Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Bobby, the Christmas Felon



Frog Hospital -- Christmas Eve

Bobby, the Christmas Felon

By Fred Owens

I wrote this little Christmas story about when my kids were small when we lived in LaConner, Washington. Eva is 40 now and has her own two children, but I told her this morning when we talked on the phone I still think she's seven and playing in the backyard on a swing. Eugene, next to her, always had his nose in a book, so he became a librarian.



Bobby, the Christmas felon, came to visit us on Christmas Eve many years ago, when Eva and Eugene were small. We lived in a double wide mobile home on Maple Street in LaConner, across the street from Wayne Everton and Chris McCarthy. That Christmas Eve we took a day hike out to Fishtown and stopped by Bo Miller's cabin to get out of the weather. But the cabin wasn't empty as we expected. This woolly old hippie had his bed roll spread out on the floor and a can of tobacco on the table. Seems he had been there for a few days, finding the door open. Naturally we invited him to our house for Christmas so he could enjoy some honest egg nog. Sure, he said, and maybe I can play with the children too. We trusted him, actually not that much, but we figured he could behave himself for a few days, and he did. He pushed the kids around town in the stroller and greeted everyone with a smile. I never asked where he came from or where he had been. I didn't want to know. I figured the cops were looking for him and if I didn't know I wouldn't be lying.

That was many years ago, but Bobby, wherever you are, I hope life has been good to you. Merry Christmas.

thank you for everything,

Fred


--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital




--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital


Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Mabel is in the nursing home


Mabel is in the nursing home

By Fred Owens

Laurie has been visiting Mabel in the nursing home since she broke  her hip. Mabel lives across the street by herself and she is getting frail at age 98. She lives by herself and doesn't drive. I see her in the mornings using her walker to go out and get the newspaper in the driveway. She was five feet ten inches tall, she says, but now she is bent over. Her health is pretty good otherwise with no issues as far as I know, eats well, sleeps well, gets lonely sometimes. But I've told her more than once, Mabel you have two empty bedrooms in your house. You could rent one of those rooms to someone who could do a few chores. You don't need to be mopping the floor anymore. But she won't do that and sure enough she fell by herself two months ago and broke her hip, she was lying on the floor and lucky she had her cell phone with her.... Rory, her son and only child, insisted she keep that handy.

Rory lives in Carpinteria and plays tennis. He is in the construction business and makes a good living. He is divorced and has a grown daughter Abby who lives in the area. Mabel cooks dinner for Rory every Sunday and sometimes Abby comes. She likes to read books. If she runs out of books she will call Laurie and ask her if she has any to borrow. Laurie is always swapping books with her other friends, so she can usually bring something over to Mabel.

But she can't do the other things since she stopped driving. She can't go to her bridge club or go to church. She stopped driving of her own accord and said it was time. Then she sold the car, "I don't need it anymore." Mabel is decisive and she rarely complains. I've taken her shopping many times in the past two years, almost every week. The bank is next store to the grocery store, so she goes in there to deposit her social security check and also to deposit the rent the collects from the apartments she owns. She's very old, but she's not poor, just tight. Good for her.. She supports Trump. She didn't volunteer that but I asked and she told me. So why do you support Trump, I asked her. She said, because he lowered my taxes. Well, I told her I don't support Trump  and we left it at that.

Her late husband Norville built the house she lives in more than fifty years ago. It was all country on Veronica Springs Road back then, and their house was the first one built. Norville liked building houses and he was good at it, Mabel said, so he went into that business and did well at it.
She grew up in Montana, the sixth of eleven children and rode a horse to school, and it didn't matter how cold it was, riding that horse. Her ten siblings have all passed away, but she stays in touch with several nieces and nephews.

Now she is in the nursing home nearby and the house is empty. They take good care of her at the home and she likes it there. It is  clean and comfortable and they bring her dinner and she can read. She doesn't seem to be making plans to go back home, or to get to a hundred years of age. Laurie says Mabel is getting ready to meet God, although no one, not even Mabel, gets to decide when that happens.

Merry Christmas and Medicare for All. Family and friends are all happy and accounted for although everybody is moving around, like my older brother Tom -- he is up in the Bay area visiting his daughter and two grandsons, He returns home, to Sierra Madre on Monday the 23rd. Sierra Madre is east of Pasadena. Then, on Christmas day, Tom and his life partner Marti go to Playa del Rey to visit her daughter and a whole bunch of her relatives. Playa Del Ray, is just a hop to to Venice which is where my sister Carolyn lives. So Tom and Marti will stop off to visit Carolyn  at her lovely home. And Eugene, my son, the librarian, will be at Carolyn's house too, along with his new girl friend Rachel, who is in town to meet our family, Actually she's coming to spend time with Eugene, but that includes some family time. I could fill several pages of all the comings and goings but it is all good and we are all happy. And we say Merry Christmas and Medicare for All.

The Impeachment. You hoped we could get through this issue of Frog Hospital without bringing up the impeachment. Sorry, the news is the news, and tomorrow is the vote and the fate of the nation will be decided. The impeachment is important and necessary. I lend my courage and strength to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She is right and true in this regard. Take a deep breath everybody, and we can get through all this.

Mail Manager Needed at Frog Hospital. There is work, and compensation, for a young person willing to assist me in mail management, like setting this up in MailChimp and other new techie things. Let's give Frog Hospital a professional look. Let's expand the mailing list and make it opt in. Let's increase the revenue stream --- You did know this is a business we're running here. Did I ever say it was a non-profit? But I need help with this.

 Merry Christmas and Medicare for All,

Fred

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital


Wednesday, December 11, 2019

It's not insulting if you can say it in Yiddish


It's not insulting if you can say it in Yiddish

By Fred Owens

I wrote this yesterday:
President Trump is being impeached because he is a dick.
A conservative friend objected to this earthy comment, so I changed dick to jerk and said Trump is a jerk, but jerk does not convey the magnitude of my contempt for this man. I lie awake at night thinking about things like this. My mind wandered until I found the right word. Putz. The President is a putz, same meaning as dick, but Yiddish. Much better. Yiddish is the language that raises insult to an art form. But what if you are not Jewish? Well, there is no formal board of approval. It's like what I said to Harvey Blume one day -- he is Jewish. I said how come you guys don't have a pope. I mean, who is in charge? Harvey didn't think that was funny. Basically there is no answer to that question. So I said to myself that I will call Trump a putz because he is one.
Next question: Going from Jewish to Catholic, we ask ourselves, does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hate President Trump. She was angry at even being asked that question, and considered it to be an accusation rather then an inquiry. I don't hate anyone, she said, and she went on to say that she prayed for President Trump every day. Did you believe her when she said that? I did. I was raised in the Catholic tradition, as Speaker Pelosi was, and we were taught not to hate anyone, and I don't, and neither does she. I have an urgent and compelling contempt for this man, but hate? No. I do not wish him any harm, I only wish with all my heart that he was not President. When he leaves the White House he can be pardoned and play golf. As long as he is gone.
So Speaker Pelosi, motivated by the same careful contempt, wants him out of the job. Did her motivation precede the evidence of criminal conduct? Did she go searching for evidence in order to support her contempt? Well, we all have our weaknesses, she may have gone looking for evidence. But how hard was it to find that evidence of malfeasance? Did it take her more than five minutes to find probable cause? Trump is far too blatant. She tried to overlook his misconduct. But it got worse, and more blatant. I believe this -- that she very much did not want to impeach the President, that she did not want to make this cause the crowning achievement of her career, that  she does not want to be known as the Speaker who impeached the President. She is not all  ego, she is emotionally healthy and balanced. She made the decision to act, and it was the right decision.
She strode forth from her office and stood before the assembled press in her white suit, her most serious white suit, her most powerful white suit, and announced the impending articles of impeachment. It is a condemnation that this man deserves. The articles will pass the vote of the whole House and then be passed on to the Senate. Congress, both House and Senate, will recess for the holidays. And, as the year comes to an end, may a quiet calm descend upon us all and may no man hate another. Let there be peace on this good earth, at least for a few days.
The Quotidian.  I was going to run the Quotidian today, but it is too long. People are too busy right now. But I will run the Quotidian in the first of the year because it makes a good read. At 16,000 words, it will be the longest email ever attempted at Frog Hospital, but I have field tested this prolonged essay/story. Harvey Blume himself has read it, most of it, he said, and found no reason to object. Virginia Smith, my college classmate, lives in Toronto. She read it, and she said -- if you can believe this -- that it was too short, and that I skipped over some necessary details. Alan Archiblad, of North Carolina, also a college classmate, read the whole thing and loved it.  So it goes into the first issue of 2020, hopefully when you have an hour to spare, because it is pretty long.
Precious. Harvey suggested that I write something about Precious. She was the African woman that I met and married in 1997. I went to Africa to get a story, but I came back with a wife  -- that's how I see it, because I have never been able to write about her. I can write about myself easily, and just follow the footsteps of David Livingstone, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Josef Conrad and all the other great white hunters of yore. Ernest Hemingway too. Good stories, but not one that I could write. And Harvey didn't ask me that anyway, he asked me about Precious. Not my story, her story. Impossible. Precious and I married and lived together for seven years, and divorced and I haven't seen her in years, and after all that love and turmoil, I feel that I never knew her at all and she was nothing but trouble. But Harvey asked me, and that's a dare, so maybe I will try to write something. It was 22 years ago. Maybe it just needed all this time to ripen and yield. I will give it a try.
Our House. Christmas is looking very good. Next week I will make an issue with lots of family news.
Peace,
Fred
Donations. Donations to Frog Hospital have reached $425 which is pretty good considering we are tapping a small pool of donors. You can go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button for $25. Or you can mail a check for a larger amount to Fred Owens, 1105 Veronica Springs RD, Santa Barbara, CA 93105  ....... Thank you very much ......


--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital


Wednesday, December 04, 2019

The PD Blues

FROG HOSPITAL -- Dec. 4, 2019

The PD Blues

By Fred Owens

This is just an update on how I am dealing with Parkinson's Disease. Some of you have seen this same piece on FB last week. I got a lot of good feedback on that, so now I share it with the broad Frog Hospital readership.

PD is the coolest of major maladies -- we have Michael Fox, Alan Alda, Linda Ronstadt and Mohammed Ali. Next Monday I am going to a boxing class at the gym, designed for PD folks. I will probably knock myself out. These days I get scared of going to new places by myself. Like yesterday, I was scared to go to the new Target. I did go however and I did not like it. The in-store music was too loud, and the lights were too bright. It was all too shiny. But I stuck it out and bought a new 5-cup Mr. Coffee coffeemaker and some art supplies -- a small canvas and a tube of Apple green acrylic paint. I have set myself up in an outdoor painting place  -- it is very absorbing.

This is all PD related by the way. In my PD exercise class they encourage all manner of activity, like painting. Another thing I have begun to do is play the piano. Reading the sheet music maintains the connection between the eyes on the notes and the ten fingers on the keys  -- that feedback loop is what can get lost when the disease progresses.

In exercise class, I began talking with Kent. He is 81. He's had PD for 15 years. His wife Karen drives him to class. He is a bit unsteady in his movements but speaks loudly enough and makes sense. That's encouraging. Kent is doing all right.

I take the medicine three times a day, "ropa dopa" they call it, otherwise I get stiff and achy. I get constipated and I have to pee a lot. But a lot of these things are just old age. Like my sex life, still going, can't complain and spare you the details. I sleep well and my appetite is good.

I have almost entirely lost my sense of smell, and this is common for PD folks. It seems like a small thing, but actually it's a big thing. So much of our judgment and decision-making comes from unconscious olfactory feedback. We like people or do not like people because of the way they smell. Some rooms smell good and some not so good. It's good to pay attention to your nose, and I wish I still had my nose -- my olfactory capacity that is.

But in general I don't cruise the Internet for PD information. I find this depressing. I would rather go to my PD exercise class and ask questions from my fellow sufferers.

PD is so random. Who gets it? Does it progress rapidly, slowly or not at all? Some people get the trembling hands, but many people don't get it. My sister said don't think about what might happen, so I don't. I can't say that it weighs on my mind too much, although my balance is pretty poor and I have to be careful when I walk. Maybe that explains my fear of new places like the Target store -- familiar landscapes are easier to navigate,

And I like my doctor. She works at the Sansum Clinic nearby. She is 35 and looks like she's 12. She went to medical school in Bangkok and her name is Dr. Mananya Satayapresert.

This is probably more than anybody wants to know about my PD experience, so I will stop here.

So much for health news. I could write about politics next time, or maybe just shut up.

In the category of assertions advanced without supporting evidence, I offer the following piece:

Spiders and Death
A story about a young woman who is afraid of spiders:
I heard her scream. She works in the next room. I could tell by the sound of her scream that it was something that scared her, but it was something that wouldn’t scare me, so I wasn’t alarmed. I walked over.
A spider was crawling across her computer screen. I got rid of it for her. Normally, I shush a spider out the door or window, if possible. I respect spiders – it’s not good to kill them if it isn’t necessary. But in this case, there was no choice.
The young woman was minimally embarrassed, as if it was a fact of life. She is a very decent, capable worker, like me. After all, I had put in a beef about the fluorescent lights in my office – they were driving me batty. It was my peculiarity and everybody has one. The boss was kind enough to buy some full-spectrum lamps to use instead.
Then I got to thinking – women are afraid of bugs and snakes and creepy-crawlers – a vast generalization, I admit, but it led me to another thought, or rather, to a question – What are men afraid of?
Two weeks later, it came to me. Men are afraid of death. This is not my original idea. You would think that after watching enough Woody Allen movies, that I would get the point, and I finally did.
Women are afraid of bugs, but they’re not afraid of death. Of course, they feel terror at its immediate approach, but on a day-in day-out basis, they’re afraid of other things.
My sister wouldn’t attend my niece’s wedding in Cancun, because it’s in Mexico. “There are cockroaches in Mexico,” she explained, in an assertion that invited no response.
But men – I’ll give you an example. I was afraid to buy a house for the longest time, because I knew, dimly, that if I bought a house I would die.
That doesn’t make sense? Well, being afraid of bugs doesn’t make sense either.
Later, the young woman was talking to me about her boyfriend of six months, and his failure to declare his devotion to her. That was her due, I agreed. Once more, I was ashamed for my gender because a man had failed to step up to the plate and take his swing.
What was he afraid of? He was afraid that if he told her that he loved her, that he would die – which he surely will.
Why doesn’t he grow up? Why doesn’t he move forward? Why does he just want to keep having fun? Because he’s afraid to die.
This cannot be explained away. This is not silly. It’s the reality, and a man is called to courage or he is not a man. If that boyfriend is not willing to utterly give up his life for her, then he is just a boy.
All of a sudden, I understood religion. Men invented religion because they cannot face this blank wall unaided.
Women have babies. They have the life inside them, which comes forth again and again, and so they’re not afraid of death.
But how could a man know that, even if he is near it. Instead, he invented paradise in the heavens.
A woman’s paradise is simply a place with no bugs.
It is such a good explanation of large questions, and I am very satisfied with myself at this point for coming to this understanding.
And what should we do about it? We should treat each other with kindness and sympathy, because we are all afraid of something.

Politics.  A survey of the Frog Hospital readership told me that most of you would rather hear me tell stories than rant on the election and the impeachment. I'm okay with this, for now.

Upcoming issues. The next issue features an incredibly long story. I have field tested this story with four astute and powerful readers. They have endorsed it, for the most part, with reservations. So you will see it next time....... Also someone suggested I write a story about Precious, the African woman I married in 1997. This might be a good idea (hear the sound of me mulling this good idea).

Donations. Donations to Frog Hospital have reached $425 which is pretty good considering we are tapping a small pool of donors. You can go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button for $25. Or you can mail a check for a larger amount to Fred Owens, 1105 Veronica Springs RD, Santa Barbara, CA 93105  ....... Thank you very much ......


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital