Going on 80

They’re calling it “the grandmother effect”. In a new study published on Thursday in Current Biology, there’s some interesting details about the post-menopausal orca mamas swimming around our Pacific Northwest coastal waters.

Unfortunately, Octo-woman, who wasn’t consulted before the study was published, feels it is necessary to publish this blob as an Errata (Erratum?) regarding one of the study’s hypotheses.

Before we get into that though, as you may know, orcas are called “killer whales” but there’s no record of them ever killing a human. They don’t have to. They’re already at the top of the food chain and they don’t have any predators (except humans). The killer designation came from ancient sailors who observed the orcas preying on larger whales, and they called them “whale killers”. The moniker later gradually got reversed to “killer whales”, but the only way one of those rather overweight whales would kill you is if one of them accidentally sat on you

There’s 75 orcas living off our coast. They’re known as the Southern Resident population, and they’re critically endangered. They been studied at the Center for Whale Research Center in Friday Harbor, Washington since 1976. The purpose of the newly published study of these interesting creatures is to try to uncover more clues about the evolutionary purpose of menopause, a rare phenomenon in the animal world. So far humans and certain toothed orca whales are the only animals known to experience it. By “humans”, that seems to mean us, ladies, and how do we get so lucky?

The scientists found that an orca matriarch can live another 22 years after menopause and can continue to contribute productively to the pod till she’s 90 years old or so. “The grandmother effect” is the term they’re using to describe it. Earlier research had suggested that the post-menopausal females are believed to boost the life chances of their offspring and grandchildren.

The leader of each family or whale pod – always an older female – shares her knowledge of the best hunting spots and she shares more than half the fish she catches with her family members. The orcas in the resident pods stay together all of their lives. Males mate with females in other pods but then return to live with their mother and the rest of the family.

Nobody seems to get married and move out. And none of the elderly mothers, grandmothers or aunties get to retire to a nice senior living community near the Seashell Casino. They have to keep slinging the hash, maintaining order in the court, and trying to keep the pod flushed and tidy.

According to the new study, the elderly orca matriarchs spend much of their retirement “helicoptering” their sons and grandsons. They try to help the young males navigate the orca social life and try to keep them out of fights. To study this phenomenon, the scientists counted “tooth rake bites” – the scarring left when one whale scrapes his teeth off the skin of another.

Because they have no other predators in the ocean, the wounds can only come from other killer whales. The orca males in the study whose mothers or grandmothers were present had 31% less scars and according to drone footage, it appears the female may join the conflict if that’s what it takes to protect the male.

Oddly though, while the matriarchs helicopter their sons and grandsons, they don’t do the same for their daughters and granddaughters who also get their share of tooth rake bites. It seems that the young females are expected to face on their own the slings and arrows and maybe harpoons of their undersea life.

The question is: why do the matriarchs protect the young males and not the young females? The lead author of the study is Charli Grimes, an animal behavior scientist at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at the UK’s University of Exeter. Grimes hypothesizes that it makes more evolutionary sense for the orca matriarchs to focus on the sons because they have more potential to pass on the mothers genes – and in a way that doesn’t put any additional burden on the rest of the group.

“Males have the opportunity to mate with multiple females outside their own social group” Grimes said. “When a male’s calf is born,… then the cost of raising it lies with the other group.”

Octo-woman isn’t buying that fancy explanation for why the young males get all the attention. The orca matriarchs are obviously paragons of strength and maternal responsibility but they may be a bit weak on their comprehension of evolution and need for sharing their genes.

I have a more reasonable explanation and I feel I am fairly well qualified to explain the issue. I don’t know how to swim, and I’m not critically endangered, but, otherwise I can certainly identify with these elderly post-menopausal females. I have children, I have grandchildren, I have had my share of hot flashes. I am generous about sharing with my family my best hunting sites for bargains. Also, I eat a lot of fish, at least during Lent. I make sure there’s enough to share, and I, too, have never killed anybody, so far.

So here it is. You may want to write this down. As any red-blooded feminist would attest, the reason the orca boys get all the attention is because they get into more mischief and their mothers or grandmothers have to step in to bust up their fights and patch up their ow-wies with some kind of seaweed band-aids. The girls on the other hand don’t need any help because they have been taught to handle any situation with firmness, grace, creative thinking, conflict resolution, and executive leadership.

I bet you already knew that, though.

I’ve been thinking a lot about duct tape this week, all because of a visitor we had recently – my niece Leanne.



I had my first introduction to duct tape – not by Leanne, of course, – but by my husband Gene who operated under the theory that if he couldn’t fix it with duct tape, it didn’t deserve to be fixed.

It was originally called duck tape when it was introduced in 1902 because it was constructed of cotton duck fabric. It didn’t get famous till World War II when a factory worker named Vesta Stoudt suggested it be used to tape boxes of ammunition with it. Once the military got hold of it, the rest is MacGyver history.

According to abitape.com, “Today, the military uses duct tape for a multitude of reasons. Often referred to as 100mph tape or sometimes 1,000mph tape because of its durability even under high speeds, duct tape has been used for anything from shoe and gun repair to fixing Jeeps, tanks, jets, and helicopters. Soldiers have also used duct tape as emergency bandages for blisters, wounds, and splints.”

It’s even used in space to avert disasters. After Apollo 13’s explosion in the main module, in 1970, when the command vehicle was hopelessly disabled, the crew was able to use a duct tape workaround to repair a fender on the space vessel’s lunar module so it could be used as a lifeboat.With the ground crew relaying instructions to the flight crew, the duct tape repair got the lunar module working, saving the lives of the 3 astronauts on board. From Wikipedia: Ed Smylie, who designed the lifeboat’s modification in just two days, said later that he knew the problem was solvable when it was confirmed that duct tape was on the spacecraft: “I felt like we were home free”, he said in 2005. “One thing a Southern boy will never say is ‘I don’t think duct tape will fix it.’”

Whenever you’re packing for a survival trip, for heaven’s sake, don’t forget to jam a roll of duct tape in your bag.

In case you’re wondering why Octo-woman is so fixated on duct tape this week, it’s because our visitor reminded me of its value. My niece Leanne was making a stopover visit here on her way to visit her Mom, Peggy, who is recovering from a serious medical condition. (I hope Peggy reads this, that it’ll give her a smile, and that it will help her get well.)

Leanne and her sister Elizabeth are both beauties who really lucked out on the gene pool. Their mother has the looks, style, body frame and “presence” of a high fashion model. (She’s also one of my favorite, most-admired persons. I wrote a blob about her earlier at https://goingon80.com/2011/08/09/337-peggy-gorman/. Or for other blobs about her, search for “Peggy” in one of the search fields on the right side of this page.)

But to get back to duct tape, the reason it came up this week is because of Leanne’s clothes. Especially her latest design for pants! (Notice how cleverly Octo-woman can jerk your attention from the subject of Apollo 13’s near tragedy to the benefits of being able to create a really cute pair of pants. But that’s the way it is with duct tape. It unifies us and inspires all. Well, maybe not ALL of us. An EMT once told me that the crime scene the EMTs dread the most are the ones where duct tape had been used on the victims!)

Leanne has never murdered anyone, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a roll of ever-useful duct tape hidden in her suitcase because who knows when she might need it. Like her mother, Leanne is a really gifted designer who can squeeze charm and beauty out of a dish towel or a diaper with whatever tools she can lay hands on. For instance, Leanne sews. By that I mean, she SEWS! Like nobody else. And not just clothing.

One time, she told me she had just purchased about a hundred yards (give or take) of white canvas. Who besides Keds or Nike or Reeboks could possibly think of a use for that ornery hard-to sew fabric, especially in white. But the next thing I knew I was viewing photos of hers and husband John’s home. Newly re-decorated. All in a dreamlike white. And every couch, armchair, ottoman, and kitchen chair had been deftly slip-covered in creamy white canvas. I still wonder how much blood, sweat and tears, and how many broken sewing machine needles must have been sacrificed in order to achieve that spectacular result.

I learned about how Leanne got addicted to using duct tape though when she told me once “I never used to wear pants. They looked terrible on me. And they didn’t feel good. I could never find any that would fit right!”

Enter duct tape! Leanne found a way to construct a dress form of her body’s torso – out of duct tape.

Now take a second look at those perfectly fitted gauzy white pants Leanne is pictured wearing here. They’re gorgeous. You can’t see it in the photo, but the legs have snaps that can open the legs for a cooler (or shall we say “hotter”?) look. And long ties at the waist. All perfectly fitted to her body like a glove! And the asymmetrical top she made for it is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s made of a fabric that must have been made on some other planet. Both the top and pants are a bit see-through so Leanne wears nude-colored undergarments. Yes, I know the Sisters at St. Patrick’s wouldn’t approve, but still, it’s modest, I swear.

Leanne had made several variations of the pants. She doesn’t sew from patterns, but you can hardly tell the inside from the outside of a garment she’s made, so serged and clean are the seams and interfacing. Leanne belongs on Project Runway!

Whenever Leanne wears a variation of the pants’ design, she invariably is asked by another woman, where she “bought” the garment!

Here’s another view of the pants. This time, Leanne is keeping cool with the leg’s side snaps open. P.S. She also made the black patio cushions, raises doodle dogs, probably did the landscaping from scratch and most likely painted the purple door with nine coats of nail polish.

All this, kiddies, is due to Leanne’s use of duct tape and becoming the creator of her very own duct tape dress form. (Someday, I may try to let you in on the unorthodox uses she has concocted for Velcro, but that’s another story.)

Leanne told me this week, she’s going to crank out a duct tape dress form for her petite 19-year-old daughter Gigi. I don’t know what kind of product to expect to come of it, but I know it’ll be spectacular.

I hope this will inspire both of them: this is a Seattle Times photo of Neha Nanubhai who lives here in our neck of the woods. Neha is an aspiring fashion designer who recently graduated from Skyline High School in Sammamish. She’s wearing her prom dress which she made entirely from actual duct tape for the Duck Tape “Stuck at Prom” Scholarship Contest. Note that she even managed to pleat the duct tape. It took her 120 hours and 14 rolls of tape to complete the gown. Here’s the URL so you can see the other entries for this year’s contest. https://www.duckbrand.com/stuck-at-prom The voting closed four days ago, and the winners will be announced later this month. I hope Neha will win! She – and the gown – are truly beautiful. The dress will probably still be around in perfect condition a hundred years from now, and it sure beats fig leaves for style.

So now let’s have a cheer for Leanne, Neha, and everybody’s humble, faithful friend — duct tape!

To conclude today’s blob, though, Peggy, please get well soon! Your children and grandchildren have worlds more to reveal and neither of us want to miss it!

And if you still haven’t had enough about duct tape for one day, check this out:
https://bouncymustard.com/25-hilarious-duct-tape-repairs-that-made-me-laugh-to-my-tears/

I love a parade. Especially when we have front row seats! And perfect weather!

The population of Enumclaw, Washington is 12,700, and they all seemed to show up for the town’s Fourth of July parade this week. At least, it seemed like it. Apparently, most of the town’s citizenry don’t like to stay home when they could be present for such a monumentally theatrical occasion.

From our household, it was just daughter Susy, son Matthew, and me. Here we are, with Susy and Matt in their trusty Fitzpatrick Construction caps and me in sun hat, with our chairs dolled up for the occasion and flags a’waving.

In Seattle, the parades we used to go to were extravaganzas. Jaw-dropping floats, spit-and-polish marching bands, beauty queens, fierce pirates, nutty clowns, all kinds of zany contrivances, sound effects, and dazzling special effects.

That wouldn’t describe the Enumclaw Fourth of July parade. Enumclaw’s version was patriotic, homemade, and corny as all get-out, and I loved it! What it lacked in dazzle, it made up for in an infectious kind of enthusiasm.

The parade’s participants and their “floats” traveled on foot, on donkeys, horses, wagons, motorcycles, buggies, trucks and whatever tractors and farm machinery – polished within an inch of its life – that they could clean up, beg or borrow to proudly show off for the occasion.

The common denominator among the participants – and the spectators too – were the giddy grins on their faces. And just because they were part of the show, didn’t mean the participants couldn’t halt their progress in the parade to run over to visit with friends or neighbors they might spot on the sidelines.

As for the All American fashion show we were exposed to, it was hard to tell beforehand who was a parade participant and who was a spectator. You would have a hard time finding the real Uncle Sam among us, because the fashion seen everywhere was so red-white-and-blue, even on the wide-eyed babies who were as engaged in the spectacle as everybody else.

To me, the most spectacular part of the whole event was the “audience”. Apparently, when one comes to the parade in Enumclaw, nobody plans to be standing around fidgeting on one foot and then the other. No, indeed. Instead, one comes equipped with sunshade canopies, folding camp chairs, coolers to keep their beverages cold, little grills for their barbecue snacks and every conceivable form of wheeled car bed, playpen, or Johnny Jump Up for the little persons.

Susy, Matt, and I all arrived an hour early, but a pretty big crowd was already in place and had staked out their territory. We were sure we’d be stuck far back of the spectators or would have to make our way to the end of the parade route. But No! We could hardly believe it! Somebody pointed Susy to a sign under a canopied section reading “For disabled guests or those in wheelchairs.” Eureka! We had found the best seats in the house!

And thus it was, that we watched that wonderful show put on by Small Town America. The parade proudly featured 50 “floats”, and it took nearly an hour till they all completed their journey through the parade route.

According the town’s Courier Herald, the Chamber of Commerce had to limit the number of “floats” that could appear in the parade. because there had been 100 in the previous Christmas parade. It seems that it was bitterly cold that day, and there were numerous complaints that the parade took too long. Because, of course, no matter how chilly they got, and no matter what other adverse conditions the Enumclaw fairgoers might face, they wouldn’t have the good sense to give up and go home to get thawed out. No, they would have been stoically determined to see it through to its frigid conclusion.

We had a very good time at the Enumclaw Fourth of July Parade.

Now we’re going to start looking forward to what lies ahead for the abbreviated Enumclaw Christmas Parade. Whenever it is, we’ll be there!

Here’s more from the town’s Courier Herald newspaper about the event.

https://www.courierherald.com/life/chamber-hosts-another-successful-and-this-time-shorter-independence-day-parade/

I don’t understand what the iPhone has against me but it kinda hurts my feelings.

Yes, I know I’ve dropped it a few times and it has suffered a tiny hairline crack across its face (but then, haven’t we all?) and I may not always remember to re-charge its intestines, and maybe it resents having to hide its svelte Apple-designed-but-naked body inside that rigid little Otter case, and yes, I do keep it on a cross-body leash for hanging from my neck because otherwise it would find itself inadvertently abandoned at church, the dentist’s office, the Dollar Tree, etc. (and it surely wouldn’t like that, would it?) and so-on. So alright already, I know that as its owner, I may not be perfect, but neither do I deserve the persecution the iPhone has inflicted on me.

My iPhone has discovered an effective method of showing its resentment, now that it knows the degree to which I suffer from performance anxiety.

To explain — when I even THINK about playing a piano keyboard for any other human listener, my fingers all of a sudden become very fat, my shaky hands sweat, and the suddenly murky score looks cross-eyed back at me. That’s why I wouldn’t be caught dead playing for any human listener, and only practice late at night encased in headphones after everybody else is fast asleep.

Sometimes, though, every once in a while when a piece was starting to sound good, I wistfully wished I could play it for somebody, but knew the likelihood of that ever happening was remote to none.

Thus it was that last month, I thought I had found a happy solution when I discovered the 100x Challenge on the Le Cheile Music website. The objective: to play a piece 100 times and then record it – before and after – to compare the degree of improvement, if any. Then each participating member would post a video recording of the polished version of what they had been working on. Zounds! What a great way to bypass the stage fright hassle and still be able to play and get feedback on my efforts. I was sure I could do this.

And I was hooked. Not only did that sound like a perfect plan to improve the playing of a piece, but if I could privately record it on my iPhone, maybe I could find the mettle to play it back for family without having to wet my pants in abject stage fright terror.

So I did it last month. I practiced the piece I was working on 100 times, and when I was ready, daughter Susy helped me set up my iPhone near the keyboard so I could record myself playing the piece. Then everybody cleared the house so I could record it. I figured it was going to be a recital-quality performance because it was sounding pretty good in the headphones.

There we were. Me, the keyboard, and the iPhone. We were alone. Nobody else. Not even one of the dogs. An intimate recording session with my iPhone. Susy had rigged the iPhone up on a closet door so all I had to do was hit the red Record button. If there was ever a workaround for performance anxiety, guys, this was IT!

I got comfortably settled on the piano bench and brought up the score on my iPad for the sonata I planned to play. I was ready. Then I reached to the side to hit the record button, and that’s when it happened. I was shocked. The iPhone was coldly staring right at me! And right behind it where the closet door should be, was AN AUDIENCE OF TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE IN CARNEGIE HALL! Or, anyway, that’s what it felt like.

Within seconds, I became a quivering puddle of fear, hands shaking, heart thumping, and before my eyes, my fingers became swollen like big sweating sausages. I was gobsmacked by my iPhone’s betrayal. Still am.

The only good thing I can say about my performance is that at least I had one. I did manage to hit the Record button. Actually, I hit it about 30 times, trying to produce some kind of rendition of all three movements of the sonata with the least number of glitches, wrong notes, hesitations, bad page turns, losing my place, and all the other delights of stage fright incompetence.

After I weeded through all my multiple renderings, I chose the one that I grimly considered to be less embarrassing than the others, and nervously posted it to the Le Cheile 100x Challenge group on Facebook. And, in case you read my blob last month, I also posted it here as my first attempt to show you that, yes, I am making an attempt to relearn how to play the piano.

It still amazes me at the encouraging comments I’ve had from those postings. (Take that, iPhone!). Everybody heard the same thing I heard, but they were tolerant!!! And I’m going to keep trying. I can’t let that iPhone keep intimidating me with its demonic tricks!

The piece I used for my first challenge took 11 minutes to play. That means that my 30 attempts to hobble out a recording of it took LOTS of time. I had better sense for the June 100x challenge. I chose a piece that I could play in a minute and a half. And it gave me time to work on two that are much harder. Again thanks to the iPhone and its scary red button, I had to make about 20 tries to get something with the least number of glitches. If you’re up for it, it’s posted below.

This is Stephen Heller’s Etude in A Major Opus 45 No. 2. It was published in 1845, but later somebody started calling it “Avalanche” and the name stuck. I’m not sure why though because many of the runs are going UP not down. It’s fun to play, though, and sometimes, I can make it sound pretty good — except, of course, when the evil iPhone isn’t fearsomely glaring at me whenever its red button is on.

I don’t think there’s a National Holiday for Folding Clothes Day, but there should be.

Forget tranquilizers, navel-gazing, basket weaving, and illicit drugs. If you want to relieve stress, and achieve a kind of calm inner peace, try folding the laundry Tik-Tok style.

In case you’ve missed seeing any of the trillions of available videos on how to fold your clothes nicely, you either don’t have a Facebook account-that-has-discovered-your-once-casual-interest-in-folding-your-laundry, or you live in a nudist camp.

I think there’s a laundry fairy behind it all who got fed up with the overflowing laundry baskets he/she was stuck with. (Similarly, I have 3 garden gnomes whose job description includes doing the weeding at night when we’re all asleep, but they’re a buncha lazy bums, if you ask me.)

In my previous life, I wasn’t very fond of folding laundry, but now that I know how much better the YouTube laundry fairies have decided our ratty old clothes are supposed to look folded, I am now fully addicted. If this was poker, I guess I knew how to hold ‘em but not how to fold ‘em. The addiction took charge of me slowly. At first, I just watched a video or two. Then four. Then 10 or more, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of the dryer waiting for the next load to get done so I could practice more of my newfound skills.

The laundry fairy on any of these videos can fold anything better and faster than I can, except, maybe, diapers. Yes, boys and girls, apparently, the fairy is unaware that at one time diapers were made of cloth and somebody had to fold them. As an addicted viewer of laundry folding videos, I have learned impressive skills such as how to fold guest towels to have a little pocket in which to nestle a nice sprig of blossoms or greenery, or how to fold a plastic grocery bag in a marvelously tidy little packet to save space at the nearby landfill waste site, but I have never seen one for how to fold diapers in a Marie Kondo style that you would be proud to show off to any discerning babies of your acquaintance.

I don’t know where or how it started, but Marie Kondo probably wasn’t the originator of the laundry folding craze. That distinction might belong to the U.S. Army Rangers. The rangers are taught to pack the clothing in their duffel bags in “Ranger Rolls”. The objective is two-fold: to save space in the bag, and to be able – based on the size of the roll – to tell by its feel one garment from the other, without unpacking anything. The first time I read about that little tip, I knew I was going to use it on my next tour of duty. No way was I ever again going to fumble around in my suitcase trying to find my underpants buried amongst my boots and cammo fatigues.

If we can’t credit the folding frenzy to Marie Kondo or the U.S. Rangers, it must have blossomed somewhere in Asia because lots of the video demonstrators seem to be Asian. Such as this irresistible kid. https://fb.watch/ln27CoAzXS/

I’m certainly not alone in my new fixation. Judging from the most recent videos, men, women, and children have all become laundry fairy wannabes. If you aren’t, maybe you should give up and join ‘em. Apparently, – and I can attest to this – laundry folding can be good for your mental health.

To prove I’m not making this up, this is from a study referenced by Transformations Care Network:

Research has shown that repetitive, mundane tasks like doing laundry can calm the brain. This is because the brain doesn’t have to work as hard to complete these tasks, which allow it to shift into a more relaxed state.

A study conducted by researchers at Florida State University found that doing laundry can have a significant impact on reducing symptoms of anxiety. The study, which involved over 50 participants, found that those who were given a laundry-folding task had lower levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) after completing the task than those who were given a non-laundry task. This suggests that doing laundry may be an effective way to reduce stress and anxiety levels.

There’s only one problem with learning to master these interesting folding techniques though: you have to be able to assimilate how to do them at warp-speed, because that’s the way most of the videos are presented. This would be a good time to learn to use YouTube’s speed settings!

Here’s one you can watch in real-time though.

https://fb.watch/jZ_URTriXe/

I hope you’re having a happy Fathers Day today with the man who planted you on earth. And if he’s not here any longer, I hope your memories of him still warm your heart. As a father himself, God really knew what He was doing when He made fathers.

If you’re like me, when it came to the gene pool, we got lucky. I was fathered by a man who was kind, responsible, good natured, and proud and caring of his wife and his offspring.

He had his flaws, of course, and, oddly, they are among my fondest memories of him. As an example, here’s a replay of one of my blobs from 2010.

From blob 123. Vocabulary Blues.

One time when grandson Bryce was about 14, he had a tiff with his mother – my daughter Gretchen. During the course of a highly charged conversation, Bryce swore at her. This was earthshaking. It was unheard of. Nobody we knew used swear words – and nobody we knew was so sinful as to direct them at their saintly mothers.

After Bryce stalked out, Gretchen called me in tears and I went next door to commiserate.  When she told me what had happened, I was just as floored as she was.  We didn’t know what to do about it.  Was horsewhipping too severe a punishment?  Did Bryce need spiritual or psychological counseling?  What could be done, we agonized, to restore his good character and moral standards and return him to the path of righteousness.

Our emotional hand-wringing conference was interrupted when my son-in-law Brad entered the scene.  He took one look at our frantic, ashen faces, and then calmly asked, “What’s the matter?”  Brad is quite accustomed to our meltdowns.

I remember Gretchen stood up and made an effort to compose herself.  “Bryce swore at me,” she announced.

“And what did he say?,” Brad wanted to know.

Gretchen swallowed. “He said”, she blurted out tearfully, “He said, ‘Mom, sometimes you really piss me off’”. I was really proud of her. She didn’t even spell it out or anything. She just SAID it right out loud.

Gretchen and I breathlessly awaited Brad’s reaction to this devastating news.

He was just as quiet as we were for a few seconds.  And then he went to pieces.  Laughing.  “Gretchen”, he choked out,  “Most people don’t think that’s a swear word. ”

Well, you could have fooled me.  Which is strange, because if anybody should know what swear words are, it should be me.

In the household we were raised in, our mother, Josie, my sister Joan, and brothers Jimmy, Leo and Richard, and I, were exposed to maximum-drive cussing for many hours of each and every day.

My father, Jim Gorman, could have qualified for a Ph.D. in swearing. The habit was so ingrained that he didn’t even know he was doing it. And we were so inured to it, we hardly noticed. When I was little, I thought that “goddammsonofabitchin” was a single word. And one that was used as an adjective. As in, “Please pass the godammsonofabitchin cornbread.”

It wasn’t until third grade that the ugly truth was revealed to me.  In catechism class, we learned that the “goddamm” part of that word was taking the Lord’s name in vain and if you did that, you would be sentenced to an eternity in Hell.  For the rest of grade school I prayed incessantly that my father would never die, or at least not before he could somehow be reformed and do penance.  It wasn’t till I was in high school and learned about the doctrine of invincible ignorance that I could finally quell my fears for his future.

Dad’s salty vocabulary makes perfect sense if you know where it was coming from. His boyhood, for instance, was colorful to put it mildly. In today’s teenage parlance, he would have been known as a “bad boy”. He only got through fourth grade in school. That was a hundred years ago and it may not have been unusual among farm kids in the 1910s and 1920s. I think they were needed to work on the farm. His educational background, while spotty, seemed to have armed him with decent reading skills, but I can’t remember ever seeing him writing anything other than his signature.

My grandma, rolling her eyes and sighing, told me about his rascally habit – from age 11 – of running away from home to join every circus or carnival that came anywhere close to their farm near Plato, Iowa. My grandfather would know right where to travel in order to retrieve him — he’d just check where the nearest big tents were getting set up. Dad’s cussing habit probably started back in his “carny” days if not sooner. According to Grandma, life with son Jim was never easy.

Finally, when he was only 16 or 17, she gave up, put his fate in the hands of the Lord, lied about his age on the application, and let him enlist in a branch of the U.S. Coast Guard known as the Merchant Marines. And he loved it. He got drummed out though, following a near-death attack of mastoiditis and his medical discharge was the only heartbreaking experience I ever heard him mention about his life.

His time in the Merchant Marines probably didn’t clean up his vocabulary any. By the time of his discharge in 1921, he had acquired the license of “First Assistant Engineer on Non-Condensing River Steam Vessels”, a position also known as “river rat”. And as a river rat, he worked the steamboats on the Mississippi till the Great Depression finally did in that form of touring, gambling, dancing, dining entertainment. When I was a teenager, I still remember Mom helping him with the paperwork renewing his mariner’s license every year…. maybe in case of another wistful chance at his dream job.

I think his next job was in the throes of the Depression at a meat-packing plant and it’s unlikely they used much prim and proper language there. And for most of the rest of his working life, he worked as a machinist for the Link Belt Speeder Company (which, among other things, provided lots of parts for what we know as the Space Needle in Seattle). Again, I doubt that the lingo of him and his fellow machinists would have been very popular at dainty tea party soirées.

It’s pretty weird to report this, but none of the rest of our family ever took up the cussing habit. At least not that I know of. It was okay if Dad did it, but it didn’t seem to occur to us to follow suit. Go figure.

At least, not until Bryce came along. Now listen here, young man, any more swearing on your part is really going to piss me off. I mean it.

_____________ @ # $ **% ^ #$@& *

But now, back to the present June, 18, 2023. That was the end of blob 123 about my Dad, but here’s a footnote for you to consider: Son Matthew and I have been watching the last season of “Succession” in which (spoiler alert) the manipulative greed-centered Logan Roy dies. Logan leaves in his sorry wake, his four children who were reared to be just as viciously devious as he was. He regularly referred to them as “morons”, and they seem to enjoy hating him and each other most of the time.

But a miracle happens before our eyes! In their emotional shock at learning of their father’s sudden death, it is revealed that – gasp! – his bad seeds may actually be human! For one episode, at least, all four of his children seem to be experiencing genuine grief, and sharing it with each other. Such is the bond that even an awful father can have to his children.

Fathers Day is a perfect time to be grateful NOT to be one of the fictional children of Logan Roy. And to bask in the comfort of having a father unlike him.

It would do my heart good – and would restore my hope for humanity after suffering through all four seasons of Succession – if you would write a comment about your dad below. In spite of his imperfections, I know he has to be a winner if he produced you.

In his 2008 book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” The meaning behind this, in theory, is simple. To be considered a master of a certain craft, you must practice it for ten thousand hours.

Ouchie! No wonder they turned me down for the Roller Derby. Sure, I know I could kick-ass on my roller skates, but no way was my walker going to hold up sufficiently for 10,000 games!

So alright already, I don’t actually know how to roller skate fluently, but I’m trying to assess what I might become masterful at, besides procrastination, dedicated candy consumption, and sleeping late.

The only skill I’ve worked on recently, besides – thanks to the internet – learning to fold sweatshirts, towels and underpants like a dedicated professional laundry attendant – has been practicing the piano.

It’s not a piano, exactly. It’s a Casio digital keyboard. It’s the second one I’ve used. The first one I borrowed from daughter and son-in-law Gretchen and Brad. It had only 66 keys, but it came to an untimely end due to someone torturing it to death trying to master one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Inventions for the harpsichord. (It wasn’t my fault. They just don’t make things like they usta.)

And so it came to pass that, one day in January last year, my grandson Bryce dragged me, kicking and screaming, to a music store where I shelled out $350 to purchase a new Casio keyboard with 88 keys. And when we got home, he set it up, provided me with his old iPad Pro for the sheet music and a piano bench. To assuage my guilt at such reckless frivolity, I decided I’d better practice on the object for one to two hours per day in an effort to pretend that I – and he – had made a prudent investment.

The worst thing about owning a keyboard is that people assume you must be able to play something on it besides chopsticks or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, or Ninety-nine Bottles o’ Beer on the Wall. Because of this lofty expectation, I have never exposed my actual ineptitude to any other humans – not even Bryce – , and only practice privately when I’m encased in headphones.

I started taking piano lessons in 1937 at age 7. I continued with the ever patient guidance of the good Sisters for the next 12 years At that point, I had an epiphany. I could read the discordant notes on the wall and they were foretelling my future. Oh, no! if I kept it up, I was aiming myself for a fate worst than death: I was going to have to become a piano teacher! It was time to cash in my sheet music and run for cover. So I did.

I had never previously regretted the decision made during my adolescence until Bryce forced me into facing a keyboard again after mostly 73 years’ absence from one. It was illuminating, and I have important news for you, boys and girls. I’m sad to inform you that playing the piano is not like riding a bicycle. Trying to re-learn it is, in fact, a humiliating experience, roughly equivalent to gliding gracefully to your seat in a swanky restaurant with a train of toilet paper clinging to your shoe.

As bad as it was tangling with that uncooperative instrument in January of last year, as the months went on, I started remembering how much fun it could be – sometimes. I was back at beginner level but I was getting reacquainted with a long lost old pal.

Family members kept asking me what the hell I was doing at that keyboard every night after they all went to bed, and was I ever going to be able to play something after all that practicing? But I was too embarrassed. No way could I actually play anything for any victims of my acquaintance.

But last month, I stumbled into an interesting discovery on Facebook at a website in the UK called Le Cheile Music. Le Cheile” (pronounced lekayleh) is the Irish for “together”. Leah, it’s founder and teacher, was proposing a challenge for any pianist who wanted to try mindfully playing any piece 100 times during the month of May to find out if the repetition would markedly improve the performance. She suggested – and there was no charge for it – that any player could submit a video showing the play of a piece at the beginning of the month, and then again at the end of the month so the Le Cheile 100x Challenge viewers could watch it and then comment on its development.

So I actually did it. I practiced a Mozart sonata 100 times during May, recorded it on my phone and then fearsomely submitted it, warts and all, to the website. The comments from its viewers were very encouraging! Apparently, they have another 100x challenge every month so I’m going to submit another piece at the end of June.

But I got to thinking: I knew I had made significant improvement in playing the sonata while repeating it 100 times. What if I started counting hours of any time spent on any keyboard practice to see if I could get to that 10,000 hours Gladwell suggested? Honk if you think I should try it.

Let’s just do a generous seat-of-the-pants estimate that I may have already practiced piano daily for a half hour during each of the 12 years (a total of 4,380 days). That means I might have clocked 2,200 hours of practice during that time. Adding to that the minimum of 1 hour I’ve practiced since January, 2022 when Bryce hooked up the keyboard, those 510 hours bring my total effort to 2,700 hours.

So what all that means is that – get ready for the drum-roll here – I only have 7,300 more hours to get to the magic 10,000 hours goal when I can get my piano playing to the mastery gold star level. I think I’m going to accept the challenge!

It’d be helpful if you’d join me. Think of one of the activities that you know you do pretty well – and that you already enjoy doing. Figure out some formula to calculate how much time you’ve already spent doing it, and then deduct that from the 10,000 hours you want to achieve. And then, go for it! Just remember that anything worth doing is worth doing to excess! Right?

Finally, I cautiously offer below the submission I made to the Le Cheile Music website of all three movements of my playing of Mozart’s Sonata in C K425. It’s certainly imperfect, but it’s a helluva improvement over the way it was a hundred attempts before!

If I ever start looking for a new job, it probably won’t be as the operator of an 18-wheeler semi-truck. There are reasons for this: I need new glasses to curtail my creeping myopia; I’ve never successfully utilized a map, compass or GPS; my drivers’ license was confiscated; and if my family found out I was applying for such employment, I’d be locked in my room.

Of course, I jest. I would never consider accepting a job as the driver of a big rig. Fuhgeddaboudit. Nuh-huh! Not me. Not even if they begged me and tried to bribe me with Macadamia Nut Clusters or a lifetime supply of Depends or free hair-loss treatments. It’d be beneath my dignity to undertake employment which could guarantee the demise of innocent pedestrians as well as my own messy, unplanned and violent death. As a dedicated coward, I’d be too terrified to ride in such a vehicle, let alone operate one.

However, those fearsome diesel machines power our national economy by delivering our amazon Prime purchases – and, yes, even other products such as food, clothing, fuel, manufacturing, housing, vehicles, medical equipment and supplies, etc. Trust me, the drivers that tame and wrangle and steer those monster trucks in order to do all that are modern day heroes.

My son-in-law, Curt, made a career of it. His routes included frequent daily trips even through the ice storms, avalanches and blizzards of our mountain passes. An empty 18-wheeler semi-truck – which consists of a truck and a trailer – weighs over 17 tons. When it’s loaded, it’s legal maximum weight can be 80 tons! Driving an 18 wheeler through that kind of danger, and even just putting the chains on is not what I’d call a lovable activity. Just thinking about all that fun gives me PTSD.

My grandson Neil didn’t drive the semi-trucks, but as a tow truck driver, he was responsible for hauling them out of trouble, come hell or high water. My great-nephew Dylan also operated those huge vehicles doing construction for the Air Force. For them, and for all truck drivers, even the ones who deliver our pizza, I wish to thank them sincerely and wish them a happy Memorial Day.

Finally, please watch this 4 minute video. I don’t know who the truck driver was, but if you leave me a comment, I’ll try to forward it to him along with flowers, a gold star, and a case of beer.

https://fb.gg/v/kOtGa57Tu3/

If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito.” African proverb

In case you’ve been yearning to be visited by a few of this summer’s mosquitoes, don’t give up hope yet. I’m pretty sure you won’t have to wait long. They love summer picnics – with you as the picnic.

Not all of them love you though. Only the females find you attractive. I learned that this week while studying a new report published in Current Biology. I was rather shocked. Of course, I try to support feminist causes, but I have to draw the line at bloodsucking. I find it to be very unladylike. I hope you agree.

It’s best not to underestimate the little vixens. Worldwide, they manage to murder about 600,000 humans every year by gifting them with nasty diseases such as malaria. I don’t think they do it on purpose though. It sounds like their terrorizing biting behavior only comes on when they’re suffering from some form of premenstrual stress syndrome. As a former PMS perpetrator myself, I – and my victims – can certainly relate to that.

Normally, as vegetarians, those itty bitty creatures live on the nectar from plants. Same goes for their rather useless male associates. The males have only one job to do – (Ahem). The rest of the time, they just hang out at the swamp guzzling nectar with the rest of the good ole boys.

Meanwhile, when our little females encounter their (our) problem — which is when it’s time to make all their teeny tiny eggs — they can’t, because they need more protein, namely your blood, to do it. Yours and mine, kiddo, and that’s when they come looking for us. It’s party time.

According to the study though, mosquitoes, no matter how desperate, will possibly avoid accepting you as a blood donor if you have been consuming vegetation from the eucalyptol family such as rosemary, bay leaves, sage, cardamon, or (gasp!), marijuana. The little snobs especially avoided one of the seven participants of the study who had apparently ingested a eucalyptol plant of unspecified origin.

So there you have it.This has been another humanitarian blob by Octo-woman who is still patiently awaiting the awarding of a possible Nobel Peace Prize, the Medal of Freedom, or her income tax refund, whichever comes first.