Blather

The players- moi- 62-years-old, retired a week; my 15-year-old son Schaffe; my older son Richie; my ex-wife Bonnie. In the wings- my daughter and my older son's girlfriend.

I recently received an email from a very smart and happily secure woman in DC. I got to know this woman when she wrote an article in our agency's newsletter and I emailed her how much I liked it. She replied and we got to know each other. She married a great guy a few years ago. My divorce became final a few months ago. This is an edited version of my reply to her.
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I’m feeling retired. My truck got fixed. Getting two dental implants. Bonnie took Schaffe and my daughter on a three-week fawncy-schmawnzy vacation.

Being retired- I felt strange because I gave up my gun and creds, right? Well, that’s over. I have temporal pressures, but these are only indirectly related to work- if I’d kept working six and seven days per week, I’d never have gotten around to working on the house. ‘Tis a chicken and egg, iterative thing- as long as I work, I don’t need the money to leave. But as long as I work, I won’t have the time to do the work to leave: I'd be working only so I could keep working. Sure, I could have prolonged this awkward situation. But I couldn’t have worked until the mortgage went away, in another 29 years. So I’m my own boss, working for myself, trying to get things done so I can leave.

My “job” now is to fix up the house and rent it or sell it. Two levels of “fixing up” are involved. A lower, less expensive level to rent it and a higher, more expensive level to sell it. I had about $20K stashed away to accomplish this. But my teeth and truck have eaten away a lot of that.

My truck- Oh, that GV (Gear Vendor) over/underdrive thing works really well!! The instructions say don't use it under 18 mph. More like 30 mph. But that’s fine- I’m used to the gears and don’t look for a lower RPM till I get on the freeway. I pull up on the valve and it shifts higher, about a half a gear. In fourth gear with the Gear Vendor energized, it feels very much like 5th gear without GV. This is where I’ll be doing my towing- the robust fourth transmission gear plus GV. Not towing, I energize GV when I shift into fifth and cruise at 70 doing 1250 RPM. I really like this set-up. That’s the good part. The bad part is – it is expensive and I’m eating into my retirement funds.

And it never rains but it pours dental situation: I’ve been putting off getting dental implants. Can’t any longer- my dentist says my bone mass is getting thinner and he’ll now have to do some bone grafts to get the work done on my upper left side. The bone on my lower right side seemed OK enough that two days ago, he did some clever artisanship there- sliced open my gum, drilled a 4 mm hole 11 mm deep, and used a leeetle tiny ratchet to insert the titanium plug into my jawbone. The plug is internally threaded, too, for a stud onto which he’ll attach a fake tooth, like a crown without the real tooth stem to attach it to. That was the easier tooth. The other one will require some bone grafts because it’s close to my sinus cavity. And I have a separate crown coming, right next to the pending dental implant. The couple of cavities I need filled seem hardly worth mentioning.

I got a phone call from Schaffe on Tuesday- he was in L.A. on the first leg of their three-week vacation. I think Bonnie's plan is to play at Disneyland for awhile, then fly to Disney World for more vacation. Schaffe’s in a tough place- if he looks too hard at the situation, he’ll decide his monetarily moronic mother is fiscally foolish. (Can you tell I love alliteration?) And if he blithely enjoys two different Mickey places, various plane flights, different Mickey hotel rooms and all the room service he can eat, he’ll feel like a mere brain-dead amoeba of a baby. He can’t choose either way. He can’t decide his mother is making a mistake and he can’t decide it’s fine to spend money she hasn’t earned. Why? One part of his mind knows his mother hasn’t worked since 2001. Another part of his mind can’t help but enjoy the “fun, fun, fun and more fun” aspect.

I’ve been doing a bit of noodling, working with facts I have and trying to guess at facts I don’t have. Zillow.com reports some sort of “sale” at Bonnie’s aunt’s house last September for $117K. (This might be Bonnie borrowing enough to buy her sister’s interest and keep a cushion and/or this could be her sister “selling” her interest to Bonnie.) Last January, Bonnie’s attorney asked if she could have $100K from Bonnie’s $243K equity escrow account. I said, "Sure." I assumed that she was out of money. She’s bought a wide-ass HDTV, three computers, a fridge, and a houseful of furniture and furnishings. ($12K-$30K?) And she’s had to subsist at a modestly elegant level each month. (Or should that be "elegantly modest?") I’m thinking she’s had maybe $10K-$15K in attorney’s fees, as have I. Since she moved out, I think her rent has cost her a bunch because she lives in a very nice house in a good neighborhood. How long can she survive without working? I can’t know. Maybe she'll run out of money in a year and a half; maybe in eight years. A lot depends on how many vacations she takes with no job to pay for them. Family Court says she’ll have Schaffe for the next three years. I suspect she'll try to keep him beyond his childhood, like she has my 29-year-old daughter. I hope he doesn’t have to graduate high school while they're living out of her car because she's spent all her money on vacations.

From the smart and secure woman's email- My comments are between ***astericks***

I'm glad you're still continuing sessions with Schaffe -- whether you notice or know it or not, they help him. ***I told him he should listen to his shrink because he is on Schaffe’s side, not Bonnie’s nor mine. Sure he gets paid to be a professional friend, but that’s fine because he is a professional while Bonnie and I are not, plus Bonnie and I are biased.***

It all goes toward his integration into adult life. ***Hope he sees that shrinking will help him get closer to becoming an adult.***

He's afraid to express feelings because he's afraid nobody will love him if he expresses a negative one. ***I don’t know why he is like he is. I suspect Bonnie has a lot to do with that- he really doesn’t want to upset her. He’s talked about “consequences” of disappointing her. I’ve said to him that he knows disappointing me brings fewer consequences, that’s why I don’t insist he bring his homework to my house. I’ll deal with Bonnie on that issue, not with Schaffe.***

Being candid might get him "killed" (in an emotional, parent-being-mad-at-you sense). If you make the parent monkey mad and it abandons you, then you will die. Animal brain stuff -- instinct. He just knows that's how it feels. *** Yep. Very astute. I see through your prose a bit more clearly into Schaffe’s motivation. Thanks.***

In your last e-mail, you commented on my comment that you have to let Schaffe find his own way. I'm glad that you get that now -- he DOES have to find his own way, even if it's not your way. ***I have tried to tell him something like this- I tell him that I won’t treat him like a baby- I’ll let him make his own decisions, but he’ll have to live with them, too. I think living with your choices is integral to being grown up, and I want him to see this, too. When he makes a decision that affects me, I'll let him know he's done that, and that he'll have to live with the subsequent issues. To be a better, less harsh parent, I try to make these "tough choices" revolve around things that are inconsequential- cheese or meat pizza? this movie or that movie? When the time comes for him to make a mature, can't-undo-this kind of choice, I'll see if I can't make it as easy for him as I can. But I'll also get him to see that he's making the choice himself. ***

And he has to grow up by himself, not on your terms or Bonnie's terms. ***Here’s the part that bothers me- I see very little progress in his growth as an adult. But this is where I have to apply what I learned about my relationship with Bonnie- I can’t control her behavior, only mine. In a very similar way, this also applies to Schaffe- I can’t force him to grow up, I can only accept his mature or immature behavior. I'll ask him to make the more mature choice, but I won't insist that he do as I say merely because that's what I think is more mature.***

It will happen in his own time ... I was grown up at 6. My brother is still a little boy at 48. ***Richie was a small adult at seven. Responsible, sensible, trustworthy. When he was 16, I let him walk behind me through the woods with a real pistol loaded with real bullets in his hand. In some ways, we never grow up. As long as you make most of your choices in a sensible manner, you’re pretty grown up. Part of Schaffe’s psyche today is NOT making choices. I’m not sure how this reflects on his maturity or lack thereof. ***

That's just the way it goes -- people are different, and the important thing is that Schaffe find a way to deal with himself and move around in the world on his terms. I'm glad you're seeing that now. ***What I see is the possibility of him failing to grow up at all, of remaining his mother’s baby forever, forever dependent on her financially and emotionally. (See below for irony.) My crystal ball is cloudy beyond a couple of months. Sure, I can hope he’ll grow up fine. But I can’t know that. This is the part I’m beginning to accept- that my small son might become some sort of paternal failure. What I’m beginning to accept more is that California, in its inescapable Family Court wisdom, has decreed that Bonnie shall make decisions regarding Schaffe while I remain a biweekly diversion for him. Yes, I’m cynical about her ability and about “da system,” but the part that I’m learning to accept is that I can’t really force a change for what would be (in my mind) a better alternative for Schaffe- more time with me. Kinda like a legal cancer event in one's life- it happens, and rather than rail at something you can’t change, you accept it and do what you can with that event. ***

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Irony from above: This is identical to the way Bonnie's mother treated all her children, and may be one reason Bonnie has been estranged from her mother for a couple of decades. Bonnie's mother used her children to get what she wanted. And what she wanted resembles a lot what Bonnie's getting - a "lifestyle" that's a bit elegant. OK, we're not talking Learjets and winters in Gstaad. But we are talking a couple of "nice" cars, the best TV in the store, and taking vacations that well-to-do people take. To wit- what do a week at Disneyland and two weeks at Disney World cost? And if you haven't held a job since 2001? Bonnie's mother was like that- for her, the value of shopping was picking things out and laying a credit card on the counter. Did you need the items? Well, if you didn't already own them, then the answer is a resounding "Yes!" Though Bonnie has rejected her mother, Bonnie, too, gets this unblinking mode when she goes shopping. I see Bonnie's mother in Bonnie- the Most Important Thing is having money, now, to choose what you want, now. Yes, this is subjective, hardly clinical, and a bit biased. But I don't think I'm far from the truth.

Additionally, Bonnie's mother required obedience. Oh, you could cheat a little, lie a little, even be hostile. But you could not, not NOT question the unspoken tenets of Bonnie's mother's life- if she said something twisted, you had to accept that. What do I mean? When I finally got my degree, we shared the news with her mom. Might be, that threatened her in some way- maybe I was "better" than she because I graduated. How did Bonnie's mom fix this emotional situation? She told us that she had TWO degrees. Not from a state college, but from Cal Berkeley. Of course, one has to ask why a woman with two degrees didn't work, nor why she was married to a longshoreman, but no one asked. I didn't ask because she was my wife's mother. My wife might have had suspicions about her mother's veracity, but she, too, let it slide. The sad part was Bonnie's dad bought it, hook, line and sinker. My point here is that Bonnie's mother twisted reality by speaking a lie and getting everyone to accept it.

Bonnie is like her mother in this respect- you can not, not NOT reject any critical component of Bonnie's ethos. If she chooses a cheeseburger and you want a fish taco, that's fine. But one dare not reject Bonnie's beliefs in "keeping a little bit back" financially nor in her "lifestyle" choices like the 60-inch HDTV that she "needs" or her quarterly Disney visits. Once she spins reality her way, no one dare argue that maa-aaybe life ain't quite so.

But this shouldn't devolve into a denunciation of Bonnie, this should remain about me and my week-old retirement, my sons and where I'm heading.

Yep, this blog is mostly for me. If anyone reads this and gleans anything useful, that's great. But I gotta believe that I'm the one benefiting the most from this blog. Will the random reader get a bit of vicarious thrill, a-twitter with "Gee, I'm glad this isn't happening to me?" Sure, that's possible. From time to time, I come back and read comments. Anything good, please send it in. Anything else, go ahead.

Darn, I don't have any suitable photos to put up with this post. S'all right, I don't know how to insert a photo anyway.

From an email to my 15-year-old son:

Feel free to let yourself go and read this.

Get ready for some historical philosophy. Nearly a half-century ago, my dad and I were talking about something. I can't remember what we said, but I think the topic had something to do with sex. I had a girlfriend, and maybe I was talking to him about her, or maybe it was something to do with "sin" and "morality" and sexual behavior in a changing world, I don't quite remember. We disagreed on something, I made my point by driving it with a rhetorical slegehammer and he called me a "libertine." I think this was his way of settling the discussion rather than deal with me, a fair debater. And maybe this was his way of dealing with the fear that happens when your children don't share your values.

But forget for a moment how argumentative and rhetorical I can be and think a bit about what was going on- he was supporting a traditional morality while I was on the side of contemporary 60's behavior. I was a bit of a counter-culture crusader and he was a staunch traditionalist. Got the image? Good. But let me fill in a few pixels for this image- This was a time when Sonny and Cher were on TV, playing with the notion of young people and change, especially moral change; Lawrence Welk was on TV, too, slickly emphasizing traditional values. Each was compelling it its own way and each repelled the other through example and by Nielsen ratings. Cher grinned at the sexual inuendo, hinting with a twinkle in her eye that sex was good, pleasant and enjoyable as she bantered with Sonny. Lawrence Welk and everyone on his show were asexual, except that, in accordance with current ethical values, men danced with women, though in strictly a "correct" manner. This was a time when many things were "hip" or "square," depending on where you stood.

I don't recall where our conversation ended, just that my dad called me a "libertine." If you look at Merriam-Webster's entry, you'll see that there's an element of self-serving gratification in this word. If you (that's the lexical, grammatical "you") choose to eat an excessively expensive ice cream, I don't think that rises to the level of a libertine. But if you behave in such a way that you indulge your vices, especially the carnal ones, then you may be libertine. I think the lexical trouble with this word is that individual choices seem paramount in so many areas today that it would be difficult to find a situation in which you could be a libertine.

And you have only us children of the 60's to thank for this. We took the concept, "If it feels good, do it!" and made that acceptable. I think in the 40's and 50's, there were firmly established concepts that one dared not violate, most of them with sex, which is supposed to feel good. This seems to create some inherent conflict, no? Sex feels good, but you shouldn't do it. But if you marry an acceptable person, then it's fine. I think there are few of those social restrictions left. If you can articulate any, good on ya! That means you're growing up, you're finding your values. Of course, you might find that others don't share these values 100%, but that doesn't minimize your values.

This makes it awkward, doesn't it? You could have a value that your peers don't share. Does that make you wrong or them right? I don't think so. The trick to living in harmony wth others is to accept them as people and allow them to have their own values. But this, too, comes with age, small son. You'll learn it. You've got the intellectual capacity.

OK, enough about this word. Reading it took me back a lotta years, and I wanted to talk to you about me and my history with my dad.

Readers- This is from an email to a wonderful, smart woman in Louisiana.

Moi is down to single digits. Next week will be my last week. Friday the 20th I want to come to work and say good-bye to everyone. That night will be another session with my small son and his shrink, and then I'll spend the entire weekend with him. I might take him for a ride out to Sonora, about two hours away, to see what the place is like. It's out of the commute area, but still close enough that I could make the two-hour custody trek every other week. Gotta see how that works out. My ex will be difficult, but that's up to her. The week of the 23rd will be my time to clean up the house, do the yardwork, and see about getting my cars fixed. But the house comes first. If I move two hours away, I can always rent a car carrier and schlepp my projects there, along with a U-Haul van for the other stuff. If nothing within two hours becomes a Good Choice, then I'll see about cramming it all into a 40-foot container and sending it to ... oh, Texas? But my crystal ball gets hazy beyond the next few weeks of house maintenance.

More mundane ittems: My truck's fifth gear went out. Took it to the shop where the guy opened up the transmission and showed me the worn shaft. He said I shouldn't tow in fifth because it's overdrive and the diesel motor puts out too much torque for such a small gear. The solution is an aftermarket splitter from Escondido’s “Gear Vendors.” I can leave it in fourth and hit the overdrive, and I lose only two miles per hour, about right for towing. When I'm not towing, I'll get 22% lower RPM, so my mileage will go up. All that's the good part. the bad part is it'll cost me nearly $7K to get this done. Since I intend to keep my truck forever and I intend to do a lot of towing, I think I'm doing the right, albeit costly, thing. ... The '86 Volvo lost its "rubber coupling," a rubber disk that goes between the transmission and the drive shaft. My big son found one at a Volvo-only store in San Pablo, we got it and installed it last Monday. Now the Volvo is smoother than ever. That was a cheap $100 fix. But it happened right after my truck went out, so I used my son’s girlfriend’s car for a day or two. When you need a spare car, you need a spare car, right? So I'm OK with the Volvo. My truck might be back to me next week sometime. 'Twould be good to give him a shake-down ride (in the new low-RPM mode) with with my small son on the weekend.

Other stuff- This may take a bit. It seems my life has been crammed with day-to-day concerns. I have little time for personal educational goals, like reading. I follow the newspapers and watch PBS news, but that doesn't allow my mind to stretch like yours is doing. The last bit of intense stuff I read was "The Art of War" by Sun Tsu. Great philosopy, and not the mindless "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach to winning. But that was a few years ago, well before my marriage crumbled.

I envy you because you continue to be more intellectual than I. Using my inferential skills (you judge how they might be adequate or not), I compare my attitude with yours and find I've become less cerebral and more emotional. Not spiritual, not even physical. My mental prowess is a tool to provide some satisfaction. It seems to me, your intellect's own ability is the source of your satisfaction, while for me it's satisfaction that I crave, and I get there by finding a way with my intellect. Does that make sense to you? It feels like I'm putting the emotional cart before the intellectual horse, compared to you. But this works, for me.

I have my spiritual moments- like when I'm in my garden. I also have some physical moments, when I feel both strong and very mortal. But those things creep into the spiritual realm. However, I continue to put intellectual pursuits on the back burner because I feel swamped with other concerns like divorce, retirement, my younger son, and their concomitant concerns like finance, time, and my own dwindling energy.

And I ask myself why I bother telling you all this. I don't know. I feel safe doing so, and I think you will reciprocate in your own way. You've already trusted me beyond what seemed prudent at the time. I contrast today with two years ago- I dreamed of divorce, retiring, going somewhere on my own, yadda yadda. Today, I'm three months single, a week plus from being unchained to my job. I'm two weeks from pulling weeds in the rose beds, sweeping leaves from the yard, and doing a lot of general sprucing up.

(Digression alert: I'll need some time to get those multitude of chores done- the downstairs toilet tank, the tub's lines, my son’s girlfriend’s dresser, my matchlock, the trees trimmed (though it might not be good to do that right now), removing the dead magnolia tree, digging up the ton of berries trying to get into my yard, removing the neighbor's ivy from my garden shed, cleaning out said shed, trimming the wisteria, making a few trips to the dumps with an old TV, old garden hose, remainders from my broken camper shell, yadda yadda. And then I've gotta deal with my project cars- the Mazda needs a motor, my F-100 needs a new gas tank, the LTD needs some motor work, I've gotta lose that parts pickup, my old Suzuki needs some electrical work, Richie's motorcycle needs carb jets, his tiny motorcycle needs a crank seal, my old lawn mowers need some work, the front door needs refinishing, both decks need some attention, the lattice over the back deck needs replacing, the wallpaper in the master bath has to be repaired (My ex-wife started tearing it out, but only got it half torn away), the rugs need cleaning, the cement needs to be power-washed, annnnnd ... oh, maybe I've left out a few hundred things. Did I tell you more than you wanted to know? Hee, hee ...)

But I find a bit of serenity here- I have a few good constants going for me. I have my mind, which is apparently, if albeit subjectively, in working order. I have some measure of health. I have sufficient resources to survive moderately for awhile, and I have options. I can rent or sell my house; I can live nearby or far away; I can stay retired or I can find another job; I can remain a grumpy bachelor or I can attempt some sort of committment. And I have some good people on my side. I've got you to bounce ideas and emotions off, I've got my big son who is smarter and stronger than I am, I've got an amazing photographer friend in Australia who likes me the way I am, I've got my shrink and a former colleague in DC who convinced me to see a shrink in the first place. I've also got myself. I'm my own very good resource. Things aren't quite as good as they might have been, but nothing's so desperately hopeless that depression is the only consequence. My own Big Choices may turn out to be not the best- should I retire today and not next year? Perhaps, but the consequences won't be so terrible. Should I choose California and not Texas? Maybe, but either is pretty good.

Trepidation and anticipation. My blog grows.

This nearly-retired inspector participated in the quintessential Norman Rockwell experience today. Remember how I waxed patriotic about the USMC and the Iwo Jima Memorial? Well, this was a lot like that, except I was part of the performance.

We met at Perry's Deli in Novato. Our ensign and drummer (Isaias and Ramiro) own and run the deli. We were joined by their brother Eddie, Patrick, Large William, his wife Tracy and their exceedingly cute baby Jaina, Bill and his two sons Dave and Josh, Dave aka "Thorne" of ECW fame, Tracy's friend Autumn, and your humble correspondent, moi.

We checked our kit, then strolled to the meeting place near one end of Novato. Since we were number 188 in the parade, we got to see most of the other entries ahead of us. We saw lots of what you'd expect to see in a Norman Rockwell setting- little girl gymnasts, little boy karate students, bigger girls on horseback, ROTC groups, numerous WWII tanks, trucks and vets. Like the country, the parade has evolved a bit- this year there was a great Mariachi group doing folk dances from Jalisco and a flatbed truck with a pretty good garage band, The 15th Hour. But the whole thing was about being together, being American, and being proud to be patriotic. Sure, the abstract parts about democracy and the Founding Fathers philosophy of government were in short supply, but what was abundant was the sense of being one country, one nation, one people. This was the nuts-and-bolts of Americanism, not the nit-picking legal shenanigans. Should we eliminate the nit-picking? No way! But today wasn't for anything but the good part of being American! Today was for marching in the sun, for waving to everyone on the sidewalk, and for appreciating what we have as Americans!

People wearing little American flags in their hair and on their T-shirts applauded and waved to us along the route. You know these parades start and stop, right? Well, I slipped into a kind of baggage interview mode. We were ten feet away from lots of people sitting in chairs on the sidewalk. Two ladies in their 80's were watching us, so I accosted them, demanding in a very loud voice to see the written permission slips from their parents because I was not convinced they were old enough to be unescorted, yadda yadda. I tell ya, flirting with old ladies can be fun. I tried to recruit a couple of children, asking the girls if they knew how to wash clothes in a river by slapping the vestments on a rock and telling the boys they could join us and go to the front of the line, where they could see better. One guy had a large mad-hatter kind of hat that looked like an American flag- I gave him a special wave and told him he had a great hat.

We stopped a minute, so I commanded our halberdiers to face to the outside and charge halberds. We took a menacing step or two, then I told the halberdiers that these were not the enemy, so please refrain from killing anyone today. I think our group made it onto a few hundred videos and photos along the way. Another lady saw the sharp points on the halberds and asked if they could hurt. I replied that they sure could, but we wouldn't hurt her.

Our musketeers loaded on the march and fired a few times, getting everyone's attention with the "Bang!" and the smoke of black powder. We had a good drummer and a fife player, both of which combined to make a very martial air for our unit. And this year we had two large dogs marching with us.

The parade ran something over a mile, giving us plenty of time and opportunity to alternately march and play with the audience. We finished the route, then strolled along the sidewalk watching a few more entries back to the deli.

Richie recounts that he was very impressed by "a California moment," namely when a Chinese dance group came by playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" on drums and glockenspiel. Richie noted that this was very much a California moment because it was a group of Chinese folks playing American music on German instruments, the music being written by a Portuguese guy, John Philip Sousa.

We rendezvoused back at the deli and I came home with my older son Richie and his girlfriend, Kimberley Martin and barbecued, but that's another "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" story.