Category Archives: Personal

My grandson explains how old he is, more or less

Sunday was the little guy’s second birthday. If any adult at the party asked how old he is now, he flashed a seemingly (but not really*) random number of fingers. It seemed to satisfy the adults, and then he could go back to playing…

* CORRECTION: You know what? I realized that, in the interests of emphasizing cuteness, I described what the little guy is doing inaccurately, and even in a way that made him seem less smart than he is — which I would never want to do. Actually, he is conscientiously doing his best to answer the question. My wife tried to teach him, in the days running up to his birthday, how to hold up two fingers. Seeing that that was kind of tricky for him, she showed him that, as an alternative, he could hold up one finger of each hand. So, you see, what he’s doing in the picture is giving you as complete an answer as he can, covering all possible ways of answering: He’s doing his best to show two fingers with his right hand, while holding up one finger with his left. He just doesn’t understand that it’s an either-or thing.

Mother’s Day thoughts from our baby, in Thailand

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Our youngest, with friends in Thailand.

As you may recall, our youngest daughter is in Thailand with the Peace Corps. She’ll be there another two years. So as the family gathered yesterday for a Mother’s Day cookout, she couldn’t be with us physically. But she posted this on her blog:

I love this time of year. Although nothing’s really changing on this side of the planet, my southern blood can feel the dogwoods bloom and the Atlantic Ocean warming up begging me to dive in. It’s when my South Carolina soul is set free — those first few Charleston summer nights spent riding my bike through the cobblestones of the Battery, down alleyways like magic gardens, past beautiful long pastel porches where belles once kissed their beaus by the flickering light of oil lamps.

I’m sure it’s getting to be the perfect weather for a backyard barbeque — which is exactly what I’m missing out on today as my family gathers to celebrate Mother’s Day.

While I wish I could be there, my service in the Peace Corps is a daily reminder to me of my mother’s influence. I often think, as I find myself in shocking situations, how would my mother handle this? And the answer is always the same — graciously, and with style. My mother would smile and calmly treat any human she came into contact with, with the same dignity and respect as the next person, no matter their approach or appearance. I learned from witnessing my mother’s consistent interactions as a social worker and active volunteer that all people deserve equal attention.

I feel that my parents, particularly the long hours I spent alone with my mother as her last baby, are largely responsible for any humanitarian tendencies I may possess. As I dug for grubs at her feet in our backyard organic garden, I learned that the easy way is not always the right way, i.e., cloth diapers for five children is better than polluting the planet with disposable diapers for five children, dryers are unnecessary when you have a sunny sky, and that your recycling and composting piles should always outweigh your trash.

My mother taught me a sense of social responsibility, but what’s more is she taught me how to live. She showed me by example the importance of prioritizing and maintaining a positive outlook. When she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, she fought it so gracefully that I never questioned her survival. A steel magnolia if you ever saw one.

I’ve come a long way from my childhood, which I spent totally preoccupied with my mother’s activities and whereabouts. Sure, all children are concerned with their #1 caretaker’s well-being, but my interest was border-line stalkerish. Maybe I was just spoiled, but I couldn’t stand for her to be out of my sight for a minute, and I needed constant validation of my status as the baby. I still do. Some things you never grow out of. While I have some minor personal goals for my life, the one over-arching theme is to make my mother proud. At the end of the day that’s what I really care about. That’s what would make me happy. I know in order to do this I must try to live selflessly as she does, not missing an opportunity to make my life worthwhile. This doesn’t come as naturally to me, but I am trying.

When I was little, I would stare at my mother’s face and marvel at her beauty. Now I’m wise enough to marvel at her strength. Each day I spend in Thailand is a test — a beautiful, delicious, sweaty test filled with smiles and laughter, but a test nonetheless. One that forces me to channel my mother from the other side of the world.

I wish all the mamas a happy Mother’s Day and I miss you from Thailand!

Bee Gees tune makes my hypothetical band’s playlist

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Last night, I was watching an episode of “The Americans” and it ended with a song in the background that was a pleasant-enough-sounding ballad, but for one thing: It seemed to be very close to something very familiar, and something that I wanted to hear, but it never got there. It was too busy being artsy, too free-form, too showy in its refusal to be anything like the original.

I now know it was Roberta Flack’s version of “To Love Somebody.” It was pleasant, but considered as a cover of that song, it was awful. It left out all the best bits, such as the change when it launches into “you don’t know what it’s like,” and then when it takes it down a notch, for “to love somebody.”

Everything that made the song special was missing, including the appealing rhythm of the verses, in between the aforementioned best bits.

Frankly, I hadn’t ever realized how special the song was, until it had been stripped of what made it that way.

So I’m unilaterally adding it to the playlist for my band, for when I have a band. I’m not consulting my bandmates on it, because I don’t have any, and it wouldn’t do to start having artistic differences before we even get together.

I’m even thinking of going out on a limb and adding “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” because I’ve always known that was great, even though it was by the Bee Gees. After all, the Brothers Gibb were pretty good before disco (he said defensively).

This is coming together well. Before long, I’ll have a complete playlist for my ultimate cover band, and that will give us a head start when I get around to actually putting the band together. Don’t you think?

Back when my two youngest were ‘the little girls’

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My youngest daughter, the one who’s in Thailand now, adopted the above image as her new profile picture on Facebook. As I said in response, this is one of my favorite pictures I ever shot — perhaps one of my favorites that I ever saw.

It shows my two youngest. This was back when they were known in the family as “the little girls.” We had the three “big kids” who were close together in age, then a five-year gap, then the little girls.

Now they’re grown, like the big kids.

This was also back when I was still using my Nikon 8008, an awesome camera that now sits in a drawer because dealing with film is such an expensive hassle. I used to shoot black-and-white all the time — this was probably shot either on Tri-X or T-Max — which I would develop at home, and make my own prints. I would close off a bathroom that had no windows, set up my enlarger, put towels down at the crack under the door, and spend a whole Saturday printing.

This is one of those prints. The resolution is a little soft (actually, we would have referred to focus and grain rather than “resolution”), but that’s the way it was with 400 ASA film with ambient light indoors. But that’s one of the things that makes the picture work.

Tempus fugit.

From the Weird Coincidences File…

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Over the weekend, I was in the Atlanta area for the funeral of my first cousin, Jack Avery. The silver lining in such sad occasions is that we get to see kinfolk we haven’t seen in years.

My brother and I sat up Friday night visiting with my aunt — Jack’s mother — and his sister and members of her family. And we got on the subject of talking about how various members of the extended family are related to each other. We spoke, for instance, of the family legend that we are related to Captain Kidd (there are some Kidds in the family tree), although none of us know exactly how, even if there’s any truth to it.

Somehow, we got on the subject of Patty Hearst. We are related to the Hearsts, rather distantly. The Hearsts lived in the Abbeville and Greenwood areas long before they went West.

My great-great-great grandmother, born in Abbeville in 1798, was a Hearst. Her grandfather, John Hearst, was William Randolph Hearst‘s great-great grandfather — and Patty Hearst’s great-great-great-great grandfather. A family genealogist once told my Dad that he was Patty’s fifth cousin, and the way I read the family tree, I think that’s right.

Making me her fifth cousin once removed. I suppose I could have applied for a job at Hearst Newspapers when I got laid off from The State, but I was just too proud to rely on nepotism.

Anyway, after having had that conversation, the first I’d had with anyone about the Hearst connection in years, we went to the funeral home the next day. We were a little early, and I found myself walking up and down the hallway. Noticing a stack of books sitting on a side table just outside the room where we gathered for the visitation — books there for no more relevant purpose than to imbue the decor with a homey feeling — I of course bent down to read the covers.

What I saw is pictured above. Note the one on the bottom.

I thought that was kind of weird…

Mrs. Landingham, we hardly knew ye

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The West Wing by Habzapl

Wow. Last night, I watched the Season Two finale of “The West Wing” not once, but twice. It was one of the best episodes of any TV show that I’ve ever seen.

Just thinking about Mrs. Landingham telling Jed, for the second time in their long association, that if he didn’t want to proceed because he didn’t think it was right, fine, she could respect that, but if he didn’t try because it would be too hard, “Well, God, Jed, I don’t even want to know you”… well, I get goose bumps right now, just typing it.

On a previous thread, we were talking, in the context of the military, about what it means to live for a purpose greater than yourself. Well, this TV show is getting to me, and it’s on that level.

I’ve been watching this show nightly while working out, and loving it. (I never saw it when it was on the air.) It’s probably not good for my mental health, though, because I’ve become so very jealous of those characters and what they have together. I don’t always agree with the things they’re trying to do, but that’s beside the point. The fact is that they get to do it as part of a group of people just as committed to serving their causes as they are. And what they do actually has an effect on the world around them.

I mentioned that Ainsley, the young Republican lawyer who joins the staff, is possibly my favorite character (my second favorite may be Toby, although I really like Leo, too). She disagrees with this bunch of Democrats even more than I do, and is a wonderful foil for them. But she, too, is a member of the group; she feels the sense of mission perhaps more purely than they do — because she is there solely in order to serve her country, rather than the president’s party or anything like that.

It’s no accident that the episode I saw last night uses Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms” to such effect. That’s the appeal of the show. These people are all brothers in arms, in a cause greater than themselves.

The show creates in me a longing. I couldn’t serve in the military for medical reasons. I’ll never be a senior adviser in the White House because, Ainsley aside, you not only have to be a partisan, but a professional partisan, to get there these days.

But I know there are people in this world who have something like what those characters have, and I’m deeply envious.

Daily Beast: ‘The U.S. Military Is a Socialist Paradise’

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Free health care.

Often, when talking to people who are horrified, appalled, mortified at the notion of a single-payer health care system — or who show contempt for the very notion that the government can do anything constructive — I speak of the way I grew up as a Navy brat during the Cold War.

I spent relatively little time in the cocoon of the military base — a couple of years in the run-down old Navy base in New Orleans (few amenities; most of the WWII-era buildings were boarded up), a couple more at MacDill Air Force Base, a place I only ever had to leave to ride the bus to my high school (my brother attended an elementary school on-base). The Army and Air Force, with their large garrison communities, always seemed to have the best recreational facilities and other amenities. The Navy’s focus was at sea.

But whether I lived on- or off-base, I had access to certain basics, such as free health care. My Dad gave his service to his country, including going to war, and in return he and his were taken care of. It made sense, and it worked.

Well, I see that Jacob Siegel at The Daily Beast has taken it to another level, with a piece headlined, “The U.S. Military Is a Socialist Paradise.” An excerpt:

It probably comes as a surprise to many, but the army may have more in common with Norway than Sparta.

The U.S. military is a socialist paradise. Imagine a testing ground where every signature liberal program of the past century has been applied, from racial integration to single-payer health care—then add personal honor, strict hierarchy, and more guns. Like all socialist paradises, the military has been responsible for its share of bloodshed, but it has developed one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare that this country has ever known….

It’s not a terribly original idea, and I think he takes it a bit far. And does pure socialism have, as he notes, a strict, chain-of-command hierarchy? Is it informed by personal honor and devotion to duty? I suppose it could be, but those concepts suggest something other than an economic system to me. And there’s a good bit of Sparta in the life, for the active-duty people.

Anyway, I thought I’d share the proposition with you…

I’m taking little white pills and my eyes are still itchy

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And I write that headline with apologies to Dave Dudley. (You know, “I’m takin’ little white pills and my eyes are open wide…“)

How are y’all doing with the pollen? I’m not doing so great.

Of course, I take my usual double-adult dose of Zyrtec every night (my allergist decided years ago that 10 mg wasn’t enough for me), plus the Singulair that I take to keep asthma away but which I also find has an antihistaminic effect (I tried to quit taking it a couple of years back, and my nose was like Niagara Falls).

But at times like this, I have to get over-the-counter reinforcements, which in our house we just refer to as “little white pills.” Every drug store sells a house-brand version. They’re these generic tablets of chlorpheniramine maleate (antihistamine) and phenylephrine HCL (decongestant — and not the one you can make meth from). Essentially the same two drugs as in Alka-Seltzer Plus, minus the aspirin.

I find that they help admirably most of the time, but usually not until I’ve taken them every four hours for a day or so. After that, I can taper off some. Yesterday, I had been taking them at the prescribed intervals for quite a few days, and started having pretty bad symptoms again after only a couple of hours. And I’ve found in the past that sometimes if you push the envelope a tad — taking another dose after only three hours, just once or twice — you can get back on top of it. So, I tried that once or twice.

None of the tricks were working last night. Today, I’m feeling the effects of overwhelming hay fever and maybe a little too much of each of these drugs in my system, plus a largely sleepless night probably brought on by both of the first two factors. Then there’s the caffeine that I’ve tried to keep myself going with today. There’s nothing like feeling a little jittery from too much coffee while still having trouble keeping your eyes open and putting one thought in front of another…

I’m sure I’ll be better tomorrow, though. Right?

That’s me. How are y’all doing?

Hey, iTunes! Where are all of MY tunes?!?!?

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OK, I’m trying to suppress the panic here…

I was already pretty ticked off because the only tunes that showed up on my Apple TV were ones that I had “purchased” (either for money or by redeeming a free song from Starbucks or something) from iTunes.

Whereas, most of the music that was in iTunes on my PC laptop and my iPhone and my iPad were songs I owned before iTunes was invented — things I bought long, long ago, either on CD or vinyl (I have a turntable at home that hooks up to a computer and converts vinyl to MP3s). Stuff I had every right to. I liked that this music was in iTunes because it meant it wasn’t subject to the ravages of time and rough use as they affect vinyl and CDs — and they were available to me on multiple platforms, wherever I went.

The number of songs I had “purchased” from iTunes were insignificant. I mean, unless someone has given me an iTunes gift card, why would I spend money on something I could hear on Pandora or Spotify for free? (Especially, especially, especially if I had already paid for it once, twice or three times in my lifetime?)

Anyway, this state of affairs got worse when I got a new iPhone a month or so ago. Everything transferred over from my old iPhone just fine. But recently I noticed that all of MY music (the music I owned before iTunes, from vinyl and CD) was missing.

So today, when I connected the iPhone to my PC in order to transfer some photos, and iTunes automatically launched, I thought, “I’ll try to fix this.”

I did this by clicking on “Brad’s iPhone” in iTunes, scrolling down to options, and clicking off the button that said “Sync only checked songs and videos.” And then I clicked “Apply.”

I got a dialogue box that I can’t seem to get back again now, but I think it said something like “Do you want to erase the iTunes profile on your phone and replace it with the one on your computer?” I said “yes,” because that’s what I wanted to do. And I ran it.

And now, I still don’t have any of MY tunes on iTunes, and a bunch of them (but strangely, not all) have disappeared from my laptop as well! For instance, all of the Beatles albums — just gone!

They’re all still on my iPad. So now I’m scared to connect the iPad to the PC, lest I lose them. (And yeah, I suppose I still have copies of these things somewhere, in some form, but getting them onto iTunes represented a lot of time and effort.)

Any minute now, I’ll start freaking out.

Anyone have any advice?

My life, seen as a paranoid conspiracy theory

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Actual untouched photograph taken in the Des Moines airport in January 1980. Why am I meeting with then-Senator, later White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker? And why am I in disguise?

Actual unretouched photograph taken in the Des Moines airport in January 1980. Why am I meeting with then-Senator, later White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker? And why am I in disguise? Who is the man in the background, watching us?

On a previous post, Doug mentioned Oliver Stone’s paranoid masterpiece “JFK.”

Which reminded me of when I lived in New Orleans — during Jim Garrison’s investigation.

Which got me to thinking further…

You know, Oliver Stone could probably weave a good paranoid conspiracy around my life. All of the following is true:

I was in Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Shortly thereafter, I moved to Latin America, not to be seen in this country for two-and-a-half years.
That means I was conveniently out of the country when Kennedy was killed.
There was a military coup while I was in Ecuador. It was planned (in part at least) in the very same house in which I lived, while I was there.
My guitar teacher in Ecuador was an agent of U.S. Naval Intelligence.
The pastor of the nondenominational church we attended was an agent of the CIA.
Within months of returning to this country, I moved to New Orleans, where Jim Garrison was about to get rolling with his allegations.
In 1970, I had a run-in with Admiral John McCain, then Commander-In-Chief, Pacific Command — and the father of the John McCain who was at the time a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.
In 1978, I met George H.W. Bush, former head of the CIA who at the time was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations.
I was in Iowa two years later, just before Bush beat Ronald Reagan in the caucuses there.
Several weeks later, I was present during the Arkansas caucuses when delegates of Reagan and Howard Baker conspired to squeeze Bush out, thereby bumping him out of contention. I had been traveling with Baker in Iowa. I had a brief face-to-face contact with Bush that day.
During the 80s, I had numerous face-to-face meetings with Al Gore.
In subsequent years, I would have closed-door meetings at my office with John McCain (on multiple occasions), George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, and, completing the circle to the Kennedy administration, Ted Sorensen.

Forget Oliver Stone. I’m starting to have suspicions about myself…

Think about it — how would your life look in the eyes of a conspiracy theorist who believes there’s no such thing as coincidence?

Family fun at Old McCaskill’s Farm

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We took the twins to Old McCaskill’s Farm in Rembert in Kershaw County on Sunday. It was sheep-shearing time, so they got to see some of that. They also rode on a couple of Marsh Tacky horses, held chicks, petted rabbits and baby goats, and had fun on a tire swing.

I recommend it, next time there’s an event like that. Here’s the calendar.

My very first Tweet was (allegedly) a sinful one

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Twitter is celebrating its 8th birthday, and in connection with that has set up a website where you can find your very first Tweet ever.

Allegedly, this is mine:

First, I remember that Tweet. Weirdly, I was thinking about it during Mass this past Sunday. I was thinking about how it takes willpower to refrain from Tweeting during Mass, and I suddenly remembered a time when I gave in to the temptation. I sort of remembered where I was sitting. I also remembered that I had been to Starbucks that morning, and was still feeling a very nice first-cup buzz at the time. And I remembered that I mentioned that I was in Mass in the Tweet. (And the timestamp, 12:37 p.m., places it smack in the middle of the Mass I attend most weeks. And I checked — May 24 was a Sunday.)

Second, it seems highly unlikely that that was my first Tweet. I seem to recall rather clearly first trying out Twitter during the week, while sitting in my office in the Byrnes Building at USC. This was when I was on that 90-day consulting contract with Harris Pastides, right after I was laid off at The State. I had been talked into trying Twitter after a meeting in which some other consultants had given the university president and members of his communications team a presentation on social media. Tim Kelly talked me into it. I was reluctant to try Twitter, but he persuaded me that it would be a great tool for promoting my blog.

I remember trying it, sitting there in that office, and almost immediately becoming hooked on it. Which surprised me. I thought I would hate it.

It seems highly unlikely that I would have waited until Sunday, while I was in Mass, to try my first Tweet. For one thing, if I hadn’t Tweeted before, how would I know that it was something I enjoyed doing, and therefore be tempted into doing it at such an inappropriate moment?

Still, it was interesting to suddenly have that indiscretion thrown at me today. It’s both a pleasant blast from the past, and a cause for a wave of guilt. But then, as Yossarian said to Chaplain Tappman, “I wouldn’t want to live without strong misgivings. Right, Chaplain?”

The beginning of the big, sad thaw

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The unappealing mix of ice chunks and slush collecting beneath the eaves of my house.

There are these chunks of ice, about an inch in length, up to maybe half an inch in breadth, raining down onto the icy coating covering my lawn. At first, it appears to me yet another variety of precipitation. But it’s coming from the trees. The steady clatter these things produce on my roof is accompanied by a liquid drip from the eaves.

It’s 34 degrees Fahrenheit, and the melt has begun. Which always imparts to me a sense of loss. There was all this solid, stable beauty that forced us to take note of it, and now, far too soon, it’s disappearing.

That may seem perverse. It may sound like a guy who doesn’t want to go to work. But I can do most of my work from home, as long as there is electricity. That’s not it. Anyway, I’ve never experienced winter weather severe enough to prevent me getting to the office if I really need to. And during all my years working at newspapers, I always did go to work. But I still felt the sense of loss when the snow and ice started melting.

I think I’ve just not had enough ice and snow in my life to ever feel like I’ve had enough of it, to get to the point that I’m ready for it to go away.

Usually in my life, it has melted away before it even begins to stick. And then, on the rare of occasions when it does stick — and this is twice so far this season — you hardly have time to say, “It’s winter!” before the drip starts from the eaves, and the solid beauty has begun to die.

… a huge flurry of chunks just came down onto the roof just over my head. My home office is in and upstairs room…

I began life in South Carolina, and lived in Charleston and Bennettsville and Columbia until I was kindergarten age, when we moved to Norfolk. After Norfolk, we were in New Jersey for a year, and there I had a good bit of winter weather. I can remember walking to school — it was just across the street from the apartment complex where we lived — when the snow was nearly to my knees. But I was pretty short then.

We went to Bennettsville for Christmas that year, so I missed my one chance at a white Christmas. The closest I would some was when we had that snow on Boxing Day in 2010, the day before we left for England — and missed that blizzard they’d just had there.

I’m sort of the opposite of Rob McKenna the Rain God in Douglas Adams’ So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish — the lorry driver who is always driving through the rain that follows him everywhere. The snow generally avoids me. When it deigns to visit, it leaves before its welcome wears out, always. You might think of it as excessively polite.

It stayed away from me in most of the places I lived, as you’d expect — New Orleans; Tampa; Honolulu; Guayaquil, Ecuador. We got some in Jackson, TN, but it was always a big news story when we did. It was fairly routine in Wichita, but not so that I got tired of it. And I left Kansas as soon as I could for reasons unrelated to the weather. Although the incessant wind may have played a role in my eagerness to leave.

So anyway, here it is already above freezing, and it’s going away. And odd as it may seem, I hate to see this.

The icy debris that fell from trees, littering my sidewalk.

Another ‘Walking Dead’ kind of day in the Southland

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I had already made the comparison between the recent weather-related apocalypse in Atlanta and “Walking Dead,” but I had somehow missed this post providing photographic evidence.

Whoa. It even includes “survivors” shuffling through the wreckage, in images very like those from everyone’s fave zombie TV show. Check it out. The main visual difference is that in the real-life shots, everything is icy, while it seems like it’s always sweltering summer on “Walking Dead.”

And today, I look out around me, and except for the presence of shuffling undead, this could indeed be the end of all we knew. My iPad just chimed to tell me that “Nearly 52,000 SCE&G customers [are] without power.”

Right now, I’m listening to Nikki Haley’s live briefing. She says T-Rav’s Daddy’s bridge is closed again…

Days such as this remind me of a dream I used to have, decades ago. All you Freudians, prepare to take notes…

I would dream that I was in a house that was seemingly miles from any road or sign of life, with deep, deep snow covering everything. Nothing but whiteness could be seen, for miles and miles of softly undulating, hilly landscape. There were no tracks in the snow. Most of all, there was no sound whatsoever. I was seeing all this not so much from inside the house, as I was seeing the completely snow-bound house set in an all-white background.

The memorable thing about the dream, the thing I wanted to go back to after I awoke, was the utter peacefulness of it. There was nothing to do, and nothing to worry about. Worry and stress was a thing of other times and other places. There was just the snow, and the quiet.

All the Freudians are now going “death wish!” But keep in mind this was in the context of me being a newspaperman. I had to go to work no matter what the weather, and go to great trouble to generate boring weather stories. Sitting tight in a warm house looking at the pretty snow was just not a part of my life.

I think maybe the dream just had to do with wanting a day off like other people. Even though I always scorned those wimps who stayed at home because it was a bit slippery outside, on some level I think I envied them. A perfectly pedestrian impulse. Although I’ll admit there was something mystical, something unearthly, about the peacefulness of that dream.

But I digress…

Reaching for the 350-Calorie barrier

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My paleo diet is going OK. Not sticking to it religiously, but I’m eating almost no grains (had some rice over the weekend), which is the main point. Also avoiding legumes. Everything else in that diet is pretty much what I was doing before.

The pace is picking up on exercise, though. As I may have mentioned, I got a Roku 2 for the upstairs TV for Christmas. That removed my lame objection to using my elliptical trainer, which was that there was nothing on TV, and I can’t engage in mind-numbing activity without a distraction to help the time pass. And I’ve never been able to read while bobbing up and down like that.

So I worked out a couple of times last week, then skipped a couple of days. Friday night, I got serious. I pushed hard, and set a new record for myself on that machine, burning 331 Calories in 30 minutes. That is, of course, assuming that the machine’s calculation based on my weight, etc., is accurate. But I figure it’s measuring something, and higher numbers mean progress.

Then, on Saturday, I pushed harder, and beat that.

Last night, I burned 349 in 30 minutes.

After I pass the 350 mark, maybe I’ll think about stepping up the resistance — or slowing it down slightly and going 35 minutes, or 40 minutes. Haven’t decided yet.

Just thought I’d report the progress…

My baby’s gone off to join the Peace Corps

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If I seem distracted today, it’s because my youngest daughter, who graduated from College of Charleston several months ago, left today to begin her training for the Peace Corps — in Thailand.

I’m very proud of her, and also traumatized. We expect her to be gone a long time. How long? Well, my 19-month-old grandson will be almost 4 years old when she returns.

I try to cheer myself up with the below clip from “Volunteers,” which she posted on Facebook the day she learned where she would be posted. But today, it’s just not as funny as it normally would be.

I don’t know what else to say right now; words fail me. But she did a good job elaborating on this moment on her own blog last night:

So tomorrow marks the beginning of what people keep telling me will be a life changing journey. I will meet my fellow Peace Corps trainees in Washington, DC before we board the flight to Thailand aka the other side of the planet. You would think that I would be double-checking my packing lists or re-reading official documents, but instead I have spent the day rolling around toy tractors with my baby nephew and learning about Star Wars from my 4 year old niece. Not to mention eating as much southern food as possible. After all, I don’t really think I could prepare myself for the next two years right now if I wanted to.

Not to say I haven’t tried. I have stocked up on quite a few “riap roy” outfits (this is the expression for polite and professional). This has definitely been the most difficult part of my preparations. More difficult than the nearly year long application process, the multiple interviews, background checks, or medical clearances. In fact, all of those things were pie. Finding clothes that cover my shoulders, chest, and legs below my knees that I don’t feel Amish in has been more challenging than it sounds. Sometimes I think to myself, how did my life go from getting in trouble for covering up my body and wearing more clothes than a leotard in ballet class, to this? I took a weird turn somewhere, but I’m adjusting.

I have also prepared by learning the most important Thai phrases for survival. I can now say, “fried chicken is delicious”, “I don’t understand”, and “beautiful dress”. I can also count to 100, though since Thai is a tonal language, meaning intonation determines the meaning of a word and not emotion like in English, I am probably making arbitrary philosophical statements instead. This is fine with me for now, as I am sure that the next three months of Pre-Service Training will expand my linguistic abilities ten-fold.

What else to say? I will miss my friends and family, my country, and my party clothes, but I feel really good about leaving. Maybe the anxiety that everyone keeps expecting me to have will set in before I step off the plane or something, or maybe in a few months when I realize that I am the sole American in a 100 mile radius, but for now all I am is happy. I have lived a lucky life, and I couldn’t be more grateful for everyone and everything in it. …

My personalized paleo diet: ‘Caveman no have chicken’

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Nor did they have eggs, say I. Although I don’t know which they didn’t have first.

Hey, if it was good enough for Fred and Barney…

I have now sorta, kinda, in fits and starts, embarked on my first diet aimed (at least in part) at losing weight in my life.

I’ve always been on a rather restrictive diet, because of my allergies. And that diet has probably protected me from a lot of the ills that beset modern Americans. Thanks to my allergy to wheat (and, more severely, to dairy products and eggs), I can’t eat anything from a bakery, and that eliminates a lot of trouble right there.

It also cuts out most complex recipes, particular those involving some form of stuffing or sauce. Mostly, I eat very plain meat (except chicken), vegetables and fruit, with rice being my main starch, along with corn (grits) at breakfast.

And over the years, whatever health problems may arise, my basic vitals have been good — good pulse, low blood pressure, acceptable cholesterol levels, and so forth.

But several things happened recently:

Four members of my family — children and grandchildren — were diagnosed. with celiac disease. Others suspect they have it. Their new diets caused me to realize something I hadn’t known: that a gluten-free diet involves a LOT more than not eating wheat. It casts a pretty broad net. A gluten-free kitchen takes at least as much thought and effort as a kosher kitchen, seemingly. Probably more.
My first cousin, out in Montana, told me on Facebook that she had given up ALL grains, and never felt better. She said, “When I stopped grains altogether, my thoughts cleared, memory improved, bloating I didn’t realize I had went away.”
I myself had been experiencing increasing abdominal problems, including the aforementioned bloating, pretty much daily. (Sorry, but I think this is the only gross part.)
There was more going on to my increased waist size than the aforementioned. There was added mass that was more permanent, nothing that could be dismissed as “bloating.”
For the first time in my life, my weight — fully clothed, with coat wallet and cell phone and keys, mind you — was topping 180. One awful night in the last few weeks, it was 183.8 pounds. Not bad for a lot of guys my height, but bad for me. When I’m really working out a lot and in shape (which I really haven’t done since I left the paper and its basement gym), I’m more like 160. So this was bad.
My loosest pants and shirt collars were getting tight, the others I couldn’t wear at all — or couldn’t wear with a tie, in the case of the shirts.
I was really, really uncomfortable, with my belly pressing against my sternum every time I sat down. (This was with what most would regard as a quite modest paunch. I don’t see how people who are much, much bigger even breathe…)
I read a little about the paleolithic diet, and it made sense. Or at least, the rationale did. I’ve long known that men stopped being hunter-gatherers once they figured out that agriculture would enable them to make beer, but that that happened relatively recently, in evolutionary terms. So it makes sense that our bodies haven’t adapted to a diet of Big Macs, fries and giant Slurpees.
I realized that a paleo diet would make me gluten-free for the most part, eliminate grains altogether, and probably make me lose weight — or girth, which is the main point. (I wouldn’t mind weighing 184 if the extra 24 pounds were muscle, but that seems unlikely).

That is, a modified paleo diet. Indeed, more hardcore paleo diet, if I may say so without bragging. No eggs, because they would kill me. And frankly, I seriously doubt that eggs could have formed any significant part of cavemen’s diets. Sure, they’d find one now and then, but they couldn’t have relied on them every morning for breakfast. Anyway, even if I weren’t allergic, better off without eggs on account of my slightly elevated cholesterol levels (which my doctor is thus far unconcerned about).

And do you think they even had chickens as we know them? I don’t think so. So when folks at ADCO said they were going out for chicken soup for lunch today, I grunted self-righteously, “Cavemen didn’t have chicken.” (As the diet progresses, that will probably come out more like, “Caveman no have chicken.”) Some paleo “authorities” may disagree, but what do they know, really? They weren’t around back then.

So, as the holidays wound down, so did my menu. At home, I’m eating meat and vegetables. At the Cap City Club each morning, I’ve cut out the grits and/or oatmeal. Just meat (which this morning, delightfully, included salmon) and fruit. And coffee — unsweetened, of course, but I was already there.

And no beer. Unless I find myself in a social situation in which it would just be plain rude to turn one down. (This has happened once since I started on Wednesday. It could happen again any time without warning — I’m very polite.)

No great loss in girth yet. But then, I’m sort of easing into this as I continue to eat some stuff left from the holidays, such as this wonderful bread that my daughter made, just for me, that includes nothing I’m allergic too. I’ll probably run out of that tomorrow.

I share all this because it’s what I’m thinking about. And the only news so far today seems to be that Liz Cheney isn’t running for the U.S. Senate, and frankly, I didn’t care about it when she was running…

Happy Birthday to the Twins!

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My daughter posted this picture last night of her twins as precious, bald, happy 9-month-olds.

And the thing that struck me was the joyous wonder of their togetherness, something we non-twins cannot fully know. Each of them was born with her best friend, and grows up with her right at her side. Back in the days when this picture was taken, they slept in the same bed, side by side.

Below is a shot from several weeks ago of them standing in the same order, just as close as ever. Pure sweetness, pure love.

Today, they are 6 years old. Here’s the post when I announced their birth. I have always adored them, and still do…

My linguistic map, according to the NYT

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I took this quiz to which Bryan drew my attention. It’s one that places you regionally in terms of, well, your terms — not your accent, but by the regionalism expressed in your choice of words.

I’m a little suspicious of the result. For the most part, it shows some influence from the places where I’ve lived. Almost everywhere I’ve ever lived is within the “more similar” areas, with the exception of Woodbury, NJ, which I think had a significant impact on the way I use language.

I think the reason I seem so Southern on the map is that I said that I use “y’all” as a second-person plural pronoun. Other than that one answer, which rang the Southern bell so loudly, I usually found myself distributed more widely across the country (the quiz gives you a map for each answer). And that would have been watered down if the test had allowed me to answer both “y’all” and “you,” which would have been accurate.

But hey, today, I’m going to be dismissive of anything the NYT has to say…

UPDATE: Suspicious of the “y’all” bias in the test, which I felt anchored me as Southern no matter how I answered the other questions (two of the three Southern cities in which the test placed me — neither of which I ever lived in — were based on “y’all”), I went in and took the test again. This time, I answered “you,” which is accurate because I say that for the plural as well (when I lived in New Jersey in the 2nd grade, I would say, “youse guys,” so I could have stretched a point and answered that way).

This time, the test threw me a couple of curves and asked questions about two other words. I was asked how I pronounce “lawyer” and whether I call soft drinks “soda” or “pop” or whatever. I knew that “soda” would place me in the South, but that was the obvious answer. What shocked me was that pronouncing “lawyer” properly — clearly enunciating “law” and “yer” — also marked me as Southern (specifically, as being from what Memphis calls the “Mid-South” — could that be because I used to cover courts in that region?). Two of the three cities in which I was placed (Birmingham and Columbus, GA) were based on that. Which is weird, because Memphis would have made more sense, it being the dominant population center of the region that lit up when I answered the way I did.

Oh — and it also asked me about a pet peeve. I HATE it when I hear people call nighttime attire “puh-JAM-uhs.” Obviously, it is “pa-JAH-mas.” But answering that correctly also made me Southern. Go figure (which I’m pretty sure is Yankee talk).

My second result — if anything, I came out more distinctly Southern.

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