Month: January 2015

Needed new pants for the new job. Two pair I thought would be good. Which made me think of Men’s Warehouse. Because there the salesfolk drive you to buy two of anything you only need one of.

Off I went.

A salesgirl with a mind for customer service greets me on arrival. She guides me to the place in the store where the pants are. “These are our pants,” she says. I thank her for her service. I browse the pants offerings. Eventually, I identify a brand I like. Buffalo brand. So-called, I presume, because the pants are tough? Or perhaps it’s because the brand is endangered?

The salesgirl spies my interest and returns to assist.

“I’ll take a pair in green, and one in black, 34×34.” Well, you’d think the size was Martian or something. Turns out there was one pair in that size in green in the entire store — not a small store by any means — but not a single one in black. She begs my pardon and scurries away to check the database. Only one black pair in a 34×34 in the entire company! They have >1000 stores nationwide. I was right, an endangered pant size.  Whatever. She offers to get me the one pair that’s left. No charge. Inter-store shipment. I thank her for her service.

I wait and wait. No call. I go in a week later with Happy Wife and explain the situation to the store manager, an unctuous Italian man who looks like the villain from a cheap spaghetti western. He tells me the computer “says” the pants arrived in Anchorage. I resist correcting the error of personification. Nobody in the store can find them. We wait and wait while half the salesfolk search the back room. As we do, Happy Wife finds a couple sweaters she thinks I might like. I didn’t like. To me, either one would make me look like Fred Rogers, or some old fart delivering a fireside chat.

Finally, the store manager gives up, nobody can find the damn pants. He apologizes profusely for the wait, and offers to give me a pair of pants of my choice for free! Plus, when the pair I was waiting for eventually arrives (or is found), he’ll call me, he says. So off I go to browse the pants again but guess what: Not a single pair of casual pants in any color or any brand in a 34×34 in THE ENTIRE STORE. At one point we had like half the store’s salesfolk searching through countless piles of pants, none of which had the tag conveniently displayed on the fold of the pants facing the customer. Nooo. Each pair had to be pulled from the shelf and the size searched for on the tag inside the pants.

Frustrated, the store manager flips his greasy bangs away from his eyes and says, “Look, find a pair of pants you like, any pair, and I’ll search the computer and see if we have a 34×34 in that size at any of our stores.” I do. He does. Many exist! He’s pleased this is finally over. “I’ll order the pants today and call you when they arrive.” I give him my cell phone number. He circles it. “Tuesday,” he says,”Tuesday at the latest.”

A week passes, no call. Finally, come Friday, Happy Wife stops by the store and wouldn’t you know it the pants are there — not only the freebie I’d ordered a week earlier, but also the pair that couldn’t be found! Happy Wife texts me:

Got the pants.

What? Why didn’t they call me.

He said he did.

Pfft.

I get home and open the bag. Two pair of pants alright. But neither pair is what I had ordered. The original pair, the one that couldn’t be located, that ain’t them. And the other pair, the freebie, the one he told me the computer said was available in my size in hundreds of stores — nope, that wasn’t the pair I chose. The color’s not even right.

Sheesh.

I try on one pair anyway. Brand: Joseph Abboud. Evidently Mr. Abboud measures in centimeters, not inches, because this 34×34 wouldn’t have fit me when I was ten. Clearly I’m a Buffalo man. Back in the bag both pairs go.

I return to the store days later. A different perky blond in skin tight black tights and impossibly high stilettos ambles toward me. I give her the entire sad chronology. She gives me a pouty face. Together we search for a 34×34 — again. Finally she hands me a pair and insists I not look at the label and try them on. Humor me she says. I do. The waist is okay, but too long. Ah ha, she says, I thought so, that brand runs large. It was a 32×34. She fetches a 32×32. I try them on. Pretty good. I take them. Now for pair two. She continues to search through some obscure pile of black jeans, probably also endangered, and finds, guess what — a 34×34! I grab them like she’s a relief worker and I’m a refugee. I try them on. So so style-wise, but they do FIT, so I take them.

She hands both pair of pants to the unctuous store manager to handle the return. He asks me for the receipt. “What, you’re kidding, right? You took it from me the last time I was here.” He doesn’t remember, not right away. Slowly he does, and apologizes profusely for the rigamarole. I countenance his apology. He countenances my countenance. I leave the store. It feels like victory.

I wore the 32×32 to work to today and was pleased with the fit, even while sitting. They fit like Buffaloes!

The opening poem read at our wedding nine years ago come June.

Best fetch yourself a hanky first.

Untitled
By Walt Whitman

I do not offer the old smooth prizes,
But offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid-up stores,
However convenient the dwellings,
You shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port,
And however calm the waters,
You shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you
You are permitted to receive it but a little while
Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before you,
The long brown path before you,
leading wherever you choose.
Say only to one another:
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

What, you wonder, is to blame for the paucity, the shortfall, the utter dearth of posts at Rod’s Alter Ego?

In a word: Work.

You see, whereas my former job permitted me time to ruminate during the day, my present one has my nose to the grindstone. So by the time I arrive home, scratch Harry (who was diagnosed with Lymphoma, btw) behind his ears, prepare and drink a stiff one, Happy Wife is coming through the door. We commence with discussing our day, and then it’s couch time, another glass or two, and before we know it it’s 9:30 and off to bed we go. Or at least she does, because come 5:30 am Harry needs his morning walk since I am no longer able to do it midday. Because: Work. Spotting a theme are you? I go to bed about 10:00 pm after getting Harry back inside the house. If these things are done out of order nighttime commotion can result.

This caught my eye a few weeks back. In particular:

We don’t fare much better with time to love. It takes time and experience to develop the wisdom and maturity to choose an appropriate partner and love him or her in a way that doesn’t make everyone miserable. Relationships need attention, and attention takes time. Children take lots of time too, and some reflection and experience, yet we are biologically made to bear children when we are young and unwise.

What then to call those of us who didn’t bear children when young (or ever), fortunately wise? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone tell me I was wise to not have children. Especially if the person had children of his or her own. Actually, I take that back. There was one person, a mother herself. She didn’t say it to my face, but many years ago during a rant against me in an email she’d sent to someone I knew, she barked that it was a damn good thing I never had children of my own because they would be totally f*cked up.

Well, gee, thanks Mom. Love you too.

If parents think that childless people must necessarily feel empty without children, as they would without their own children, that’s a mistake if you ask me. The feelings that arise from imagining that you don’t have something you in fact do have, versus the feelings that arise from not having the thing at all, are very different indeed. Consider: a person who imagines life without his right arm versus a real amputee. Maybe not the best comparison but you see my point.

Trust me parents, I have never felt incomplete because I don’t have children.

This relates to a pet peeve of mine. Caution: science ahead.

Evolutionary biologists tell us that the “purpose”[1] of evolution is reproductive success (as opposed to survival). All organisms, humans included, the theory holds, have been individually and “naturally selected” for the “purpose” of making more copies, more babies. Reproductively competent babies in particular. That’s what the author above meant when she wrote “we are biologically made to bear children.” The theory doesn’t only mean normal humans can bear children, as in we have the proper functioning biology to do so (sperm, eggs, uterus, etc.). No, the theory goes beyond that. Every gene, every cell, every organ, indeed an entire organism we are told exists for one and only one ultimate “purpose,” which is not survival — that’s old Darwinism — but reproductive success. The rest of life, we are sadly told by the theory, is nothing but a means to the ultimate goal of reproductive success.

Codswallop.

Lots of us are childless, often by choice if heterosexual, or because of sexual preference as with homosexuals. If every gene, cell, and organ in our bodies was supposedly naturally selected for no other “purpose” than the means to make (and nurture) babies, then why have so many of us not fulfilled that “purpose.” Can’t have it both ways if you ask me. And evidence exists indicating that the number of us who are childless by choice is growing, not shrinking. Plus the last time I looked more and more people are “coming out” every day.

Another snippet from the link:

Maybe the problem is not that we don’t have enough time but that we waste the time we have. Seneca famously thought this. (“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”) Most of us seem unable to refrain from “wasting” time. It is the rare person indeed who can be maximally efficient and productive. For the rest of us — that is, for almost all of us — Seneca’s advice about not wasting time seems true but useless.

Indeed. Which is why I adhere to Bonnie Raitt’s maxim: Life becomes more precious when there’s less of it to waste.

Gotta go. Lunchtime is over. Ugh.

[1] Purpose is put in quotes to indicate a matter of speaking. There is of course no real teleological purpose to evolution, i.e. no conscious intention.

When you play to avoid losing, expect to lose.

Fingers Crossed. Allegiance declared. Our front window:

I’ll have more here for you to ignore later. Been a busy week.

Je Suis Packers!

UPDATE: À Seattle!

A leisurely view of Mt. Alice. Looking down a desolate street near “downtown” Seward. A stone’s throw from our Nest down the beach.

Munificent, innit?

Clicking it makes it even more munificent. Although “more munificent” sounds redundant. Or at least piling on. If you’re already larger or more generous than normal, saying you’re more larger is just heaping on praise. That can too easily segue into gloating. And if you said most munificent, well, that doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s like somebody claiming, Look here — I found the largest integer! Uh huh, sure, until I add one to it. So more munificent? Okay, sure, but never most munificent.

With one exception: The latte I created for Happy Wife the other morning. It truly was most munificent.

Eggnog infused and nutmeg dusted and everything. We have this quirky ritual, Happy Wife & I do, where I am supposed to name each of my works of latte art. Can’t recall what I named this one. Although I remember she found it amusing.

Coldest day of the year so far. Big whoop, right? It’s only 1/5. Nothing like the cold the Midwest is getting, though. We’re still above zero in most of Anchorage but compared to the mild winter temperatures we’ve been having (30s), 3 feels punitive. Like being scolded to sit still and quiet on a hard church pew during a too-long sermon forced to wear pleated pants that are too small for you and riding up your butt on a glorious Sunday morning in July when all you really want to do is go outside and run and play. That kind of punitive.

Evidently, Harry could care less that it’s only 3^o outside. Anymore he lays out there for an hour or longer to the point where Happy Wife gets concerned he’s going to get hypothermia and won’t even be aware of it because of his cognitive decline. She has a point. I mean, it’s nothing at all for an Alaskan Husky to stay outside 24/7 when it’s well below zero. My brother-in-law has a dozen or more sled dogs that he and his wife care for in Fairbanks. Once when we visited them I noted that when the temperature was a mere -20^o, some of the dogs pulled the straw from inside their dog houses outside onto the frozen snow because it was “too warm” to sleep inside. But Harry is an Airedale. I’ve had five in my life, and while in my experience they’re good to about 10 above, any colder than that and they’re typically clawing at the door to come in. Not Harry. Not lately anyway. We have to tell him to come in for his own good. He’ll gets up and slowly amble toward the door, looking as rickety as the Tin Man in need of oil.

If you’re tired of seeing us I remind you the Interweb is vast. Plus, we’re not going to remain this pretty forever.

The powder blue mound oozing into the photo is a dog bed. One of several. There are days when it seems to me like we’re running a canine hostel here. The rug is from my parents. They bought it for me in Santa Fe almost fifteen years ago now. It’s gotten around — New Mexico –> Alaska –> Ohio –> Alaska. There’s a pad under it to make it cushy when you walk on it. Harry likes that. Our house is nicely decorated, thanks to Happy Wife. I’ve had almost no input in the decorating decisions around here. I’m not unhappy about that. If such things were left to me our house would be rather bland. The other day she came out of the crawl space with a souvenir I’d purchased about twenty years ago while on vacation in Roratonga (Cook Islands). I didn’t bring a lot of valuable stuff to our relationship; what there is of it is in the crawl space. So I like to joke anyway. In that way I think she felt sorry for me when she emerged from the hole in the floor, “Here,” she said, “maybe you’d like to put this somewhere?”

I didn’t want to offend her generosity of spirit, so I said, Okay, how about right there, on the ledge over the fireplace. It’s a small wood statue representing the god of fertility. Clearly, right? I mean if you can’t be fertile with that bugger what’s the point. Anyway, yes, over the fireplace will be fine, dear. Her face tightened, half dismay half pity, and then she wondered aloud if maybe I’d like put it some place less… you know, conspicuous, honey pie? No, I said, I think that will do just fine. And so there it stays, at least for the time being. Until I tire of it. No doubt I will, eventually. But I must say it matches the wood motif rather well, don’t you think?