PROOF

It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets.  ~William Thomas

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

Happy New Year! I guess.

When Someone I Love was a senior in high school, of course the time arrived for her to apply to colleges. She was extremely fortunate because every senior at the prep school had a college adviser to help with creating the list of colleges to which the student would apply. Plus, the adviser would look over applications and make suggestions for improvements.

At one college where Someone I Love applied, rather than writing an essay, she was asked to prove that something intangible exists. I am posting her proof because it continues to awe and astonish me. She wrote it at the age of 17 without any assistance, demonstrating the talent she already had when she was in high school. Writing a proof was the perfect requirement for someone who would eventually immerse herself in geometric algebra. And I'm very pleased that I was able to teach my children how to write because they certainly didn't learn in school.

It also moves me because she writes about our blind sheep dog mix, Kesey (named after Ken Kesey and pronounced Kee-zee). Kesey died during the fall of Someone I Love's freshman year in college. It was horrible. It was heartbreakingly horrible. She was several hours away from us -- no time to come home for a goodbye.

So I love it that this proof also commemorates Kesey. Here it is:

This proof explains love through commonly accepted axioms:

1. God is love. However, as any dyslexic atheist with a sense of humor involving anagrams, or slightly extreme canine fancier can tell you, God and dog are roughly equivalent. Thus, dog is love.

2. Love is blind. If love is both a dog, and blind, then love could be my blind dog, Kesey. Other evidence confirming this involves hours observing said subject, Kesey. Kesey's rotundity suggests Cupid (though not cupidity) and, if any humans feel depressed, they immediately feel much improved upon being within 10 meters of his presence. His presence alone is necessary for these healing effects, thus confirming Lennon's postulate, "All you need is love."

3. Assuming then, based upon presented evidence, that Kesey the sheepdog mix is, in fact, the physical embodiment of love, we come to the axiom "love conquers all." This axiom suggests that Kesey is capable of conquest, an idea confirmed, to some degree, by his Napoleonic stature. Additionally, his administrative skills are honed to perfection. These skills include Insurance of Proper Biscuit Flow, Observation of Neighbors, and Supervision of All Beings in His Residence. Such proficiency in the areas of Economics, Intelligence, and Administration, respectively, will lead to his success as a future world power. 

4. By the logic of causality, every leader has some initial minority of supporters before coming to power. In many such instances, as evidenced by history, the followers in said minority use a code word or phrase to identify themselves to one another. What better word for the followers of Kesey to use than "love," which keeps Kesey's identity unknown to the majority of the hominid populace, who seem largely skeptical about being subjects of a medium-sized white dog, no matter how jovial said dog may be.

Many contend that love her something to do with relationships between beings. This is partially true; all of this love is encompassed by the Buddha nature that is Kesey, and any human ideals about "love" fall short of the world as we know it have come to use this term in its proper sense, referring solely to one fabulous little white dog, whom I am in my dorm room missing.
Q.E.D.

Someone I Love received a very nice note from the admissions office at the university that required the writing. The person who wrote the note said it was one of the best proofs they had seen in a long time.

Ultimately, however, that university did not provide Someone I Love with a scholarship, so she attended and graduated from a college where she was truly wanted and appreciated.

I wish I could show you a photo of Kesey, but I don't seem to have any. When I left Illinois, I tried to keep moving costs down because I wasn't paying them myself. My soon to be ex-husband paid for my move, as was appropriate because I had to move to escape from him. Thus, I left behind items I felt I could do without or that were very heavy, such as most of the photo albums I had compiled over the years.

How I regret doing anything that I thought would help Voldemort, for he ended up accusing me (in settlement papers) of taking everything I wanted from the house and only leaving behind that which I did not want. So untrue.

So untrue.

But I wish you great blessings in 2012. If you have someone with whom you can share at midnight a glass of champagne or sparkling cider or diet coke, then you are blessed. The dogs and I will probably be in our lonely bed.

Infinities of love,

Lola

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel.  Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.  ~W.H. Auden 


 
New Year's Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot.  Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.  ~Jay Leno


 I made no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  ~Anaïs Nin

NAME GAME

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

I am appalled by all the weird names floating around today. I wrote a post recently about one unusual name of which I heartily approve, that of Apple, but in the comments section, Julianna of Surviving Boys mentioned the following:

We knew people with the last name of Coffin. Fine right? They named their daughters Oak and Maple. No joke. And then there were the Tanners. They named their daughter Fawn.

I think Oak and Maple Coffin are particularly cruel monikers.

When I lived in Illinois, the Horneys were in the neighborhood. And haven't we all known someone with Dick as a first or last name?

Having one name that provokes teasing is bad enough. Parents, don't make it worse by naming your kid Maple Coffin.

Here are some "interesting" designations for you to check out at http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/WolfFiles/story?id=116513&page=1,

And for some rather unusual names celebrities have given to their kids, including Kal-El Cage (son of Nic), have a look at
http://www.cracked.com/article_15765_the-20-most-bizarre-celebrity-baby-names.html.  

However, the cracked.com article includes two names that, in my not at all humble opinion, don't belong on the list: the aforementioned Apple (child of Gwyneth Paltrow and the guy from Cold Play), and Coco (child of Courteney Cox and David Arquette). What's wrong with Coco? As in Chanel?

But some of these other names. Oi! My friend Mr. Fox said some celebrity parents should just plain send their kids to school with KICK ME signs on their backs. Mr. Fox chided Penn Jillette and wife in particular for naming their child Moxie Crimefighter Jillette.

According to the article: "Apparently, Jillette's wife had no middle name, and their theory was that you never use the middle name anyway so why not have some fun with it. This does not explain the "Moxie" part."

I certainly don't understand Moxie or Crimefighter. I'm glad to be plain old

Lola

P.S. I worked part-time at a department store for a while when I lived in Illinois. One day I helped a very nice lady fill out a credit card application. Her last name was long and complicated and I do not remember what it was. After spelling it for me, she said with a smile, No matter how tough that name is, it's better than my maiden name: Buttkiss.

I said, I bet you would have married just about anyone to get rid of that. 

MARVELOUS MEN

 Gentle Readers . . .  and Maxwell,

Recently I think I frightened some of you with my men in the nursing home story.

If you were upset or offended, I apologize. If you liked hearing about those gross old men, then what in the heck is the matter with you?

Oh, it's o.k. I know some of it was funny.

But now I'd like to tell you stories about some of my favorite men in the nursing home.

One such gentleman was D. He fought in Italy during World War II and for him the war had never ended. The sound of a door slamming was a bomb. Any loud noise frightened him. So many years since that war and he still struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder.

I tried to be very quiet and gentle with D. and he appreciated it. He knew my name, but he always called me honey. It's funny -- when I was a reporter I absolutely could not stand it when a man called me honey or sweetie. But in the nursing home I didn't mind at all. I knew those men called me honey because they loved me.

D. couldn't walk or turn himself in bed. We could have moved him to a special chair that's on wheels but has more padding than a wheelchair and also features neck and head supports, but he refused. I guess D. felt more secure in his bed.

However, D. did not feel secure in bed when we had to turn him on his side to wash him or treat skin problems on his back. We had to put down his guard rail because we would have injured our backs if we leaned over the rail to turn a patient. D. would get pretty panicky when his guard rail was down, even though I was standing right there, holding him.

I would tell D., and other patients who were afraid, You're safe. No one has ever fallen out of bed when I'm in charge. You can't get past me. Invariably the patient would reply, Yeah, but you're not very big and I might be the first.

Because I trusted D., I told him that while he was on his side, he could put his arm around me. He did, and I whispered, You can even pat my bottom if you want.

D. gave my rear a little pat, and a huge smile spread over his face. Before he knew it, we were finished, and the guard rail was back in place. Thanks, honey, D. said.

I was also in love with Mr. A. Every time I gave him a pitcher of fresh water, he'd tap his cheek and say, Give me a kiss right here baby doll.

I was happy to oblige.

As his death approached, he quite often asked me to sit and talk with him in the wee small hours of the morning. He liked to tell me stories of his childhood -- running and playing in the woods.

 I was so sad when the end approached for Mr. A., but when his oldest son came in to be with Mr. A. during his last days, the son greeted us and I thrilled at the sound of his voice.

You sound exactly like your dad, I said.

Thank you, he said.

And I could see that Mr. A lived on through his son.

And we had E., who couldn't speak, but it was clear he loved his ladies. I'd put my arm around him and kiss his forehead and I'd see this sly grin on his face. He looked like a little kid who had stolen some candy from the store and gotten away with it.

I liked to imagine that E. could remember the pleasures he had enjoyed with ladies in the past, and when he went to bed, he dreamed of dressing up in a tux and taking me to a nightclub to dance. I would have been honored to dance with him.

Infinities of love,

Lola

THE BEST EXCUSE

Gentle Readers,

Did you notice we now have an eighth follower? It's a lot of fun and very interesting to read The Restaurant Managers Rant at http://therestaurantmanagersrants.blogspot.com/. It gives me a new slant on places I like very much -- restaurants. My favorite post so far by the Manager is Let Me Show You The Door Pinocchio on Wednesday, April 6, about firing an employee who had received warning after warning and was making life miserable for everyone. We've all worked with that person.

One of those people in my life gave the best excuse I've ever heard for not coming to work. This was in a state some people call Maryland when I worked in the healthcare field. I was on the night shift at a nursing home. The Person had befriended another person who worked on our shift and suddenly the two of them seemed to be in charge of the nursing home. They didn't do their work, were always dashing to the telephone to make important calls and doing each other's nails, taking long smoke breaks when they weren't on the phone, you know -- all this important stuff that was a whole lot better than taking care of the pesky patients, lying helpless in their beds and doing their utmost to make the employees miserable by requesting an occasional drink of water or even more seriously annoying, wanting their medication.

It was really unfortunate that this friendship had occurred because previously, the friend had been one of the best workers -- really kind and friendly to everyone and doing her job without fail.

Increasingly, the two of them were late for work or called in "sick."

Well, one night The Person did not show up for work at all. When she was about two or three hours late she called and said she wasn't coming to work because she had needed to go to Baltimore and had gotten lost and was in South Carolina.

Now is that a great excuse or what?

Alas, it was her undoing. Soon after, she was finally fired.

Her friend quit and went to work in a different environment and made the papers for it. She and her mom were arrested for selling certain substances out of their house. What a lovely mother - daughter bonding activity. I wish my children would engage in such fun activities with me.

Makes me wonder what all those telephone calls in the nursing home were really about. Hmmmmm?

So, welcome, welcome, welcome to The Restaurant Manager. Read his rants and get a new perspective on the places where you dine. He has some other interesting things to say too.

Infinities of love,

Lola