Three Weeks. Two Deaths.

2011 has not been a good year.
Three weeks ago, my mother-in-law died. My wife was devastated at the loss of her mother. Though I tried my best to comfort her, I felt pretty inadequate to the task.
Yesterday, my mom's husband died suddenly. (They married after I was already an adult and was on my own, so "stepdad" doesn't seem the right word somehow.) My mom was devastated at the loss and again I felt quite ineffective in my attempts to make her feel at least a bit better.
Socially and emotionally awkward as I am, I'm not good with all the raw emotional stuff: the crying, the hurting, the slow eventual healing. I have a difficult time embracing the fact that these are part of the human condition and must slowly play themselves out. It is not a "problem" that I can somehow "fix". Despite my best intentions, I cannot somehow "save the day" and make everything better for the people I love.
As an atheist, I don't really grieve for those who have died. As far as I can determine, their suffering is over and they no longer exist except in the memories of those who knew them. It's the people left behind for whom I'm sad.
So since I'm not much good at the weepy aspects of the entire mourning thing, I suppose I could try to do something I feel more confident at: writing about the people who have recently died.

My mother-in-law, Lillian Caputo, was born in northern Ontario over 80 years ago. She spoke only French until the age of 16. She grew up impoverished and remained that way until moving to Montreal as a teen to find work and a better life. She married and the family moved to the United States where her husband's mechanical skills were in demand. They lived the typical idyllic 1960's suburban lifestyle. All was well until her husband died of cancer mere months shy of being able to collect a generous General Motors pension. Suddenly faced with having to raise her youngest daughter (eventually to become my wife) on Social Security, she used all her resources to make sure they would be okay. She was smart with her money and she took good care of my wife-to-be through her teen years until I snatched her away. Lillian not only took good care of her daughter, she also felt sorry for me, often feeding me ample meals during my broke student years so I wouldn't have to survive merely on macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles.
She was also extremely handy with tools and had an artistic side which I wish she would have explored. When we bought our house years ago, she was the one who helped my wife paint the place while I was at work. I remember once when she bought a folk-art painting and wire piece. Her thrifty nature started bugging her and she decided she could make one just like it for much less. And she did. Perfectly. Her recreation of the piece was so spot-on it was indistinguishable from the original. So she returned it, got her money back and kept her identical copy.
Lillian was generous with her time and money. A gift from her made a huge dent in the down payment on our house. The best gift she left, however, was her daughter. Lillian made sure that her daughter Leanne grew up to be a healthy and happy and confident young woman who became a loving wife and attentive mother. And in that sense, though Lillian is now gone, her legacy remains.

My mom's husband, Chuck Franklin, was 60-years-old. I don't know too much about his early life because I never bothered to ask. I know he served in the military in Germany for a few years and then worked various jobs from furniture sales to long-distance driver. He ate, smoked and drank a lot. He had some failed marriages. Then he met my mom. To say that their pairing was unlikely is an understatement to anyone who knew them. But somehow they meshed. Chuck got his life together, stopped smoking and drinking and tried his best to watch his diet. After awhile my mom and Chuck were married. Though Chuck was over a decade younger than my mom, he seemed to have a premonition that he would die first. He accepted that in a matter-of-fact manner, saying that his marriage had added 15 years to his life regardless.
Anyone who knew Chuck would be struck by his sense of humor, his genuine warmth and kindness once you got to know him and - most of all - his uncanny culinary abilities. Chuck was perhaps the best cook I have ever known in all my life. I would look forward to each Thanksgiving for some of his delicious stuffing, mashed potatoes (he always made a huge quantity knowing I loved them) and amazing chocolate pies. Thanksgiving will never be the same from now on. I remember one time I was at my mom's for no real reason. I was probably just dropping something off or just stopping by to say hello or something. Out of the blue Chuck asked if I'd like some pan-seared steak. Not being one to turn down such an offer, I readily accepted. The steak was delicious, of course, but more surprising was the side dish: mushrooms. Normally, I view those fungi as the tasteless gray mass one usually tolerates on pizzas. I didn't really want to eat them, but I figured since Chuck went through all that trouble I should at least be polite and choke them down. But as I took that first bite: a revelation! THESE mushrooms were not only tolerable, they were delicious! In fact to this day that serving of mushrooms was among the best things I've eaten in my life. No mushrooms before had ever come close... and I suppose none ever shall again.
I have many other nice memories of Chuck - his attempt to show the finer points of trout fishing to my outdoors-challenged son - the time he took us to the Soo to see the locks and the museum ship there. But damned if those mushrooms don't keep popping back into my memory. I suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere. What for Chuck may have been a simple act of kindness, a mere cooking of a steak, something that he might have forgotten about even doing shortly thereafter, became an event that helped define who he was and became one of the fondest memories of him after his death.

So I suppose if you ever feel like doing something nice for someone - even something small - please do it. It may be what you're remembered for after you're gone.

And there I must end things. I have to go to the Post Office to pick up my mother-in-law's ashes.
As I said: 2011 has not been a good year.

1,240 Days...

...until I qualify for full retirement benefits. Not that I'm keeping track.

Welcome Back to an Old Friend

Back in the early 1980's I purchased a shortwave radio at a pawnshop for $35. I enjoyed many hours listening to it. As the years went by, I had acquired a few more radios though the demands of school and work took up much of the time I had once devoted to shortwave listening. Once, while spending the night at my grandmother's place, I'd got out the old radio and spent some time listening to it. My grandma mentioned how much she enjoyed listening to the music broadcast by Radio Havana, so I let her borrow the old pawnshop radio.
Many years went by. I forgot about that old radio until the August afternoon a few years back when I got the news that my grandmother had died. While going through her belongings, I saw the old radio and decided I may as well take it back. A quick tryout of the radio revealed that while it still picked up FM signals just fine, it no longer received AM or shortwave stations. I put it in a closet and forgot about it again.
Until a few weeks ago. While doing some internet surfing about another old shortwave radio I once had, I found that the radio I had sitting in the basement, a Panasonic RF-2200, was now considered a classic and was selling for upwards of $250 in eBay in working condition. Apparently, although it's an analog model, it had gained a reputation over the years as being one of the best-sounding AM and shortwave receivers ever made. I very seldom have that kind of luck! If that wasn't motivation to get the old beast working again, nothing was!
And so, I put my minimal experience to work trying to figure out what was wrong with it. To make a long story short (and to try to conceal the fact that I really didn't know what the hell I was doing) I finally - after the application of much compressed air and contact cleaner to some old dials and switches -got the old Panasonic to once again spring to life. And what I heard was lovely! Shortwave and AM stations were booming in with a warm tone unmatched by my more expensive digital radios. I've spent quite a bit of time recently getting reacquainted with this once-forgotten friend. It's like I'm in 1982 again.
Though much in my life has changed since I first listened to the RF-2200, it's nice to know that some things endure. And it's also nice to know that although life is often unfair, occasionally it's unfair in my favor.

At Least She Didn't Say "Used Car Salesman"... Or "Axe Murderer"

As I was getting a haircut today, the lady barber asked me "Are you a physical therapist by chance?"
"No", I replied. "Why?"
"I don't know. You just look like someone who'd be a physical therapist."

I suppose I could have asked some fairly obvious follow-up questions at that point, but it would have ruined the strangely bemused feeling I was enjoying.

Sometimes life is more fun when you just enjoy the weirdness.

I Miss Radio Peking

Way back in the mists of ancient history (the 1970's, to be precise) I saved my money from an after-school job and bought a shortwave radio. It was a beautiful Panasonic portable with a large speaker and warm tone (and which still works... Hmmm...Now that I think of it, I kind of miss it. I should "borrow" it back from my mom).
Anyhoo, back in those pre-Internet-access days, one of the best ways to get international news was through international broadcasting. And many governments - especially those in the Eastern bloc (you know... the Commies) used shortwave's propaganda value to its fullest. Radio Moscow was omnipresent on the airwaves and other stations of the pinko variety (Radio Prague, Radio Tirana, Radio Kiev, etc.) were constantly blaring the party line to all who cared to listen. Among the stations putting forth their hardline socialist doctrine was Radio Peking. Before the beginning of their broadcasts, they would play an interval signal based on the song "The East is Red". (For those of you not familiar with shortwave listening, an interval signal is an audio cue distinctive to each station - usually in the form of a short musical snippet - to let you know you were listening to the right station and to allow you to adjust the tuning. In the days of analog tuners, this was a helpful device.)
Anyway, the years have passed, Radio Peking is now Radio Beijing and the once fierce Communist propaganda has been replaced by insipid imitations of Western-style morning chat shows more fitting what has become the manufacturing arm of Wal-Mart, Apple, Caterpillar and - well, hell, damn near every corporation in the West. While I certainly don't condone the past repression of the Chinese people by the Communist party, I'm not certain what has replaced it is all that great either.
To me, the collaboration between the new Chinese Communists and Western Capitalists seems like an "understanding" between rival gangs one might see in a mafia movie. Differences are put aside in the interest of making more money for those at the apex of both organizations. Why the fuck should Apple give a shit about internet censorship (and that of other media - e.g. - China's jamming of foreign radio broadcasts) as long as their workers make iPhones for cheap? Freedom? Naw... think different.
I know. I'm rambling. And since I'm being honest about that fact, I may as well ramble back to "The East is Red" for no particular reason. That particular tune, I'm told, is a traditional Chinese song which was repurposed for the glorification of Chairman Mao in the 1960's as part of a musical production of that title. The musical is awesomely, breathtakingly, over-the-fucking-top, horrible propaganda. Naturally, I love it. The opening sequence is by far the best. In the filmed version of the production, a choir of about 80-zillion singers belts out inspiring lyrics such as:

Red in the East rises the sun
China has brought forth a Mao Tsetung
He works for the people's welfare
He is the people's savior

(I'd like to point out as an aside that lyrics such as these seem to bear out the contention made by the so-called "new atheists" that these Communist nations were less atheistic than they were secular religions. God wasn't dead, he had simply adopted a new name and address. Okay, now back to the musical...)
As if things couldn't get any more drastic, bombastic and propagandic, hundreds of wholesome-looking fan-bearing Commie dancing girls swirl around the stage as the music reaches an orgasmic climax with lyrics such as:

The Communist Party is like the sun
Wherever it shines there is light
Wherever the Communist Party goes
There the people are liberated

The happy Commiegirls look dreamily off into the distance where they can see the bright future which awaits their offspring (their progeny making crappy Happy Meal toys in a shitty sweatshop in the outskirts of Shanghai perhaps wasn't what they were expecting, though).
Compared to this iron-fisted slab o'propaganda, anything Broadway has done since the history of forever is complete shit. THIS is a REAL musical, dammit! True, anything after the first six minutes is disposable crap, but that opening number redeems it a thousandfold. Watch it. Be amazed.
And that, I suppose, is why I miss Radio Peking. Back then, China was... you know... CHINA. Something different. Exotic. Even strange, in a way. Not the place name stamped on countless pieces of cheap plastic crap. Not the place to where all our manufacturing jobs made a long march. Maybe someday China will be truly free and not merely a source of cheap labor. In the meantime, though, we can always look back on these relics of the past. I mean, after all, if you're going to live in a repressive totalitarian nation, you may as well do the propaganda right.

Yep. It Was THAT Bad!

Yesterday at work, I was cleaning patient rooms. The day started off with two of the patients - uh - let's just say they were mobility impaired and didn't quite reach the restroom facilities in time. Yours truly got to clean it up. And it wasn't just urine. (I'll keep it at that to keep from getting TOO graphic.)
While cleaning it up, I couldn't help but think the following: here I am, cleaning filth off bathroom floors after driving to Ann Arbor to work. And I'm STILL far happier than I was working at that commercial TV station!!!
At least working at the hospital I get compliments, positive feedback and nice words from the people there. I'm actually treated as a human being and not some worthless cog in some remorseless money-making behemoth.
Oh... and I finally got my work uniform. It's more functional than stylish, but DAMN... do I ever look blue-collar-union in that blue shirt and navy work pants!

Pincushion

Working in a hospital is different from anything I've ever done before. I'm doing custodial work, which I've done earlier in my life, but in a hospital, things are more extreme. When cleaning an elementary school, a screw-up will merely mean things will be aesthetically unappealing for awhile. In a hospital, doing a sloppy job could mean a resistant germ could literally kill the next person who ends up in a given room. But hey, no pressure.
Actually, I like to try to do a good job in any position I work, so I don't mind the challenge. In the few days I've been working so far, I have received unsolicited positive comments from nurses and receptionists telling me they thought I was doing a good job and that they liked my work ethic. After three months of getting nearly constant crap from the management at my previous job, that did some good for my wounded self-esteem.
Another thing that makes working at a hospital different is the need to monitor one's health - both for the sake of the patients (so they don't catch anything from you in their often immuno-compromised state) and for you (so you don't catch any germies from a sick patient). Rubber gloves and oceans of Purel help to some extent, but I also had to have a health screening and shots.
It's strange going from a situation where I was concerned about losing all health coverage to being pampered in that department. It is in the interest both of my employer and myself for me to be immunized. And so yesterday, I became a human pincushion. Five needle pokes. And then I worked my shift. Today, my arms are sore. But I don't mind. I will now be safe from the flu, diphtheria, hepatitis B, whooping cough and probably rabies, distemper and heartworms.
As a 32-hour employee, I'm now enjoying my three days off. Not bad. I work hard while I'm at work, but I'm a slacker at heart. I have a long list of things I'm supposed to be doing on this day off. Typing in my blog was not one of them.
Oh, well...