NOLA

This is the first in a series of 30 minute essays – part of the 30/30 Writing Challenge put forward by Richard Hugo House asking writers to commit to writing for 30 minutes each day for 30 days. The idea is to get friends and family to pledge money in support of the effort.

Here goes:

Just back from New Orleans: Marilynn had never been there and I hadn’t been there in 15 years. It was as I remembered – hot, muggy, noisy, falling apart and fabulous. This time we had 5 days to eat our way through a Cajun and Creole checklist – file gumbo, jambalaya, alligator sausage, boiled, grilled and fried shrimp, catfish, chicory coffee, beigniets, etouffee, and muffuletta sandwiches. All so good.

Muffuletta

We didn’t have a lot of time but managed to catch the Uptown Jazz Orchestra led by Delfeayo Marsalis, Winton’s brother, at Snug Harbor.

Snug Harbor

And some street musicians outside on Frenchmen Street.

Frenchmen Street

On the last day we checked out Emeril’s upscale lunch. It was fabulous. This is the chocolate peanut butter pie.

Emeril's Pie

Home again, home again. Not bad either.

More tomorrow.

Guilty Pleasure

In the past two weeks Israel has bombed Gaza to smithereens, leaving more than 2000 Gazans dead, more than 10,000 wounded, and the territory a pile of rubble. Further north the Russians and their rebel Ukrainian thugs managed to shoot down a commercial airliner over eastern Ukraine and occupy the divided country. ISIL (or ISIS, if you prefer) is dangerously close to dynamiting Mosul Dam and releasing a 60-foot wall of water all the way to Baghdad, and thousands of people in the US continue to die every year from gunshot wounds while cowardly, intimidated State legislatures sit on their hands and refuse to enact reasonable rules to govern the sale of guns.

Chaos, violence, and outright evil threatens our very survival and these threats are real.  Good people around the world are struggling to find solutions, but if I let world news determine my psychic state I’d be mainlining Zoloft. I don’t know what it is, but there seems to be something in the human spirit that helps us resist nihilism and darker solutions unless our chemistry gets out of balance. We somehow manage to develop personal strategies to help us cope with bad news and support a cautious optimism. The strategies that sustain me turn on music, books and exercise, but if there is one that dominates it’s got to be music.

Jack's Guitars

I love it. I like to see it performed live. I like to listen to it. I even like to play it. It can be classical, opera, pop, folk, country, blues or Broadway show tunes. I like it all, but truth to tell there is a dark corner of the genre that is my secret. Lurking in that dark corner is my –

_______________________

“guilty pleasure”  (Wikipedia)

“Something, such as a movie, television program, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard: everybody has a guilty pleasure—the average disaster movie falls into the ‘guilty pleasure’ category, so do soap operas, Big Macs, Dancing With The Stars, and ironed sheets … “

____________________

Mine is Jimmy Buffett – the music, the lyrics, the lifestyle, the Margaritaville bars and even the novels (yes, three novels). I’ve been listening, laughing and singing along since 1973 when I heard his 3rd album (vinyl, of course) White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. I’ve worn out vinyl, 8 track, cassette and CD versions of his catalog, and last week I ordered a boxed, four CD, set of songs called Bars, Beaches, Boats, and Ballads. What can I do? All of these songs are deeply imprinted on my lifetime playlist. Cheeseburger in Paradise. I can’t help it.

I saw him first in Miami in 1982 and again last year in Seattle. Both were sellouts and 30 years later and 30 years grayer the audience was still having just as much fun. In recent years the cult has grown (larger and grayer). I haven’t bought into the whole Parrothead shtick, but I’m sure there are Green Bay fans who are devoted but still haven’t crossed the line into being Cheeseheads. I simply like the lyrics, the melodies, and the attitude – yes, “Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same.”

Jimmy time two

Wikipedia describes his music as “island escapism,” but like Billy Collins’ poetry there is depth in the seemingly simple words of his songs. I’m particularly drawn to songs like He Went To Paris, the last verse of which is:

Now he lives in the islands
Fishes the pilings
And drinks his green label each day
Writing his memoirs
Losin’ his hearin’
But he don’t care what most people
Through eighty-six years of perpetual motion
If he likes you he’ll smile, and he’ll say,
“Jimmy, some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all of the way.”

Jimmy has definitely had a good life but he’s shared its joys with his followers and the world. He’s been married to the same woman for almost 40 years and their three children travel with the band when they’re not working or in school because they want their children to see the world and become global in their outlook. He has a great self-deprecating sense of humor, a thirst for adventure, and an appreciation for others who seek it. When he got his first big paycheck he asked the record company to cut two checks. He gave one to the accountant and bought a sailboat with the other. He named it Euphoria and it’s part of the balanced life he advocates. I think his current boat is Euphoria II or III, and along the way he added a seaplane to take him to other more distant harbors.

By my calculation he’s released upwards of 40 albums, written 3 novels, and created 2 restaurant chains – Margaritaville Bar and Café and Cheeseburger in Paradise. He’s a hard working guy who hasn’t lost sight of how fortunate he is or how much joy he can deliver to a world sorely in need of more fun – not frivolous, farcical fun, but good-time, foot-stomping, sing-along, endorphin-releasing fun. It’s definitely middlebrow and I own it.

This is a capsule-sized version of the philosophy I find so engaging:

You can sing along with Jimmy and follow along with the words below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1bbkyjCb2c&feature=player_embedded

I went down to Captain Tony’s to get out of the heat
When I heard a voice call out to me, “Son, come have a seat”
I had to search my memory as I looked into those eyes
Our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies

He said, “I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
Took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done.

I had a third world girl in Buzios

With a pistol in each hand
She always kept me covered
As we moved from land to land

I had a damn good run on Wall Street
With my high fashion model wife
I woke up dry beneath the African sky
Just me and my Swiss army knife

I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
I took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done

We shot the breeze for hours
As the sun fell from the sky
And like the sun he disappeared
Before my very eyes

It was somewhere past dark-thirty
As we went back to the head
I read upon the dingy wall
The words the old man said

He said, “I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
I took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done”

I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
I took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done

That’s why we wander and follow La Vie Dansante

Last Mango in Paris from the studio album of the same name released in 1985.

Adventure, romance, travel, experience, nostalgia, and shared wisdom.  It’s my guilty pleasure and I’m happy to share it

 

PS: This post is dedicated to Doug and Diana who, in 1981, survived four weeks in the back of a VW camper traveling north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia, buying reindeer souvenirs from Lapps in a Toyota van, staying up all night with a bunch of Swedes in a campground on Midsummer, and listening to Jimmy Buffett cassettes with dual Walkman headsets as we rolled along. It’s all part of life’s rich pageant as my friend Darryl might say.

“I am not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Woody Allen

Death

When I saw this Roz Chast cartoon in the New Yorker it reminded me that I never discussed it with my children either. I don’t even know how to think about discussing it – especially when it’s my death and the audience is my own family. Still, it did remind me that there are some practical details and arrangements that need to be made, and discussing them might ease minds on both sides of the equation. It also occurred to me that the conversation might be an opportunity to talk about how good life continues to be. But, that may be wishful thinking.

The cartoon is from the March 10, 2014 New Yorker, part of a longer black humor piece by this prolific and sardonic New Yorker cartoonist. The longer version is called Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant, a 12-page cartoon that is part of her memoir of the same name. It looks, in an off-center way, at the reluctance of parents to talk to their children about money and end of life issues.

I’ve been giving these things a little thought lately, and as part of working it out I Googled an online site that has a life expectancy calculator to see what my prospects looked like. According to the calculator, if everything goes without a hitch… If I don’t get hit by a cement truck at the crosswalk on Bothell Way, come down with a deadly infectious disease or get knocked off my bike by a weekend peloton – the calculator predicts that I should live to be 91, the same age my mother died at. That gives me 15 years to play with.

It’s not surprising that at 76 years old some of my lifelong friends are dying “natural” deaths. We’re in the zone. Last week an old fighter pilot friend died and I’ve been to three memorial “celebrations” in the last three months. It has my attention, and it might sound odd or self-absorbed but it’s not so much their passing that pricks the consciousness, as it is the realization that life is finite and prods me to recommit to finding quality in my remaining years. I will miss my friends and grieve for their families, but I’m trying to find grace, acceptance, and a positive outlook as I look forward at the great mandala.

How We Die I really began thinking about all this in 1993 when Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon, won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction for his book How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter. Nuland wasn’t trying to shock or upset readers; he wanted to help dispel the fantasy most of us harbor of a dying a dignified death – peaceful, quiet, pain-free, and surrounded by family. He chose to do that by describing in detail the pathologies “that will take the majority of us” and perhaps startle us into a realistic view of how we might plan for the eventuality of our own ends.
I read the book in 1993 with curiosity but with some distance from the subject matter. I was 55 at the time. Dr. Nuland died of prostate cancer this spring. He was 83, and cancer was one of the six categories he described in his book. I have no doubt that he was as prepared for the end as it is possible to be, but I wonder if it’s possible to prepare for the finality of death in an emotional way. I can be aware of the timeline, settle my business affairs, and try not to leave a mess behind, but my mind rejects the finality of my own death. Whether it’s denial or the power of positive thinking I’d rather focus on a strategy for maintaining a quality experience in my remaining years.

So the take away for me is about mindfulness. It’s trite to say that I should always be mindful, but when I was young I was focused on living in the present. Later on, when I had children I began to think about the future and as I approach the end I look back on my choices and think about my legacy. My kids are in good shape and on their own journeys. I’m proud of them and see them embracing the future with hope and good intentions. I don’t worry about them.

What I do think about are the practical steps Marilynn and I can take to keep the end-mess to a minimum.

Questions:
1. Do we have enough retirement savings and income to go the distance? I hope so.
2. Have we prepared the documents that will make it easy for our family members to move forward?
a. Wills? – yes
b. Medical directives? – yes
c. Medical powers of attorney? – yes
d. Durable powers of attorney? – yes
3. Have we made a list of personal items that designates who will inherit them? – No. Put that one on the to-do list.
4. Have we told our children how we want to be disposed of – burial, cremation, funeral arrangements? – No, also on the to-do list.

For now, we are in good health and barring unforeseen events, I’m cautiously optimistic that we will care for ourselves until we’re in our 90’s. We hope this is true, and it’s reassuring to feel that way. Neither one of us wants or expects help. We both have children entering middle age and on their own trajectory with college expenses and their own retirements to plan for. We think we have done our part, but “unforeseen events” have a way of changing the landscape.

It wasn’t a lot of fun doing the grunt work on the end-of-life documents but we needed to do it. Everyone needs to do it. What has been fun is having that behind us and thinking about how to maintain and even enrich the remaining years.

Paris in line Casablanca? Rick and Elsa? “We’ll always have Paris.” Well, so will we. To start our new phase we flew to Paris this spring, rented an apartment, and hung out for two months. It was sensational and energizing to be in a place where there is so much that is new (and old) and every day gives up something fresh – museums, cafés, restaurants, people watching, new neighborhoods, markets, music, fashion, new friends. I don’t know if we’ll return to Paris next year. We might choose Rome, London or Tokyo. Wherever we go it will be interesting and exciting.

In between our long distance adventures, we have grandchildren to enjoy, a bike trail to ride on, a swimming pool for morning swims, an enclosed garden to rest in, three guitars to play, a wall full of unread books, and two MacBook Pro’s that link us to the Internet and friends all over the world. When we can no longer travel we still have a rich and varied world here at home.

At this point we’re following Satchel Paige’s advice: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you” and guided by GK Chesterton’s dictum that “When it comes to life the critical thing is, whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” We’re working on that.

A Crash Course in Ornithology

IMG_1291

This is our Christmas tree. It is a living thing and a central character in a drama unfolding in our own yard. We purchased the tree 12 years ago in a fit of environmental purity and good intention. “Let’s have a living tree instead of spending money on a cut tree every Christmas.” It has worked well for us. It saw some hard times in the years we were going back and forth to Saigon, but it was always outdoors. We knew it would survive, but there were periods when it was a struggle to keep it watered and healthy, and often we would find brown patches and a deck full of needles on our return.

In April we took off again, this time for Paris, and left it in nature’s hands. What we didn’t expect nature to do was to use it as nesting habitat for a mother bird and her brood, but that’s exactly what happened. Last week when Marilynn started watering the tree again she discovered a smallish opening and inside was a nest and four baby birds.

Before the discovery she had noticed a small agitated bird flitting from the lawn to the deck and back again. She could almost feel the tension and watching from a distance she saw that the bird flew right into our Christmas tree. This is how it looked when we peeked into the opening:

IMG_1281

This picture shows only two of the chicks but in the beginning we could see four little beaks reaching for the sky. It was fascinating; we were curious and then protective as the mother flew in and out with food. Almost any time of day she could be seen on the lawn or in the hedge that covers the condo wall and even hopping around on our deck picking up seeds.

I’m not a birder, but I think our little neighbors are rose-breasted or black-headed grosbeaks – small, colorful, and low flying. The mother has a reddish breast and some light flecks on the darker feathers surrounding the red. As soon as we discovered the nest we focused on the chicks and their welfare. Whenever we returned home the first thing we did was check the nest. We worried about predators like squirrels and cats but didn’t see any, and then after a few quiet days we became alarmed when two crows started hanging around.

There are thousands of crows in our area. At sunset the sky is almost black with them flying east to wherever they nest at night, but they rarely come close or hang around. Last year, because there are so many in our neighborhood, we bought a book called “Gifts of the Crow”, written by a UW wildlife scientist and illustrated by Tony Angell, a local artist. Crows are much more interesting than I ever imagined. The book made that clear. On alert because of the baby birds, we became aware that our two crow visitors got extremely agitated; flying low noisy passes whenever I approached the tree. Here’s a picture of one of them above our courtyard.

IMG_1293

Very quickly it became open warfare. The crows had ID’d me as their nemesis and waited for me to step out on the porch, cross the parking lot, or walk to the pool in the morning. Whenever I did they shadowed me – flying low over my head, perching on nearby trees, and squawking their heads off. Meanwhile, we were keeping an eye on the tree and the nest. The mother was still in the area – hopping on the deck, worming on the grass and picking up seeds in the hedge. She was very skittish and wary of our movements, but more concerned with the crows and their increasing aggresiveness. Then came an escalation as the crows decided to bomb my car in the lot. The day I had it washed I parked under a tree in the lot and the following morning this is what it looked. War…

IMG_1283

Then, just when I thought I had the crows figured out, a subplot emerges to confuse us even more. After checking the nest for the chicks (no movement but I think I can still see three of them curled up asleep) I see some movement in the ivy below the deck railing. When I toss a garden stake at the rustling ivy I startle myself and a wounded crow hidden in the ivy. This one can’t fly but it scuttles through the ivy and disappears into the dense growth near the corner of the building. The other crows are raising a noisy ruckus as I probe around looking for their friend. I’ve lost the wounded crow but the others keep up with the noise and swooping low attacks.

After a week of this back and forth with the crows and our protective vigil around the tree we notice the mother has disappeared. When I check the nest it looks like there is less volume inside but that there might be a chick or chicks curled up asleep. We decide to give it a day and then take a more serious look. The crows are still dive-bombing me on the way to the pool or when I walk out on the back deck. The injured crow is nowhere to be seen. It’s either dead or healed itself enough to fly away.

M and I are almost certain the babies are dead and when we check the nest we find it empty except for one dead chick curled up in the bottom. Did the crows get in there or did the mother bird somehow get them to a safer place?

IMG_1288

We are both devastated. Nature is neutral. We are emotional. In our research we are advised to move the empty nest to the trash or another location in order to discourage the mother from using it again next year.

We do that, but there is an alternative end to the story because within a day we discover this in one of our flowerbeds…

IMG_1298

Yes, that’s a mother duck sitting on eggs. Now everyone in the condo complex is in a heightened protective mode. We have no idea how long she’s been there or how long she has to sit on the eggs but we check her every morning and hope the crows don’t have her in their sights. This has been a crash course in ornithology. I still don’t know much, but it really helps to have it happening in our own yard. It definitely gets the protective juices flowing – and increases my dislike for crows. Pellet gun anyone?

Travel Jitters

I never sleep well the night before an early morning flight. It isn’t the travel that keeps me awake; it’s the fear that something will go wrong in the long list of things that could go wrong. The night is fraught with anxiety, driven by the awareness that I have to get up early, shower, shave, and dress, make a final check of the bags, travel to the airport, find a baggage cart, schlep the bags to the counter, check-in, go through security, and maybe get a latte before boarding begins. The process is even more stressful when the airport and check-in are new or unfamiliar.

Cut to the last day in May as we prepare to leave Paris after our two-months of living life as Parisians. Air travel these days requires a lot of prep and patience, a sense of humor, and a reset of expectations to the lowest possible level. It is never, in my recent experience, what I hope it will be. It is almost always a stress ridden, anxiety filled disappointment.

Because we’re in Paris and I am not fluent in French I’m concerned that there will be a mix up and misunderstanding. On our way over to Paris we hired a car service to meet us and deliver us to the apartment where the agent met us and let us into our new home. When I mentioned the price ($100) my friends who live in Paris they told me the cost was outrageous and that we should use their discount taxi service that charges about half that amount. It sounded good to me since they were essentially “local” folks and since they offered to help with the arrangements.

Paris Taxi

So, a week before departure I order the taxi, give them our information, and arrange the pick up for 7:30AM on the 31st. There is a flurry of email traffic between my friend, the discount taxi provider, and me, as a third-party beneficiary. Numbers are exchanged and a confirmation requested. I’m still nervous even though it is established that the taxi company reps spoke English.

Paris UberIn the days running up to the departure date my anxiety increases because I haven’t received confirmation of the date, time, and address of the pick up. We do a test run on Uber as a back up just in case the other arrangement fails, and Uber works flawlessly. Marilynn is big on backup whether it’s peanut butter or taxis. Nevertheless, finally, on the 30th I finally get a confirmation call from the discount taxi on my mobile. My anxiety subsides and I feet better about the arrangement. In the meantime my friends leave town – not that they could have do anything for me if the plan fails – but there was a certain amount of reassurance in their local presence. Now they are gone.

At this point I’d give anything to be able to channel Dave Barry or Nora Ephron. There is a lot of black humor in the misery of international travel and its chain reaction fuck-ups and miscues.

On the morning of the 31st everything starts out perfectly. There is plenty of time to get it all together; eat our last containers of yoghurt, check and recheck the apartment for left items, strip the sheets, start the dishwasher, empty the garbage, and schlepp the bags, including my guitar, down the 81 steps, through the courtyard and two security doors, to the sidewalk in front of 40 Avenue Junot. The last irrevocable act is to leave the keys to the apartment on the table inside the door for the agent to pick up later that day.

At 7:25AM we’re outside the front door on Avenue Junot,. We’re neurotic about being on time but we make it with time to spare this morning. And then – we wait… and wait… and at 7:40 prodded by M I call the discount taxi number. My heart rate climbs appreciably when I detect a sleepy voice on the other end. Does discount taxi have an office or is it someone’s apartment? I listen more closely. I’m right, she is sleepy and it takes a minute for her to understand that I am her client waiting for a pre-arranged taxi. Mais oui, she says. She will “call” the driver and get back to me. I have a dark suspicion that the driver is in the bed beside her, maybe even pulling on his pants as we speak. I picture him looking for his keys as the “dispatcher” stalls for time.

At 7:45 she calls back to tell me the driver is on his way. I ask how long it will take to get and she tells me about 15 minutes. M and I are now freaking out, and she signals that she’s going to cross the square to look for a taxi on Rue Caulincort, the busy street just across from the apartment. Uber is not an option. It requires an Internet connection and because we’re outside the apartment we have no Internet – even though we have emergency phone service. We’re never doing this again without full on wireless – Google Maps, Uber, restaurants, Metro and bus maps – we need it more than ever as my brain shrivels and the bucket overflows with information.

Meanwhile back on the street; it’s Saturday morning and thanks to light traffic there is a notable increase in the number of available taxis. Within a minute M has flagged one down. It’s a minivan and just right for us and the number of bags we have.

We’re still OK because of our on-time neurosis. We’ve given ourselves an hour for the drive to CDG and two hours for check in. The driver of the minivan-taxi pulls over and jumps out to assist. He’s the energizer bunny, a small, smiling Frenchman in a nice sport coat and slacks who loads our bags effortlessly and, when we’re blocked by a garbage truck, enlists the help of the driver to lift our heavy bag over the barrier. Then he gets the driver to back up and let us out. M and I look at each other, astonished that a garbage truck driver would not only help us but also accommodate us by moving his truck. Vive la France.

Traffic is light, which helps us relax. Meanwhile, the energizer bunny is smiling, talking, and gesticulating as he regales us with a rapid fire French monologue about how much he loves Amerique, Las Vegas (ooh la la), and Vallee des Morts (tres chaud, n’est pas?). The energizer bunny loves Death Valley. How lucky could we get? We might have ended up with an Algerian freedom fighter just back from Syria but we end up with a happy go lucky Frenchman who loves America.

Paris CDGWe direct the energizer bunny to Terminal 2F where the boarding pass tells us we check in. As we pull up to the terminal the meter clicks over to 44 Euros – 5 less than the mythic discount taxi – and 66 less than the car service we used on arrival. Meanwhile the energizer bunny has hopped out of the driver’s seat, retrieved a baggage cart, and loaded our bags for the terminal. When I hand him the 44 Euros plus a 10 Euro tip. I think he’s going to hug me. Merci, merci, merci. Bon voyage. Bonne journee. J’aime l’amerique. J’aime la Vallee des Morts. J’aime Las Vegas. C’est incroyable. Formidable. Au revoir, Messiur Dame. Au revoir.

Next up is the check-in. Smooth as silk. Friendly, smiling, welcoming agent who tags our bags (more about that later) and sends us off to the gate. She has written L45 on the boarding pass and we head in the well-signed direction of F21 –55. Gate 45 on the other side of security is in a newer part of the airport. We find some seats in the boarding area and I get us a couple of very good lattes. We have an hour and a half until departure time, but with about an hour remaining we comment that there are no other people in the boarding area, so off I go to ask why. Well, of course, L45 is not a mistake. L45 is our departure gate, but L45 is in Terminal E and Terminal E is a good half-mile from where we are in Terminal F. So, we pack up and head downstairs through a tunnel-like corridor to L45 in Terminal E. Now why would they ask us to check in at Terminal F if we’re departing from Terminal E? And why didn’t the friendly, welcoming agent who checked us in give us that information along with directions to Terminal E where Gate L45 was located? Beats me, but we did ask in a timely manner and are able to make the trek to L45, through Pass Controlee and another security checkpoint in time to board the Boeing 777ER 30 with time to spare.

We were devastated when our connecting flight to San Francisco was canceled causing us to miss our Air France A380 flight on the way over to Paris – especially since we ended up on our much-hated Delta again. Still, we managed to actually get Air France on the way home and the ride to Houston was great. The crew was professional and attractive. The food was good, and the restrooms were surprisingly clean. 9 hours and 45 minutes from Paris to Houston was tolerable if not fun. I watched four movies; Casablanca, Chicago, The Artist, and A Winter’s Tale and the trip to that point was tolerable.

The taxi and CDG terminal snafus notwithstanding, everything worked out and we were OK when we landed in Houston. The heartbeat was back to normal and two glasses of Bordeaux and a chunk of Roquefort eased the pain of the small seat and long haul. But what do you get when you arrive in Houston?

An airport that bears George Bush’s name is highly suspect. Hell, he couldn’t even find the airport after he finished flight training. Attaching his name to an airport almost insures poor design, poor planning, poor execution, poor signage, and poor attention to detail. That was all true in our experience. But that’s another story…

To be continued.