John Swinburn

Our dinner last night met and exceeded our expectations. My dozen oysters on the half shell were enormous and very tasty. Janine’s dozen fried oysters were at least as good. The conversation with our friends was delightful and my Neulasta device did not intervene in any way. The New Orleans menu prompted me to suggest to Janine that we return next Tuesday so I can try some of the other items on the menu or, perhaps, the sampler plate that offers a little bit of everything (but not the oysters, if memory service me).

Learning a bit more about our friends through conversation caused me to recall an idea I had a while ago. That is, I’d like each member and friend of the church who’s willing to write and share a brief biography about themselves—where they grew up, what they did in their work lives, what made them decide to move to Hot Springs Village, what religious backgrounds they escaped from grew up with, how they define their political views (both from a social and a fiscal perspective), and any other interesting tidbits they think others might find interesting. I’m interested in this simply because I would find it intriguing to learn how people with quite different backgrounds happened to find themselves as part of a pocket of liberal and progressive people in the midst of the sea of rabid conservatives that is Hot Springs Village. I envision this collected biography to be available only to members and friends and, in some fashion that I’ve yet to clarify in my head, made private so that the identities of the writers would not be readily available if it were to be circulated outside the sphere of members and friends. That might be tough. I’ll have to give it some more thought.

I got up very early again this morning, even earlier than yesterday when I got up around 4:30. Today I sprang out of bed at 4:00, after having gone to be early, around 10:00 or just a bit thereafter. I’m not quite sure what’s  responsible for these earlier-than-usual arisings, but I rather like to be up and have leisurely time to explore the web, write a bit, collect my thoughts, and reheat the cooled coffee over and over again. I really should drink it while it’s hot, but the burning sensation in my esophagus is still with me so I let it cool, and then it’s too cool. But I’m up and thinking. That’s not always good, but today it is. Today’s thoughts are generally positive.

Shortly after I got up, I read that an Israeli company claims to be completing development of a cure for cancer that should be completed within a year. It sounds quite promising, but it also sounds like its availability in the general marketplace (if it’s really as claimed) will be years off. Oh well, if it’s real, in the years to come, many hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people my well live without cancer that they otherwise would have had to faced.

Last night, I watched several more episodes of Fauda, the Israeli-made drama depicting the two militaristic sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’m addicted to it and, with every episode, I’m more comfortable that I’m watching a foreign language (Hebrew and Arabic) film that’s dubbed in English. Being able to watch multiple episodes, connected via Roku without interruption, is evidence that the problems I’ve had all along are, in fact, attributable to the Suddenlink-branded TiVo device. I’ll have that replaced in the near future (when I no longer have to deal with radiation treatment every weekday).  Oddly, I don’t recall what I had been watching before Fauda that, eventually, I just gave up on. I’ll have to probe my mind to recall it; I got so frustrated with Netflix stuttering and stopping that I limited my television viewing to news programs with Lester Holt and Judy Woodruff, supplemented by mindless home purchasing/improvement shows on HGTV. With Roku, I think I can return to some real variety, even before the TiVo device is replaced.

No long after I got up this morning, I whipped up a couple of servings of steel-cut oats that, I hope, will be ready, only needing to be warmed up, by the time Janine awakes sometime after 7:30 (my guess). It’s been ages since I made steel-cut oats for breakfast and I miss them, as does Janine. She’s the one who suggested it. I make mine with a mixture of water and almond milk (it does influence the flavor), along with a tad of olive oil in which to flavor and warm the oats, and dried cherries for flavor. I added a pinch of salt and about an equal amount of brown sugar, then brought the mix to a full boil, when I turned off the stove and covered it. Normally, I would do this the night before and let the oats “cook” overnight, but this time I didn’t, so they may not be truly cooked by the time Janine arises. No worries; I’ll just simmer them for 30 minutes or so and they will be ready. She’ll be happy with that.

Personally, when I cooked steel-cut oats more frequently, I enjoyed a savory and meaty version of my own design even more than the slightly sweet one. In the savory one, I omitted the almond milk in favor of water alone and did not use sugar or dried fruit. Instead, I used crumbled sausage (just a bit) and, sometimes, diced veggies (e.g., carrots, potatoes, whatever). When the oats and accompaniments were finished, I dressed my bowl with a bit of soy sauce and sambal ooleek. I guess it’s a riff on congee, using steel-cut oats in place of rice that’s cooked until it dissolves.

After today, I will have only ten more radiation therapy sessions to go, assuming the doctor makes no adjustments, which I have not reason to believe he will. Two-thirds of the way through! My chemo session day before yesterday has not yet had any significant ill-effects (save, perhaps, for the extended sleep time that afternoon and evening). Knocking on wood that it will have none. We shall see. Only two more chemo treatments left. I’ll be done with them by mid-March. But there will be immediate follow-ups with blood tests, etc. By late March, perhaps, I’ll be free of this stuff and, with good fortune, will be able to start recovering my strength and abilities to do things more physical, like stripping and painting my deck. If the boards have not rotted by then.

I’m tired of writing meaningless drivel this morning. I’d rather write riveting fiction or non-fiction that a reader simply could not even consider putting down once he or she started reading it. But I’ll write neither. Instead, I’ll go check on the oats and will sneak in to take a shower before my wife awakes, hoping the light and the noise in the bathroom don’t waken her.

I remember the saga of Baby Jessica, the child who fell into a well in her aunt’s yard in Midland, Texas in the late 1980s. It seemed like every person in the U.S. and perhaps around the world held our collective breaths as the searchers worked for more than two days to find and free her. And when she was brought out, the world heave a sigh of relief. It was a beautiful story. But, I think, the story quickly fled from our collective conscience and we moved on to other things. Many of the people involved in the incident, though, were not so fortunate to let the trauma simply fade away. More on that in a moment, but first I’d like to consider a much more recent incident of a child who fell into a well.

Unlike the story of Baby Jessica, the media’s coverage of the story of Julen Roselló, who fell into a borehole in Totalán, Spain (which I believe is several miles outside Malaga) was not so extensive. The child’s plight did not capture the headlines in the same way Jessica McClure grabbed the world’s attention. There were stories about Julen, but they were occasional and updates lacked the frenetic pace that Jessica’s story did. Why? Who knows? Maybe it was because we’ve become more accustomed to tragedy. Perhaps the constant flood of “news” has made us immune to the horror such a story generates. Or it might be because the child’s predicament was foreign to us. He was, after all, a Spanish child, not an American, so the world might not value his story as much as it would an American. I’ve admittedly a cynic; I have no evidence that the world’s consciousness has become accustomed to treating American tragedies with greater solemnity than it treats tragedies that take place in other places.

The bottom line is that two-year-old Julen Roselló died. His body was retrieved from the borehole last Saturday, thirteen days after he fell in. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said, “All of Spain shares in the infinite sadness of Julen’s family.” The rest of the world seemed either to take no notice of the outcome of the search or to treat it as a footnote, buried beneath stories about Venezuela’s political chaos or Washington’s political madness.  U.S. media covered the tragedy and its outcome, although not in a particular visible way. Only in passing, from what I could see, did the media take note of the fact that the experience for Julen’s parents was the second such heart-wrenching tragedy, the Associated Press noting that “El Pais reported that the couple had lost Julen’s older brother, Oliver, when the 3-year-old suffered a heart attack during a walk on the beach two years ago.”

I wonder how Julen’s parents will cope over the long haul? I wonder whether, indeed, they will ever be able to adjust to a life of perpetual grief and the stress such an emotional weight must carry with it? Baby Jessica’s parents divorced a few years after her rescue. Did the ordeal they faced during their daughter’s rescue have anything to do with it? I can’t say. But I suspect it couldn’t have contributed in a positive way to their relationship. The paramedic who inched his way into the tunnel to rescue Jessica battled posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of what was called the “arduous rescue effort.” Later reports say he struggled to cope with the decline of the recognition that came after his heroic act and he committed suicide in 1995. I don’t know who was involved in finding and removing Julen’s body from the Spanish borehole, but I gather the media attention on the rescuers hasn’t been nearly as intense as it was during Baby Jessica’s ordeal. Perhaps that lack of attention will save their lives.

Julen’s parents, I suspect, have no interest in fame or recognition that might follow the death of their child. But I hope, at least, they can depend on an outpouring of support from around the world. It won’t be as intense as the worldwide support that Baby Jessica’s parents felt. That’s obvious. But I hope it will be enough. Whatever “enough” is. But, of course, it can never be enough. Not after a tragedy that ripped one’s world into impossibly painful pieces.

I read a reference yesterday to a bumper sticker. It read as follows: “Pray for Trump—Psalm 109:8.” My biblical illiteracy being what it is, I had to look it up. It reads:

8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Though I appreciated the humor, the reference meant nothing to me, so I looked up the context. I started a few chapters earlier, to no avail. I have to admit, I found reading Psalm neither interesting nor coherent. I suspect I’d have to do a lot more reading to make sense of it.

My continued exploration of this “imprecatory prayer” revealed that its use in this context is not a creative new spin of the Bible by brilliant liberal thinkers to condemn an occupant of the White House. Not even close. Pastor Wiley Drake, a  right-wing minister and radio host used it in reference to President Barack Obama. Kansas Speaker of the House Michael O’Neal sent an email to his Republican colleagues that said, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

In THAT context, I find it less humorous. Especially in light of the fact that Obama was, in my opinion, one of the most dignified, intelligent, and graceful leaders the U.S. has ever had. Compared to the world-record-holder liar whose self-love is so over the top that it’s embarrassing to watch him repeatedly attempt to achieve auto-erotic orgasm through self-congratulatory strokes.

I realize, of course, finding humor in the verse is sinister. But, given the miserable bastard to whom the original quote I read applies, apropos. You know, there are people who are just beyond “redemption” in the human sense and, I suspect, in the biblical sense. Some people have practiced their egotism and disdain for others to so great an extent that they are incapable of recovering from their monstrous selves. A person who throws his own supporters under the bus in favor of his own self-interests, while assuring them he is looking out after their interests. is a special kind of demon.

According to Wikipedia, Psalm 109 is “a psalm noted for containing some of the most severe curses in the Bible.” Ya think? Well, it gets even more severe. As I read Psalm 109 and read past 109:8, I hit upon something I found even more darkly humorous. Here’s Psalm 109:9:

9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

The lesson in this idiocy is that anyone can mine the world’s literature (much of which owes its existence to biblical passages, I think), including the bible, for clever phrases that support a particular point of view. The fact that a phrase can be lifted and placed in a context that suggests it was written specifically to be placed in that context is evidence that we’re all thieves and plagiarists, not to mention hard-hearted bastards who don’t have a single compassionate bone in our bodies. Well, that may be a bit overstated and unnecessarily harsh. In fact, it’s simply evidence that we have not yet achieved a state in which we are “a finished version of our better selves,” as someone I know might say.

I have not had a pet since I was a high school kid. The last dog I had wasn’t really my dog. It was my brother’s dog, I guess. Or maybe it belonged to my parents. The last dog I considered mine was Buck, a fawn-colored pit bull that was about as friendly a dog as I’ve known. Unlike the breed’s reputation would suggest, Buck was about as aggressive as a pillow. He was friendly with people and with other dogs and even cats, as I recall. He got excited around other dogs, but it wasn’t aggression. It was just excitement. Buck was big, but not huge. If memory serves me, he was about seventy or eighty pounds. Maybe less. Maybe more. Buck died after being struck by a car in front of our house. Somehow, he got out of the house or out of the back yard and wandered across the street just as a car, driven by a high school cheerleader a year or two older than me, zoomed by. I was out in front of the house, calling Buck back home, when I saw him get hit. The car slammed into him as he was crossing the street and propelled him in front of the car, his two front legs pushed back under the rest of his body and his chest and neck sliding along the pavement. He got up and seemed okay. The girl stopped and apologized profusely. Because Buck seemed okay, we sent her on her way and led Buck inside the house. He was fine for a while, but it wasn’t long before he seemed to just collapse. My brother or my mother called the veterinarian, who told us to bring him in. My brother drove and I went along. I don’t remember much about the events leading up to our return home, but I know Buck wasn’t with us. The veterinarian said Buck was in shock and wouldn’t make it. I think he put Buck to sleep, or maybe he died before the vet could do anything. We left Buck’s body there and went home. I was crushed. When I saw the cheerleader at school a few days later, she asked how my dog was. I think I was a sophomore in high school at the time. When she asked, I couldn’t hold it together. I dissolved into sobs. She was embarrassed. She seemed not to know what to do or say. I felt like a fool, sobbing and telling her it wasn’t her fault. I think that was the only time I spoke to her about Buck. Or anything, for that matter. I avoided her. I knew what would happen if I spoke to her again—I would dissolve and embarrass myself with my tears and my uncontrollable sobs.

So, with that as a backdrop, how is it that—almost fifty years later—I really, really want a dog? When we moved from Dallas in 2014, my wife relented when I said I wanted a dog. I’d been saying that for years, but she argued against it because she would have been the one looking out after it much of the time, thanks to my travel schedule. And she wasn’t crazy about dog hair around the house. And the unmistakable smell of a dog, even a clean dog. She is not a dog person.  Anyway, she relented with the caveat that I and I alone would be responsible for the dog’s upkeep. And I agreed. But then we bought a house with shiny wood floors, wood floors that would be subject to being scratched by a dog’s nails (do you call them toe nails on a dog?). She didn’t renege on her agreement to allow a dog in the house, but she suggested I might want to rethink the idea. And, by the way, we had talked about spending quite a bit of time “on the road.” Would I be comfortable boarding a dog for weeks at a time? She was right. Maybe. But now, I don’t really care whether the floor has a few scratches. It has more than a few, anyway. And I know how to find pet-friendly motels. But, still, there are plenty of reasons having a dog would not be a good idea. But, I’m coming around to the conclusion that the benefits of having a companion dog might outweigh the “costs.”

When I was younger, I envisioned having a big dog, a dog that would take up the entire passenger seat in my car when we’d go for a drive—dog right-sized for its companion-master. Somewhere in my assessment of “right-sizing” a dog during those younger years, vanity played a significant role. I don’t know just how, but I recognize that I envisioned a medium-to-large dog as a complement to my appearance. I know, it’s vain and more than a little creepy. But there it was.  But now that I’m older and I can freely acknowledge that I’m too far gone for a dog to make me look attractive, I’m rethinking what “right-sized” means. And I’m thinking a lap dog is right-sized for me. A fairly small dog that I can easily cradle in the crook of my elbow. Size, of course, is only one of many considerations. Demeanor is another. And energy level. And the dog’s level of “attachment” to its master(s). Yes, it has to be attached both to me and to my wife. More on her dog attachment in a minute. I want a dog that’s not going to bark incessantly and that won’t insist on running around the house like it’s chasing a murderous rat. I’m not looking for a watch dog, nor a protector. I want a friend. That’s it. A friend who will always be there for me. A friend who will recognize when I’m down and will try to comfort me. And who will sense when I’m happy and will help me celebrate. And I want to reciprocate. We’ll be an inseparable pair. Well, not really. I don’t want to become the sort of person who throws a tantrum because I can’t take my dog with me when I go to see the doctor or when I’m buying meat at the butcher shop.

All of this talk of getting a dog is, I’m afraid, pure fantasy. Our planned 18-day trip later this year argues against it. And at the moment, my daily visits to the radiologist argue against it. And the thousands of other little pieces of my life that were built around a dogless existence argue against it But, damn, I sense an almost palpable “need” to have a furry little companion. Not a cat. A dog. A dog that will lick my face and that will demonstrate how incredibly excited he or she is when I come home from being away. It’s all a fantasy, though. I can’t even allow myself to consider that I could really get a dog. My wife would not be thrilled if I were to get one. And that’s putting it mildly. But, guess what? If I were to get a little dog, a friendly little critter who showed her as much love as I envision it will show me, she would be utterly smitten. She would become just as attached to it as would I. How do I know this? I just do. I’ve seen her around other little dogs. As long as they are not too friendly (that is, as long as they offer their affection rather than energetically force it upon her), but are friendly enough, she like them. She’s attracted to them. I think she would like the dog I envision I would choose. But, again, it’s a fantasy. She would not renege on her willingness to accept a dog, but she wouldn’t like it. Until she did. But in the interim, she wouldn’t. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she would never warm up to the idea. And dogs eventually die. And I know how I react when dogs die. Maybe it’s not such a good idea, after all. But at least I got it out of my system for at least a few minutes. But it’s not really out of my system, is it? No. But on top of being a dreamer and an idealist and a romantic and a fantasizer, I’m a realist. A dog just isn’t in my future. Unless, maybe, it is. My wife would kill me. And, as much as I sometimes think otherwise, I don’t want to die.

Twice since I deactivated my Facebook account a week ago, I absent-mindedly clicked on the Facebook logo on my desktop, then clicked again when the pre-populated login screen popped up. Instantly, I was on Facebook.

When I decided to deactivate, I made a point of removing the login from my phone because I learned during previous Facebook vacations that my phone did not require my intervention to log in. But my fingers’ automatic behaviors require more training than a simple; I guess they require clunky gloves that restrict their movement.

Except for those mindless logins, which I quickly corrected by deactivating my account again, I’ve been off Facebook for about a week. And that may be enough. I’ve realized during that time that making contact with companies to complain about products or services is, apparently, far easier through Facebook than through the old tried-and-true mans of going to company websites. What ever happened to websites as prime elements of company communications with customers? Or, for that matter, telephones?  Everyone says some variation of “contact us on Facebook for more details or to reach our customer care team.” Ach. That shift to Facebook for customer service flies in the face of social media Luddites like me. I suppose I can’t legitimately claim social media Luddism, given that I’m writing a blog post.

I’ve especially missed the regular interaction I enjoyed with a group of “old fashioned” bloggers. I’ve been delighted, though, that some of them have made their way here to comment (pre-Luddism, comments on our respective blog posts were made to our Facebook group, though I was inconsistent and commented both places from time to time).

An interesting aspect of my admitted very brief week-long departure from Facebook is that I’ve noticed that I felt that ties to other people, as well as my lifeline group, seems to have been severed. People I followed just to see what’s up in their lives disappeared. Facebook, it seems, was the only contact I had with some people, even people who live near me. Suddenly, there was nothing. No telephone contact, no email, nothing. That shouldn’t have surprised me, because the only regular contact beforehand had been Facebook. But I had imagined we were in regular touch by virtue of posts, in both directions, on Facebook. Yet these were posts directed not specifically from me to them or them to me but to “everyone out there.” So, it seems, we (or at least I) thought we were communicating, but that was an illusion. Facebook, it seems to me, provides an acceptable stand-in for real interaction. It offers of a means of convincing ourselves and those with whom we “interact” that we are engaging with one another. But are we?

Sometimes. When members of my blogger group on FB engage with one another, we really engage. Our Facebook posts and comments generate conversations the way blog posts once did (and, I admit, still do on occasion). Facebook provides us with a single place to gather, the value of which cannot be overstated. Without a single meeting point, I doubt we would engage the way we do. Facebook, I should add, didn’t create our group to provide that meeting point; it’s simply the tool used by the group’s founder (thank you, Chuck!) to form a cohesive group of like-minded (in many respects) bloggers.

I left Facebook a week ago with the intent to take a break for a while. I didn’t know if it would be a month or a quarter. It turned out, I think, that it will be only a week. It’s now up to me to filter out the crap that made me decide to take a break and, instead, focus only on the very positive aspects of the platform. Later today, I’ll intentionally log in to Facebook to see what I missed. But rather than scroll through the feed, I’ll go directly to my blogger group to see what’s new there. I’ve visited members’ blogs during the last week, so if I missed anything I’ve missed conversations. I feel refreshed.

One thing I accomplished during the last week, despite my break from Facebook, was to contact Lowe’s customer service by email to lodge a complaint about what I considered miserable customer service. My wife ordered a washing machine in October (with a promised mid-November delivery date). When the delivery date came, so did an email saying the delivery had been delayed until the end of the month. And then announcements of more delays, with no explanations. Finally, it was delivered last week, with some quirks in the process. I complained, via email, that a two month delay without even a phone call or an apology was unacceptable. The outcome was an offer of a twenty-percent discount on the machine, refunded to our credit card. I was pleased. Even without going through Facebook to reach customer care, I got some satisfaction. There’s hope for us, still.