Old Soldier Gone

What's a soldier? A being who gives his or her life to a cause, an idealist who does it - not just  talks about it, someone who is faithful in the highest measure, someone who is not a coward no matter how afraid it sometimes is as a soldier. I knew a cat who was a solider and his nine lives are all used up and he is recently gone. His name, aptly, being an orange male cat, is Marmalade. When he came to his home, he was a kitten - a tough little bugger (excuse the language but it seems fitting for such a cat) - who got into many scraps and bore the scars as proof. He didn't instigate them, he merely guarded his property. He caught his first mouse early and sadly but not for his kind, many birds. He respected, however, the hovering owl that frequented his rural home and he ran from the farm dogs who had reputations of daring even to bite humans, but he loved dearly, his two little girls. He watched, lovingly, those girls become women and move from his home. They came to visit with him after that and his purrs were as loud as motor boats when they held him. When he was young, he was scrappy. He felt it his duty to protect the yard for he had marked it all around as his country. He did wander to the friendly neighbors who knew cats, having their collection of them. And they generously shared many a meal with him from their own bowls. Marmalade liked to go out at night. Cats are more or less nocturnal, but are seldom allowed out by most keepers, to follow their natural bent. Cats like to show their appreciation, by delivering if not all, some of their catch. The latter is not always appreciated by their keepers who don't fancy a headless mouse or a section of  garter snake left beside their beds. Dead birds are usually brought in whole. Even cats do not like to disturb tidy feathered arrangements to any degree. Cats have a penchant for neatness considering the time they spend attending to their coats. They sleep a good deal during the day and have peculiar habits such as running about at high speed and crashing into walls for no apparent reason. With all of their energy, it is likely to be simply letting off steam. No one owns a cat. A cat owns itself.  Marmalade was a gentleman cat, albeit a manly man sort of  cat. His keepers, for the sake of saving his life during his nighttime rambling and running into bigger cats, had him neutered, but it didn't bother him much. He was a kind of rugby player cat who was not a family man anyway other than guarding his human keepers. Marmalade had his edges. You could coddle and stroke him but only for the allotted mysterious time that HE had in mind. His keepers showed their scratch marks when with no warning, Marmalade had said, STOP. Not having words to use, this was his way of putting an end to too much babying. A couple of times he met up with the local veterinarian down the road a piece. The encounter was short and usually involved some kind of medicine or stitches. Yesterday, he was carried, at a very old age, due to complete kidney failure off to the veterinarian.  Marmalade's now grown girl keepers and their father, said good-bye to him on this, his last trip to the vet. He was kindly, released from a long and soldier-like life, a vet himself. It was okay with Marmalade. His girls are old enough now to take care of themselves.

Reader Rules

There are no rules for readers. Some readers say there are, but since reading is largely a solo affair, I have to disagree. I for one, break "the rules" all the time and probably you do, too, whether you admit it or not. I have been known, as one offense, to break the biggest rule of all and read the last chapter of a mystery before getting there legally. Most of the time, it's because the book drags on and on and I am not really interested in what goes on in the middle and need to flip to the end and get things over with. Other times, I do it because I feel rebellious and want to be one of the people who can giggle my way through the book knowing how it turns out while all the other lawful readers, don't. Tee hee. Most of the time, however, I try not to cheat. Other book rules I break, and I am sure avid readers do  all the time, is to shut and toss a boring book on the return-to-the-library pile without a second glance. Some books are a sheer waste of time. It seems this can apply to "best sellers" as well as the oh-well-I'll-give-it-a-try books. Best sellers are often varying plotted carbon copies ground out by authors who have found a great way to make money doing a book a year - or more. And then there are the books that are highly recommended but are just not fun to read. Who wants to plow through a book just to be able to sound brilliant at the next book club meeting? Not for me. Reading should be an enjoyable experience. We are no longer students who deign to read The List provided by the professor. We are free to read whatever and however we please, thank you very much. Another bad habit I have, and perhaps you, also, is concerning books with photographs, I look at the pictures first. I open where the darker hints show on the pages, and search out each fuzzy face and read the names from left to right and top to bottom or try to guess from a sea of faces which are the significant ones. I do it without guilt. There is no referee of reading about, so why not? I want to know my hero or heroine right off, his and her childhood photos and all. It gives me a feeling of having been introduced before taking in the details of that person's life. Seems perfectly logical to me. Other books about those who do grand things and meet famous people often have me turning straight to the tales about the particular persons in question. I am reading currently, about a well-known photographer of the high and mighty, and I am more interested in the latter than the photographer and his beginnings. I'll get to him later. I am also guilty of putting my book into a copier to get the title page, back and front, so that I can refer to the book's details quickly. What is the copyright date? What publisher is responsible, and is this a new edition? It's all there, and I prefer not to write it all out. I have also been known to beg librarians to allow me to finish books that I have waited a long time to get and whose borrowing periods are up before I am done, to please, please let me have the book just for another week? It seldom works, but I try. If not successful, I have been know to sit in the library almost up to quitting time, desperately reading, before having to return the due-that-day book. Librarians watch me above their eyeglasses, with pointed stares but I always do, rightfully, put the book in the slot, however reluctantly, right on time. I do not ever want to offend my librarians. What would we do without them? And what would we do without reading, legally or not?

The Jack Spratts

"Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean; between them both, they licked the platter clean." This nursery rhyme so well known, isn't far from the truth. Men are not quite as prone to fatness as women, or so we are told. It's hormonal they say. Let's face it, men can hide a lot of their bellies behind those nice sport jackets that hang straight down to their always slimmer-than-women's-hips. The fat guys that I know, sport a belt that lurks under the overhang, shall we call it, said a necessity to hold up their pants. Women carrying fat, "pook" out around the hips making the extra bulk difficult to hide. Also, women's clothing is usually geared to point out a  waist that men call their "wealth". The shes of the world deal with their extra poundage using loose, filmy upper garments that work much the same way  men's jackets do for them. This whole fat versus thin matter that dominates the let's-be-Hollywood, has taken an ugly turn. A new operation in vogue apparently, is one that staples the poor stomach so that only small amounts of food can be consumed. Talk about your plastic surgery and botox! And is being thin worth taking a chance on your health, your very life? Gyms are full of sweating folk running on treadmills. Move over hamsters. There are food planners that deliver to the door, greenery with bits of protein all designed to force you to eat less. These salespersons tell you that their foods are not only fresh, they are going to help you lose all those ugly pounds. Other plans that I have heard of, cost a bundle but you are guaranteed to lose weight. The latter includes regular visits to a "counselor" who not only weighs you in with accolades if you lost, but also shoots you up with extra powerful vitamins. I have yet to see anyone that I know, keep all the lost weight off after the euphoric thinner period. Then there are the I-am-fat-but-I-love-myself folks who believe they can enjoy both sweets and sweethearts at the same time. There are new fat models with very pretty faces and gorgeous hair, who tell you, being an extra huge size is just fine, thank you very much, just look at me. Well, no. Most of us carry more weight than we ought to, according to some lists made up by skinny doctors, that never take us normal sorts seriously. The bottom line whether we like it or not, is that it is not healthy to be too fat. I am talking obese. But hey, if you are obese, go easy on yourself. The world is not obsessed about your weight. It likes you for you. The weight thing is your problem if you perceive it so. It's your rightful choice. When I meet someone, I am more interested in what lies between their ears and what words come out of their mouths, than their girth. I worry a whole lot about the people that are too thin. To me that is much scarier than being too fat. Neither is a good thing, but fixing over weight-ness is a lot easier than the opposite. The anorexics I have known look dreadful and frightening. There is nothing at all attractive about someone who looks like a tree in winter. Sure, Hollywood wants skinny. It looks better on camera. Of course, models have to be bone- thin. It's their career to be a wire coat hanger. But you and I shouldn't emulate these people. We like our cookies at times and the ice cream and the cheese cake. We also love the salads and the meat or tofu. We groan  when we go shopping for clothes. but hey, dieting  makes for eternal lunching-out conversation. Bring on the lettuce, I'll eat the Nanaimo bars alone at home.

Surveyors

Pre-election telephone surveys interest me. You, too? Usually, they are party generated because that particular party wants, either to learn how you will vote, or to see if their promised platforms are on the right track to meet public approval. Having hung up on a few of these surveyors, I decided to go along with one, simply to find out what kinds of questions were being posed. The pollster didn't ask me, outright, what  my vote would be, but by skirting around, using clever tactics, he would, naturally, if I answered all of his questions, know my political leanings. At the same time, I was pondering his or at least for whom he worked. We continued. The questions were general at first : what are the most important issues to you, what do you think of the party in power, which party best reflects your thinking and so on. Later, honing in on specifics, there were these sorts of queries : which of the three leaders presented, do you see as PM, what coalitions would be the best combination, which of this selection of issues (named) is the most important to you. There were other questions concerning my personal life: whether I owned or not, my own home, how many children  I have or had, were they living at home, what was my income, what was my age. I never do answer these kinds of things, and informed the questioner who made no comment, who carried on with his list. What I found almost hilarious were inquiries such as: what would this or that new PM do about certain major issues. As I told the chap, how do I know what they would do when that party is not in power and the situation has not arisen? Do I rely on what they say they will do? Of course not. That would merely be guess work or hoping or wishing. That is why this long and tedious business of campaigning for weeks and weeks ahead of elections is such  waste of time. Am I the only one who sees that? What on earth good is standing up on a platform and speechifying about something that has not occurred and that, if it did occur, present conditions at the time would apply perhaps changing not only the situation at hand, but also the implications of any actions put to bear. It doesn't make sense to me. So, okay, you say, how does anyone become acquainted with the person who wants to be leader of the country? Certainly, we do need to introduce the candidates to the citizens. They can comment on current local, national and international events and how they see them. They can even speculate on possible solutions but to promise that they alone can make those solutions work is not credible. You can throw the switch to start the machine but you need to supply fuel for it to work. The fuel in this case is usually government controlled funding and the political oils to keep everything running smoothly, Therefore, it can only be tested in the doing, not the talking.

Cut-offs

Cut-offs are sometimes what we call old jeans: cut off to use as capris or shorts. The kind of cut-off I am thinking of, is when one individual "cuts off" another. Someone close to me, does this frequently - and mysteriously, I might add - to the point where I no longer want to play the game of let's-get-back-together-again. Like crying wolf, there is an end to that kind of controlling behaviour and usually it backfires on the perp. Time for a fictional example. Let's call this person, Tom, just for the sake of utility. And let's call the intended "victim", Dave. Tom and Dave are brothers. Tom is a guy married to a difficult woman who is what we'll call controlling. They've had a long and hard marriage but they stuck together regardless. Tom's wife insists that their life be controlled under her firm schedules and needs. She wants meals and household routines to be exactly according to her dictates. Tom, over the years, bent to her controlling ways but is now behaving exactly like his wife. When he and his brother get together, Tom had better get home in time to sit down to dinner exactly at five. If he doesn't, the wife, removes his plate. There were battles over this addiction to scheduling early in their marriage, but Tom finally gave in and as his friends note, "Tom is becoming his wife". And Tom was. He announced to his brother, one day proudly, that he had learned to be assertive. Dave knew where he learned it. Unfortunately, Tom used it on everyone else and not on the wife. If Tom was not served in exactly the way he wanted to be in a store or other service, he had it out with the poor clerk or work person. Tom felt good, however, when he blasted off. He felt he was moving ahead. How wrong can one be? When Tom didn't like something about one of his friends, he said nothing, but eventually, letting his feelings build up, he told them they were cut off from his friendship. Once he packed up a cardboard box full of items one of his friends and he shared, and dropped them on the friend's doorstep. Years later he and the friend re-united. Tom was so pleased with his "victory", that he tried the same thing with his brother. Dave  tolerated Tom's moods, but would, after a few weeks or months, ask Tom for peace-making. But always, Dave would ask himself, "What brought that on?" Still, Dave didn't want to lose a brother over it. Thus he made peace. After about four of these little snits of Tom's, Dave gave up. He was tired of Tom's petulant behaviours that he knew were inspired by Tom's wife's influences. She had cut herself off so well, that she didn't have a friend or a relative left! Looking from the outside of this picture, it is easy to see that cutting people off is cutting yourself off. Other persons are not losing anything when someone "cuts them off". They are losing a problem they don't want to have again. Like Tom, who is really cutting himself off, the problem has only one solution. Wisely Dave walked away. And stayed away. He left his brother. And that is what happens. Tom, cut himself off and Dave knows that Tom is the one with a problem that only he can solve. Rather than "cutting off", Tom types of lonely folk, should latch onto learning some respectful communication skills and get back those they lost.

Trivial Pursuit

When you see dying all around you, of dear ones, you think differently about life and what it really is. The situations we hear and see in the media are what feels just another reality TV drama on screen. There is good and bad, tragedy and success, hope and hopelessness, and we are helpless to do anything much about it other than gasp and groan or cheer as we watch. These times, with hoards of people fleeing their birth countries and natural disasters tossing them about like flotsam and jetsam, we become oddly immune to true feelings. We aren't there. We watch. But our curiosities make us ask, what does it feel like to be one of our fellow earth dwellers of every colour and kind, struggling within inches of our lives trying to survive all of the bad forces. In our comfortable part of the world, we see  attractive, nicely cared -for folk vying on political stages, orating while we, the listening, hope for them to give us answers to personal, community and world problems. There is no quick and easy solution and there never has been. All we can do is what is right for us in our small, surrounding worlds, and hope that it filters down to something more meaningful eventually to others. That's about it - trivia. It's our minuscule addition to the vast trivia that makes up the larger bundles of it rolling along like a snowball getting larger and larger, every day, as we populate the planet. It's not hopeless. And we are the tiny bits, the trivia, that can, in our humble way, make it tolerable if not perhaps, better. We can live responsibly without becoming fanatics. We can deal with what is right around us. Maybe it's trivia, but we go after it anyway. We make our footprints smaller, we give what we can, we are kind and sharing with one another, we are understanding of those both better and worse off than we are, we give love to our close ones and protect the young. We try to be good and helpful neighbours, we strive to be creative and learning and productive. We simply care and are aware that we are just another bit of trivia but, we say, that's what all the bigger events are made of - us. It is a large and friendly planet and we crawl about it, hoping to live long and useful lives, to find love and a life free of hurts and open our hearts to those less fortunate no matter what our station in life. It's our trivial pursuit.

Fire With Fire

Every day we read tragic news about those seeking refuge. We look around at our comfortable lifestyles and feel guilty that other inhabitants of this lovely blue planet that seems to grow smaller as technology grows larger, and we wonder why only a few thousand miles away, there is such incredible suffering. We feel helpless even though we might carry signs, light candles and give money to help people in these disastrous states. It appears that's all we can do unless we are involved in professional organizations that send personnel, such as medical people and others who can deal directly with it. But those heroes who go off and risk their lives to help others are few. Most of us can only stand by and watch and listen with tears, to what happens. It is easy to blurt out simplistic solutions when the complicated political timbre in certain countries belies any understanding. We can "try on" what it would feel like to suddenly have a government that rules us out of our homes and causes bombs to explode and guns to be fired, to see us fleeing for safety with only the barest of  possessions we can carry, our frightened children by the hands, to find, in desperation, some kind of safe shelter. Money, things,  mean nothing. Lives must be put on the line to escape the terror. On this continent we don't know that kind of warring. And hopefully it will not happen to us. But it is happening to people just like us, humans with families and needs that are the same as ours. What can be done? Behind the scenes of this kind of tragedy, there are economic elements that involve the supplying of arms and other things vital to warring: fuel, clothing, food, shelter and military training. Where do these things that play into the hands of aggressors, come from? It is not an easy question to face. It is not easy because the reality of it is, that most of it comes, unbelievably,  from peace loving countries who shake their heads at what's happening in these conflicts but continue to supply directly or not, contributions to its horror. Media makes huge profits on these wars. They feed on photos of fleeing refugees, pictures of streets full of fallen bodies, military conflicts in action that we are told we must see. Really? Sure, I want to know what is happening in the world, but I don't want to see it repeatedly and by those in competition with each other for the most heart-rending, money-making scenes. Once is enough, thank you. I get it. What I want to know is what's being done to make it stop, other than bullets, and to find out why isn't it stopping. Where does the supply come from and what plans are in action to make it quit? Who is doing this? Why not cause complete economic halts to any and all supplies coming from peaceful country sources? What about complete sanctions against countries who cause vast numbers of their own people to flee? When there are fellow humans bleeding out past their own borders, can't some kind of tourniquet be applied? There is no heart in greed.

Greyed Expectations

When you get to a certain greyish stage in life, you can go two ways. You can grow "old" in the way it is portrayed by those not yet there, or you can do it "your way". The give-up route is to become an oldie goldie and wear baggie print dresses, walk in ugly shoes and let yourself go "natural". As one guy who left his grey-haired former to contact someone who looked far younger than her years, told me one day when I mentioned the word, Botox, "Oh no, I like my women "natural"". Didn't seem to stop his oogling the women who were "made up"! Natural? What does that mean? Does it mean, get up in the morning, wash and go? Does it mean no make-up or hair colour? Perhaps it means, look like my old grandmother. She was a sweet old lady who wore an apron and clumpy black shoes. Grandmothers come in many variations. Some let themselves go and others take the time to enhance their remaining attributes. I don't mean hours on the treadmill or painful yoga classes. I mean simply adding some colour here and there, dressing  in something that bespeaks other than yesteryear and avoiding whining about surgeries and family problems. In other words think outside the box: the shiny wooden one with the brass handles. Become informed about something other than personal health issues. Watch or listen to current events. You don't have to moan about the world's problems you saw on the eleven o'clock news, but  you should be aware of those headlines so that you can sound brilliant when you ask, "What are your thoughts on ...?" I suppose older men have the same challenges: leaving the saggy-seat pants behind, throwing away the old man sweater cardigans and the big ugly runners and not talking about the knee or hip replacements they've had. Then again, some elderly really love sinking into old age like an old slipper. But who likes looking at an old slipper, I ask? Many elderly are lonely. It seems to be the greatest complaint of any age but, especially, the elderly. There are men and women who dearly want to hook up with, not marry, some members of the opposite sex without having to join the tiddly-winks club at the nearest Senior Centre. There are some Senior ( I really do not like that word) Centres that have programs to accommodate singles for dancing and lunches. One that I saw recently worded their programs positively and freshly. They avoided "relax amongst", "share family memories with" and "gentle joint stretches". If the place was not labelled Senior Centre I might have gone along. Senior means seasoned or old, no mistake about it, and when you have to live with a seasoned or old  body and visage, you don't need to enter a building that shouts it. If these places were called "clubs" with a sign such as the name of the community or town or city, it might be more appealing to those of us who avoid Senior Centres. Even when we are ninety, we invariably hope to say, " But, I'm not ready for that yet!"

Like It Is

When you are my age, the people, your fondest memories, die. Yes, they die and you are left and it isn't easy. Those at memorials spouting things like "well, it was for the best" or "he/she lived a long and fine life", are not what you believe, although you play along. That's what you're supposed to do at this age but let's not kid ourselves. Why don't we tell it like it is? When the people whom we played with and had great times with, those who knew all of our secrets and thoughts with no embellishments, die, we are plunged into deep sorrow.We are not happy or understanding or tolerant. The deaths consume us. We cry real tears. We sob. Yes, we bang our fists. But it doesn't bring our dear old pals back. Damn it. We loved these gone loves deeply and truly and no amount of platitudinous balderdash is going to defray us from what our true feelings are. The young gather about and pat us on the back and coo but it doesn't help.We aren't going to tell them, though. They'll find out one day. Our buddies grew young then old with us. They heard our bad times when things went wrong and they listened and didn't judge. They were there to celebrate and grieve with us, to laugh and cry with us. They knew what our times were and what it felt like then. It isn't now, it's all about then. Then had a certain colour and smell and voice. Our dear young ones can't possibly feel it. When we had our long ago friends around and we talked over old times or just sat together, we knew what it was truly like and we communicated it not always with words but with just being near each other.  We all knew where we came from and what the air was like then, the sounds around us then, the hurts and the successes, the hates, the loves, the agonies of that time and the joys of it, too. It isn't about remembering, it's about feeling. Others don't get it, not even our dear children, bless their hearts. They can't. They aren't the then, they are the now. We are supposed to be The Now but we aren't really.  One day their then will be a new then but now, today, when our friends and dear ones die, we are left and all we have is memories of our times together and it hurts. We weep. Let us weep. We miss them and our then.