"Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire."
~ George Bernard Shaw
"You go first."
"No. You. You go first."
It's a dance, one they've been trying to master for years. The music plays, sometimes a sensuous tango and sometimes a sizzling salsa. But the dance never quite comes together. Neither is willing to make the first move.
The tension between them builds. There's always friction, lots of smoke but no fire. Close encounters cause sparks, and each jumps back, fearful of being burned.
They're just not very good at it, it seems. They're always out of step. She comes close as he retreats. He moves in, she pulls away. Each is at once drawn, and repelled.
They'll never get it right; they know that. But neither can they walk away. And so, they dance.
The grape-soaked words stagger through cyberspace and appear on my screen, ending the longest Internet chat we'd had in ages.
I'd been about to head to bed, but I drop back into my chair, and type, "Why? Because you said so? Why should I listen to you? You're a self-proclaimed 'douche,' and a drunk one at that."
Even as I hit the enter key, though, I know I will. A guru is very hard to say no to.
There Is no answer, but from behind the blinking cursor, I can almost hear his chuckling response.
With airplanes, satellite television, the Internet, and the global sourcing of American goods and services, my world has shrunk. I remember when all I knew about a foreign culture was what they taught me in school or I heard on the nightly news. And I assume the same was true of the denizens living in a country on the other side of the globe.
Today, I have first-hand knowledge of much more. I can travel anywhere in cyberspace literally with my fingertips. There are TV shows coming at me from everywhere in the world. I can pick up the telephone, dial a local number for assistance of some sort, and speak to someone in a foreign country. The brochures that come with the products I buy are not only written in eight languages, they are actually written in India, China, Mexico, and who-knows-where-else.
In many ways, this is all a good thing. But as foreign became less "foreign," it lost a lot of its charm along the way. The following is a little piece of that charm, coming your way from 1962. Thanks to Roland Brown of Motorcycle Classics for publishing it.
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From a 1962 Honda Motor Cycle Owner’s Manual are the following riding suggestions, translated by Honda for the “American Motorcycle Rider.”
At the rise of the hand by Policeman, stop rapidly. Do not pass him by or otherwise disrespect him.
When a passenger of the foot, hooves in tight, tootel the horn trumpet melodiously at first, if he still obstacles your passage, tootel him with vigor and express by word of mouth, warning Hi, Hi.
Beware of the wandering horse that he shall not take fright as you pass him. Do not explode the exhaust box at him. Go soothingly by.
Give big space to the festive dog that makes sport in roadway. Avoid entanglement of dog with wheel spokes.
Go soothingly on the grease, mud, as there lurks the skid demon! Press the brake foot as you roll around the corners, and save the collapse and tie up.
There was an AP news release yesterday that at once made me proud and ashamed. Haven’t read it? Go here now. I’ll wait.
(humming... "Off we go, into the wild sky yonder.
Keep the wings level and true;
If you'd live to be a gray-haired wonder..."
Oh, good, you’re back. So, as I was saying…
Yes, I’m proud.
Over 65 years ago, during WWII, a group of women took to the air to support the war effort. Underpaid and unappreciated, they flew for their country nonetheless, 60 million miles in two years. Many were injured, and 38 were killed.
Yesterday, they were finally recognized, and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress. I’m enormously proud.
But ashamed? Yes, that too.
How could it have taken so long for these women to be honored? Oh, wait, silly me. After all, they were just women, and “civilians” to boot. Maybe their contribution was just not worthy of recognition. Let’s take a look:
The requirements were tougher for women pilots: they had to have 500 flying hours compared to men’s 200.
Their pay was less than men’s.
The women paid their own way to Texas for training, room and board.
They underwent the same officer’s training as men: ground school, flight school, cross-country flying, night flying, instrument flying, daily calisthenics, flying link trainers, and lots of marching.
Anyone who flunked out, and that was not many, had to pay their own way home.
They flew every type of aircraft the Air Force owned—from trainers to bombers.
They ferried personnel and cargo, delivered aircraft, tested new and repaired aircraft, trained male cadets, and even towed targets for ground-to-air anti-aircraft gunnery practice and targets for air-to-air–gunnery practice (meaning that they were under live fire).
WASPs were used to prove to male pilots that B-26s and B-29s were safe.
And unlike male pilots who were killed in action, the families of WASPs had to pay for the return of the body for burial and received no Gold Star or even a flag to drape the coffin.
(Information excerpted from Classroom Spice Newsletter. February 2006. University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, Dr. Jeanne Ramirez Mather, Ed.)
How is it possible that it took over 65 years for this country to officially say, “Thank you”? How is it possible that over 900 of them have died without ever hearing their country say, “Good job! We appreciate it”?
How is that freakin’ possible???
Oh, and did I mention that I’m also mad, no, no, outraged at this?
Leaving the bastard was easy. The hard part was telling her 8-year-old son.
Just before moving day, she nervously drove him around their new hometown. The back seat was uncharacteristically quiet, until Mikey suddenly shouted, pointing out the window with excitement: “Oh good! I always wanted to live in a town with a dark alley!”
An interesting factoid in an MSNBC report this morning caused me to revisit the idea of gravity. I’m not going back to its effect on body parts; that was depressing enough the first time around. No, this time, I’m talking about that which holds us in place on this planet of ours.
We all know that Earth spins around on its axis (the north-south one, that is) once every day. But did you know that it is spinning at about 1,000 mph? (I didn’t.) Yikes, hold on your hat. Whilst I was bemoaning gravity in my earlier post, I’m forced to appreciate that it’s here. Otherwise… Well, you know.
As an aside, the main focus of the article is worth noting. According to a NASA research scientist, the 8.8 quake in Chile last week may have knocked us for a loop. Not quite ass over teakettle, but enough for those who watch this sort of thing to notice. It seems that the earthquake shifted Earth’s “figure axis” enough to actually change its rotation. The figure axis is different from the north-south one; this is the one around which the Earth’s mass is balanced. (I’m pretty sure my personal figure axis shifted a long time ago.)
Anyway, that shift (for all of you who have noticed that odd phenomenon that makes time somehow speed by faster as we grow older) has actually shortened the length of our days. Oh, I don’t think there’s any need to panic. The day has only shortened by 1.26 milliseconds. But still. Apparently every strong earthquake has this effect to some degree. Let’s see, there’s this one, and several other Chilean earthquakes, and the Haitian one, and many Sumatran quakes, and all the Alaskan quakes, and…
Is that just the tiniest bubble of panic I feel forming? I mean, it’s March already, and I haven’t even started my holiday shopping.
This is my submission to Velvet Verbosity's 100-Word Challenge: Hidden.
Mother
Obviously in a bad mood, she glowers, all dark storm clouds and frost. You might never guess that deep within, hidden from sight, a warm heart beats.
She’s not always like this. If you catch her on a good day, she’s all smiles, their touch soft and caressing. She rises in the morning glowing with good cheer, ready to spread her warmth on all she meets. Her sunny disposition is like a salve.
But not today. She’s been such a grump lately, keeping a cold shoulder turned toward most everyone. I’m not worried, though. Spring is just around the corner.
My husband and I are avid readers. A visit to the book store was always good for lots of points on the credit card (that’s the good news; the bad news is obvious).
Lately, we are spending far less time in the bookstore, but that’s not to say we are cutting back. We are still reading just as much as ever. But we found a way to reduce the dollars (good news) and the points (bad news) on the credit card bill and reduce the piles of books covering nearly every surface in the house. We gave each other refurbished Kindles for Christmas.
If you have a Kindle, you know how this works. You buy a “book” from Amazon, and download to your Kindle. When you finish reading it, you put it back into your “archives” (a sort of virtual bookshelf with your name on it). It can then be downloaded onto any other Kindle linked to that bookshelf/account.
OK, so last night, I wanted to read a book that was still on my husband’s Kindle. I asked him to put it back on the shelf so I could get it. He sent it back into the archives, and within 30 seconds, I had it on my Kindle, this gizmo in my hand that’s connected to nothing. Unbelievable.
Now, I’m a very visual person. So I picture this book, flying back up into the great cloud called Amazon (whoosh!), and then flying back down into my Kindle seconds later (thunk!).
And that makes me think of all the other stuff that has to be flying around out there in the ethersphere (swish! whoosh! zoom! screech! bam!). I have this overwhelming desire to shout “Duck! Incoming!”
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch, but these come to mind. We have constant TV and radio signals, some flying up to satellites and back. There are short wave radio signals and CB radio signals. We have an ever-increasing number of cells phone conversations going on at any one time. Add to that the texts (I read recently that the average teenager sends 2900 texts per month!) and tweets and pics and downloads that cell phones are shooting out like sparks. Computers and other devices add WiFi to the mix, and whatever stuff it is that makes it possible to have a real-time conversation (in voice or text, with or without video) with someone half a globe away. There are signals from GPS devices and services like Onstar and LoJack. Geez, there are even tracking signals emanating from those ankle cuff devices they slap onto people under house arrest. And one shudders to consider what governments (ours and others) are firing out into the air.
With all this invisible stuff crashing about in the air around us, I don’t know why we aren’t all sick.
Titanium of Element 22 has honored me with an Honest Scrap Award.
And I don’t use the word “honored” lightly. This lady blows me away. She lives, really lives, the adventure that life should be, has the courage we all should have to go after that adventure, and has the eloquence to write about it in a way that inspires us to do so. So I am truly honored to be included in her list of blogging victims - uh, pals, I meant to say pals - to receive the award.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that it befalls me as a recipient to honestly expose seven personal factoids not already revealed in my blog. Well, OK, maybe not so bad. I tend to be a blurt-it-all-out-to-anybody-who’ll-listen kind of person. It’s only because I am fairly new to blogging that I haven’t told you everything already.
I don’t know if the deal was to give it up quickly, but heck, I’ve got the ball in my court, so I can decide when to throw it, right? I’ve taken a little time to think about it, and came up with these seven tidbits of personal information.
1. I am an adventurous eater. I try stuff, like the sea urchin I ate out of the shell (um, not sure if it actually was a shell, but it felt hard like one), which then walked across my plate after I was finished. I thought the others at my table were going to lose it.
2.Kate at High Altitude Gardening, also a recipient of the Honest Scrap Award, revealed that if she could own any car in the world, it would be one you've never heard of: the Nash Metropolitan. I actually did own a Nash Metropolitan. Very cute car, but I can tell you this: a 1500-mile trip (with two adults and two kids) in a Metropolitan is no fun. No fun at all.
3.Drinking red wine (and sometimes white wine, and sometimes beer, and sometimes…) makes my face red. Very red.
4.After 10 years as a single mom who’d had, oh, maybe two dates, I met my soul mate on an airplane. Huh. Who knew.
5.Last May, I walked 30 miles over two days in the 2009 Boston Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Not bad for an old broad. I was pretty darn proud of myself, I’ll tell you.
6.I come from a big (as in size, not quantity), tall family. My brother is 6’5” and wears a size 13 shoe. I have really big feet, too (or, as my husband - the guy from the airplane - says, I have “a good solid under-standing”). All of my everyday shoes are actually men’s shoes. (Yikes, did I really tell you that??? TMI, TMI!)
7.And now that I’ve told you #6, I may as well mention that I’ve always wished I were a petite, ladylike (not an adjective ever used to describe me) little thing. It’s really hard to feel petite when you have aircraft carriers for feet.
And now to pass on the opportunity to blurt it all (or at least some of it) out, I’m tagging ten others. Some of you will no doubt say, “who is this woman, and why is she picking on me?” As I mentioned above, I am relatively new to all this. Some of you I have come to think of as friends in no time at all. But all of you have been a pleasure to read, and are people I’d love to know more about. Res ipsa loquitur. So write seven juicy new tidbits about yourself on your blog, and then pass it on!
P.S. If any of you have already been bestowed with this award, I apologize. I looked back and tried not to tag anyone already tagged, but, hey, what can I say? I’m considering it a major feat to have figured out how to get these links in here at all.
This is my offering for this week's Flash 55 hosted by G-Man.
Faded Star
In her heyday, she had been amazing. She was so glamorous, her finery glistening like stars in the sky. Everyone talked about how beautiful she was, and people came from all over to see her movies.
But not tonight. Tonight, she sat alone in the dark, waiting. Tomorrow, they were coming, with the wrecking ball.
This is the first time I’ve participated in Theme Thursday, but I was drawn by the story behind this week’s theme. On Thursday, Barry of An Explorer’s View of Life is celebrating his last chemo treatment by ringing a bell long and loud. You can read about it and join in to make a joyful noise for him here. Congratulations, Barry! I’ll be hopping around madly at 2:00PM today, “ringing my bell” for you!
And now on to my offering on the theme of the week: Bell.
The Bell Family
Back in the day, when I was a kid, people who wanted to talk to each other called on the telephone. You remember (or geez, maybe some of you don’t remember…), you went to that table in the hall, picked up the telephone receiver, dialed the number for your friend, stretched the cord to its limit to go into the hall closet, and chatted until Dad yelled at you to “Get off the phone!”
A little later, there might have been an extension on the wall in the kitchen, not such a good thing if eavesdropping was a family pastime. We all learned that if you unscrewed the cover on the speaking end of the receiver and popped out the little thingy inside before letting go of the button to open the line, they couldn’t tell you were listening on the extension.
Then, even later, if you were lucky, you had an extension in your bedroom. And for many girls, it got even better. Their parents took the path of least resistance to keep the house phone open just in case (unlikely as it seems) someone actually called to talk to them, and gave their daughters their own line.
If you wanted to make a long distance call, you dialed 0 (on an actual round dial) and a friendly female voice greeted you. She would make the call for you. My first job out of high school was to be one of those friendly female voices, sitting on a switchboard with 49 other friendly female voices (this was in Miami; lots of people made long distance calls) wielding those long cords like an expert.
Back in the day, all this was made possible by the Bell Family, known as American Telephone & Telegraph (or AT&T), which consisted of Ma Bell, and her seven Baby Bells.
The Divorce
And then the day came when, as so many families do, the Bell Family broke up. Judge Harold Greene, representing Uncle Sam, presided over the divorce and ordered the dissolution of the family. The Baby Bells were sent out to fend for themselves. The seven little Bells gave themselves new names and marched boldly (well, OK, some of them staggered) into the future. And for many of us, service got worse. The costs got higher. And you have to buy your own telephone, for heaven’s sake!
One by one, the Bell offspring have been disappearing, gobbled up by the merger monster. Southwestern Bell, PacTel, and Ameritech were the first to go. Then BellSouth followed. Bell Atlantic and NYNEX were next. And then there were three, one of whom has taken back the old family name, AT&T.
But even these three are mere shadows of their former selves, from back in the day. One sold off its landline business several years ago. The others have watched the landline business evaporate as more customers switch to cell phones. The handwriting seems to be on the wall.
The Bell Is Silenced
There are probably no teenagers dragging the phone into the hall closet these days. 84% of them have cell phones, according to a leading research company. (Shockingly, they also say 22% of children aged 6-9 and 60% of “tweens” aged 10-14 own a cell phone.)
The friendly operator has gone the way of the dodo bird. I’m not sure what happens now if you dial 0. I can’t test it out because I don’t have a land line.
Sure it’s progress. But, I don’t know, somehow it’s sad.
You'll find my fiction and poetry here. For a taste of non-fiction creative writing and occasional ranting and raving, visit me at PattiKen and the Muses: Home Away from Home
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To see what else the muses are up to, check out "My Other Stuff" on the tab above.
PattiKen
When I'm not in Massachusetts, you can find me following my muses hither and yon, shouting, "Hey, wait up!"
