Sense And Non Sense

 All my writing life, people have asked me, ”Where do you get your ideas?” And my answer has always been, “Ideas are easy, but executing them in a new way is not!” Today’s article will give those of you who might be interested, a peek into this writer’s cockamamie thought process.

A week ago, a friend innocently said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”  I can’t remember what she was referring to, but the words started churning in my brain. After that, I started listening more carefully to what people were saying, and, “What makes sense?” became my creative priority.

For instance, it makes no sense to argue with someone who doesn’t want facts to get in the way of his opinion. This is the same person who orders chicken fingers for lunch. Think about it!

A fictional story has to make sense, but life does not. For me, it makes sense to be an optimist. Being positive makes life more fun, even though I admit that I don’t have control over most things.

Hiking in the mountains by myself gives me time for contemplation and occasionally an adventure. Yesterday, I saw two men staring intently at something over a low wall. “What do you see?” I asked. One man said, “We are looking at a mountain lion’s footprint.”

I looked over the wall and saw a hole about the size of a basketball. There were shoe prints to the left of the hole. I knew that if that hole had been what those men thought it was, the elephant sized, mountain lion would have been hopping around on one toeless paw, after devouring a couple of sneaker wearing tourists. Their discovery made as much sense as a sighting of Big Foot.

As I continued my walk, I spied a rider atop a beautiful, majestic horse on the trail ahead of me. After they disappeared from view, I noticed that the horse (it made no sense that it was the rider) left a massive mound of manure in my path. Notwithstanding the delightful alliteration, it made no sense at all for me to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I climbed some rocks to avoid the souvenir.  I knew from experience that some clueless joggers coming around the bend would soon re-arrange the terrain.

When passing fellow hikers, a hearty, “Good Morning!” (unless it’s afternoon) is acceptable behavior on the trail. Most people leave it at that, but a few folks think that a simple, “Hello,” gives them license to share life’s intimate details with absolute strangers. I don’t know these people and it makes no sense why someone would do that. This morning, my simple greeting encouraged a man from Michigan (that of course explains nothing) to tell me that his neurosurgeon wanted to remove his intestines to operate on his back.  I suggested that he find a surgeon with a better sense of direction. The exchange made no sense at all unless he thought I was a gastroenterologist, but then, I don’t even carry a hiking stick.

So now you know how my brain works. Scary! Isn’t it!

Esther Blumenfeld (“The universe never did make sense. I suspect it was built on government contracts.” Robert A. Heinlein)

Lost And Found

Three years ago, I went on a trip and when I returned home, I couldn’t find a pair of tiny, gold earrings. Losing things is not my style---misplacing things---Yes! losing things---No! So naturally, I tore my house apart looking for those little suckers and still couldn’t find them. I searched for three years.

Yesterday, I opened my jewelry box and heard two little voices saying, “Here we are. Where the heck have you been?” (No. For you purists, I wasn’t hearing voices. It’s called, poetic license).

Author, Frances Rodman (not the basketball-playing friend of Kim Jong-un) said, “Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.” Rodman, you have a screw loose! I don’t have to lose anything to appreciate what I have. Besides, Frances didn’t mention the headache, indigestion and accompanying ulcer that would accompany the stress of losing everything.

In life, tangible things are not the only items that can be misplaced. There is such a thing as misplaced anger, like when someone shoots his mouth off at the person delivering unwelcome news. An old Korean proverb says, “If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” That’s why Kim would rather shoot his uncle. He would have been better off listening to Mark Twain who suggested, “When angry count to four. When very angry swear.” But, maybe that doesn’t translate well into Korean.

Since anger is such a corrosive emotion, I suggest that before someone gives another person a piece of her mind, she should check to see if she has enough mind left-over when she is finished.

There is also such a thing as misplaced judgment. Again, Mark Twain gives a good example, “It’s not good sportsmanship to pick up golf balls when they are still rolling.” Metaphorically speaking, going off a trail in an unfamiliar forest is not a good idea. That’s when Albert Einstein reminds us, “Stand still. The trees and the bush behind you are not lost.”

My favorites of the misplaced are misplaced modifiers such as:

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.” (Groucho Marx).

But, before I lead you too far astray of the subject at hand, “the misplacement of tangible things,” I can offer a sure fire solution; the easiest way to find something you have misplaced is to buy a replacement.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Lost time is never found.”… Benjamin Franklin) 

Missed It By That Much!

What a day!  All I know is that it was a Friday, and TGIF notwithstanding, this particular Friday didn’t start out so well.

I crawled out of bed at 5 a.m. and got ready for my mountain hike. Got my boots all laced up and discovered that I had left my car keys in the bedroom. Not wanting to walk across the rug with dirty boots, I unlaced them, took them off and went for the keys. Returning to the mudroom, I laced up the left boot and then promptly broke the shoelace on the right boot. Luckily, I had a spare lace, but those of you hikers out there can commiserate with me over the joys of re-lacing boots…especially early in the morning.

Finally, I got into the car, fastened my seat belt, backed out of the garage and promptly knocked over my garbage can. Got out of the car, picked up the can (as well as scattered chicken bones) and finally took off for the mountains. It started to sprinkle. I told myself, “It’s not Monsoon Season yet. Must be a flock of birds.” It rained just enough to turn the dust on my car into a thin coating of mud.

When I got home, my neighbor informed me that I had a big irrigation leak at the side of my house. I turned off the water valve, and on my way into the house to call the irrigation Guru; I noticed two flyers at my front door. One was a love letter from the Water Company: “A backflow is broken in your neighborhood and the water will be turned off for 3 hours until noon.” This meant that the irrigation guy couldn’t come until after noon, because he couldn’t test the water leak at my house, since there wouldn’t be any water.  The second love letter was from the Gas Company: “The gas line in your neighborhood doesn’t have enough rotten egg smell to detect a gas leak, so be careful until we can add more rotten egg smell.”

So far, I had broken my shoelace, knocked over the garbage can, got rained on by a flock of birds, discovered a water leak, and my rotten egg smell wasn’t rotten enough, and it was only 8 a.m.

What else could go wrong?

At 9 a.m. the phone rang and my caller ID let me know that it was a friend.  I picked up the phone, said, “Well, Good Morning!” but she wasn’t on the other line. After several attempts to call her back, I finally got through on my cell phone. It turned out that a problem had developed with Century Link (her phone provider), Comcast (my phone provider) and Verizon (just because they didn’t want to miss the fun.)

At noon, the Water Company turned the community water back on. I flushed the toilet and the air in the line blew the rubber tube right off the gizmo in the toilet tank. That was uncanny!

The irrigation leak was fixed and all was finally well with my Friday. Then the mail arrived.

General Motors congratulated me that I had gotten my recalled ignition replaced, but informed me that now there is a teeny, weensy problem with the electrical power steering which will be replaced as soon as the parts arrive from Timbuktu. In the off chance that I experience a sudden loss of power steering, I was informed that “a message will be displayed on the Driver Information Center along with a chime telling you that you can now steer in the manual steering mode.” Well, I can do that!

So, do any of you superstitious folks think that my Friday was Friday the 13^th? I’m not telling! 

Esther Blumenfeld (Forgot to tell you, the battery in my watch died.)

Worrywart

Once upon a time, a scorpion came to a river and saw a duck swimming near the bank. “I can’t swim,” said the scorpion. “Will you take me to the other side?” “No!” said the duck. “If I let you climb on my back, you will sting me.” “I promise that I won’t do that,” said the scorpion.

So the duck let the scorpion hop on his back, and he began to swim to the other side. When they got to the middle of the river, the scorpion stung the duck. “Why did you do that?” said the duck. “Now we will both drown.” “Couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s just my nature.”

The prominent theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr authored the famous Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

 And wisdom to know the difference.”

It’s that third part that always gets me, because I am a worrier. It’s just my nature! My mother had beautiful wavy black hair, crystal blue eyes and a patrician nose. I didn’t inherit any of those traits. No, instead, she gave me the worry gene.

My mother worried when there was nothing to worry about She even worried about why she wasn’t worried. Today was always the tomorrow she worried about yesterday.

I try very hard to adhere to the advice given by Vikrant Parsai, “It is foolish to worry about something which is beyond your control---such as your life.” But it is really difficult to do so.

My friend, Barbara is also a world-class worrier. My consolation is that she has 3 children and 8 grandchildren, so she has 9 more worries than I do. However, I think she found it comforting when I suggested she not worry about the world coming to an end today, because it’s already tomorrow in Australia.

I am too busy to worry too much during the daytime, but there is nothing as aggravating as worry in the dark of night.  That’s when unsorted thoughts start churning in my mind and lead to sleeplessness. For instance, one night I lay in bed and thought, ”Where is the nearest Urgent Care Facility? What if I start bleeding, and I have to drive around looking for it? I’ll bleed all over the car before I find it.”

Shannon Celebi would admonish, “You’re worried about what-ifs. Well, what if you stop worrying?” Anticipating trouble or worrying about what may never happen reminds me of how little control I really have over future events.

I’m going to make a real effort to change. Maybe, I should write a story about it.

Exaggerated worry in the middle of the night is like waking up with a hangover--- finding out that there was no party---and that I didn’t have any fun at all. And, I am going to try to remember that today is the tomorrow that drove me bonkers yesterday.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.”) Joey Adams

What I Did One Summer

When I was a kid, finding a job in a small town was not easy. I needed the money for college, so I had to take what I could get. I spent the summer in men’s pants.

The largest employer in town was a trouser factory, and that summer I got a job as a temporary office worker. My duties were to take over the job of whoever was going on vacation for two weeks. It didn’t leave much time for training, but I knew I could fake it—at least for two weeks. Never having used a time clock, it took me several days to learn how to properly punch in and out. That did not bode well, and I knew I was in trouble when the office manager said, “I have my eye on you.” She was a bit cross-eyed, so I didn’t know which eye she meant, but I was forewarned.

After one disastrous week on the copy machine, the office manager banished me to the stock room. The lighting was very dim—as was I---since no one explained how to handle incoming (or was it outgoing?) orders. I was told, however, that I was not allowed to sit down. Order handling was to be done in a standing position.

Undaunted, I gazed at the piles of papers on the desk and remembered the advice of a friend of mine who was a kindergarten teacher: “When you take thirty kids on a field trip, you have to come back to school with thirty kids---not necessarily the same ones, but it has to be thirty!”

So, at the end of the day, the orders were all in envelopes and the desk was clean. I still don’t know if those orders were in corresponding envelopes, but fervently hope that men, whose pants didn’t fit, went on diets. Perhaps there’s one less heart attack out there---one less over-the-pants-belly to my credit.

Only once did I enter the factory proper to deliver an order, and that’s when I saw the workers toiling at their sewing machines. Most of these employees were women. The work was difficult and they were paid by the piece.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me when these seamstresses went on strike, and other factory laborers joined them. I had never experienced a strike, nor had I ever crossed a picket line. When I got to work, I saw people yelling, “Scab! Scab!” at picket line breakers, and I was hesitant to proceed. However, when one of the sewing-machine women saw me, she said, “Don’t worry, girl, we know what you do. You can go ahead. No one wants YOUR job.

Hell, I didn’t want my job, but for the rest of the summer I pretended to do the work of the vacationing staff, and the office manager pretended to keep one of her eyes on me. Shortly, after I quit, the owners sold the factory. I guess they just couldn’t get along without me.

Esther Blumenfeld (“I hold a little fundraiser every day. It’s called going to work.”) Stephen Colbert

From: CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006