HinesSight

Kentucky goings-on

We got back yesterday from six days in Kentucky—the annual reunion of Laurel’s family at her sister’s home outside of Lexington. Lynn and Randy were great hosts, as always, managing to keep many children, adults, dogs, and cats fed, entertained, and under enough control so nobody got seriously hurt. I did get scratched by the “good kitty,” which is a smidgen of what I would have gotten if I had ever met up with the “bad kitty” (never could get their real names straight; all that mattered was keeping their personalities straight).

As soon as we arrived in our rental car at the motel where we were staying, some Kentuckians came over and asked us what we thought of the new license plate, which apparently had just been released, and wasn’t on many cars yet (we had a late model Dodge). These guys looked like they were on a Memorial Day golfing outing, minus the wives, and seemed harmless enough, but “Deliverance” memories always pop up in my brain when I hear a southern accent in a semi-deserted parking lot.

So I tried to say something nice about the license plate, even though it clearly was the most bizarre and freaky plate I’d ever seen. Here’s a press release about it, which includes a photo. However, with a few beers under their belt, these guys weren’t shy about expressing their own hugely negative opinions, which fits with the general reaction of Kentuckians. Oregon may have lots of problems, and our license plate isn’t the greatest, but we sure are lucky we don’t have to drive around with a smiley face on our bumpers.

In the same neighborhood, Laurel had an ego-building experience when she got honked at by some good ol’ boys as she was crossing the road on her way to a convenience store. She figured that with her back turned, and her long blond hair, they might have taken her for one of the dancers at the nude nightclub (“Solid Gold”, if I recall the name correctly) next door to our motel. Regardless, it’s nice to get some wolf-whistles and wolf-honks when you’re, um, older than you used to be when you got such attention more regularly. I didn’t do as well, though the guy who was missing some of his front teeth in the Subway shop we stopped at on our way from the Cincinatti/Northern Kentucky airport did look at me with a little more interest than I would have liked (there goes that “Deliverance” banjo music in my mind again).

It was nice to see Kentucky, a beautiful state in its own right, but Oregon really is something special. Flying home on Delta Tuesday evening, we passed by Mt. Hood right at summit level, with Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Saint Helens standing proud on the right side of the plane. Oregon mountains put Kentucky mountains to shame, no doubt about that. And the benefit of Oregon land use laws are equally evident when you compare flying into Cincinnati with flying into Portland. Much less suburban sprawl here, compared to there. So its crazy that so many people in Oregon want to trash our greatest asset, this state’s natural environment, just to build more crap that could be built anywhere. Oregon should be founding its economic recovery on our greatest assets: nature, beauty, wilderness, conservation, a sustainable ethic. Unfortunately, few people here have the breadth and scope of internal vision to match the external vision we saw from 12,000 feet up.

Chimps join we “Homo’s”

If you haven’t read the news about chimpanzees being even more closely related to humans than was previously thought, here’s a link to an article in the online version of Discovery magazine. Serious thought is being given to adding a species to the Homo genus, of which Homo sapiens currently is the only member. I love the idea of having chimpanzees join us in the Homo club. We humans need reminding that we are animals, and should be treating our kin with more respect. Like, by not eating them. Or hunting them. Or mistreating them in zoos and circuses.

Reading about the new chimp research, which found that humans actually share more than 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, reminded me of a few paragraphs I wrote in my book, Life is Fair, some years back. Here’s the excerpt:

Though many details remain to be explained by Darwin’s theory of how life on earth has evolved through supposedly random genetic mutations and natural selection of the most viable mutations, there is general agreement that modern humans are links of an ancestral chain that extends far, far back into prehistoric times.

Chimpanzees share at least 98% of the DNA possessed by people. So from a genetic perspective, only about 1 part in 50 of human beings differs from a life-form that most would regard as decidedly “sub-human.” This means that there is a rather strange dichotomy between scientific fact and social custom.

Though people basically are highly evolved animals (spend a few hours in any singles bar to confirm this), we still act as if there were a great divide between ourselves and other species—even the primates, with whom we share the greatest kinship. Otherwise, why would we find it so acceptable to keep chimpanzees confined in public viewing areas (zoos) for our amusement, when no civilized society would condone this being done to people?

Some hipness added to our drab lives

It was great to have Celeste (my daughter) and Patrick (her husband) spend the weekend, and part of Monday, with us. It was even worth driving through a seriously weird hail- and rain-storm on the way to the Portland airport Friday afternoon. The thermometer on my Volvo was at 48 degrees (outside temperature) just before the storm; it dropped to 36 degrees in the middle of the storm, during which I-205 was completely white—covered with hail—and cars were driving 30 miles an hour on an almost deserted freeway. Then, a few miles later, it warmed up, and traffic went 10 miles an hour because of numerous crashes.

So we were a mere half hour late, give or take half a hour, picking up Celeste. She had already phoned Patrick (who arrived on Saturday) once she stepped outside the airport doors, looking for us: “It’s freezing here, and my Dad hasn’t showed up yet. Do you think I should take the next plane back to L.A.?” Ah, I love my daughter’s hardiness. Patrick brought up her “puffy” jacket, which looked like it would get her up the slopes of Everest. She wore it on a walk around our nearby lake Sunday, when it was 65 degrees out, and Oregonians were in T-shirts and shorts.

Saturday we paid a visit to the one and only optical store in Salem that sells Oliver Peoples eyewear, and I got fitted for some mucho cooler shades. I can only hope that Celeste doesn’t forget about her promise to give me a pair of what I tried on. Famous actors wear them, I’m told. But not those oh-so-embarrassing Maui Jim dark glasses Laurel and I favor at present. Hey, I told Celeste, if I don’t have to pay $300 for Oliver Peoples glasses, I’ll be happy to wear them everywhere I go, a walking/talking advertisement for O.P. (which doesn’t advertise much, at least not in the magazines I read).

Patrick manages the men’s department at the Beverly Hills Gucci store, which puts him in the same coolness range as Celeste. It was interesting to hear tales of Gucci buyers, who clearly don’t live in the same universe as the rest of us. I learned that the trend among the superrich is to have complete wardrobes of clothes in each residence that one owns around the world, so you don’t have to go through the oh-so-gauche labor of packing suitcases and carrying them around with you. Apparently you just carry on the plane your little Gucci tote bag, get picked up by the limo driver, and open the Gucci-filled closets at your other home.

Aside from being exposed to the L.A. Rodeo Drive lifestyle that is so different from Salem’s Commercial Street lifestyle, it was wonderful to catch up with Celeste and Patrick. I got to make my usual pathetic speeches about how so many other guys my age have grandchildren, and how, in these uncertain times, one never knows how long a middle-aged man will live, and whether his only child will ever give him the joy he always has longed for—namely, the satisfaction of seeing Celeste’s child/children drive her as crazy as she did him.

At times...now, she helps me keep my sanity, what is left of it, and I'm hugely proud of the lovely, successful woman she's become. This is the real joy of parenting, when the children grow up, and you begin to relate to them adult-to-adult, rather than parent-to-child. We had some sort of a stuffed animal rite of passage experience together, in which I dragged down from the crawl space bags upon bags filled with her old stuffed animals, and Celeste chose the few she wanted to keep, the rest going to Goodwill.

Then, we hauled down boxes upon boxes labeled “Celeste’s treasures,” stuff she couldn’t bear to part with after graduating from high school. I pulled over a garbage can, and soon it was filled. Another rite of passage, leaving behind memories that once were precious, but now aren’t. Myself, I think this is healthy. I’ve never been one to keep, um, keepsakes. Why get stuck in the past when the present is, um, present?

If you want a taste of how cool I’m going to be looking when my Oliver Peoples glasses come in, check out the O.P. web site. The main page takes quite a while to load on my slow connection, but a lot of hipness is coming over the bandwidth.

Pancake recipe shared with world

Celeste, my daughter, is arriving from Los Angeles in a few hours for a weekend visit. (Her husband, Patrick, comes on Saturday, to enjoy with Celeste the all-too-common November-in-May Oregon weather. Our gutters were overflowing this morning, so I climbed up on the roof with my trusty high-powered leaf blower—a great way to clean gutters, by the way, even if water is in them—and ended up getting hailed on.)

In honor of Celeste’s visit, for it has been quite a while since I’ve seen my one and only offspring, I have decided to share with the world the pancake recipe which sustained Celeste throughout her childhood, and well into adolescence. Since she was a vegetarian who hated vegetables, other forms of nutrition had to be found that suited her fussy eating habits. This pancake recipe was one of them. I got it from a old friend who I grew up with in Three Rivers, California—Todd Wells.

Todd lived on a ranch. These are ranch pancakes. They have scared countless little girls who stayed overnight with Celeste, and innocently answered “yes” when I asked them if they would like pancakes for breakfast. Ha ha! I could hardly wait to plop these suckers down on their plate and hear them start crying. “What is that! They’re not pancakes!! I want my mommy’s pancakes!” “Tough luck,” I’d tell them. “You’re not at your mommy’s house anymore, and these are the pancakes you’re going to damn well eat. So, dig in!”

You see, these babies end up about an inch thick when they’re done. Eat a couple of them, and you could have been stranded with the Donner Party and survive the winter. In short, these are real pancakes, not those wimpy imitation pancakes most people make from a box, thin and insubstantial. I normally don’t make them with buttermilk, because I don’t like to drink buttermilk plain, but the original recipe used it. Strawberries and whipped cream make a good topping.

Todd’s (and Brian’s) California Ranch Pancakes
Mix: 1 cup oats (I use quick oats), 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, ¼ cup wheat germ, ¼ cup powdered milk, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda
Add: 1 ¾ cups milk, 2 tablespoons oil
Cook!

Bend It Like Beckham

A great movie that leaves you feeling like you want to take up soccer (or, as they say in the civilized world, football) and be eighteen again. Or, at least, be eighteen again. Yes, it has a thoroughly happy ending, but you don’t see it obviously coming like the crude happy ending freight train of less skilled movies. Rather, it sneaks up on you in such a fashion that the big smiles come only at the end, and don’t stop even after you leave the theatre.

“Bend it” is a soccer term (pertaining to the trajectory of a free kick, I believe), and Beckham is a star of a professional team in England—the hero of Jesminder, an adorable soccer-crazed daughter of two fairly traditional Indian (Sikh) parents who want Jess only to get married (to an Indian, of course) and learn how to cook (Punjabi food, of course, both meat and vegetarian).

When we were in Seattle, Laurel and I had lunch at an Indian restaurant that had on a wall the very same image of Guru Nanak (founder of the Sikh religion) that is prominently displayed in Jess’ home. I liked how Jess’ mother would pray with folded hands to Guru Nanak, who she called Baba Ji, asking “What have I done in my past lives to deserve such a daughter as I have now?!” There were times in my life, I must admit, when I asked the same question—though not of Guru Nanak.

I can’t remember a movie that left me feeling so good at the end of it. Part of it was seeing all that Indian food being cooked throughout the movie, and watching the exuberant celebrating at the wedding of Jess’ sister. But most of the good feeling comes from the simple basic message of the movie: follow your dreams; don’t let other people get in the way of what you know you must do; be passionate, even angry, if this is what it takes.

We’ve seen those themes in many other movies, but rarely have they been expressed so well as in Bend It Like Beckham. Having recently reread Walden, this is a “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer” movie. Rebels of the world, unite! Well, that sounds a bit contradictory, since you probably can’t get rebels to move in the same direction. But I do think they would happily troop into the movie theatre to watch Bend It Like Beckham together, and then go their separate ways. I shouldn’t overly emphasize the individualistic rebellious side of the movie, though, because it turns out that when Jess is truly herself, and not the girl her parents want her to be, she grows closer to her family, not more distant. A good lesson for all of us.

Ah, the ecstasy, the joy, the rapture…

Yes, my Inspiron 8200 has made its Airborned journey to the Dell repair center in Memphis, Tennessee and back, all in the space of just two days. Inspiron seems much better now with her new video card, and I almost feel like taking back all of the nasty things I’ve said and thought about Dell Computer over the past few months—or however long I have been struggling with daily freezes, screen garblings, darkened displays, and consequent loss of some of my most brilliant prose, for Inspiron always seemed to shut down just before I was about to press the “save” command, and just after I had written something incredibly precious that would never pass through my mind again in such a clear and pristine fashion.

A dependable computer is, I would say, more central to a man’s happiness than even a good dog, or (dare I say the words?) a good woman. For good dogs and good women are quite common, but a dependable computer is a rare gift to be treasured when it is found. Especially for those of us chained to the Windows operating system. I shall praise Inspiron during her present period of stability, hoping that this helps keep me on her good side. Hopefully we have embarked on a fresh relationship that will be filled with positivity, mutual respect, and a commitment to neither of us crashing on the other (I confess to having had sledgehammer fantasies involving Inspiron recently, but those are rapidly dissipating now).

As a side note, I’ve heard that all of Dell’s tech support personnel are stationed in India now. This certainly fits with my experience. Each time I call Dell, I get a competent, well-mannered, courteous person with a distinct Indian accent. They may not solve my problem, but I enjoy how pleasantly they treat me while they are not solving it. It isn’t really the Indian accent that suggests these people are in India; it is the competent, well-mannered, and courteous qualities these tech support people exhibit—rather rare in the tech support world, I’ve found.

It’s kind of cool that I can dial a number on my phone in Oregon that ends up ringing in India, which results in an Airborne employee appearing at my home two hours later to pick up my computer, which then flies to Tennessee on Tuesday, and is back, all repaired, on my desk by Thursday. It’s getting to be a small world. Now, we just need to find a way to make it a truly livable small world.

Amtrak: a thumb up, a thumb down

Laurel and I took Amtrak to Seattle last weekend, leaving Salem Friday and returning Sunday afternoon. I loved the train ride. Laurel hated it. Go figure. But vive le difference (or is it “viva”? my one semester of French got me reading “The Little Prince,” but that’s about it). If Laurel and I were the same, I’d be her, or she’d be me. In either case, what would be the point? Conversing with myself, or hugging myself, or ______ ing myself (you fill the blank), why, it just isn’t the same as it is with Laurel, because she is different from me, which is why I love her.

Still, the train ride would have been more enjoyable if I had remembered to bring an earplug for the audio-orifice that faced the side my wife was sitting on. “The air is stuffy.” “The seats aren’t comfortable.” “I don’t like looking out the side; why isn’t the window straight ahead like in a car.” “I want to be able to get out and walk around.” “That guy at the front of the car is drinking beer and talking too loud on his cell phone.” “The train keeps stopping for no reason.” “We would have been there by now if we had driven.” And these are just a sampling of Laurel’s Amtrak comments.

Me, I love Amtrak. It has such a wonderful retro feel. Plus, the simplicity and hang loose atmosphere is hugely appealing. If you just have a carry-on bag, you can park at the station five minutes before the train is about to leave and simply jump on the train. No seat assignment. No security checks. No instruction about how to fasten your seat belt and what to do in the event of a water landing, because there isn’t one, and you’re always on the ground. Once the train is moving, you can walk around whenever and wherever you want (on the train, that is). If the train is bumping and swaying along, you take your chances. No anal flight attendant telling you “sir, please stay seated until the pilot turns off the seatbelt sign.”

OK, so the train to Seattle was over an hour late. A freight train derailed. Is that Amtrak’s fault? “No,” replied Laurel, “its your fault, Brian, for buying tickets on this stupid train.” I thereupon admitted that I am also responsible for global warming and O.J. getting an innocent verdict, plus whatever else husbands are accused of by their wives. Guilty on all counts; that’s the easiest plea to make. Fortunately, I spent part of the trip up working on a talk about Taoism and Spirituality that I was going to give on Sunday to the Seattle branch of my spiritual group. Flow with life. Accept that sometimes things will be up, and sometimes down. Look on derailed freight trains and complaining wives as part of the natural order, which is all good.

One of the highlights of our trip, leaving aside a pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal of outdoor stores, the REI flagship, was getting to take a couple of spins around a parking lot in a Mini-Cooper S after I gave the talk. It would have been more fun if Laurel hadn’t been screaming, “slow down,” when I got above 10 miles an hour. As I noted in a posting some time back, I believe that God wants me to have a Mini-Cooper, and is sending me signs that such is in my destiny. Unfortunately, God hasn’t told Laurel of Her plans, so she (Laurel, not God) is not in tune with the divine design. But such minor details as (1) we can’t afford another car, and (2) a Mini-Cooper isn’t hugely practical for our driving needs, are insignificant speed bumps on the royal road of Fate down which I am traveling, en route to my meeting with the Mini-Cooper of my dreams.

When this happens, I have told God to leave a calling card of some sort in the passenger seat, and I will spend the rest of my life praising the nature of He/She/It who/which fulfills the prayers of those who are unworthy, but desirous. In speaking with the present owner of the Mini-Cooper S (who may find soon that he has an irresistible urge to give his car away), we arrived at a satisfying philosophical position that is fully compatible with a Taoist way of life.

At least, we were able to bend the ever-flexible tenets of Taoism into an autoholic way of looking at things. To wit: if it doesn’t matter whether things are this way or that way, whether one owns a Mini-Cooper S or doesn’t own a Mini-Cooper S, then why not have one? To be attached to non-attachment is itself an attachment. Thus, the Mini-Cooperist sage detaches from non-attachment, and attaches himself to an attachment, so that he remains centered on the stillpoint between detachment and attachment. Now, all that Bill (the Mini owner) needs to do to close the circle is detach himself from his present attachment, and give the car to me.

P.S. My computer is going back to Dell for repairs, so no postings for a few days.