GATHER WHAT YE MAY

People collect all kinds of things. Elizabeth Taylor collected diamonds and husbands. One definition of collections is, “The action of collecting someone or something.” She did both.

Another definition is, “An amount of material accumulated in one location.” Graham Barker began his naval fluff collection in 1984. I’m not sure where he mined his collection, but by now he should have enough belly button lint to fill a mattress.

Bill collectors don’t collect people named, “Bill,” nor do they collect bills. They should be called money collectors, but I guess then people would confuse them with the Internal Revenue Service---a profession that sounds as if they only go after people who swallow their money.

Some collections such as stamp, coin, paintings and baseball cards can become quite valuable. Who knew that a first edition, Superman Comic Book, would bring big bucks---certainly not my husband’s mother---who threw it away. And, who would have guessed that Wolfgang Laib’s collection of pollen (from Hazelnut) piled up in the 18 x 21 ft, atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, would be featured as a work of art? The entry fee does not include a dose of
Antihistamine.

Sucrologists collect sugar packets. Inadvertently, they often team up with ant collectors. Some people enjoy collecting seashells. Novices forget that sometimes the shell they have collected is someone’s home. Nothing smells as pungent as the demise of a slimy critter that has crawled out of a conch shell in a collector’s suitcase. However, it’s a good trick to pull on airport security.

Collecting New Year’s resolutions is not a good idea, because there’s no place to keep them. My father collected books. When he was 85-years-old, he and my mother moved into a Senior Residence. I asked him, “Dad, is it difficult for you to move again?” He replied, “No, not as long as I have my books. My books are my portable homeland.” When he died, we donated his collection to various libraries.

However, it was more difficult to dispose of Uncle Bill’s collection of malformed teeth. Uncle Bill was an oral surgeon and was very proud of his tooth collection. Over the years, he had amassed hundreds of extracted teeth, mounted them on black velvet, and displayed them in glass cases in one room of his beautiful home in a suburb of Chicago. When he died, none of his kids wanted to sink their teeth into that collection, so they donated it to the “Collection Terminator.”
Hundreds of years from now, some archeologist, digging around, will ask, “Why did all of those weird toothed people end up at the city dump?”

Esther Blumenfeld (My British friend will “collect” me at noon)

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

“A rose is a rose/is a rose” especially if your name is Rose. That’s not so hard for people to remember. However meeting someone named DaVita might be more difficult. You could always associate it with Evita, but first you have to conjure up Argentina, and then hopefully remember, “It’s dat DaVita.”

I once met a man whose name was Theodore. “Wow!” I thought. “That’s easy. I’ll just recall Teddy Roosevelt.” So, the next time I saw him, I said, “Hi, Frank!” He excused himself after I said, “You’re the wrong President.” I have a visual memory, so when I meet someone, and write the name down, I can usually recall it by visualizing the piece of paper whereupon the name is written. However, when I am introduced to someone in a crowd, that name usually flies into one ear and out the other.

Hiking in Sabino Canyon, I often pass some of the same hikers everyday, and we usually exchange greetings. One nice couple always gives me a cheery hello. After doing this for a few years, I finally introduced myself. It was my lucky day. His name is Jack and her name is Jean. I just have to be careful not to call them Uncle Jack and Aunt Jean since I had one of each of those.

It’s most embarrassing when you see someone you know well and can’t remember her name. Sometimes you can get away with, “I’m having a senior moment” and everyone laughs, but when that person is your sister-in-law, forgetting her name can go over like a lead balloon.

I know a famous Atlanta based author who never remembers anyone’s name. It’s a tip-off when he greets someone with, “Hello, Darlin’!” The only time he lucked out was at a book signing when a woman’s name was Darlene. She was extremely flattered, because she’d never even met him.

The Eskimos have 52 names for snow. At least a person should remember one of them. “Snow” works for me. A good way to ensure that people will remember your name is to make a discovery or have a disease named after you. Who could ever forget that cut up, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin?

Mitch Hedberg said, “I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That’s like a free compliment and you don’t even gotta be smart to notice it.”

Remembering someone’s name makes him feel important and special, so don’t say, “I haven’t forgotten your name, I’ve repressed it. That might not go over so well.

Most people are lousy listeners and that is part of the problem with names. I’ve already mentioned mnemonic device as a memory method.  Here are a few others suggested by experts:

When meeting someone, ask him to spell his name. Of course if his name is Joe, he will think you are stupid and it won’t matter if you remember it or not.

Keep repeating the name. “Hi, Jill.” “Nice to meet you Jill.” “So what’s new Jill?”
“Why are you leaving, Jill?”

Visualize her name on her forehead. If you meet someone named Cat, you can always visualize a litter box.

Associate the name with an outstanding facial feature, but be sure to pick a good one, because “Hi, Wart” might not go over so well.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell---the name will carry.”) Bill Cosby

WHAT A SURPRISE

This morning I was caught in the rain while hiking in the mountains. There wasn’t much I could do other than pretend I was in Seattle and keep right on walking. So I did!  Often, when confronted with the unexpected, a person just has to keep on keeping on.

Julius Caesar said, “No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.” I guess when Brutus stabbed him it was a bit unexpected. That was probably the only surprise party where the guest of honor was really surprised.
“E tu Brute.”

There are so many curve balls that can change your life. Benjamin Disraeli claimed, “The expected always happens.”  I would add that it’s the unexpected
that gets you. However, sometimes the unforeseen can change your life in a good way.

Before we met, an out-of-towner was visiting his aunt who lived in my community. She urged her nephew to ask me out on a date. Religiously opposed to blind dates, he refused her suggestion. In frustration, she got him in a chokehold and shouted, “All you have to do is ask the girl out. You don’t have to marry her!” He did and he did. I always claimed that my husband married me out of spite.

The unforeseen changed my life, as it has for many others. In medicine a milkmaid’s cowpox led to a smallpox vaccine. A dead dog’s pancreas, urine and some flies that liked sugar led to the discovery of insulin. Mold in a Petri dish brought us penicillin---All unexpected outcomes.

Accidents are always unexpected. That’s why they aren’t called on-purposes. One moment you can be taking your dog for a walk, and the next moment you can trip over his leash and break your arm.

Small children are good at the unanticipated. At the most inopportune time, invariably while you are doing something such as trying to unclog the toilet with a plunger, the wee one will ask, “Where do babies come from?”

What I don’t understand is why people are surprised by change. By the time you acquaint yourself with the latest technology, it is no longer the latest technology. Isaac Asimov noted, “All kinds of computer errors are turning up. You’d be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.”

A surprise is always unexpected unless it’s not a surprise. You know that the guest of honor wasn’t told about his surprise party when he shows up in his skivvies. Then there’s Lee Trevino who said, “My divorce came to me as a complete surprise. That’s what happens if you haven’t been home in 18 years.”

There are unexpected beginnings and unexpected endings and of course all the surprises in-between. For me, I always thought I’d get old, but I didn’t expect it would come so soon. Surprise!

So, my advice is: Meet serendipity head on when you can, and remember that the best mysteries have unexpected endings.

Esther Blumenfeld (When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.”) Steven Wright

UNREACHABLE TRUTH

My friend Jean says, “life is ridiculous!” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have advised her to “abandon the search for truth; settle for a good fantasy.” I have always thought that reality and fantasy are two sides of the same coin.

When my son, Josh was four-years-old, he wanted to fly. He convinced himself that if he flapped his arms fast enough he could soar above the clouds. I told him to keep trying, but the rule was that he had to keep his feet on terra firma, and was not allowed to go onto the garage roof. After several attempts, gravity finally won out, and he stopped the arm flapping. However, when he grew up, he earned his pilot’s license and realized his dream.

JM Barrie was right. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” The writers of science fiction entertain us with their imaginations. Past fantasies such as rocket ships flying to the moon and other planets have become reality, although we have yet to encounter little green men. Why are they always green? Transplanting organs, co-existing with robots and having a conversation with your wristwatch---all come from the imaginations of science fiction writers.

Fairy tales gave us fantasies such as beautiful faces forever frozen in youth. Now the poison Botox does it for us. In a fairy tale, a princess can kiss a frog and get a prince. In reality some women kiss a prince and end up with a frog. In real life,

When my brother, David was eleven-years-old, we attended a family celebration at the home of our grandparents. Our grandfather was having such a good time that he quaffed several glasses of wine, and my little brother enjoyed drinking the left-over ambrosia from other guests cups. Suddenly, my grandmother discovered her tipsy husband and grandson, and banished them both outside to take a long walk around the block. Grandpa protested that it wasn’t the wine that had affected them, but that old Mrs. Finkelstein had given them the “evil eye.”

Sometimes you just don’t like someone else’s reality. That’s why Pablo Picasso rationalized that “everything you can imagine is real.” After all, weren’t those angular, many-faceted forms and planes the essence of women?

There has to be a healthy balance between reality and fantasy. A magician knows the difference. If he really sawed a woman in half, he’d have a one-act very messy career, and a very memorable lawsuit.  Albert Einstein said it best; “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination”) John Lennon

YOU CAN DO THIS

 
“We appreciate your patience. All lines are still in use. Please stay on the line, and your call will be answered in the order it was placed.”

As Winston Churchill said “If you’re going through hell, keep going! And, listening to bad music on a speaker phone line for 40 minutes is certainly mini-hell.

Life is filled with obstacles, but how you deal with them makes a difference. Yes, I was annoyed, but after shouting obscenities at my landline such as, “If you were a Smart Phone you wouldn’t do this to me!” I realized that I was accomplishing nothing. I needed to calm down.I needed to; “Be like a duck. Be calm on the surface, and paddle like hell underneath.”

So, instead of hitting my head against the wall, I adjusted my attitude, hung up the receiver, and dialed the number again.  Miracle of miracles, lickity split I was connected immediately, and a nice live person answered my question.

Overcoming challenges is something everyone must deal with. Life is filled with bumps, and I was told that, “How you deal with them allows you to grow.” I don’t think he meant grey hair.
Victor Borge said, “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” Not much comfort in that!

How many times have I said to myself, “This is impossible! I just can’t do it!” But when I haven’t given up, sometimes, I muddle through and say, “I did it!” “It wasn’t really that bad after all.”

Dolly Parton said it best; “A peacock that rests on his tail feathers is just another turkey!”

At those times no matter how hard life seems, keep on keeping on, and always “give 100% unless you are giving blood.”  (Bill Murray)

Esther Blumenfeld