"'Half-Birthday' Revelation (Rewritten From "'Half Birthday' Blues" To Avoid Using The Word "Blues"... Oops)"

This concept was so fraught with freight – an alternative to “fraught with baggage”; plus, it’s a nifty alliteration – I waited two weeks to finally write about it.

Acknowledging “half-birthdays” is a traditional practice among young children. 

JACK (IN OUR FAMILY, ADAMANTLY):  “I’m not three.  I’m three-and-a half!”

I don’t know when exactly that stops.  Maybe there are people with congenital “half-birthday” arrested development:

“I’m not forty-seven.  I’m forty-seven and-a-half!”

I do not think that happens that much.  Though I cannot say when the official “half-birthday”-acknowledging cut-off date actually is.  It is probably somewhere in the teens, when interests and enthusiasms are dramatically altered. 

“Is she fourteen or fourteen-and-a-half?”

(HYNPNOTIZED) “Girls.”

Little children, however, are insistent about adding that “half”, alerting the world they are rapidly climbing the actuarial ladder.  They are not “baby three” anymore.  They are a “Driver’s License”-approaching three and-a-half!

On the other end of the age advancing continuum, when the “half”-counting issue returns –for some of us – it is for precisely the opposite reason.  You want to hold on to the lower number as long as you can.  So it’s,

“I’m not seventy-three.  I’m seventy two-and-a-half.”

At that juncture, no one is in a hurry to move up.

I was thinking about that during a recent Thursday walk, when it suddenly occurred to me that the following day would mark my mid-point-to-a-year-older “half-birthday.” 

Except with the most solicitous of parents, “half-birthdays” are, although joyously acknowledged, rarely “party-and-a-pony” actually celebrated.  On my Thursday walk, though, I started imagining, if that “medial milestone” continued to be recognized throughout our lives, what kind of presents older celebrants would receive on the occasion of their “half birthday”?   

A deck with twenty-six cards in it?  A bow and no arrows?  Cataract surgey for one eye?

And then, on my way back, another thought came to me.  Not about “half-birthdays” because why waste an entire walk on one subject?  Besides, half a walk seems the appropriate duration when considering “half-birthdays.”

I started instead to think about actual full birthdays for Senior celebrants, which, in my experience, are beginning to get old… along with the Senior Celebrant. 

I momentarily considered not celebrating any more birthdays at all.  That lasted about two slabs of the sidewalk.  Am I crazy?  I’m going to be the only one not to receive presents on my birthday.  That’s like a teetotaler buying “rounds.”

Still, something in the birthday celebrating procedure felt inherently depressing to me, though I could not put my finger definitively on what.

Until I did.

Think about this.

They bring in the cake with all the lit candles on top of it, and they’re singing “Happy birthday to you…” and then the “honoree” blows out the candles.  (We’ll forget about the unshared “Birthday Wish”, which, as you get older, boils down almost exclusively to “reasonably good health.”)

What occurred to me – for the first time ever – was the symbolic implication – at least for us pessimists – of “blowing out the candles.” 

Why would you want us to do that? 

The last thing an old person is interested in hearing about are the lights going out.

“Blowing out the candles” is like, “That me, soon.  But with candles.” 

Extinguishing the candles. 

Where’s the “For he’s a jolly good fellow” in that?

Why not instead, I thought, – and think about this before dismissing it out of hand because you have never heard of it before – bring in a cake laden with unlit candles, and then, when the aging “Birthday Person” blows on them real hard…

The candles immediately

Light up!

Wouldn’t that be better – a dazzling explosion of light before the celebrant’s eyes, rather than dead candles, and crematorial wisps of smoke?

I have no idea how you could do that – “Execution” is not my department; I’m the “Ideas Man” of the operation.  (When I told him about it, my brother said, "Maybe you should inhale.")   I’m just saying, what a wonderful difference it would make if, instead of that disheartening “snuff” thing, the birthday candles burst exhilaratingly to life.

I’ve got a smile on my face just thinking about it.

Okay.  You’ve got six months until my birthday. 

Somebody surprise me.

Otherwise, it’s just another year of “blowing out the candles.”

Which I have begun to appreciate less and less.

"Singled Out (And Its Admittedly Idiosyncratic Ramifications)"

He was not used to it… maybe because it only happened to him twice.  Once, in the late sixties.  And again, just yesterday morning.  (He was going to say “yesterday morning”, but why quibble with James Taylor?)

I was living in London, introduced to and then regularly frequenting The Horse and Groom pub in Hampstead.  (The outside sign is still there but it is now a Chinese restaurant inside.  I went.  I saw.  I was sad.)   

I was hardly a natural pub “regular.”  When I tried rolling a cigarette the flame shot through the insufficiently tightly packed tobacco and almost burnt up my tongue.  I could not participate in “rounds”, because after one round – and only a half-pint of “Bitter” to boot – I was done drinking for the evening.  (Once, after swaying my way back to my bedsitting room, it took me ten minutes to fit my key into the lock.  I was “this close” to sleeping in a nearby graveyard.)

A few months after my arrival, on the day Britain’s Super Bowlish FA Cup Final would be broadcast on the “telly”, I saw the pub manager, Eddy, going around, whispering to various  customers – whispering what, I had no idea (such is the nature of whispering.)  Then, to my startled surprise, Eddy came over and whispered to me, his sub rosa message:

“Stay after ‘Closing’.”

At 3 P.M., after the unchosen hoi polloi found their way out the door, the “Select Few” – including, inexplicably, myself – remained behind, an old television was rolled in, the pub’s bar was kept open – and was now free (to the minimal good that did me) – and we watched the FA Cup Final, from the club-like confines of The Horse and Groom.

Special treatment.  For, apparently, only being myself.

And to prove it wasn’t a fluke, it happened again.  Only fifty years later, as italicizedly mentioned – singing the following is optional – just yesterday morning. 

I guess I’ve been frequenting the Groundwork Coffee Co. once a week for a couple of years now, in the course of my Wednesday or – as Kobe Bryant changed his uniform number from 8 to 24 in the middle of his career – Thursday walks.

I always order the same thing – a Venice Blend “Pour-over”, not because I am inflexibly set in my ways but because I have sampled many of the alternatives and have found Venice Blend most satisfactorily “to my taste.”  Then I became inflexibly set in my ways.  (So I am, but not right away.)

Here’s how it works.  I go in, I wait in line, I finally get to the counter, I order a Venice Blend “Pour-over”, I pay the exorbitant four dollars (plus a tip) and I wait a few minutes for the “coffista” – “coffisto”, male in Spanish, “coffistus”, male in Latin – to prepare it.

Preparing a Venice Blend “Pour-over” involves coming out from behind the counter, walking to the cabinet of coffee blend bins, opening the bin-drawer labeled “Venice Blend”, scooping up the appropriate amount of Venice Blend coffee beans for one serving, going back behind the counter, grinding the Venice Blend coffee beans, emptying the Venice Blend bean grindings into a filter, and pouring hot water over the bean grindings into a cup.  And now you can work there.

Okay.

So yesterday morning, I step inside Groundwork Coffee Co., I take my place at back of the line, behind four our five earlier-arriving customers, and I wait patiently to be served.

And then something unusual happens.  I notice, out of the corner of my eye – giving the corner of my eye credit for a visual acuity it may not accurately deserve – the Groundwork Coffee Co.’s store manager, a black clad, forty-ish gentleman with a shiny, Captain Picard-like hair style, heading for the Venice Blend drawer bin, and then performing the above-mentioned procedure for preparing an, as yet unordered, Venice Blend “Pour-over.”

To my somewhat unwitting surprise, when I arrive at the counter, I find a steaming cup of “The Coffee-of-My Choice”, sitting there, waiting for me.  Along with a friendly wink-and-a-smile from the chrome-domed manager of the Groundwork Coffee Co.

Cognizant of my habits, the Groundwork Coffee Co. manager had already known what I wanted, and had prepared it for me, not “On Request”, but, voluntarily and conveniently, automatically.

Wow.  Special treatment.

For, apparently, only being myself.

Sure, it felt great.  But it also – and here our reactive operandi may differ – felt uncomfortable.  Who am I – an integral part of my internal debate – to be singled out for “Priority Attention”?

Let me be clear.  It is not like I feel congenitally guilty and therefore I do not deserve anything.  Evidence to the Contrary:  Honoring the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second, every school child, imaginably in the British Commonwealth, received their own individual commemorative coin.  Except if you went to a “Parochial” school – and I do not know what exactly that means but I know the Toronto Hebrew Day School was one of them – you got nothing.   

To this day, sixty-four years later, I am still seething at not receiving a Queen Elizabeth the Second coronation commemorative coin.  That’s not about wanting

”Select Treatment”  (“Where’s my coin?”)  It’s about wanting the same treatment. (“Where’s the coin everyone else got?”)

(By the way, we called it “Pinocchio” school, because many of our noses were considerably longer.)

On the other hand…

I once stood in line for a pilot filming of a show made by my bosses, until one of them plucked me out of the line and walked me straight into the soundstage, the unspoken but still felt words, “Who does he think he is?” ringing accusingly in my ears.

For whatever reason, the “singling out” process is problematic for me.  I think everyone deserves special treatment.

Of course, then it would simply be “treatment.”

As a result of my general discomfort with people receiving special treatment, I respond awkwardly ungraciously when it happens to me.

“I am so predictable”, I jokingly replied, when the Groundwork Coffee Co. manager told me, “Enjoy.”

I should have simply said, “Thank you.”  But I felt too viscerally uncomfortable for “grateful appreciation” to be an available option in my mind.

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m afraid I’m going to have to reciprocate.

That would be difficult.

What exactly would I do?

                                                 

"A Tie Goes To The Winner (A Meaningless Title Except It Has The Word 'Tie' In It)"

In anticipation of an upcoming wedding we have been graciously invited to attend, I bought a new suit – my first in over a decade, giving me a grand total of two suits.  (And a lifetime aggregate of four.)

A word or two about that experience.  (As this post is not entitled, “A Suit Goes To The Winner.”) 

When considering the alterations during the crucial “try on” phase of the operation, it was determined that the suit’s pants needed to be “let out.”  Two weeks later, when I tried the suit on, it was discovered that, rather than letting the pants out, the store’s tailoring department had instead taken the pants in. 

An understandable mistake.  There were two ways they could have gone, and they had unfortunately selected the wrong one.  Although – a minor quibble perhaps – the notational instruction pinned to the pants during the crucial “try on” phase of the operation said, “Let out.”  That, imaginably, should have been a clue to the pants-altering direction they should reasonably have taken.  Note to the store’s tailoring department: 

“Read!”

Anyway, I am not here to waste your time on the triviality of pants. 

I am here to waste your time on the triviality of ties.

I don’t know why men – and women, desiring to emulate the accouterments of power – continue wearing an item of clothing that, when slid tightly up to the throat, reminds the tie-wearer of hanging.  My best guess is that ties – as well as socks – are the wearer’s only available modes of sartorial distinctiveness.  Otherwise, it’s “gray suits and shirt.”  And black shoes, to further enliven the festivities.

Anyway, for whatever reason we continue to wear ties, at some point in our maturational process, one is required to learn the appropriate strategy for tying one.  Otherwise, you risk the debacle of sweaters, draped inexplicably over your shoulders. 

“I have a tie, but I am wrapping it around my wrist.”  (Note:  I am aware I am in the minority about this, but what can I tell you?  I am no strongly inimical to the “look.”)

Jumping ahead – or perhaps, more accurately, sideways – my “Knot of Preference” – I guess because someone long ago taught me to tie it and admiring the outcome I decided to stick with it – is the formally elegant “Windsor Knot”, named for its originator, the late, impeccably dressed English Duke of Windsor.

We all have a purpose in life… one would prayerfully like to believe:  Finding the cure for a serious illness.  Devising some life-altering invention.  Conceiving a viable solution for world peace.    

Others are placed on this earth to come up with an innovative way of knotting men’s ties.

The Duke of Windsor, of course, was known for another noteworthy achievement as well:  He abandoned the throne to marry the woman he loved… whom British tradition insisted could never be Queen, because she was divorced, or because she was American.  (I am unclear on which offense was the more egregiously disqualifying one.)

(Historical Note:  I am also uncertain as to the causational chronology of these events – whether it was, “If I can give up the throne I can design a new knot”, or “If I can design a new knot I can give up the throne.”  Though it is arguable one of those towering achievements effectively enabled the other.  Does it really matter which, in the overall scheme of things?  I suppose not.  Both are memorable feats of enduring significance.  Some of us never do any.)

Here’s the thing, personalizing the issue, as bloggers, amusingly or annoyingly, depending on your response to it, are habitually wont to do. 

Setting the Scene…

The celebration in question looms anxiously on the horizon, my time rapidly running out.  And there I stand, facing my bathroom mirror, fully dressed, except perhaps for my shoes, the remaining task on my preparational agenda – to successfully put on my tie.

And, hard as I try, I am unable to do so.

At least, to my fastidious satisfaction.

On my initial attempt, the front, visible portion of the tie ends up considerably shorter than the back portion, offering the woeful appearance of a smartly-suited Oliver Hardy.  Whose memorable catchphrase, “Why don’t you do something to help me?” is functionally inoperative, as I am adamantly determined to do this myself.

With each continued failing effort, time is inexorably ticking away, a pressing awareness, playing no small part in my serial ineptitude.

I try again and again, calibrating precisely how short to position the left side, hoping, that when  sliding the “finished product” up to my collar, my tie will fall before me – and, more importantly, the world – at an admirably appropriate, tie-hanging length.

And yet, time after time, my “Goal of Perfection” frustratingly eludes me.

Somewhere, I imagine the impeccably dressed Duke of Windsor, decorously chuckling behind the sleeve of his French-cuffed, dazzling white shirt.

“My dear boy.  You are utterly hopeless!”

Finally, as with every script and blog post I have ever written, I am done in by the arriving deadline.  Time to face reality, and settle acceptingly for “close.” It's going to be that.  Knowing, with a discouraging certitude, that tie-knotting Nirvana is elusively just barely beyond my grasp.

And possibly always will be.

"A Highly Questionable Call"

Although totally unplanned, it turns out to be “Creepy Occurrence Week” on “Just Thinking”, though this one’s not as terrible as what I wrote about yesterday – feel free to look back and remind yourself what that was; I just did.  That was the worst.  Still, did you ever have something “icky” happen to you – I mean, nothing got on you or anything – but you felt like you needed to take a shower after it was over?  That was the way I felt after the following.  So “Purell” your whole body as a precaution, and awau we go.

Being home a lot, I am faced with a continuing barrage of unsolicited phone calls.

Telemarketers.

Public opinion pollsters.

Automated “Robocalls.”

Automated “Robocalls” in Spanish.

But the call I got yesterday was, by far, the most unwelcome unsolicited phone call I have ever received.  It was so bad, I am considering not answering the telephone ever again, a device whose intrusion I admittedly resent at the best of times. 

Somebody once said – it was some time ago when people used “Pay Phones” and the phone calls cost less – “I abhor the idea that any fool with a nickel in his pocket can make a bell ring in my house.”  That’s me, upgrading the price of the phone call to whatever they charge for one today.  If you could find a “Pay Phone” that still works.

Okay.

The phone in my office rings; I answer it.  Why?  Because it could be important.  It rarely is, but it could be this time.  That’s how they “get” you – you do not want to miss an important phone call.  It just occurred to me, there should be a different “ring” for the important phone calls, to distinguish them from the “Don’t bothers.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to introduce such a measure in Congress but the powerful “Unsolicited Phone Calls” lobby used their immense influence to shoot it down.  I should Google that and see if it’s true.  Nah, why ruin a good anti-lobbyist anecdote?

Giving away the suspense, as I frequently do – demonstrating my utter disdain for the increased readership telling suspenseful stories might produce – imagine the guy who somehow gets a hold of your credit card and goes on a wild shopping spree at your unwitting expense.  If that felonious slimeball had a voice, that would be exactly the voice I heard when the phone rang in my office and I said,

“Hello?”

THE CALLER WITH THE “CREDIT CARD THEFT” VOICE:  “Hi, Grandpa.”

Okay.  Right away, I should have known something was fishy.  Nobody calls me “Grandpa.”  I’m “Pappy.”  Still I press ahead, ignoring the screaming telltale “giveaway.”

“Who’s calling?”

“You know who this is.”

“No I don’t.”

“Guess.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Come on.  Guess.”

Here’s the thing… that keeps me polite and still listening.  This could be a legitimate person on the line, a relative calling from Toronto, unaware that I am “Pappy” and not “Grandpa.”  I can therefore not be rude to that person, “A”, because they could actually be someone I know even though I do not recognize their voice, and consequently, “B”, if I am rude to them they will tell everyone in Toronto I’m an idiot.  So, against all odds – and I mean all odds because it is, in fact, an anonymous sleazeball making this call – I take a guess at his name.

“Bob?’

And, wouldn’t you know it, he says,

“Yes!”  

To which I relaxingly reply,

“Hi, Bob.”

Now understand – as I unconsciously must have – there is a one-in-a-million chance it is actually my Canadian Cousin Bob, who has not called me once in my entire life.  Still, somehow, I feel good – meaning relieved, and vaguely excited – I got it “right.”

Play a game with me here.  As much as I can recall of it, I’m going to tell you what “Bob” said to me over the phone.  Pick the spot where you would have reasonably hung up on him, and see how close it is to when I did.  I would put big money on the fact that I listened to “Bob” longer than anyone sensible would have.  Why?  Not because I was curious to hear the scammer’s “spiel” imaginatively play itself out.  Not because I thought it would make an interesting blog post down the line.  Not because I had substantial time on my hands, having not worked in my chosen line of endeavor for thirteen-plus years.

I remained on the phone due to deeply rooted feelings of guilt, engendered by the possibility of hanging up on a person I should have actually been nice to.  Who wants the label “Snooty Hollywood Big Shot”?  One inadvertent snub, and that’s me – the guy who left who thinks he’s “better than us.”  Stuff like that gets around.  I arrive at Canadian “Customs” and they give me “that look.”

So I stayed on the line.  Listening to an extended narrative, which went very much like the following:

“Bob’s” best friend Marcus had died in a car accident far from home in Ohio, and knowing how much the two had meant to each other, Marcus’s parents had sent him the price of a plane ticket to Ohio, so he could come to the funeral.

Are you ready to hang up yet?  Not me.  So far, it’s an “It’s possible.”  (Although the fact that “Bob” continued the phone call should have been a resonating “Red Flag.”  If this were real, “Bob” would have learned from his single question, “So what are you up to?” and my response to it, “Just the usual – writing my blog and practicing the piano” – that he had accidentally called the wrong “Grandpa.”)

Moving on with the “Scam Story”…

Marcus’s brother Steve had picked him up at the airport, and while delivering him to the funeral, they had stopped to pick up a couple hitchhikers.

Are you hanging up now?  Not me.  It can happen, picking up a couple of hitchhikers on the way to a funeral.  Carrying on…

For reasons I no longer remember – possibly speeding on the way to the funeral – an Ohio police officer pulled them over.

Was that a “Click”?  Not from me.  I keep listening.  It’s an interesting story… even if it’s horse poop.

During a “Routine Check”, the cop discovered one of the hitchers had an outstanding warrant for their arrest.

I’m still listening.  Who wouldn’t be… except, perhaps, everyone?

During a subsequent search of the hitchhikers’ possessions, the police officer found a gun in the female hitchhiker’s purse…

Now?  Not quite, but I’m close.

And – preceded by “Bob’s” words, “…and if you can believe this” –  “… a one-pound a bag of cocaine.”

Annnnd I’m out.  Belatedly, but I have finally heard enough.

“Listen, I am really swamped here.  I gotta go.”

“Are you sure?  It’s really important.”

I say, ”Goodbye”, and, possibly embarrassingly,

“Good luck.”

And I hang up the telephone.

It was weird.  But who knows?  Maybe it was a covert psychological experiment:

“How long will they stay on the line before they have heard enough and hang up?”

For which, my “Personal Sampling” skewed in the extreme direction of,

“Holy crap!  Is he gullible!”

I am gullible, because, as “easy mark’s” are, I am congenitally guilty.  Although, in my marginal defense, I did call it quits before, “Who do I make this out to and where should I send it?” 

Still, after ending the phone call, I retained the residual anxiety that I may have actually hung up on Cousin Bob.

Spreading the word from an Ohio prison that I am an idiot.