And Don't Know It

As many of you know, I've been working on book promotion this year. You can find my books here A Subtle Armageddon here David Gideon here Michael's Story and here The Interim Generation. 

One thing about book promotion is that you begin to get reviewed. Reviews are nice; they help Amazon's Magical Algorithms drive folks to sample your wonderful prose. But some reviews are questionable. One such review which gave me pause praised my book A Subtle Armageddon for its great poems. Yet there isn't a poem in it.

Poetry is something which has never really peaked my interest. Perhaps comic poetry holds a certain appeal for me as it did for me Pops. You can read about his favorite poem here Me Pops the Poet. Yet on the whole, I find that poets are simply trying to tell us things without actually getting to the point. At least, that's my take on the vast bulk of poetry the teachers forced upon me in high school English. 

I expect now that the poetry crowd will be breaking down my door, hurling vile epithets upon me in sonnets, free verse, and odes. I should be quite interested in the haiku which might condemn me though.

The Elm Rustled

The Psalmist says, Psalm 46:11, 'Be still and know that I am God'.

I have experienced many trials in life. This doesn't make me special as we all deal with the various challenges which make life at times a chore, if not, of course, worse. At times worry and fear come close to devouring us. And then, life becomes still. 

Way back in 1985 as we were expecting our second child I went through a period of intense worry. Adulting had become scary; we had the one child already and I couldn't avoid fear for his future and how I might see to it. Now there would be another to add to that worry. You quite easily feel small. You don't know that you can live up to the responsibility. All those things which you can't control well inside you too. The future becomes daunting; what will you do? What can you do?

I dealt with such feelings for several weeks in August and September 1985. It led to an intense sense of fear and, oddly, loneliness. I felt too alone to deal with it.

While walking the dog one day this worry seemed to reach a peak. We, the dog and I, were next to the big elm which still rises above the south side of the house. The future stared me square in the face, the fear was trying to overwhelm me. I remember exhaling heavily. Then a breeze came up, and I noticed the leaves rustling. After a moment all became quiet, and I realized the quiet. Next was stillness. In the stillness, all the worry left. Vanished. In an instant I was eased.

Although I have in the 40 years since still experienced my share of foreboding I have not again felt the same near despair as I had up until the day the elm tree rustled and the stillness descended. It is a fine calm on which to moor my boat. 

Laughing at myself

I just spent a half hour laughing at myself. Sure, I've done that before. But this time let me tell you why.

I play Words With Friends, a Scrabble like game which in my case is played over my cell phone. In a recent match I was stuck for a word. Then I saw where I could spell 'God' and score nine points. And I actually, honestly thought to myself, "I'll play God for 9 points."

I found that funny. I just hope it's not blasphemy.

The Trouble With Stupid

Do you remember the other day when I spoke about doing stupid things? If not, refresh yourself here: 

Marty being stupid 

For those who don't want to give me the additional page views by clicking on that link, I was talking about how I openly decided to do something very stupid one day last week: I cut through a weld with a high speed saw. It was something I should not have done once.

I did it three more times yesterday.

The problem with stupid is that if you do it one time and all goes well, it's easy to do it again. And a third time. And a fourth. See, you get comfortable with stupid. You and stupid come to terms. You make a treaty with stupid which you know in your heart stupid will break one day. That's how and why stupid things eventually physically hurt you.

By the time I was making my way through that fourth weld I had almost forgotten the hazard of what I was doing. Then I saw, er, realized that the knuckles of my left hand were within about 3/4 of an inch of the high speed wheel as I held the metal I was cutting through. That knowledge having come upon me, I nearly jerked my hand away, which is precisely what you do not want to do. Sudden motion is when stupid acts with the greatest flair.

Steeling my nerves, I finished that last cut. I fully intend not to do such a thing again. I don't think I'm all that far into the comfort zone with stupid. But time will tell.

Gambling Odds

There's an awful lot which can and should be sorted out about the Los Angeles wildfires, in due time. One of those things might be the role which insurance companies played in the disaster.

As far as I understand it, several major home insurance companies at the end of 2024 opted to cancel accounts in the region of the fires because of fear that the fire hazard had become too great in the area. Some folks call that greed on their part. But is it?

Me Pops used to say the having insurance on anything was essentially a bet. If you're buying life insurance, for example, you're betting that you'll die during the, uh, life of the coverage. The insurer is betting you'll live. Likewise, with fire insurance you're betting your house will burn down. They're betting it won't.

Cut to December 2024 Los Angeles. Fire insurers saw a significantly increased risk, for whatever reason, of losing the bet if they continued to play. Consequently, they cancelled policies at the end of the terms. There's nothing wrong with with that, if. If the policy was up, no one, you nor the insurance company, had any obligation to continue it. 

In analyzing the issue my first question would be, what was in the contracts? If they ended December 31, 2024 then the insurers did nothing wrong. They aren't obliged at all to re-up. Sure, they got x amount of cash from you over time. But that was the deal, wasn't it? For a certain amount of money they would insure your property for a certain amount of time. When that period ended, they owed you nothing.

The second question is, what else might have been in the contract? If there was an opt out for the company and they took it, again, where's the evil? Cancelling your insurance didn't mean that a fire would occur. It was simply the company taking the educated guess that it was much more likely, too likely in fact to risk the bet. So they took the opt out. Would you, had you been in their position?

As I have no way of knowing the exact answer with each case, I'll avoid a blanket statement. Still, what was in the contract? It's a fair question. No one is guilty of a grave sin if a contract is legitimate. It's that simple.

Marty PSA

Warehouse clubs are a bit of a gamble. You might find a real bargain, and the deal you find may only be relative to the product. Brand names might well be cheaper per item than in a regular grocery store. But a store brand could be less expensive. And let's be honest: corn is corn. What difference does it make what label is on the can?

As such, I resisted the monstrous box of Cherrios offered me at my warehouse store yesterday. I like Cherrios well enough yet I don't want to have to eat them just to get rid of them, and store brand rolled oats so far as I can tell taste about the same, yet cheaper.

That does not of course mean there are no bargains at a big box store. I found vitamin D soft gels (I take one per day for vertigo) at a great price: two years worth for ten bucks, where a year's worth has been costing me $18. The allergy pills which I also take once a day were $15 for 365 tablets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a year's supply. The over the counter store brand with a 30 count was costing thirteen bucks every month. I checked the expiration dates, too: well after I will have consumed the pills.

So in doing the math, I saved $167 on both. By themselves that paid my year's membership while leaving me $112 ahead. And that's just two examples.

What it means is that if you're judicious, warehouse stores are worth the membership. Just avoid the Cherrios.

Something Borrowed

Me brother Phil would regularly chauffer me Grandma Cosgriff or me Grandpa Joe around, for whatever reason. One day for whatever reason he was taking Joe out, but they had to borrow Grandma's car. She gave them a list of cautions about how to drive her vehicle.

The roads were a little dirty that day, causing specks of dirt to form on the windshield. Phil wasn't paying much attention to them as they weren't really obstructing his vision.

Apparently, however, they were obstructing Joe's. Yet in his own quaint manner, rather than asking me brother to use the washer he instead barked, yea demanded, "Did your grandmother tell you you couldn't use the windshield washer?"

Phil cleared the window.