The Hanukah Bush

Posted on December 22, 2011 by sputterpub

The year after the Hanukah tour it was relatively easy to prevail with Christmas-like concepts. I’m not sure my arguments were necessary but I voiced them anyway.

First I suggested to Mom that we save the presents for one day instead of spreading them out over eight. Same number of gifts either way, I stated, but when they’re doled out one-a-day we have time to weary of yesterday’s by the time today comes; if we got to open all eight at once, we’d enjoy that distracting abundance so prevalent in US culture. Mom smiled and had me repeat my words to Dad. They both nodded in serious consideration.

Then I lobbied for morning instead of evening as opening time. After all, I declared, there’s so little time to enjoy the goods when you don’t open them still sunset and have to immediately interrupt play for dinner. Wouldn’t it be more fun to have a full day ahead in which to enjoy new stuff?

They both indicated agreement with that too.

So I brought it all home. I said if we were going to do eight gifts at once, on the last weekend day of Hanukah, and if we were going to open them all in the morning instead of at night, wouldn’t it be nice to have some season-appropriate symbol about which to set and discover and unwrap the packages? And wouldn’t a small fragrant decorated evergreen tree suit that purpose well? I knew places where such trees were readily available …

To tell the truth, I was surprised when they went for it.

The tree was more of a bush: about three feet tall and somewhat sparse. Mom only permitted Israel-blue decorations on it (and silver – but no tinsel). Mom experienced some obvious discomfort about the bush; she was obsessive about picking up individual fallen needles, and she often mumbled “never again.”

I have a dim memory of opening many gifts on a morning, near that bush, but I don’t recall the occasion as particularly satisfying.

As far as any of us could tell, there were no adverse consequences. Our house wasn’t cursed and our family stayed well. But we never did Hanukah like that again.

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New Words

Posted on December 21, 2011 by sputterpub

9.8.08
I learned things a month ago. Learning is almost always good, and it was appropriate, since I was at a continuing ed conference. But it wasn’t expected.

I may have been present for the birth of two word variations. They were new to me anyway. For the first time I heard “recordkeep,” and it was a transitive verb. For the first time I took in “overcomeable,” and it was a legal concept.

I’m in the business of record-keeping, so long now that I’ve seen it lose that hyphen, but I didn’t know it had moved out of noun/adjective country until last month. More than once I heard a phrase like “We have to figure out how to recordkeep that.”

As for the other new word, I’m not sure if it should be spelled “overcomeable” or “overcomable” or even “overcomible,” but it’s clearly the legal condition of surmounting/defeating a position. I’m just not sure why it needed coinage.

Hearing the new words was a bit like being in on the discovery of a new star. Or maybe not. Maybe these words are already popular, and I just don’t get out enough.

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Dim

Posted on December 20, 2011 by sputterpub

I always thought that as I added years
in life and lumps in limbs and folds in face,
so I would increase wisdom too, and fears
would fade and patience grow and I’d learn grace.
Then anger wouldn’t rule my heart (I thought),
and hurt would be reserved for awful woe,
but otherwise I wouldn’t see me caught
exasperated, insecure, this low.

Now here I stand past middle life, I guess,
approaching old, familiar with my past,
yet fretting why my mood is such a mess,
and wishing just one hold on health would last.
It’s obvious that I don’t have it yet:
Perhaps we’re all born wise and then forget.

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The Hanukah Tour

Posted on December 19, 2011 by sputterpub

I remember a year in Chula Vista when Hanukah came so late it ran well past Christmas. On the garbage pickup day that followed December 25th, our neighborhood put out decorative trash. There were clumps of colorful giftwrap, snarls of shining ribbons, garlands and wreaths and some trees with trimmings.

I’d never been satisfied with my parents’ degree of decoration. It was all connected to being Jewish, I figured: we seemed motivated to appear non-ostentatious, non-nouveau, and non-assimilating.

I gathered my brothers and we toured the sidewalks. We collected greenery and color and a fair amount of angel hair and tinsel. This was when tinsel was still made of metal foil instead of silver plastic; it had a crinkliness to it, and it didn’t stick to everything like packing pellets.

We took the trash home and decorated my room. We arrayed the angel hair and tree boughs along my furniture tops, and we nestled the color objects among them. Finally we pulled our parents in for a flashlight tour. I think we even charged admission.

As I recall, Mom and Dad tried to appear impressed. They didn’t punish us, although I’m sure I remember some remarks from Mom about pine needles, and some cautions from Dad about the dirty fiberglass. They toured and smiled and praised, and I think we had my room cleaned out in time for that same garbage pickup.

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Advice Revised

Posted on December 16, 2011 by sputterpub

My father tried his best and didn’t fail
at parenthood. He listened and advised,
took time for us and pointed out a trail
for us, and told us lessons he devised.
He missed a trick or two he should have caught,
but then he didn’t have the dad we do.
With him as his own guide he would have taught
him this, and later he would teach us, too:

“Of followers and leaders neither be,
but go your own unique and righteous way.
The vanguard ever lacks its privacy;
the herd knows only boredom and dismay.
I used to say you lead or take the rear,
but now I understand a sideways veer.”

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Prospective Guilt

Posted on December 15, 2011 by sputterpub

Sure I experienced guilt growing up. From my perspective, who didn’t? There was early guilt about toilet training mishaps, intermediate shame about laziness, stupidity and lack of common sense, and advanced teenage angst when I came up short in self-examination.

Guilt was so prevalent in my development that it was a subject for peer discussions. More than politics or folk music, my friends and I shared the bad personal feelings we incurred after acting (or not) to our (or others’) satisfaction. As often as I debated the value of religion with my pals, we compared Catholic confessional guilt to Protestant work-ethic guilt to Jewish everyday guilt, and argued about which form was most insidious.

It wasn’t till I was around 24 that my light bulb lit. In a dazzling illumination of the obvious, I realized that retrospective guilt is substantially useless. I’m not saying one shouldn’t apologize (most of the time I think “sorry” expresses sympathy, but it means responsibility when it’s used after one errs). I’m not advocating that one avoid the consequences that come with one’s own acts. I’m just saying that castigation is useless. Self-abasement and groveling are irrelevant (not to mention unattractive).

I say, kids, don’t waste time feeling bad about what you did. Learn from your acts not to do whatever makes you feel bad, again.

There’s probably no state worse than shame. There’s probably no feeling finer than when you’re pleased with your actions. So whenever you’re confronted with a choice, select what will make you proud of yourself tomorrow. Imagine just far enough into the future that you can see the blame or credit in the alternatives before you now. Use that vision to make your choice.

I’ve been accused of extreme honesty. I am often credited with honorable behavior. It’s easy. I always pick what will make me not regret. I don’t like rue.

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Skunk

Posted on December 14, 2011 by sputterpub

I have a skunk clan as yard mates and the current resident seems very active lately. She may have insomnia. She was on the deck twice last night and then an hour later, after I realized that the chirping I was hearing wasn’t coming from the TV show, I opened the door and was assaulted by the reek of her musk.

And this morning, at least a half hour after light, there she was again. I had to “ah hem” to get her away from my office door. It sounded like she took some time to settle down below the floor. She may have been squabbling with another critter. It’s not the right season, but maybe she has kits.

I did some quick research when I realized I had these close neighbors. I read that skunks don’t have natural predators (except for a few owls) but also that they don’t spray readily. They can only store about 5 charges of effluvia and it takes half a day to make more, so they use it sparingly. They mostly den alone. Since I’ve occasionally seen young ones, I conclude my main tenant is a single mom like me, usually living without offspring.

We’re aware of one another. I’m not anticipating getting sprayed myself. I don’t mind the odor when it’s air-diluted.

She’s got beautiful fur. Her snout is small and her forepaws are powerful; I can tell she’s a good digger. She can flatten her body like a cat or a mouse when she wants to. I’ve seen her flop almost as flat as a mat on my front boardwalk, in midday sun. Insomniac.

I wondered where the name came from, so I looked it up. My old print dictionary says it’s a contraction of an American Indian word: segonku. Online sources give more information. Various spellings are offered. Origin is attributed to Abenaki or another Algonquian tongue. Although a couple of skunk varieties come from Indonesia and the Philippines, most are native Americans.

Skunks have been called polecats. It appears that most familiar languages call the animal after its Latin name. The striped skunk is Mephitis mephitis, and the French call the animal mouffette. In Spanish it’s mofeta or zorrillo (little fox).

It’s obvious why some marijuana is called skunk weed. But so far I can’t discover why as a verb the word means to defeat overwhelmingly and prevent from scoring. You got skunked suggests you stink?

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Inventions

Posted on December 13, 2011 by sputterpub

Illusion is the television’s art.
Ten thousand pixels listen currently
and make their light emissions blink apart
but link themselves like cells apparently:
Befooling brains with signals to our eyes,
enhancing with the audio in sync,
and now we learn that surfacing disguise
can etch and influence the way we think.

But I won’t wreak destruction on the screen
(nor will I vandalize the cars I hate),
for monsters are less scary when they’re seen,
and tools should not be instruments of fate.
If we are worthy, surely we are skilled
enough to regulate the goods we build.

(It’s okay to watch
and it’s okay to drive; just
never let them rule)

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The Inaccuracy of Projections

Posted on December 12, 2011 by sputterpub

I pulled a fact out of a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine, by Tim Dickinson (How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich).

It was a good article. Long but providing an accurate summary of all the Republicans who raised taxes, all the Democrats who lowered them, and how incorrect the theory of trickle-down economics always was. Almost buried near the bottom of a page not the first was this little gem:

Assuming the economy continued to grow as it had under Clinton, the Congressional Budget Office forecast a federal surplus of $5.6 trillion by 2011.

Got that? That’s how far off the CBO was capable of being, in 2001, looking ahead 10 years. We don’t have a $5.6 trillion surplus. We have no surplus at all. Isn’t the debt like $14 trillion? Wasn’t that forecast off by such an astronomically large number that it makes the act of forecasting full of folly?

The article wasn’t about forecast inaccuracy. But I want to focus on it for a minute. It strikes me that our species is very good at looking forward and rather uninterested in casting the vision backward to ascertain the accuracy of that forward look. It’s like the forward feels so good we want to keep looking there no matter what.

I never hear of anyone reviewing the astrology chart that was produced a decade ago, to see how much of it was accurate. We seldom get a report summarizing the precision of theater reviewers’ predictions. We joke about how the meteorologists get paid whether they predict the weather right or not, but none of us charts their reports for accuracy.

No one lists the UFO or ghosts sightings that weren’t.

I don’t hear anyone admit that the Cold War was just an excuse to jack up the military business.

Most market analysts are not correct, but we continue to listen to them.

Over and over again we grant credit where it’s not due. Go figure (‘cause we sure aren’t).

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Birds of a Feather

Posted on December 9, 2011 by sputterpub

Their timbre irritates my ears, as high
as if they sucked on helium for air.
They poultry-hop their happiness to spy
each other in a crowd. Too quick they share
their girlish hopes, romantic fancies, dirt,
collapsing into silliness so soon,
it isn’t incorrect to murmur “flirt”
or unrealistic to expect a swoon.

Esteeming each, the sum is what I hate,
whose voices seek that unremitting pitch,
who judge and peck at differences. I’m struck
by their unfairness while I suffocate
in fluff. And I can’t even call them bitch
when chicken comes to mind with every cluck.

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