Random acts of kindness

It’s Christmas Eve! And only about 87 more days until Dave and I get married. I'm happy to say that I am quite in love, and perhaps visibly so. Evidence of this came in the form of someone (the great mysterious someone) who bought us dinner last night because, in the words of our waiter, "We were enjoying ourselves so much. And they wanted to spread Christmas cheer a little early." In fact, in some parts of our conversation we did discuss how happy and comfortable we felt around each other. (Just being honest.) But of course, our conversation ranged through various topics as well.
After the shock wore off, and accepting the waiter's insistence that the gift remain anonymous, we began hypothesizing. First, no one could have known that we were there because Dave couldn't even remember the name of the restaurant...he just knew where it was. And we definitely didn't know anyone at the restaurant. I remain convinced that it truly was another table, while I’m sure Dave still thinks it was actually the waiter/ restaurant, but we shall just agree to disagree because we will never know.
And either way, even as I write about this, I can’t help giggling as I replay the evening through the eyes of an on-looker. What was it about us that persuaded them to buy our dinner? (Even if they are wealthy folks that just do this from time to time.) Maybe it was our careful examining of purple splotches on the tablecloth: the difference between the drops of wine dried into the white paper and the fallen beet smears. After that followed our habitual food swapping, each time Dave bringing his plate increasingly closer to me as it was quickly evident that I was practically incapable of getting the food from the plate to my mouth without first dumping it on the table. (Yes, the fallen beets were my fault.) Maybe it was simply his attentiveness and quick smile. Perhaps it was the pleasant and careful way we discussed our grandparents, or when we both leaned closer across the table as I told him how he helped me be the best version of myself. Or our congenial dessert debate?
We probably also looked very happy--or in my case, just quite pleased with myself--as I retold some of our new family word jokes. It started with one I made up on the spot: What do you call a prank to steal the pickled buds from a Mediterranean plant often used for seasoning? A caper caper! (Ok, not so funny. But at least you can figure out the inspiration.) But that brought me around to some other new ones for which I cannot take credit. First, what do you call the mercy killing of a young person traveling in the world's largest and most populous continent? I bet you can guess this one...youth in asia euthanasia. And I hope that I don't offend the sensibilities of some of my readers, but I'm sure that what clinched it for our anonymous hosts was our reaction to the second one: what do you call a faux bowel movement? Shampoo.

The Actuary Song

Be an actuary every day!
Tell the people what they have to pay.
Be it in insurance companies, schools or banks or zoos,
Risks are all around us,
the math is up to you!
So, be an actuary every day.

(my sisters and I made this one up.)

Published for the first time...

My economics jokes!
(Remember, the punch lines are all Rolling Stones songs.)

1. What does Mick Jagger say in support of Milton Friedman's anti-Keynesian school of thought?

2. How do the Rolling Stones describe the ever-present problem of limited resources for unlimited wants?

3. What does Mick Jagger say when he has consumed a good up to the point of saturation?

Before you scroll down to the answers, here is my limerick on protectionist trade policies.

There are some countries who ban
Foreign goods, and start changing demand.
Interest groups are smiling,
But prices are rising,
Bringing pain to the every day man.

Answers:
1. "Time is on my side."
2. "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."
3. "I can't get no satisfaction."

"Let us squash the wiggle worm when you feel the urge to squirm"

When I was a kid, I had some of these thoughts:
1. I was quite afraid of growing up and forgetting what it was like to be a kid, curious and amazed at the world around me.
2. I desperately determined to use life to its fullest
3. I was afraid of missing things: things ranging from some activity with people, a good desert, an opportunity to swim, or something funny.
4. I wanted to succeed, do something great, and impact the world.

I was and have been a very active, hard working and determined person. In high school and college I did great in school while keeping up a full range of outside activities. One spring in high school, I played soccer, ran track, sang in the musical, and kept up my GPA. I’m pretty sure I had ridiculous amounts of energy and I never seemed tired (my family of course did see the tired, “crabby abby” and tried to make me do less). I know this because I remember people commenting on it a lot. It didn’t seem extreme to me, though. I just wanted to do something all the time. What’s so weird about that? In college, roommates and friends began to complain (it seemed after a while) that I couldn’t or wouldn’t ever sit still. It was true. I never sat through a whole movie. I never walked through my dorm. I ran to the other wings and floors. Reflecting now, I’m sure it did annoy them, though at the time, I secretly thought they were just being sluggish. But I was having a good time, and I basically did what a wanted, because it was college. I loved doing more than one thing at a time, and I loved learning new ways to be efficient.

But in the back ground, there was something in that that was not so positive. I was also very afraid of wasting time, and that controlled much of my thought life and many of my decisions. I measured good days by how much I accomplished. An unproductive day was tragic and stressful.

It wasn’t until about last year that I finally began to look at the way I value my time, and value things in general. How did I relax? Could I ever just be still? And what were the virtues in that? What could other, better indicators of success be in my life?

I slowly began to learn how to take time to be still and accept unstructured time. I still struggle with it, of course, and I still do have a lot on my plate. Just yesterday I had to fight the inner crazies, particularly in the form of getting math homework done on a Saturday night. So, relaxing time is not common and really can’t be right now. But I don’t get angry with myself if I take some time to not do anything that I can label as activity “x”. (that is, I’m getting better at it at least.)

But with these shifts, my ideas of what is valuable has also changed. I still want the things listed above. I haven’t changed my mind. Instead, I see different ways to accomplish them. By stopping and taking time to rest, reflect, and talk with people I really care about or “do nothing” I can appreciate more around me. I’m still amazed by the world, too. (People tease me about that, too…like when I unknowingly have a running dialogue with myself in the morning on the way to a tournament. It shows I'm doing well.)

Sometimes living life to the fullest is running around doing tons of things, or sometimes it means waiting in line and feeling time stick all over you like molasses. Or stopping outside and talking to the neighbor next door. In other words, I want to be in the present. And since I can’t be in more than one place at a time that means that I’m going to miss things. Yep. I am. So, I might as well get used to it, start making decisions, and being happy where I am.


Oh yeah, and I want to do things that matter, too. But doing things well, being engaged, wherever it happens to be…that matters.

Mysteries

Do you remember being confused by the lack of connection between a rotary phone, the Rotary club, and Roto-Rooter? I do.

Some poems

Curiosity (line breaks may not be perfect)

Curiosity may have killed the cat; more likely the cat was just unlucky,
or else curious to see what death was like, having no cause to go on licking paws, or fathering litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious is dangerous enough. To distrust what is always said,
what seems, to ask questions, interfere in dreams, leave home, smell rats, have hunches do not endear cats to those doggy circles where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches are the order of things, and where prevails much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity will not cause us to die- only lack of it will. Never to want to see the other side of the hill or that improbable country where living is an idyll (although a probable hell) would kill us all.
Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible, are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables with tales of their nine lives.
Well they are lucky. Let them be nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again, each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one is all that can be counted on to tell the truth.
And what cats have to tell on each return from hell is this: that dying is what the living do, that dying is what the loving do and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

-Alastair Reed

Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

It's raining in love

I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

-Richard Brautigan

The Toaster

I was driving to school one morning on a non-school day in January. It was about 10am, sunny, about 45 degrees, and as usual I had to stop at a light to turn left onto Ladue Rd. In the middle of the median next to my car, I noticed a strange box. It was so close to my car, so I hopped out and took a look. It was a nice toaster box, and it was heavy.

So, I threw it in my back seat.

The light was turning as I lept back in the front seat, and took off to the left. I was imagining myself bravely rescuing this brand new toaster from that deathly median, and setting it sweetly beside my old happy toaster. (They are pack appliances, right?) Also, having seen too many movies, I was afraid that it would perhaps explode sometime in the next 3 minutes before I reached the school. Or maybe it was just filled with something horrible and heavy....but I didn't dwell on that too much.

As soon as I parked, I jumped out and plopped the toaster box outside on the ground. I looked up, but no one was around. That made me scared for some reason. (Movies again, I guess.) It was still sunny, though. I pulled the properly closed lid and peeped in.

There was a still dirty toaster with crumbs all around on the top, but as I lifted it out of the box, I realized that the chord had been severed 3 inches above the plug and both pieces were still left in the box! It was horrible. Some one put an amputated toaster back in the box and left it in middle the road just for some one to find. I shoved the maimed thing back in the box and ran over to the trash can--a quick glance revealed still no one around. I shoved it in the square top, where it barely fit, and ran away.