Month: February 2011

When my own children were young, I did my best to make sure they experienced some of the fun things in kid life like ice shows. We saw some good ones like “Little Mermaid on Ice” and “Wizard of Oz on Ice.” Still, I remember peering from our affordable seats down to the icy edge and wonder, “Who are those people? How can they afford those?”

I know it doesn’t really matter. Through the dry ice fog of years, I think I can still remember July 27, 1967 when my Uncle Mitchell’s girlfriend (hot Italian brunette… I definitely remember that) took me to see the Monkees at the Boston Garden. We were about mid-arena in the balcony, and all I really recall is a blue bathed stage with human forms and girls screaming. I think I recognized a few chords of “I’m a Believer,” but not much else musically. It doesn’t matter. That is a permanently etched and beautiful memory. Hell, Kyle still talks about “Wizard” on ice.

My life has changed so much since those years of wanting. Monday is my daughter Megan’s 22nd birthday. I’m mesmerized watching what she’s become as a mother, as a professional with a dogged work ethic, but mostly as a person. Of course I think she’s smart and funny and breathtakingly beautiful, but it’s her huge, helping heart that stops me in amazement. She’s happy. Every parent’s wish come true.

Today she told me she’d like to take her Madison to “Toy Story 3 on Ice” for her birthday. I guess she remembers those shows warmly. After looking at Craigslist and seeing nothing on Stubhub, it occurred to me there might still be tickets on Ticketshyster. I went with “Best Available” for Sunday at noon.

LOGE12, row A…

That’s in the center of the rink in the first row.

I’m very lucky to not have to wish anymore. I have everyone I want.

Some 30 years ago I survived a road trip from Boston to Fort Lauderdale with my dad’s mom, Lillian “Lil the thrill” Daley. One memory that lingers, perhaps because the event itself did, is sitting in an orange roofed restaurant having breakfast for 3 freakin’ hours! I was waiting tables at the time (no, not at that moment), so I empathized with the poor waitress who wouldn’t be able to serve another 3-4 parties that morning because Lil wanted to drink 12 cups of tea from the same teabag, write postcards and affix ten cent stamps. Before she pushed her sub five foot firecracker frame out of the booth, Nana dropped about sixty cents onto the table while almost simultaneously emptying the sugar boat of all the white and pink paper packets. Out the door, I pulled the “Oh, I forgot blah, blah, blah” and dropped some paper of my own on the table.

I don’t think I challenged the saccharine stealing. I may have dismissed it as depression era hoarding behavior, but I’ll never forget it.

Recently our office Keurig coffee makers were all replaced by Flavia brand brewers. Word on the street is that employees were helping themselves to the little cone shaped coffees for use in their home machines. Oh, and they also were copping condiments (now available in white, pink, blue and yellow like Monopoly money) and the quarts of half and half! Man… If we can’t police ourselves to not break bad for home coffee breaks, aren’t we headed to some ugly, caffeinated sugar high anarchy?

I’ve had little luck getting anyone in this apparently widespread criminal conglomerate “lo zucchero famiglia” to speak out. They cite some crap about a “cane code of silence.” I did get one person to speak, but only anonymously. This particular individual’s rationale is that they “don’t drink coffee at the office,” and therefore “only take my share” as if they did. I asked what they’d do if they caught someone they managed “taking their share.” “Well, how many did they take?” Hmmmm… Sounds like some serious rationalization going on to me.

So, where do you stand on sweetener swiping? Theft or workplace benefit to be enjoyed at a home coffee establishment of your choice?

Nearly a decade ago, I used to push myself on the stair climbers at the gym by seeing if I could make it to the top of the 110 story twin towers in 30 minutes. I usually did. On March 10, 2007, I stomped out the $60 per month membership and purchased a used, commercial grade Tectric ClimbMax 150. I still use it. Regularly. It’s never been a clothes rack.

I’d had experience with the model from the late 90’s when we had a small gym in our NEC Littleton office. Ron and Steve always used the treadmills and I took the stairs. We were regulars until the day Ron stepped off his treadmill, let out a quick, pained groan like he had been shot, clutched his chest and crumpled to the floor. It was the first time his implanted defibrillator had fired to quell ventricular fibrillation. Ron was fine and is to this day, much to the benefit of many Seniors he helps with health care choices as a volunteer.

On delivery day in ‘07, I had the boys from Precision Fitness Equipment set it up in the corner of my home office with a perfect viewing angle to the HDTV in the living room. I didn’t really need the TV angle since my routine involved an iTunes “Workout” playlist and something to read propped up on a clear acrylic holder; a water bottle rested on the maple window sill just within reach, low to my right. I ascended, without actually ascending, 3 or 4 times a week until one day Megan entered to say, “Dad, Maddy needs her own room.” Like the Pittsburgh Pirates in any given summer, the ClimbMax was suddenly headed to the basement.

One half of my lower level is a half finished garage. It’s sheetrocked, but the half-assed contractor who did the job must have been trippin’ when he taped and mudded it because the seams look like Maddy did them with finger paints. I’ve never gotten around to fixing them and painting it. Anyway, that’s where the new set of stairs found home and since then I’ve stepped in sweltering heat with the garage door open and lately climbed in attire more suited for scaling that big mountain on the Nepal-China border.

I don’t know how many steps up I’ve taken in my effort to elude the ticking crocodile snapping from just below, but I’m still taking them and it always feels good.  I figure my consciousness or spirit, or soul may live forever, but the machine breaks down and I’m nowhere near ready for that. So I work out for reasons of vanity, but ultimately it’s because my heartstrings always tug when I hear George Bailey desperately tell Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “I want to live, Clarence. I WANT TO LIVE.”  I do.

A 3 hole binder of printed articles has largely been replaced by my Kindle, but the personal trainers living in my iPod still propel me. The crashing guitars and drums provide two-step rhythm while Patterson, Mick, Jeff and Eddie yelp words of encouragement. When I’m really rolling, I sing along. Sometimes it’s to push the cardio benefit, but mostly it’s so I can belt out my favorite lines like…

Nobody told me it’d be easy
or for that matter be so hard
but it’s the living
and the learning
that makes the difference
and makes it all worthwhile

Yeah, sometimes I sing my ass off while climbing it off.  It must look and sound pretty ridiculous to see and hear me huffing and puffing on a stair climber while breathlessly singing absolutely out of tune. But not out of time.

I’ll have to video and post that sometime…

[Note: I just noticed this is my 800th post on my blog. At the end of this month, fifteenkey.com will be six. The math says I’ve averaged 11 posts a month for six years, but in the last two months I’ve averaged only two. I’m wondering why.]

Often when I’m looking at my phone, I’ll hear a smart-alecky “Are you updating your Facebook page?” Yes, sometimes I am. It’s still fun and at times, very funny. Mostly though, I think it provides me just enough Cheeze-It sized narcissistic moments to keep insecure me somewhat secure that I’m a worthwhile human being. Or something like that. It’s also a great daily distraction to keep my ADD appetite satiated.

Facebook is an incredibly powerful tool to keep people connected, albeit superficially. I mean how else would I know of some of my Facebook “friends” “like” Rush Limbaugh?  Sigh… Still, what I love most about the social network is the humor of many friends there and the ability to share life’s moments with immediacy. How else could I have shared this, this and this almost as they happened? The book of face does give us some ability to document our lives.

My quandary is that’s what my blog used to be for, and it demanded more than 140 characters per serving. I’m trying to figure out if Facebook is stunting my other writing and otherwise sapping very finite creativity one short post at a time.  A good friend of mine who blogs is also doing so very sparsely these days, though twin boys may also be matching contributors.

There are some other possibilities why I’m not expressing here like I used to. There’s the work blog demanding a weekly post and a good deal of other work-related writing I do between weekends. Then there are these theories from Ernie Hemingway:

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates.” – Excerpt from Nobel Prize acceptance speech

“I have to ease off making love when writing hard as the two things are run by the same motor.” – Letter to Charles Scribner, 1948

Seriously, given the choice in that second one, I’m surprised the man wrote any books at all…

I guess I need to fight through my happiness and keep writing… Just not on Facebook.