NOODLE BRAINS AND OTHER CHOICES

Teddy Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Everyday, we have all kinds of choices. Go to the grocery store and decide which cantaloupe to buy. You can thump, press and smell it, and still wind up with a dud, but there’s an easy solution for that choice. The mushy melon can be dumped into the garbage or returned to the store.

It’s not so easy when choosing people who will have an impact on our lives. I have a friend who married a beautiful, vivacious woman. His bride was 25 years his junior. The marriage didn’t last because he said, “My history was her trivia.” When I was a kid, I asked my Mother, “How will I know when I’m in love?” She said, “You’ll know,” but she never told me how. I guess she should have said, “Finding a best friend is a good start.”

For those who say; ”Everything happens for a reason,” my answer is, “Sometimes the reason is that you made a bad choice.” The choices you make matter.

When I lived in Georgia, two men were running for Governor. The Democrat was an avowed racist, and the Republican was a noodle brain. At the same time, there were two excellent gubernatorial candidates in California---one a Democrat and the other a Republican.  I could have, in good conscience, voted for either one of them. However, being a resident of Georgia, I had to decide which wrong choice felt the least wrong, so I voted for the noodle brain. Plato said, “If you don’t vote, you will be governed by your inferiors.” In Georgia, I had no choice about who was running for office. I could only do the best with the deck I was dealt.

SPOILER ALERT!  Obviously, I am getting into the realm of politics---something you are advised never to talk about at a party.

I have discovered that you can talk about politics before dinner, during dinner and after dinner---if you are with like-minded people. However, if that is not the case, it’s a good way to call it an early evening, and get home in time for the NBA playoffs.

One of my favorite poets, Robert Frost wrote; “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”  I don’t believe in chance. I believe in choice, and that we are all accountable for our actions.

Bear with me. I’m trying to be diplomatic here---keeping in mind that, “Diplomacy is the art of saying, ‘Nice Doggie’ until you can find a rock.” (Will Rogers)

As citizens, we are asked to make a monumental decision in November. I am not so presumptuous as to tell people how to vote, but to quote my friend, Robert Orben, “Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?”

 Esther Blumenfeld (“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.”) Milton Berle

YES---"NO IS AN ANSWER"

One of my all-time favorite books is a little literary companion titled, Rotten Reviews” edited by Bill Henderson in 1986.  It is a compilation of “mistaken, shallow and hostile reviews of books---highlighting nasty attacks on authors and on works that have become classics.”

For instance, a San Francisco Examiner rejection letter sent to Rudyard Kipling in 1889 said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

And then, there was the London Critic’s review of Walt Whitman’s, “Leaves of Grass” in 1855. “Whitman is as unacquainted with art as a hog is with mathematics.”

Every writer has faced rejection. “No!” is a painful part of the job.  After 40 years in the profession, I have learned that life isn’t about answers; it’s about asking the right questions. In other words, when I needed an interview for a story, and someone’s secretary would say, “Can’t give you an appointment this month,” I’d thank her and then say, “Okay, connect me to someone who can.” Or, “I can write the story without the interview, quoting all the things that other people say about him.” That always worked!

Toddlers learn to say, “No!” early in their development. Being a bit smarter than a toddler, I discovered that double negatives work---“You don’t mind taking your nap now, do you?”  “No!” says the child and you have given her something to ponder before napping.

The older I get, the more I find the “No!” answer unacceptable without a pretty good reason attached. After a soldier yelled “No,” at me, I took a forbidden photo at The Great Wall of China---not realizing there was a military installation in the background. I took photos inside the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg when the old lady guard was sleeping, and when machine gunned soldiers jumped out of their armored trucks to collect bank deposits during the IRA problems, I took a picture before they yelled, “No photos.” All that Irish whiskey had clogged my ears.

Recently, at a charity banquet, an officious woman said to me, “You can’t put your coat on the back of your chair until the doors are officially open.” “Too late,” was my response. “I already found an open door.” I wanted to add, “I’m too old for this crap,” but I didn’t.

My co-author, Lynne Alpern and I received 20 rejections before we got a publisher for our first book, Oh, Lord, I Sound Just Like Mama. All of the editors liked the book, but they said “No,” because their marketing people had told them, “This book won’t sell.” When it was finally published, it received excellent reviews, was on several “Best Seller” lists around the Country, stayed in print for 20 years and sold over 250,000 copies.

Granted, one day, “No” will be the final answer for me. I can accept that. But, in the meantime, I will keep opting for “Yes”---not only---“Yes,” but “HELL, YES!”

Esther Blumenfeld (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877, “Sentimental rubbish. Show me one page that contains an idea.”) The Odessa Courier

SORRY ABOUT THAT

When I was a little girl, my nemesis, LuAnn Perinood, bit me on the arm. I went home crying, and my Uncle Harry roared, “I’m going to kill her!” Eventually, I forgave LuAnn, but I never quite forgave my Uncle Harry for not carrying out his promise. He shouldn’t have said he was going to kill her, if he wasn’t going to do it.

Some people have a problem with saying, “I’m sorry.” I don’t understand that. If I’ve done something to be sorry about, I own up to it. Of course, “Sorry!” isn’t enough. For instance, if you step on a friend’s glass eye, you should offer to pay for it---or at least help him put it back in.

If you have offered a genuine apology, the other person should accept it, unless it’s something like eloping with your best friend’s fiancée. “I’m sorry,” might not sound sincere in that case.  Wait a few years.

Of course, there are some people who like their anger, and don’t have the capacity for forgiveness. Anne Lamott said, “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”

If your child spills his drink on your sofa and says, “I’m sorry,” don’t yell at him. Just pretend that he is company and say, “Don’t worry about it.” Accidents happen. That’s why they are called “accidents,” not “on purposes.” And, by the way, what makes company more precious than your child?  But I digress.

 Forgiveness is really a liberating emotion. A woman came to her rabbi and told him, “I have held a grudge against my sister for 20 years.” The rabbi, said, “If I dropped a hot coal into your hand, what would you do?” She said, “I’d drop it.” “It’s time,” he replied, “to do that with your grudge.”

My gift is that I can’t stay angry with anyone.  It’s simply too exhausting. I have learned, “Don’t let anyone live rent-free in your head.”

The best advice I ever received about forgiveness is this: “Sometimes, the first step to forgiveness is understanding that the other person is a complete idiot.”

That’s comforting!

Esther Blumenfeld

DRONING ON AND ON

A drone just flew over my house, and I’m not talking about a male bee here!

Although Tucson is home to a very big military base, I can attest to the fact that the only enemy in our neighborhood is a nasty poodle, who is an equal opportunity pooper, and I assume that since the drone is not for military use, it won’t zap him.

I suppose that a frustrated, civilian, wannabe pilot---a man with a boy toy---is flying this little unmanned aircraft. And, he probably won’t read the instruction manual until his drone lands in my tree.

It seems to me, that unless there is a compelling reason, operators of drones should stay out of the crowded skies as well as my neighborhood.  I like my privacy, and don’t want one of these whirlybirds hovering near any of my windows.

Martha Stewart received a drone for her birthday, and wrote an article for TIME MAGAZINE about the drone monitoring her flowerbed. I would have been more interested had she written an article about drones delivering hacksaws to prison.

Right now, you can buy a little drone for around $200.00, or you can get a fancy one for around $1000.00, and there are about 5,600 drones registered for commercial purposes. A delivery drone can bring merchandise (such as a sweater) to your doorstep, without you having to sign for it. And thieves, who follow that drone, can pick up that merchandise, so you won’t have to return it if it doesn’t fit.

I can see one practical use for a drone. Once you learn to fly the contraption, you could deliver your misbehaving kid to grandma post haste. Mission accomplished!

According to the FAA, to this date, 450,000 hobbyists have registered at least one drone. So where do we draw the line between Google, Apple and Microsoft innovation, and issues of privacy and safety? Recently, firefighters had to discontinue helicopter flights over a fire, because of an inquisitive drone in the area. There is no communication between helicopters, planes and drones. I assume the drone was equipped with a camera. The operator must have been named Nero---fiddling around taking pictures of the blaze.

If people want to use drones to spy on their neighbors, they really need to invent quieter ones, because if a person is sunbathing naked in her back yard, she might become suspicious when hearing a leaf blower flying overhead.

Admittedly, drones do have some good purposes when operated by experienced people. They can deliver disaster relief, inspect downed power lines, and deliver needed supplies to remote areas, but I doubt that drones, used as toys, will serve any purpose other than annoyance.

Right now, a panel of privacy experts has submitted guidelines that people are supposed to voluntarily follow such as: “Get permission before flying over someone’s property.”  That makes about as much sense as---- Avoid using personal information you gathered, for marketing purposes or blackmail. Who needs to chase an ambulance when you can catch a drone hanging from a tree?

Esther Blumenfeld (“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience---Well, that comes from poor judgment.”) A.A. Milne

PLAYING IT COOL

When it’s 114 degrees outside no one has to tell me that, “It’s officially summer.” However, the weather certainly becomes a conversational icebreaker. Someone should really invent a stopwatch that pinches a person’s wrist the third time he says, “It’s hot outside.” When you live in the desert, everyone should know that summer means HOT! Unusual weather is the kind you get only when you are on vacation somewhere else---anywhere else.

When someone asks me, “Doesn’t it get hot in Tucson in the summer?” I always say, “Yes it’s terrible. I think you should move to Florida.” We already have enough people who have moved here. Until the monsoon rains arrive, with their spectacular lightening shows over the mountains, the Arizona heat is very dry. It feels something like sticking your head into an oven. I still find that preferable to (my Florida friends please forgive me) breathing in the swamp air in Florida, a place that gets so hot and humid that the dampness curls your toes.

As Mark Twain said, “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Some people hate London when it’s not raining. Go figure. I guess they say, “Oh, Dear, it’s not raining again.”

I find hot weather much less annoying than the people who complain about it. It’s not the heat, it’s the birdbrains who move to the desert and then say, “Wow, It’s hot in the desert.”

Of course, no one would live here if it weren’t for that cool fellow, Willis Carrier, who invented the first modern air conditioner in Buffalo, New York. No wonder Buffalo is so cold in the winter.  Residential air conditioning was introduced in the 1920’s that enabled migration to the Sun Belt.

A few years ago, I took a river cruise on an old tub to Portugal. The air conditioner broke down, and since it was American made, they couldn’t get a part until after we limped to the next port. It was then, that I was happy I was a desert rat.  I had learned what the natives did in the summer heat in Tucson, before air conditioning was invented. I took the top sheet off of my bed, dampened it with cold water, wrapped myself in that wet sheet, and opened the balcony door. I cooled off the old fashioned way---covering my head when the flying bugs attacked.  It was kind of like an over heated horror movie.

While waiting for the cooling monsoon rains, I remind myself of the blizzards in Chicago, the icy roads in South Dakota, and shoveling mountains of snow in Indiana. As Carl Reiner said, “ A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” And, as much as I hate to admit it---Weather really isn’t all about me.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Weather forecast for tonight: Dark!) George Carlin