Favorite Philosopher's Blog

My friend, Tina,  and I went out to play in the snow today.  It actually started out a few weeks ago.

Tina and I decided that even if we had to ski on man-made snow, we were going to go ski before I leave the area.  Tahoe is about 2 and a half to 3 and a half  hours away. depending on where you are going.  Talk about things I take for granted.  World class ski destination just down the road.  So we set the date for March 1.

Sometimes you get screwed by the weather.  This was one of those times.  Tina had taken the day off work, I needed a break from the moving nightmare, but Wednesday night it started to storm.  There was a winter storm watch through Thursday noon in the Sierra – the snow didn’t sound too daunting, could’ve probably skied in the snow showers, but it was the wind gusts to 45 mph that didn’t sound very enjoyable.

So Tina was able to change her day off, and we opted to go today, Friday.  Gorgeous sunny weather predicted, a fresh layer of snow, what could possibly go wrong?

In a word: nothing.  It was probably the most perfect ski day I’ve ever had in my life.  I figured out how to control the snugness of my boots without cutting off my circulation. Comfort city.  My “new” used skis have already become my own after one day.  It was sunny.  It was warm.

The snow was perfect all day long.  Usually on such a warm day the snow will be mushy  and slow by one pm and then turn to ice by 3 p.m. I do okay with ice having learned to ski in the East, but  I don’t do too well with the whole scene when your ski tips hit mushy snow and stop and the rest of your body keeps going.

No worries today.  Delightfully soft and forgiving snow, snow, snow.  Every turn was like riding a pleasant wave.  I am drifting off to sleep tonight with visions of just one turn after another with that beautiful snow at my feet and the decisions about where to turn and what snow I wanted to ski over – none of which would be wrong decisions on a day like today.

I wasn’t in great shape for this outing.  I haven’t been exercising, no excuses, but I certainly could tell the difference on the slopes.  My body didn’t hurt, but my endurance gave out.  Tina had a Bloody Mary for lunch so between my fatigue and her relaxed state we sat on the deck in deck chairs in the sun and watched other skiers come down the hill for about an hour.  Then we went out again for a few more runs.

I suppose people who get to ski all the time experience that “perfect day” feeling more than I do.  For me, in thirty years, it was the best day ever.  My boots didn’t hurt.  The snow was perfect.  The sun was shining. Blew off homework and went outside to play in the snow with my friend.  Who could ask for more?

I’ll be going along  just fine, plodding through the moving.  It really is endless. I once wrote a poem about laundry being a  form of hell – everyday you have more laundry to do.  I wrote it when we were in full throttle family mode and questioned whether perhaps I had actually died and gone to hell and this was it?!?!?!

So the packing just goes on.  One more drawer, one more corner of last minute stuff.  I guess I won’t be reading those books until I move, so despite having them next to me bed for months, it is apparently time to pack them!

It seems that everywhere I turn, in a corner here or a drawer there, or in the freezer closet, in my makeup drawer – there’s no real pattern as to where they show up, they just do.  And they stop me dead in my emotionally neutral packing-focused march to victory.  Lego pieces.  A little Lego guy head.  A little leggo sword or knight’s shield. We have a lot of Legos. Yes, have, they aren’t leaving this earth til I do.  And my new home may have a Lego corner – can’t you just see it? A normal height table with a lip on the top so that the legos won’t fall out, and adults can sit and enjoy a beer and play legos.  Sounds like fun to me.

A few minutes ago it was a little Lego hinge of some sort.  It always stops me.  So many legos all over the house when the family was young.  That was one thing that never bothered me in the mess of family life.  I love my Legos!  So I do end up in sort of a sentimental booby trap, envisioning the dining room table full of Legos and kids’ hands making stuff with Legos and I get wistful.

I like the idea of the Lego table, so plan on coming to visit and thinking about what you will make out of Legos.

I was waking myself up this Friday morning by doing last Sunday’s Cypher puzzle in the Chronicle.  The Cypher is a basic decoding puzzle consisting of a quotation by a famous person.  The answer to this one was delightful: “The first time I was on stage it scared me to death.  I didn’t know what all the yelling was about.  I didn’t realize my body was moving. ”  The scared kid who didn’t even realize his own body was moving in a way that blew the minds of 50’s America?  Elvis Presley.

He didn’t realize. This phrase really popped out at me.  How could he not realize what he had goin’ on?  But isn’t that the way it usually happens for “famous” people? They are just going along, doing what they do, and then suddenly they find themselves interviewed on Oprah or Jon Stewart or in Time Magazine.  Really successful people don’t just sit around and dream, they DO.  Being successful doesn’t mean being famous.  In America we are so keyed into that concept.  Being successful means doing, nothing more.

This is a revelation that has been brewing for me over the years.  In my profession, as in any profession, there are “stars.”  I realized early on that I had chosen a path that would make it impossible for me to be a Physical Therapy star.  I got married and had kids.  That is where I shine most brightly.  I’m sure many PT stars also got married and had kids, but I was either not capable or had no desire to spread myself that thin.  I’m successful though.  When I had patient after patient tell me “I’ve had many physical therapists, but you’re the best one I ever had….the only one who explained it to me so I understand…you really helped me…” – well, I think you’d agree I am successful.  As far as the marriage and motherhood thing, Al is still putting up with me (just goes to show you success is harder for some than others 🙂 ) and all you have to do is look at my amazing sons to know I’ve been successful in raising my kids.

Now I’m writing.  It’s normal for one who writes to think about “what if.”  I have not put enough effort into stardom to achieve that “what if.”  I have just been doing it.  No one has asked for more except you dear readers on occasion.  The realization that I have written 246 posts in the last two years is mind boggling to me.

A few days ago I got an email from Jules Hart, writer, director, producer of documentaries (www.eyegoddess.com) who produced Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, the documentary about Catholic priests – WOMEN Catholic priests.  She emailed to tell me that she wanted to use a quote from my blog review on the DVD packaging, as the documentary is finally available on DVD.    Sure, why not, sounds like fun?

I went to the website and under articles, there is my little blog, favoritephilosopher, listed along with the likes of The Huffington Post.  I’m not getting myself all puffed up about this.  All is really meant was two things:

1) I need to get my blog organized in case anybody actually comes here to snoop around.  Imagine they want to see more on my spiritual bent and end up reading about  me owing my young son $2.50 because I used the word “shit” 10 times in 10 different conjugations in a one minute mommy-tantrum.

2) I’ll probably be excommunicated.

3) It just goes to show you how things happen.  I still don’t believe I will ever be on Jon Stewart and don’t care if I do.  Sounds pretty damned scary if you ask me.  On the other hand, Elvis was scared.

He didn’t even realize his body was moving.

I know I have written about Al’s 27 pound Mackinaw lake trout that has hung on our wall some 20 years.  Today I took it down and packed it.  That is probably one of the funnier things I’ve done during this process of moving.  Packing a fish.  It’s one of those things you don’t envision yourself doing when you’re seventeen.

What’s even crazier is that the fish is part of the family, having been dressed up for Christmas and Halloween over the years.  I’m a little wistful and glad she is coming with us.  We had her pretty high up on the wall the last few years and I think the next place she’ll be back where we can reach her better and have some fun again.

She is among the last things to come off the wall now.  A few clocks remain but that’s about it.  It’s getting down to bare bones here (no fish pun intended).   I am down to things I need to live – clothes, kitchen utensils, although most of the glassware was packed yesterday.  Called the piano mover today and that will happen as soon as we have a rental house in which to put it in SoCal.  The Salvation Army truck arrives this week to haul away all the donations.  Then another run to the dump and another run to the storage unit.

Then…the cleaning.  Don’t ask.  One room at a time, right?
 

I was supposed to be on my way to Chicago right now to visit Mom for a few days.  The weather forecast for Chicago did not bode well.  I knew that my flight would certainly be delayed if not cancelled.  The snowstorm was supposed to hit, oh, just around the time I was due to land at O’Hare.

But you can never be sure.  Maybe they’ll take off and divert you to Dallas.  Maybe they’ll put you on the plane and make you sit on the tarmac until it is safe to proceed.  So I procrastinated as long as I could last night and then convinced myself I’d better pack something just in case I woke up this morning and it was not already delayed/cancelled.

This morning the website just kept saying the same thing.  On time.  Well, yeah, like I believe that for a half a second.  But it kept saying it.  My sister alerted me that Southwest had cancelled all it’s flights into ORD.  But my airline kept saying “on time.”

Finally it was time to go catch my BART train to the airport, my ride had arrived.  I threw a few more things into my carry on, including a floor mat, my pillows and a fleece throw in case I found myself sleeping on an airport floor somewhere.  I had money.  I had my iPod.  I had my medications.  I had my iPhone.  So off I went and caught the second BART to SFO that came along.  Something happened to me that I’ve never experienced before, and that was getting the half of my body that was carrying my carry ons  through the electric turnstile while the other half of my body pulling the suitcase got cut off.  So there I was, hemmed in by two orange plastic crusher things.  The nice BART agent pushed a button and I was saved from certain internal injuries.

I didn’t even make it to the very next stop when the text alert came on my phone: Flight cancelled.  (Yay technology!)

I got off at the next stop and turned around.  The nice BART agent gave me a little sticker for my card that will allow me to reenter, so I didn’t even pay for my little jaunt to Orinda BART station and back.  I returned home by cab, (in nice weather and without luggage I could walk) and as I had skipped my decaf Starbucks at the airport I tipped generously on this rainy northern California day.

Then it was time to “call the customer service number.”  I was on hold for an hour before someone answered.  This is okay, I put it on speaker and putter around.  However, Virgin America, which is a great airline (they have little plugs in every seat for chargers and iPhones so I can play games all the way to Chicago and back), nevertheless has the WORST on hold music in the world.  Some kind of 2001 space odyssey electronic trance inducing repetitive stuff.  Even the young gal who finally answered my call agreed – they have to listen to the same thing if they’re waiting to speak to their supervisors.

She couldn’t help me.  I bought my ticket through Travelocity as I often do.  Thank you dear, no problem.  I call Travelocity.  I continue to putter around with the phone on speaker.  What was initially light repetitive music that is vaguely reminiscent of a Jamaican island vacation, now that I have heard it for the last 45 minutes is something I hope I never hear again.

Why, you ask, am I listening to this, on hold with Travelocity?

In order to get me a voucher for future travel, the Travelocity guy had to call Virgin America.  I just hope for his sake that he has a little red light or something that tells him it’s his turn, that he can help other customers, and that he doesn’t have to listen to the 2001 music.

Meanwhile, I goin’ to keep on packin’ for movin’, mon.

She was last seen walking into a room with a bunch of boxes and packing tape and black magic markers in her hand.  An occasional sigh is heard from that general direction….

Well, actually the men (I just can’t call them boys anymore after these past few weeks) have been home and have been my worker bees.  (The last few days they have changed that to “slaves.”) Jeff finally convinced me to rent a storage unit as Al had suggested at Thanksgiving and that we did.  So the stuff has been steadily moving out.  Joe suggested the Dot System – we bought colored dots at the office store and blue means storage, green means donate, yellow means dump and red means I need it to live day to day so it stays. It has worked very well, allowing us to work without them having to listen to me bark orders or stand around while I figure out what’s what.  And not to be dismissed lightly, Andy provides endless comic relief during the process along with the muscles.  He does do a lot of farting around, too. (Inside joke, you have to be there and be glad you’re not.)

It really is quite amazing how much stuff there is in this house.  The carport – tools, camping equipment, paint upon paint.  The guys took the paint/toxics to the hazardous waste dump today.  Apparently 15 gallons is the limit so they had to sit and wait and when other people came in the guy supplemented other people’s donations with ours – everyone who came in today from three to four p.m. was up to the limit of 15 gallons thanks to our truckload!

The men also had a great idea at the beginning – we should ADD stuff to the house and then call the producers of the Hoarders TV show and have them cart it all away.  I was practicing refusing to give anything up, but then we quit fooling around and got back to work.  We did have to be careful of not just moving stuff around, but making sure it only got handled once or twice.  None of this “put it over there for now” business.

Our friend Robbie, a young man of 22 who lives on a piece of land up north was happy to take random tools off our hands but his eyes really lit up like it was Christmas morning when I showed him the basin of nails and screws we don’t want to move.  He will also eventually take the table saw which was inexpensive to begin with and serves the purpose pretty well.  Too heavy to move for sure.  I just love having someone I know who really appreciates the stuff taking it off happy as can be.

As previously mentioned I have given up on craigslist and am just donating everything and will take a tax deduction.  Tomorrow a truck comes from Hospice of the East Bay to cart off several large pieces, including the dining room table.  I went back on craigslist in Orange County and we should have no problem finding another nice table for a very reasonable price.  My friend down there tells me the rich people get bored with their furniture and buy new so you can find great deals at consignment stores.  I can’t imagine getting bored with furniture and if I did, I wouldn’t want the hassle of getting new.   What is with that?

I said goodbye to the coffee table much to Al’s delight.  He’s been wanting to get rid of it for years.  I bought it for $35 about three blocks from our home in San Francisco when Joe started to walk.  It was a long oval maple table with little drawers on the side.  My thinking was that when Joe fell he would not crack his head on a sharp corner.  It never occurred to me that a tumble on solid maple could knock out a pro wrestler, but fortunately none of the boys ever did land on it head first.  But after 26 years off it goes – it served us well!

I really did consider a carport sale the other day – everything $1 – but nah.  Still too much work.  I’m really in a purging mode.  Donate, dump, store, stay.  That’s the drill.

So slowly the house is emptying out.  Al’s office is definitely moving March 1, so now I’m starting to look for rental houses down there.  I probably will send Ed the Dog down there and stick around here beyond March to tie up loose ends.  It is becoming a reality as I knew it would once Christmas was over.  The men have been invaluable and except for an occasional meltdown on my part (before the Dot System was instituted), it has been a great experience.  Ed the Dog runs around a little confused but loves the craziness, Twister the Cat hides alot, and I fall into bed at the end of the day exhausted, excited and grateful for my three fine sons.