OUT OF THE BLUE

On a very rainy day, two weeks ago, a friend and I were seated on a Hacienda at the Canyon Community Bus ready to be taken to a symphony concert. A driving, heavy rain began as we pulled out of the parking lot.  A man  sitting in the row next to us looked at his lap, and then glanced up at the ceiling. The roof was dripping water!  He decided that 30 more minutes of overhead leakage was too much, because now his wife was also getting wet. So, he opened his voluminous golf umbrella. Suddenly, I felt water on my face and noticed that a leak had also sprung above my head, so I too, opened my umbrella. Now, there were two of us, holding open umbrellas, inside the bus.  I’m not sure how that looked to people in passing cars, but I’m sure they were no more surprised than we were.

Life is filled with the unexpected, but it’s not the surprise that matters, it’s how you react to it.

Years ago, cruise ships provided the services of clergy to their passengers—a minister, a priest and a rabbi. When my Dad retired, he and my Mom were invited to join the clergy on a 3-month cruise around the world.  As the days passed, my parents befriended the young priest.  One evening, there was a dance aboard ship, and the priest danced with a few of the older ladies. A busybody criticized him for doing so. Her criticism arrived like a bolt out the blue, and naturally the young priest was upset.  He came to my Dad for solace.  Dad said to him, “When dancing with those old ladies, did you have impure thoughts?”  The young priest laughed and said, “Absolutely not!”  “Then,” said Dad, you can tell your Superior that you received special dispensation from your Rabbi!”

When my husband, Warren, was in graduate school at Purdue University, we became friends with a couple from New York. They lived in a place that had been converted from a dental office into an apartment. One day, they came home from classes and discovered a man sitting in their living room.  He was reading a paper,—“Statistical Analysis of Marketing Data.” He looked up and said, “Will the Dentist be here soon?” Astonished, our friend’s wife said, “This is not a dental office.  It is our apartment and you are sitting in our living room!” “Oh,” he replied, as he put on his coat, but before he left he added, “You should consider getting better reading material.”

Surprises followed us everywhere. When we moved to Chicago, my husband’s friends suggested a fraternity reunion at Indiana University combined with a basketball weekend. I had not attended Indiana University nor been a member of a fraternity, but thought it sounded like fun. So, we two couples, crammed into a car with a third couple, and drove to Bloomington, Indiana—not a short haul from Chicago. When we arrived at the hotel, Warren asked the desk clerk if the other 10 couples had arrived. The desk clerk said, “What other 10 couples?” Oops! the unforeseen had happened. “Did you send the invitations?” “No, I thought you were sending them.” We had driven all that way to reunion with each other.

A surprise is like a cat in a bag, once you pull it out, you can’t stuff it back in. When we moved to Tucson, Arizona from Atlanta, Georgia we were warned by old-timers, “You will find out that Tucson is a place everyone wants to visit. Be wary of surprise visits!” The first year, we happily invited and entertained many good friends from far and wide. It was lots of fun, but one day I received a phone call from a woman in Atlanta that I didn’t really know very well.  Excitedly, she said, “I just want to let you know that next week we are coming to Tucson.” Now I knew—but what to do? I thought quickly and then said, “What a lovely surprise, and where are you staying?” Never heard from her again.

A young couple we knew received a generous wedding gift from her parents. They had bought them a house! The couple was thrilled until they discovered the surprise. Her parents had an extra set of keys—to get in—anytime! The marriage didn’t last. I don’t know who got the house.

As much as we might want to, it is impossible to script every moment of our lives. There’s always an unforeseen event around the corner. Sometimes that’s a good thing—other times not so much, but if we don’t go with the flow, we just might drown.  Life can be puzzling, and things happen when least expected.

For instance, I am convinced that some people in Texas were astonished when they opened their newspaper and saw a photo of Ted Cruz, the man they had voted for to be Senator. I am sure that some people scratched their heads and said, “He sure doesn’t look like the Cruise guy I voted for. He was so good in, “Top Gun Maverick.”  SURPRISE!

Esther Blumenfeld

THINK ABOUT IT

When I was a very little girl, I used to ride my tricycle back and forth on the sidewalk in front of my house.  One day, I decided to be brave and go around the block.  I peddled that trike as fast as I could, because it took a lot of courage for me to face the unknown. I peddled until I reached the middle of the unfamiliar block. I stopped, looked around and saw that everything was different. That was scary!  I turned my tricycle around and peddled back to where I had come from as fast as I could.  It was a relief to arrive safely back at my house—back to the familiar.

John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death—-and saddling up anyway.” There’s a story supposedly told by Gregory Peck. He and his wife were at a party when they were approached by John Wayne. After talking with them for awhile, he ambled away, whereupon Gregory Peck said to his wife, “That man really believes he’s John Wayne.” Obviously, at some point in his life, Marion Robert Morrison, of Winterset, Iowa had left his tricycle in the middle of an unfamiliar block and gone on without it.

So what does it mean to be brave? I don’t think it means you have to change who you are, but I do think that it means you have to be better than you think you are.

Winston Churchill said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” It’s been a long time since I rode that tricycle around the block, but by now, I’ve been around the block many times. However, I have learned that sometimes when I want to argue with someone, because I don’t agree with him, that it is a small act of courage to keep my mouth shut. That’s when I ask myself,  “Is this battle worth fighting?” Is it important to argue this small issue? Do I want to be happy or do I want to be right?”

Stupidity I can tolerate—Bigotry not so much!  Once upon a time, many years ago we moved to Atlanta, Georgia. My husband, Warren, left for his first day of work, and I was left in our apartment with a toddler and a mountain of boxes to unpack.  Happily my little boy,  was sleeping as I began to unpack the boxes in the kitchen. Then, I heard a knock at the door. Turns out that the knocker was a young man named Joseph clutching a Bible to his chest. He said, “Good Morning. I see you’ve just moved in and I’d like to give you this Bible—-and tell you about my church.” Having heard about Southern hospitality, I said, “Common In, and offered him a glass of Sweet Tea.

After exchanging a few pleasantries about Atlanta, I gently told him, “I already have a Bible, and I am Jewish.”  At that point he asked me, “What would it take for me to convert you to Christianity?” I said, “That’s easy. All it would take is for people like you to set a good example and act like Christians.” Surprised, he said, “What do you mean?” Whereupon I replied,”You worship in a church that excludes people, who believe exactly as you do. You and your fellow parishioners refuse to pray with good people, because of the color of their skin. Obviously, there’s no room at your Inn. So, these righteous people have to worship in their own churches, because they are not welcome at yours.”

At that, the young man, who was sitting on my box of dishes, began to sob.  As tears ran down his face, he cried “You are right! You are right!” I handed him a box of Kleenex. At that moment my husband, Warren walked into the kitchen and said, “What’s going on here?” At that, Joseph, ran out of the door (with my box of Kleenex) crying, “You are right!” I said, to Warren, “Oh, you mean him? I just sent him on a mission so he can welcome lots of people to worship with him at his church.” Warren just shook his head and said, “Let’s order pizza.”

I recently read an article about shrews who eat their own brains in the winter—shrinking the cognitive tissue in order to survive the colder months. They then regrow much of the brain matter in the spring.  Researchers have found in the lab that when the shrew brain is smaller, it becomes less able to solve learning tasks—whereas in the spring, when the brain grows back their ability to solve lab puzzles appears to return.  I think that some people are just like shrews. They’d rather eat their own brains than have the courage to use them.

Maya Angelous said, “Without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” And, I would respectfully add that we will never discover who is really brave or who is spineless—as well as brainless—until something real happens, and they are tested.  That’s why it is important everyday to remember that everything you do and everything you say will affect someone else. IT MATTERS!

Esther Blumenfeld

IT'S AS CLEAR AS---

All of us are living on the surface of a planet, spinning around a ball of fire 90-million miles away, and the only thing that’s holding us down is gravity. No wonder some people don’t want to accept reality.

I was once at a party where I met a woman who told me that her son was a successful actor. I said, “Has he been in plays or movies?” She replied, “Not yet, but he is on television.” I said, “That’s great! Can I see him in his role?” And, she proudly replied, “Oh, Yes! He’s a cluster of grapes in the FRUIT OF THE LOOM commercial.”

Tau Chuan Ling said, “The measure of success is a matter of perception. Are you perceiving things as they are or as you wish them to be?” That may be part of the answer to why some people stick to false information in the light of hard evidence.

New findings from researchers at the University of California Berkeley suggest that feedback rather than hard evidence promotes a sense of certainty when learning new things or trying to tell the difference between right and wrong. Logic, reasoning and scientific data take a back seat for Flat Earthers, Birthers, and Climate Change and Holocaust Deniers when belief trumps truth. (“ I believe it—therefore it’s true!”)

Joseph Goebbels, the German Nazi politician and chief propagandist for the Nazi Party said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.” Then he added, “And you will even come to believe it yourself.”

Some people think that if they are told something—even the most bizarre something—it must be true when it is reinforced by people they admire in government, social media, cable news and other echo chambers, and often the information makes them really hot-tempered, as they are duped by charlatans they trust, who knowingly tell lies to egg them on. These false prophets use trusting people for their own nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, those who believe in conspiracies, and are fed hate, won’t be curious enough to explore the topic at hand, and won’t find out how little they really know. All of this has led to a new word, “Angertainment,” coined by Adam Frisch, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado.”

So here are some results:

One in Six  Americans aren’t certain that the Earth isn’t flat, and the Flat Earth Society has 200,000 followers on Facebook. “The ‘Ruling Elite’ wants us to believe the Earth isn’t flat.”

After 530-million TV viewers watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take their first steps on the Moon on July 20, 1969 some people claimed that, ”The ‘giant leap for mankind’ had been faked—A hoax the the U.S. Government had perpetrated on the American people.”

Of course, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Unscrupulous politicians and media personalities are still feeding deniers a banquet of lies and reinforcing conspiracy theories to serve their own malevolent ends. That is the truth!  However, if you don’t believe me, invite a Holocaust denier to dinner. Tums won’t help!

On January 6, 2021 the whole world saw a vicious attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. No! it was not a group of fun loving tourists. Henry David Thoreau said it well those many years ago, “It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see!”

Esther Blumenfeld

THANKFUL? YOU BET!

Friday, November 4, 2022, 11:00 a.m.

I smell smoke.  I open my apartment door.   Yep! I smell smoke.  I close the door and call the concierge downstairs. A trusted concierge answers the phone. I say, “I smell smoke.” She says, “Don’t worry, they are testing the gas fireplace in the library.”  Okay, she’s never lied to me before.  I open my balcony doors to let in the fresh air, turn on the TV and put a pot of soup on the stove.

Then, a very loud alarm shrieks,  “THERE’S A FIRE IN THE BUILDING. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!”  The message is repeated over and over.  In the past three years, I have ignored the  several (someone has burnt the toast) false evacuation alarms, but I knew this was not a false alarm when someone banged on my door and shouted, “Leave your apartment immediately!” I knew the situation was serious, because I had paid my rent, and nevertheless they were yelling for me to “GET OUT!”  I then stepped onto the balcony and saw staff folks leading people out of the building.  This was when I figured that I’d better turn off the TV and stop heating the soup. The concierge called me and said, “I was wrong!  It’s a real fire. Get out of your apartment.”

It was now 11:30 a.m. I was dressed and prepared to go for a mammogram which was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. When I left the building, I saw a couple of fire trucks and a small stream of billowing smoke coming from the roof.  I told a friend about my 1:00 appointment, and she said, “You’d better leave now while you can still get out.” So, I jumped into my car and drove to the front entrance where I saw four more parked fire trucks. I drove between them. One of the drivers honked at me.  I thought he was waving, “Hello!” But now that I think of it, he was probably shaking his fist at me. So now where do I go?

I killed some time browsing merchandise in a store nearby. When the clerk asked me, “Can I help you?” I said, “No, I’m just here because my apartment building is on fire.” I finally drove to the radiology building and arrived an hour before my appointment. Luckily, I had a pen and a small paper notebook in my purse, so I spent the hour writing a story about shrinking airplane seats.

My mammogram didn’t take long, and now it was 1:00 p.m.  I tried to call several of my friends, but no one answered their phones. I found out later that in the rush to evacuate, cell phones had been left in apartments.  At 2 p.m. I finally reached a friend and asked, “Is it okay to come back now?” She said, “Whatever you do, don’t come back. Everyone is crowded into the Ranch House” (a meeting hall across the street from the smoke filled building). So, I went to a nearby restaurant and had a bowl of soup, which was much better than the one I had planned to eat at home. I finally, returned to the Ranch House at 3:30 p.m.

The sight that greeted me at the Ranch House was neighbors crammed into the space and calmly sitting around, eating pizza. It looked like a pajama party gone awry. Some of my friends had not had time to get dressed. Obviously, it was a “come as you are” event. Many people had been there now for four hours.  A woman from a nearby house brought dog treats for evacuated pets, and toilet paper for the overused bathrooms.  Other kind neighbors had opened their homes for a few of the evacuees. I was told that as many as 12 firetrucks had been on site.  The kitchen staff delivered a dinner of pasta and salmon with capers  at 5 p.m.  It takes more than fire and smoke to deter our chefs. The firemen checked all of the gas lines in the building before we were allowed to return to our apartments at 6 p.m.

The good news: The fire had been put out immediately.  The bad news: The building was filled with smoke.
Saturday, November 5, 2022:

The good news: Experts arrived to rid the building of smoke, and the library books were saved. The bad news: I am allergic to smoke and developed a cough and laryngitis.

The good news: When people approached me to talk. I showed them a sign that said, “This is your lucky day.  I have laryngitis.”

Today, two weeks of coughing, not talking and little sleep are behind me, and to everyone’s chagrin, I can talk again.  I threw away the coagulated soup on my stove top and happily the garbage disposal didn’t reject it.

Everyone is safe. The building is almost not stinky anymore, and I am looking forward to a Thanksgiving extravaganza—and—-

I wish all of you a most HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Esther Blumenfeld

LETTING GO

In order to help pay for my college tuition, I worked for pittance during the summer in the office of a men’s trouser factory. During my Junior year, the owner of the factory announced his retirement, and that his son would now take over the operations.

However it turned out that for two reasons it was difficult for the son to hold the reins. The first was that many of the employees had known him since he was a child, and the old-timers still called him, “The Kid.” Secondly, the “Old Man” had trouble letting go of the reins, and became “semi-retired.”

I have never understood “semi-retired.” For me, retirement means that you leave what you are doing, and now you focus on your own world in a different way—doing things you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time to explore. Kind of like a semi-truck. When retired, you can detach the tractor unit from the trailer unit, and the tractor part of you can proceed without the trailer.

I don’t think I am responsible for running people out of their professions, but lately so many of my old faithfuls have left me. For instance, after my last colonoscopy, my proctologist retired and left town. He always told me that I had a “tortured colon.” I guess now I have to take twists and turns with a new fellow.

Then my dentist retired, and I had to find another one of whom my insurance company approved.  I am sure he’s a good  dentist, but I rarely see him.  I only see his technician twice a year who thinks I am a “good flosser.”

My accountant retired, so I found an excellent fellow who was recommended by my new broker.  My former broker moved to Texas where he is probably rounding up cattle instead of clients.  I made sure that my new accountant and new broker are as young as my son.  After all, how many more  professional folks should I be expected to train?  

After operating on my cataracts, my Ophthalmologist liked it so much that he moved to the other side of town and is now only performing surgeries.  So, now I have another doctor who looks deeply into my eyes.

The latest person on my, “So you’re the new guy” list is my attorney who was a colleague of my former retiring attorney. Since this was an opportunity to review my estate and what to do after I’m  dead  paperwork, I proceeded to update everything. That was no fun at all! After the paperwork was finally signed and delivered, I told my new attorney,”I hope I never see you again!”  I think he thought I was kidding.

Now my Rabbi (which means teacher) is on the slippery slope of retirement, but I guess that rabbis, priests and ministers never really retire. It just means they won’t have to go to so many meetings.

My brother, David just retired after helping hundreds of people for many years as a Family Counselor. He is now relishing his non-schedule, relaxing and enjoying everyday with his family. That is a good beginning on the road to retirement. After all, if you do it right, shouldn’t  retirement actually be—- the best job you’ve every had?

Esther Blumenfeld (“Why is it when a man retires, and time is no longer a matter of importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch?”)