlete. Death at the hands of a hit-and-run driver seems a tawdry ending to a mercurial Olympic Career. It also serves to highlight the lack of counseling given elite athletes to prepare them for the eventuality that their careers will be washed up at such a young age. A few years ago I just happened to be listening to a CBC talk show on the subject of grief counseling when his Mother called in to talk about the heartbreaking task of cleaning up the pieces of the life of a young man who should have lived for decades to come and as a consequence had left so many loose ends behind. I remember the host being overwhelmed by the extent of the emotion expressed and expressing surprise that the Davises were not extended better resources to deal with their grief and wrap up his estate. More recently one of his swim mates, Mark Tewksbury, has been in the news after coming out of the closet as a gay. Although keeping such a circumstance under wraps in a male locker room would add extra tensions to any life his autobiography has also served to highlight the challenges of making a life for oneself after the cheering fades. Mark will be forty in just a couple weeks.

This morning in reading the online TV Guide I discovered that tonight CBC is airing a 2-hour movie tribute to the life of Victor Davis. For unknown reasons it is being released two months pre-maturely. To play the part of Victor Davis the producers were fortunate in finding a Canadian Actor who could also swim with a physique to do justice to the original in the person of Mark Lutz:

Apparently even the CBC finds it useful to publicize it’s movies on My Space:

http://www.myspace.com/victordavisfilm

For further information see the IMDB page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840024/

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

“….creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” No, I’m not MacBeth; but retirement is beginning to look very inviting these days. At least I hope to retire without having a MacDuff lop off my head and mount it on a pike. It’s a comment on my week that the high-point was probably the fact that I managed to get most of my laundry done on Sunday—the rest of the week was blah. I did manage to get out early last Sunday and get my shopping done and put over-priced gasoline in my car mind you.

Dropped into Swiss Chalet on my way home on Monday and on a whim tried out their ribs deciding they were rather fatty, grisly and a disappointment. Dropped by Future Shop on Tuesday and picked up 3:10 to Yuma which I’ve yet to watch and once again they didn’t have or couldn’t find items advertised prominently to sell me. The rest of the week is fairly routine. Spent a bit of time learning a new program Canada Post has set up to update routes—one problem, our present computers lack sufficient memory to run that program.

For others out there who share my love of the pipe organ here’s a site where it will be possible by the end of 2009 to download the complete works of J. S. Bach for free:

http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/kibbie.htm

I’m not sure whether it’s a aspect of old age that one requires less sleep as a result of one’s body no longer rebuilding itself or the fact that one is kept awake by ruminations over past sins that have built up over the years but last night I woke for one of those nocturnal visits to the porcelain throne and just couldn’t get back to sleep afterward. I did eventually fall asleep mind you and slept in until after 7 AM. Well, that’s sleeping in for me.

I continue to feel neglected by my correspondents as my personal “IN BOX” continues to be a forlorn piece of real estate. At least I’m not over-burdened trying to keep up with answering E-mail—I don’t have any.

While I was at Future Shop on Tuesday picked up a single audio cable to connect my laptop’s headphone jack to my Logitech 6:1 sound system. After two months of listening to my laptop’s wimpy speakers it’s heaven to return to the authority of a 10-inch 500 watt sub-woofer with the power to rattle my windows. This is not to imply that I actually endanger the glass or my hearing by pumping it up that high, but pipe organs just lack authority without the occasional growl from a 32-foot Bombard Reed, the scream of a traverse trumpet or the rumbling authority of a 64 foot open-diapason stop. That’s assuming my present sound card can process such information.

Having just finished cleaning my under-the-counter coffeemaker I’m just about to test out the theory that clean equipment makes better coffee. Chopped up green pepper, sliced sweet onion and mushrooms along with grated 5-year-old cheddar to make a grand omelet so I’m about to take a break to enjoy. I don’t often use the keep-warm feature of my upper oven but I did this morning to keep my back bacon warm. Now if I’d taken the time to put up a loaf in my breadmaker I’d have toast to go with this repast. What are Saturday’s for but to give one an opportunity to be lazy?

When I begin traveling in an RV I’m going to have to adjust my cleanup habits when I’m dealing with a water tank with limited capacity. Must say until I started reading up on the lifestyle dealing with a kitchen that hurtles along at 60 mph, makes corners and stops, at times suddenly; hadn’t occurred to me. Guess I’ll be getting use from the Melmacware I bought almost 4 decades ago though I’ll need other dishes as Melmac does not go in the microwave.

Guess I’ll try one more coffee and see whether I can find something else to interest me while iTunes downloads some music.

Ushering in 2008

After a White New Years followed by an arctic chill the rains have begun and this morning my world is lost in the fog. Thursday I made hot cider to warm the troops at work when they got back with cold feet and hands. Spent an hour pulling locks from a slum apartment building which is replacing their mail panels and will be back Monday to reinstall them. Today is laundry day—I’ve reached the point that it’s that or go bare—and it’s too cold for that option. [Did I put soap in that last load?]

Drove up early this morning to do my shopping at Longo’s and discovered that they abandoned their community bulletin board. Accordingly here’s the notice I would have posted:

Trafalgar Community Policing Committee Next Meeting at 6:00 PM, February 5, 2008 Iroquois Ridge Community Centre Library Program Room 1051 Glenashton Drive, Oakville Officer Carla Draper will be making a presentation on Drugs; what you should know and what to look for. Join us for this informative talk and to share your concerns about the community in which you live. Our committee provides a unique opportunity to meet with the people who serve and protect and those who set policy on the municipal and school board level.

I also noted in passing that the bag of carrots I bought this morning was advertised as ‘fresh’ Ontario Carrots—how is this possible? In the same department washed salad greens with a Jan 04 freshness date were on offer at regular price and I’ll note for the record that this is January 6, 2008. I will say that I’m thankful for freshness dates; I do miss price stickers on the actual item though.

On the way home filled my gas tank and watching the sale price accelerate faster than the litres pumped is scary. There too I noted that my local Shell station no longer has We Serve Pumps. In a move that took them in the opposite direction I discovered a couple months ago that the local Beer Store has switched from being a self-serve outlet to return to having an employee grab your order from the back room. I was nonchalantly informed, “Oh, we did that about a year ago.” Shows you how often I indulge in a case of beer. Actually, I was returning someone else’s empties picked up in our parking lot.

I’m sad to have to report that someone sabotaged Canada Post’s Santa Letter program by adding nasty comments to Santa’s reply letters. We receive millions of letters yearly from as far away as Australia and Germany. Granted some of the little greedy guts who write those letters have shopping lists totaling up to $250,000.00 but it’s a volunteer activity; if you don’t like doing it, stay away.

So here we are almost one week into 2008 and it would seem that little has changed. In just over a month the Chinese New Year ushers in the year of the Rat. Somehow I have the feeling that little is going to change in the next twelve months. Not being Nostradamus I will pass on making any predictions as to who may win the next presidential election. I will go on record as stating that I will not be sad to see Bush return permanently to his ranch in Texas. I still like the Jewish pundit’s observation that the last time they took advice from a bush they ended up wandering forty years in the wilderness.