Looking Back

I don't feel cheated by the poorly administered web site for health care. I am surprised that after years of waiting and with all that was riding on it, our government still managed to deliver a confusing and frustrating product. Maybe "surprised" is too strong a term. I think that "chagrin" may be a more accurate description of the feeling I have about the situation. That might be a good way to describe the way I have felt for most of 2013.
To say that things continued pretty much "business as usual" over the past year would sound cynical, but apt. What we gained in a new Pope and incipient King of England was more than outweighed by the loss of many of our brightest minds and personalities. Lou Reed. Annette Funicello. Nelson Mandela. It's an accounting issue that will probably make more sense as time goes by, but for now the debits don't quite match the credits.
Especially when it comes to dogs in our house. This will be the year that we stopped having Maddie around. The emotional math of that one is going to take some time to figure out. On the one hand, we've got all those years of white fur and fun stored up. On the other we have this big empty place that only she could fill. Will it get better? Sure it will, but there is no replacing her, only spreading out the blanket of memories to cover that hole.
Another memory we will have of 2013 is the way gay marriage became less a legal battle and more of a reality for so many more people. Someday it will just be marriage, and we won't have to qualify it. Like so many things this year, the battle was won, but the war is far from over.
Speaking of which, there are still Americans dying in Afghanistan. Sergeant Daniel Vasselian was killed in combat two days before Christmas, and four days after his fourth wedding anniversary. Not the hundreds that have been killed in years past, but still the body count continues. We get the same kind of news here in Oakland: despite the recent flurry of homicides, the murder rate is down from a year ago.
What do I want? No needless death. No anguished families. But I suppose I'll settle for a web site that works. Goodbye, 2013.

Quick Shot

The fact that I couldn't make a fist for about twelve hours without wincing in pain seems totally worth it. Considering the alternative: being able to make a fist for twelve hours without wincing in pain. Actually, the variety of choices at my disposal were much larger than that. I could have stayed home in the first place, but since we were all together, and in the spirit of Boxing Day we didn't want to be separated on the off chance that there be some savings opportunities to which we had yet to avail ourselves. First, however, there was a stop at my son's doctor to make certain that he was healthy enough to face the new year.
While we were waiting, I decided to nip on down the hall to see if I could work in a flu shot as long as we were in that great big building full of doctors and medicine. As it turns out, they were able to fit me right in, and the time it took me to fill out the form was longer than the time it took to jab me once in the arm and send me on my way.
Did I mention that it hurt? More than just having a needle poked through my skin, this one felt like it hit a muscle, which it turns out is just the right thing to do. It reminded me of the times, back in junior high school, when the boys who wanted to prove their worth to other boys watching would take turns punching me in the shoulder. The bruise I got back then was considerably larger and more colorful than the one the nurse left with the injection, and also didn't come with some stinging epithet or further threat to my safety.
The flu shot was given in the hopes of keeping safe from further infection. Even though I was warned against the possibility of "soreness or swelling at the site of shot, low grade fever and aches," I was holding out hope that once I regained the use of my arm, I would be indestructible. Or nearly. Next week I will be returning to the petri dish that is elementary education, and I imagine I will encounter all manner of viruses and germs. It's what one gets for hanging around a bunch of snotty nosed kids: a snotty nose.
For now I will have to settle for the sore arm, and hope that I wasn't inadvertently injected with some experimental serum that will eventually cause me to swell up to massive proportions and start slinging a red, white and blue shield around. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the flu at all, just the Red Skull.  

After The Fact

Last year was the first time that the parents were up before the child. Our son had sublimated his inner Christmas desire in exchange for more sleep. It was a none-too-subtle change in the dynamics of our household. It brought back all those memories of the pre-dawn awakenings that we experienced for fifteen years, and the anxious nights when we used all manner of cajoling and threats to get him to sleep so that Santa could do his job. And mom and dad held out the slightest hope of getting just a few hours before the full force of yuletide frenzy woke that little boy and brought him tearing into our room with all the anticipation replaced by adrenalin. The day he had waited for since the wrapping paper had been cleared a year ago was finally here again.
This year took an additional turn for the low-key. With no dog to insist on an early morning comfort stop outside, the three of us were free to stay in bed until the spirit moved us. Which may explain why I was wide awake just after six AM. I tried my usual insomnia routine: watching infomercials with the sound turned off, but I kept finding myself drawn to the "Christmas Story" marathon. I knew that somewhere there were households that were vibrating with all the frenzy that ours had not too long ago.
But now things were quiet, save for the hum of the Tivo and the exhausted snores from my wife in her kerchief. I lay there and thought about all those times that I had jumped out of bed, still bleary from the hours I had spent the night before, applying decals to the Hot Wheels garage that became the centerpiece for the wave of presents that awaited our only child. I could hear that boy's mother insisting that we all have something to eat before the deluge began. Something other than the chocolate that was almost certainly awaiting us at the bottom of our stockings.
I stayed in bed for a couple more hours, taunted by the ghost of Christmas Past. I wondered if I would be doing anyone a favor by going into the living room and turning on "Christmas In Hollis" by Run DMC at excessive volumes to rally the troops. Or not. Maybe we had rounded a corner in the family's approach to December twenty-fifth. We were older, wiser. Christmas could wait. I put on my shoes and sweatshirt and went out for a run.
When I came back, I recognized some of that old energy. It wasn't the vibrating, wild-eyed fury that I used to know, but the excitement had returned. We set to work, the three of us, alternately tearing into the carefully wrapped items beneath the tree, pausing to make sure that the present we were opening really was intended for us. We took a moment to note with some sadness and frustration that we were able to leave our candy on the coffee table without a concern of a dog helping herself to the treats we had so callously misplaced.
Then it was all over, just like before. We picked up the recycling and threw out the rest. We sat around and appreciated the good will we had shared. And we prepared to do it all again: not exactly the same.

Quitters Inc.

There aren't many people who have quit as often as Sarah Palin, but lately Justin Bieber is making a run at that distinction. Last week, he showed up on a Los Angeles radio show ostensibly to do an interview about his new album and movie. Then he dropped the bomb: "Um, I'm actually retiring, man," he told the surprised host. Was he following through on those thoughts he had a year ago, when he told the world, "I got to the point where I thought, 'I don't want to do this. I just want to be normal.' It was difficult because I'd never gone through anything like that. Usher was like, 'Prepare to have this for the rest of your career because it's not going to stop.' He's gone through some stuff and most artists go through their fair share of bull. That was just my first time." That feeling in the pit of your gut could be sympathy for the boy-child, or it could be the shrimp fajitas you had last night.
Which brings us collectively to Christmas Eve, the day before his concert film was set to open, and the Tweet he sent out. "My beloved beliebers I'm officially retiring." Half an hour later, he followed up with this one: "The media talks a lot about me.They make a up a lot of lies and want me to fail but I'm never leaving you, being a belieber is a lifestyle." Things were looking tough for the true "beliebers" out there, but two minutes later he returned to Twitter to tweet, "Be kind loving to each other, forgive each other as god forgave us through Christ Merry Christmas IM HERE FOREVER."
Forever? That last little mood swing lasted just a little longer than an episode of Hannah Montana. What sort of relationship is this guy trying to cultivate with his fans? Well, since he's a nineteen year old male, it would be a shock if commitment was at the core of any of his decisions, business or otherwise. At nineteen, I was still struggling with decisions like picking a new pair of speakers for my car. I wouldn't call myself any more or less emotionally mature than the Biebs, but at least the only emotions I was toying with were mine and the salesman at TEAM Electronics who really felt I needed the extra boost of the Jensen Triaxials.
Hey Justin, maybe you don't need to retire. Maybe you just need some decent speakers in your car.

Give It Here

The phone rings a lot at our house. Thankfully, through the aid of caller ID, I am able to duck and dodge a great many unwanted entrees into our home. Just like I have developed a cruel but keen sense of people on the street who would like to take "just a moment of my time," I make an effort to avoid those plaintive cries for funding, especially in my own home. Especially at dinner time.
There are some holes in my defenses. One of these gaps exists on my wife's desk: and old touch tone phone that she has held onto for sentimental reasons, but has no way to tell us in advance who might be on the other end of the line when we pick up. It could be anyone. It could be my mother, calling from flood-ravaged Colorado moments before the water reaches her. It could be my boss, letting me know that the rest of the school year has been cancelled but due to my good behavior and perfect attendance it won't be necessary for me to do any further work this year and I will be paid for all that good faith. It could be the bank calling to declare a mistake in my favor of some fifty thousand dollars. It could be any of those things from my fevered and periodically overworked imagination, but it's not. It's another plea for money. My money.
I know, intellectually, that it is no crime to hang up on someone, especially a stranger. But since I am also the kind of person who has been known to chat with people who call my number accidentally, even wrong numbers often get my courteous attentions. Thus, whenever I am confronted by those chance meetings with professional and semi-professional beggars, I feel compelled to give them some of my time. Don't I think that kids in our city deserve a chance to see the program presented yearly by the Benevolent Order Of People Who May Or May Not Have Been Police Officers? Shouldn't I give whatever I can spare to keep the doors of the University of Colorado open, at least for those student athletes who continue to choose my alma mater in spite of their recent difficulties winning games? And what about cancer? Don't I want to stop cancer? What is wrong with me? Of course I want to stop cancer and I hope that if I donate to my college that they will produce a cure that will also generate enough interest in the performing arts that retired or aspiring law enforcement officers will no longer be pressed into that particular duty.
Or not.
I could just walk into the kitchen and take a gander at that little window just above the keypad on that phone that would tell me that merely by waiting out the five or six rings before the dump to voice mail I wouldn't have to hear any of it. I could do that, but then I wouldn't have anything to complain about.

Response To Aremd Response

I won't be sad to see this year end. There has been enough annoying, sad, gut-wrenching news that I will simply chalk it all up to the fact that this year ended with a thirteen. It wasn't a lucky year for most anybody. Except maybe for the folks at the National Rifle Association.
Yes, the folks at the NRA would like us to know, from their website where they offer "food, fun, fellowship and firearms," that the most recent school shooting had a silver lining. "Gun control laws didn't stop a possible massacre at Arapahoe High School," the NRA wrote in a letter to its members last Friday. "A good guy with a gun stopped the rampage and in doing so almost certainly prevented much greater harm. For that, we can all be thankful." It is the opinion of the friendly fellows with firearms that "much greater harm" was avoided because there was an armed response to the shooter at Arapahoe High. "The attacker's mission was stopped short by the quick response of an armed deputy sheriff who was working as a resource officer at the school," the letter continued. "Upon learning of the threat, the deputy ran from the cafeteria to the library, yelling for people to get down and identifying himself as a deputy sheriff.  The horrific incident lasted only a total of 80 seconds and ended with the shooter turning his gun on himself in the library as the deputy was closing in on him." I'm no expert here, and I won't be on the mailing list for any of these letters in the future, but it seems to me that what really put an end to the threat was a bad guy with a gun. When the shooter, armed with a shotgun, about one hundred twenty-five rounds of ammunition, three Molotov cocktails and a machete, blew his own head off, the threat was eliminated.
The rose-colored glasses at the NRA see it differently: "As bad as that was," they wrote, "things could have been much worse." Thank you for that perspective, friendly firearm folks. I'm pretty sure that neither of these views makes a difference to the family, friends of Claire Davis and the community of Arapahoe High. 

In an oddly related note, Mikhail Kalashnikov died Monday. The inventor of the AK-47, the most popular firearm in the world, has gone to his final rest. When asked how he felt about his contribution to bloodshed, he said, "I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence." Didn't he get the letter?

As It Is In Heaven

She didn't wake up that Christmas morning
She didn't run down the hall
Like so many kids
The next time she would do that
Would be forever
Like so many kids
Hundreds this year
They weren't naughty
They were nice
They won't be waking up this Christmas morning
I feel it every time
That sudden end
To a story just begun
The one that doesn't get
A happily ever after
 It's like the poet said,
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool
We can ask why
We can still cry
And hold those close
Who saw the sun come up
This Christmas morning
- for Claire Davis and hundreds more
Peace on Earth