Duncan's Blog

"Wir haben beide lang allein getingelt
"Und oftmals hat die Kasse nicht geklingelt
"Dann eines Tages lernten wir uns kennen
"Und seither wollen wir uns nie wieder trennen."

I heard these lyrics to a song in 1974. The copyright, of course, had to have been before that date. It's about travelling musicians who had done gigs in clubs and pubs at first and then--after meeting one another during a time in their lives when money was tight--they traveled and made their music together.



It takes a while in the video before you hear the actual bell of the cash register resound I take my imaginary hat off to cashiers at the local bakery who had to know how to cut bread (both by hand and by machine), weigh and measure cookies and cake with a slide rule scale, box baked goods and fasten them shut with knotted string, change the ribbon and paper in the cash register, and make change without a calculated difference between what was remitted from what was recorded.

My blog entry, however, is not a tribute to bakery employees (generally of the non-unionized variety) and their multi-task skills behind the showcase. This note is about a life in which the cash register doesn't ring. My life has similar lyrics. I didn't go straight from college graduation to professional career. In fact, I was never a professional. I was a word processor, office manager, travel agent, cab driver, volunteer, and later in life, nurse. While I don't roll coins (although I do bring a coffee can of loose change to SAFEWAY and use the contents to pay at the self-check-out counter), there are times when the paycheck needs help being stretched. I've told those near-and-dear to me that sometimes the food tastes better towards the end of the month because that is when the broth is made from vegetable scraps, or the frozen leftovers are reheated, or canned items are put into casseroles.

February is a short(er) month. I still have money in the bank and the refrigerator is not disappointing me with options. I'm glad to be working and eating in my 60s

You probably think the word I had in mind was gay, right?

having or showing a merry, lively mood:
gay spirits; gay music.

bright or showy:
gay colors; gay ornaments.

Wrong-oh. The definition above is from dictionary dot com and the word I had in mind was frivolous. I was making a grievance presentation in a meeting and I unraveled. I started the show by explaining what a grievance was and made it clear that it was never intended to be a personal affront or attack on an individual, a service, or the agency as a whole. At some point in my declaration I gave pause, sighed, and lamented that I was troubled and puzzled by a particular supervisor whose very raison d'être is to attack others and write them up for bruising her ego.
I called her charges frivolous and I must have used the term quite a bit because the chief asked me about it. I accused this person of throwing her weight around (yes, she is morbidly obese) and of having an unquenchable and insatiable need to report others for the most trifle and trivial infractions; they didn't jump at my command.
So I called her mean. "She's mean, mean, mean!" And I had submitted emails that she had sent to the worker bees telling them to write reports of contact against others.

Calling another person 'self-indulgent' can be a bit harsh. It describes a person who follows his/her/its
own desires, passions, whims, etc., without restraint. We're talking ice-cream in the freezer and whipped cream on the fridge door. I never think of myself that way. I'm the one who recycles, the one who wraps foods in wax paper or cellophane. I walk or take the stairs. It's not part of my lifestyle and I don't ask anyone to snitch or rat out another.
I feel so much better!

I'm not going to list the national foods that I don't eat. I'm not going to list the national foods that I won't even try.
My preferences are discriminatory. If you don't like the verb to discriminate, well that's just TFB.
In my world, it means, "to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately." And there are some gustatory or olfactory sensations for which I simply do not care... cumin, cilantro, curry. I'm not a big fan of anything that burns my tongue or buccal walls. Things that smell of armpit or taste like soap are also not high on the lists of my meal plans.
So what's all this about and where's it coming from? I'm not a huge fan of many Mexican dishes even though the food trucks abound in my neighborhood at night. I walk past them. They seem busy and they clearly cater to a crowd. Personally, I prefer what I can make at home on my own. Japanese food is also not a big favorite. I don't eat sushi, sashimi, salted noodles.
Curiously, I do best at vegetarian restaurants and eat most anything on the table (I draw the line at raw kale). When I shared a discussion of what was for breakfast, I alerted my friend caller that I was including TVP balls to the meal. "I didn't realize they were still a thing," she told me. I wanted to b*tch slap her. "A thing? Would you say that about your Jewish tsimmis or cholent dishes? Me thinks nay, m'Lady!" I don't think of vegetarian food creations that may have been popular with the hippie set to have been 'a thing' relegated to a time that is no longer in the present.
But, then again, this is a person who has extremely rigid notions about which foods are and aren't appropriate for the different meals. When I told her that at one time I had eaten steamed white fish and raw salad for breakfast, she was aghast... even after I reminded her that her own mother had served waffles once a week during her childhood.
Anyway, I clearly have national food dish preferences. I do not think that that makes me racist. I was embracing my travels to Costa Rica and I cannot imagine not loving the food that they eat. I never had a bad meal there and I particularly loved their tropical drinks.
Well, that's my rant for the day. It's a 3-day holiday weekend and I need to get the oil changed as I have reached the 3 month or 3000 mile juncture.

It's 02/14. It's St Valentine's Day.

I don't celebrate or observe the Hallmark holiday. Love is for every day (just like magic and miracles). And I certainly don't need a Romanized version of the concept of love. Well, what i CERTAINLY don't need is chocolate.

But for those who love the theory of love... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.

Over a year ago I joined an intention group. We met at a fixed time once a week. And at that time we would ask one person what his or her intention was. What needs healing? What needs bolstering? What needs change? What needs normalizing? Say what you want! Put it out into the ethers and we will migrate our inner energy into your wish. We will help transform you.
We did this each week for a month for each person. It was a commitment. I had no idea how long the commitment could be. I mean... LONG. And sometimes, unlike, say, repaying a loan or other such debt, you'd never quite see any change in the balance.
One person asked for his A1C to go down.
David wanted a $100K job waiting for him in Colorado.
Martin wanted a side gig.
And Duncan? Duncan was last on the list. I'd heard it all. Some of the wishes were bourgeois and some were desperate cries for help and hope. Love was in the air and the spirits were definitely rooting for the wisher. Most of us felt the energy. David moved to Colorado (not sure if anything manifested because he dropped the group since he was living rent-free with some Xtian fundamentalists. Martin disappeared, but only showed up now and again on Facebook. Bill got his A1C down, but then other things started happening.
But Duncan? I asked for my memory. I said that when I was younger... MUCH YOUNGER... I was able to learn things that I had wanted to learned. And what I had always wanted most was to learn languages. And I did autodidactic learning.
I learned German. And I learned French. And I learned Spanish. And yes, I also took the subjects in school but I was part of the language and not just some passive observer I was one with the conjugation.
So, what did I need or want to learn that I couldn't learn? I wanted to learn how to work the abacus. I bought one > 30 years ago when I lived in San Francisco. It was the Chinese variety. All I could ever do on it was add.
Adding is useful. If you need to total the checks you are going to deposit into the bank or credit union account. But there's also subtraction (like when checks clear). And there's division (like when you have to calculate the miles per gallon of your car.
So I asked for some autodidactic skill and the memory and facility to make the beads move. I tried to make things happen. There were times when the moves came easily (yeah, like when you subtract 2 from 4), But, when the minuend is 702 and the subtrahend is 79, the beads don't just seem to move themselves at lightening speed.
I think it worked for awhile. I felt some ability to learn. But then it fizzled out. Maybe I wasn't believing IN the energy. Or maybe I chalked it up for b*llsh*t. The person who put it together told us it was part of a study she had done in something called THE SECRET. The Law of Attraction. Manifest your dreams.
Years ago (before I was the young abacus-buying lad in San Francisco) I had read a book on creative visualizations. I was not unfamiliar to the concept. My dreams just got smaller.