Que Sera Sera

A few years ago, I was invited to a black-tie affair in San Francisco, hosted by my friend, Bonnie---the foremost real estate agent for Victorian homes in that magnificent city. She welcomed 500 guests to her estate. They were fed by the staffs of three caterers, and entertained by three bands that rocked the rafters from 8:00 at night until the sun shone on stragglers the next day.

I wandered around the crowded house eves-dropping on conversations while admiring beautiful people in their designer gowns and tuxedos. Several women wore shoes that cost more than my airline ticket. When I climbed the stairs to the 3^rd floor ballroom, it seemed as if all 500 guests were at the bar or gyrating on the dance floor. Many of them were plastered, but I was merely stuck to the wall, unable to move.

Several young women were shouting at one another above the din. One of them said, “I’ve been accepted to nursing school.” When asked about her boyfriend, she said, “I dumped him!” But she added, that she had recently purchased a boxer. I assumed she meant a dog, but wasn’t sure since I was in San Francisco.

Later in the evening, fresh entertainment arrived---a cartoonist, an opera singer and a palm reader. The guests, who hadn’t yet lost their hearing, gathered around the grand piano on the main floor, and others lined up to either get their likeness sketched or their palms read.

I spied the young woman from the ballroom standing in line with her friends waiting for the palm reader. I said to the young woman, “You really don’t need to wait, because I can read your palm.” “You can?” she said. “Yes,” I replied as she extended her hand. I asked for silence and gazed at her palm. I said, “You have recently traded in your boyfriend for a boxer.” Her friends gasped. She looked at me awestruck. “And,” I added, “You will go to nursing school, meet a nice doctor and have a happy life.” Then I left. I threw in that last part about the doctor and a happy life, because I got carried away with my forecasting ability, but thought it couldn’t hurt.

An hour later, I joined the sedate group around the piano. The opera singer had left, and I finally found a conversation worth joining. A woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, I was upstairs and saw you reading that young woman’s palm.  I have to know. Are you psychic?” “No,” I replied, “I’m Jewish.” She looked very confused as she left to get another drink.

No one knows what the future will bring, so I recommend that people stay positive, open minded and hopeful. But if you want to guess about the future, remember what Niels Bohr said; “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Then there are gems such as:

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” (H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers 1927.)

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” (Decca Records Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962.)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” (Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943)

“And for the tourist who wants to get away from it all, Safaris in Viet Nam—a popular holiday for the 1960’s” (Newsweek)

Not a psychic in the bunch. Que Sera Sera.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.” Grover Cleveland, U.S. President 1905) 

Face To Face

Early in the evening, while sitting outside on their deck, my son and daughter-in-law often see two foxes frolicking in the woods behind their house. They have named one, “Mangy Fox” and the other, “Foxy Lady.” First impressions do make a difference.

Years ago, a young man spied my beautiful college roommate sitting at a table in a restaurant. He told his friends, “I’m going to marry that girl.” On their first date, she vomited on his shoes. He married her anyway. Twenty years later, she divorced him, because he had found a younger woman with a better digestive system.

The thing about a first impression is that you can only have it once, and it is terribly difficult to admit that your instincts are wrong. So many times first impressions are made solely on, “Wow! That person looks good to me.” However, when that person starts talking and you have to pretend to listen, you just might have been wrong.

Con men are good at first impressions. The man at the top of a pyramid scheme always looks and sounds good, but don’t shake hands with him because you’ll never get yours back.

On the other hand, while you are making a first impression about someone else, you are also creating one about yourself, and you never have a do over. When walking down 5^th Avenue in New York City, my friend, Sally tapped a woman on the shoulder and said, “Could you please tell me the time?” and the woman screamed, “You don’t touch people in New York City.” Sally never did find out what time it was, but she obviously made an impression on that woman.

Greetings are like that. When meeting someone for the first time, it’s probably not a good idea to call that person “Dude” or “Babe” unless he’s on a horse, and she has one leg over her motorcycle.

If you can’t make a good impression, you might want to make a bad one. At least you will know that you won’t be forgotten. Sometimes mangy is just as memorable as foxy.

Esther Blumenfeld (“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” Abraham Lincoln)

Half A Loaf

The definition of compromise is to, “make a deal between two different parties, where each party gives up a portion of their demand.” Sometimes, when people can’t agree, they will hire a neutral third party, a mediator, to referee the negotiations, and hopefully steer them toward a workable solution.

I have a friend, a professional mediator, who was called upon to help with a management/labor dispute. The people involved were shut into a windowless, smoke-filled room. Ashtrays filled up quickly as the arguments became more heated.

My friend, the mediator, started coughing and said, “I need a break. It’s too smoky in here. I can’t breathe. Could you please stop smoking for the rest of the meeting?” and he left the room. When he returned, the union leader said, “Mr. Mediator, while you were gone, we came to an agreement.” “That is so good to hear,” said my friend. “I knew that reasonable people could compromise. What did you agree upon?” “Well,” said the representative of management, “Since we are a tobacco company, we didn’t think you should tell us to stop smoking, so we agreed to let you go.”

“Sometimes you even have to compromise with yourself such as, “I’m on a diet, so I’ll only eat one Ding-Dong instead of three.” Making decisions (other than pronouncements by dictators) calls for some give and take, and if you are lucky, you’ll end up with a happy balance and not a grudge. Of course, the alternative to compromise is doing nothing. The 112^th U.S. Congress was especially gifted in this area.

Gerald F. Seib, wrote in the Wall Street Journal about a new model of compromise to get polarized politicians in Washington, D.C. beyond impasse. He wrote about a group called, “No Labels” consisting of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, who have formed to find the “new politics of problem solving.” They met in New York City on 1/14/2013 to build trust across the aisle. I assume they met, but I haven’t read anything about that gathering. Maybe they are still arguing about whether to turn the heat up or down in the meeting room.

If this group discovers a way to be conciliatory, the public might think them brilliant, rather than maybe they didn’t understand the depth of the problems to begin with. The good thing about compromise is that once you have agreed, you don’t have to think up any more stupid questions to delay the proceedings.

A compromising position is when a person is openly exposed doing something of which he or she is blatantly guilty, such as telling someone you baked a cake from scratch, and he finds the cake mix box in the garbage. It can be very embarrassing when a congressman falls into the Potomac River with his stripper girlfriend instead of being where he was supposed to be---a gathering of avid bird watchers.

A good compromise is when people come to a middle of the road agreement, and accept that they can’t have everything they want. The author, Christopher Myers put it best. “Compromise is when one person wants to rob a bank and the other person does not---so they compromise to rob a person outside the bank.”

Esther Blumenfeld (If you bend you won’t break, but you might have a very sore back.)

Dig It

It started with a colonoscopy down the sewer line in my front yard. The plumber’s camera snaked its way under the yard and toward the street. All was well until he informed me, “The sewer line in your street needs a root canal.”

Like a bad science fiction movie, tree roots from outer space had invaded and were choking and devouring my sewer line 10 feet under the ground. Happily, they hadn’t popped up into my toilet yet.

When I called the county engineer, he broke the news (which was as bad as the damaged pipe) that since the street in my sub-division is private, I was on my own with the replacement, but he said, “Sorry about that”---an obvious case of shadenfreude.

The next day, three burly men arrived with a street destroying, automatic backhoe, with which one of them drove, dug and shoveled out a really big hole deep down into the earth. At that point, I contemplated putting a swimming pool in the middle of the street, but then I remembered that my neighbor’s car doesn’t float.

All went well with the project, until suddenly the digging machine stopped making its “hukka---hukka” noise. I knew something was amiss because my headache improved the minute the fuel pump broke. The project manager called a technician who said he’d come right away to replace the fuel pump. Two hours later he showed up. I said, “It took you longer to get here than it took Pope Francis to come to the balcony.”  “I stopped for lunch,” was his answer. Of course, that explained everything. It took him 10 minutes to fix the problem.

The backhoe resumed its “hukka” noise, my headache returned, and one of the workers climbed down into the depths of the 10-foot hole to remove the tree roots, and replace the sewer with non vegetarian pipes. Before the sun set, the hole was filled with dirt, and the next day the asphalt was replaced on the street. It looked like a little theatre stage. For a moment, I stood in the middle of the street and yelled, “Out damned spot,” but stopped because my neighbor’s dogs started barking. That’s show business.

My new sewer put a dent in my checkbook. For what it cost, I could have purchased a small country. However, I guess it’s better to be flushed with success than confront sewage that doesn’t want to leave home.

Esther Blumenfeld (and I thought that “Down Under” meant Australia)

Splendid Isolation

Going to lunch with my friend, Suzanne is always a special treat, because this internationally renowned artist understands the creative process. I asked her, “What do you need before putting brush to canvas?” “Solitude,” was her answer. “But,” she added, “right now I’m working on a painting in my mind.”

Willie Sutton said, “It’s a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night.” Of course, he said it while shoveling money into a burlap bag, but in a weird way he too understood the joys of solitude.

Often people will ask me where I get my ideas. Ideas are easy. Developing them in a creative new way requires the freedom of self-isolation. There is a difference between choosing to be alone or loneliness, because solitude never hurts unless it drives you nuts.

For those of you who can’t stand being alone with yourself, the best way to describe it is--- I’m the one who would like to be the only person in the forest to hear the tree fall---and then write about the experience. Solitaire is a card game for one player, but it is also a diamond set by itself. I prefer diamonds.

Of course, I am fiercely devoted to my friends and enjoy a raucous get-together probably more than most people, but periods of silence are needed to stimulate the imagination.

On a rainy day, throw a blanket over the dining room table and watch a child create a tent or a castle. Give a toddler a gift in a big box and see him discard the toy in favor of the box. Buy a house with a climbing tree and a swing. Then unplug the electronics and send the kid outside. She will discover that solitude is sometimes the best company.

So what do I think about when I hike alone in the mountains? This is what I pondered today: “If Richard III, the last Plantagenet King of England had known that he would end up in a parking lot would he have offered his Kingdom for a horse or a BMW?”

Esther Blumenfeld (“Share your loneliness. Treasure your solitude”)