Old Age Day by Day May 31, 2011

Well, I lost my blog for a while, or rather I could read my old blogs, but not post a new one. Of course, since I'm an idiot about these things, all the tricks I tried did not work, including calling my older son and getting some help from him. He gave me a lecture on not reading about my computer, which I have done, but never mind, he was exasperated with my lack of savvy (Jack Sparrow, I am not). By the way, did you know that savvy has two v's? What a strange word! I am feeling rather joyous just to see the old blog back up, though perhaps it has been a well deserved vacation for those few, those precious few of you who read it.

I was rationalizing to myself that since I am now writing a book again, maybe I didn't need the blog, but all the while I felt like a limb had been amputated. Evidently, I have an unlimited ability to rattle on about nothing and a pressing desire to do so.

My husband and I went to the cabin to clean and get a new bed and figure out what needs doing. It was crappy weather, and I am not exaggerating. It must have hailed twelve different times, it rained, it snowed numerous times, there was sleet, there was cold, there was vast unpleasantness. We only sat out on the deck a little while yesterday, in our jackets. What few people were camping (though the campground was booked full) had most left after Saturday. They gave up. We made fires and huddled. I read the biography of Ann Dunham, Obama's Mama. It was fascinating and I cried buckets at the end. I read about the beginning of the Civil War "1861", I cleaned the cupboards, I rearranged the linens and towels and we moved from the loft to the middle bedroom. This is because as I announced to my year younger husband - "We are too old to be climbing up and down the ladder". Someone younger will have to assume the bird's nest above our living room. An era has ended.

I am so thrilled that we have new beds at the cabin. The last two eighty year old beds were hauled away Monday amid protests of the guys, who were willing to take the mattresses but baulked at the iron bed frames and springs that weigh a ton. Dear reader, we bribed them. They went away happy. And we have a full size bed that makes the room look bigger and YOU CAN GET IN THE BED FROM EITHER SIDE! No more hurling oneself from the end of the beds to the center. We are now practically a bed and breakfast except for the service, which being me, is lousy.

So keep your fingers crossed that I can find my blog tomorrow (or if you hope I can't, fine, I understand).

Old Age Day by Day May 25, 2011

Yesterday my friend and I ate at a tea room, and then saw the Stein collection. It is such a huge show that we were exhausted, and sort of breezed through the last rooms, swearing to return another time. It is super well curated, and easy to follow the collecting, the places were the paintings resided and what happened to them. It is also chock a block with photos of the family and personal items. The family members come alive, and you feel you understand who they are from their choices. I will be back to see it again, but I bought the catalog so I could refresh my memory from yesterday. Art addresses all the senses and awakens them. I felt jolted into a new level of interaction with my environment and the people in it. I know I'm alive more fully when I've just seen some art.

My friend was talking about Vermeers she'd seen and where, and I remembered a show I'd seen in New York years ago - and there we were - excited, having that interior world called up. We discussed how the Netherlands with it's idea of separate houses for one family, caused women to be in these rooms, solitary, and able to reflect. And we recognized that feeling of inhabiting a room by yourself for even a few moments, without children or duty or obligation. So the room becomes your field and resonance chamber. What was a woman in a room without a task? What was a woman in a room with a window?

Art is glorious to see, but it's almost as much fun to discuss. My art buddies and I have had some of the most insightful and passionate talks of my life. Which leads me to be believe that art is central to who we are as human beings.

Old Age Day by Day May 24, 2011

My friend and I are off to see the Stein Collection show, in our Gertrude Stein frenzy. There will be some wonderful art, and it will be another love-fest for Gertrude. In the intervening week, I have read my two books about her, and am ready to discover more reading material. She is my very favorite author, and there is a joy in imagining her being more widely read because of these two shows. People tend to read books about her, not by her, but there will be some stawarts who plunge in, I'm sure. Her humor is the most delightful aspect of her writing for me, but I am in awe of her accomplishments in freshening up the English language and shaking us free of normal expectation and view of life. She made me see through new eyes. How many writers can you say that about?

So my buddy and I, who both wrote independent study papers on "The Making of Americans" in graduate school in the dark ages, though we were at different universities and didn't know each other until fifteen years later, discovered this synchronicity a few years ago, and have been enjoying discussing Stein ever since. We paltry few, we sisteren, we Steinians, we bellyians. Onward!

Old Age Day by Day May 23, 2011

Thus ends a very busy weekend for us. I even talked to by friend for an hour on the phone and briefly checked in with my daughter. Our granddaughter had gotten head lice from her preschool, and it took a week to get her well and clean the whole house and laundry everything. I managed to get by without my kids getting lice until the fourth child, who got it twice. But talking to my daughter reminded me that one of those times, my Uncle had died (the husband of my favorite aunt) and I had flown out to the midwest alone for the funeral and to spend a few days with my aunt. On a Sunday my head began itching and driving me crazy. I tried to comb out the lice. We were in a tiny town where the one pharmacy was closed that day. I was horribly embarrassed and didn't want to tell my Aunt. I went to a big family reunion potluck trying not to jump every time a louse bit me. I was in agony that night, but couldn't get myself to tell my Aunt. I left on the plane the next morning and was writhing in agony the whole flight back. I probably gave the passengers and crew lice. But I would have been even more mortified to tell them or have my flight delayed. When I landed, I couldn't wait to get to the store and doctor my head. Lice hurt! The treatment is awful, if you have long hair, and I did. I haven't thought about that incident in many years. My Aunt is long dead, and I've missed my chance to tell her and laugh. I was in my forties when this happened, and didn't have the confidence to confide in her. Now I probably would have called my cousin who owns a drug store in a nearby town and asked him to unlock his pharmacy, run in and pick up some medicine for me. But I was too humiliated back then.

Big torture comes in little packages. Ants, termites, chiggers, wasps and bees. We do a lot of fending off these creatures, and mainly they move on, we don't get to get rid of them. I'm certainly willing to concede that in the case of me versus the lice, they beat me real good.

Old Age Day by Day May 22, 2011

Last night we went to a party with my husband's lab at the head's house. It was to celebrate my husband's retirement and the graduation (Phd) of three other students. It was awkward, and we both hate parties, but we went with good will. I was determined to be friendly, but no one spoke to us beyond introductions for the first 45 minutes. It's the ageism thing. They think we are boring and not worth speaking to, and don't give us a chance. Finally, we began talking with a guy from the same state as my husband, and then a couple with a dog. Eventually, we found some people to chat with and made it through the party. We both had headaches when we left. The arrogance of the young is painful when observed through the eyes of people our age, people who have traveled, lived many different interesting lives, and actually know quite a lot. But unless it's a professor that they want a position with, they don't see us as worth their while. I'm sure I was the same. But it is painful. And boring.

We were relieved to leave, and watch Antique Road Show on TV. We're antiques, so it was appropriate. In our culture there generally is no striving for wisdom, and the young see nothing that the old can teach them. We are just not interesting. I am interested in them. Part of it is selfish, in that I can learn about my own kids and their generations that way. Part of it is I'm very social. And part is that I'm a writer, and writers are curious about other people, and how they speak and act and what they experience.

Finally, one woman, hearing I was a writer, actually asked my advice for a friend of hers who had an agent who couldn't find her a publisher. She seemed shocked that I had ideas and was helpful. We had a lively discussion for a while and I think she forgot about my age for a bit. I'm old enough to be some of these people's mother, but not their grandmother. Yet I got assigned the category of OLD AGE. I hate labeling, and kick myself when I find I'm doing it. Let this be a lesson for me yet again, not to assume anything about people but remain open and curious. Because it's tough to be on the receiving end of such superficial typing.

Old Age Day by Day May 20, 2011

There is something so safe and secure when I get home from grocery shopping and I know the refrigerator is stuffed and the pantry stocked and I will have a choice tomorrow morning about whether or not I eat Barbara's Shredded Oats. Tomorrow I could have raisin cinnamon bread or eggs, or my fave, scrambled eggs tucked in a tortilla. You would think I'd gone through the Depression in the 30's, the way my brain acts. I personally have never been deprived. Did I pick up this unconsciously from my Dad? He did go hungry. Is food a little teeny bit too important in my life? Well, yeah. There's that. It's good, perhaps, that I can find a spot of joy in such everyday routines. And my choices are healthy, for the most part. No candy or sugary baked goods, not much alcohol, just two bottles for tonight's dinner with my childhood friend and her husband. But why is it I feel safe? It's worth further exploration. But not now. I want to dust and vacuum and pretend the house is well cared for, because, since my friend lives in Florida, she'll never find out the truth. Well, there is only so much I can do before she arrives, so she will know that I live in a slightly run down old house with an out of control garden. She may even notice that the house needs painting badly and the shingles replaced. Unfortunately, it is the time of the year when there will still be ample light when she is here and for a couple of hours afterward. I have very dim lighting, but it won't save me today. Of course, the minute she arrives I won't care about any of the housekeeping issues, because I have a great deal of trouble keeping my attention focused on domestic tasks. I will be happy to see her, catch up, and relax. I could do that now, I suppose, but I do have my traditions.

Old Age Day by Day May 19, 2011

I finished Ann Patchett's memoir "Truth and Beauty" about her friendship with the poet Lucy Grealy. It is a heartbreaker, and also so complex and evocative and gorgeously written that it becomes what she hoped: a tribute to a remarkable person. But it is more it is a tribute to another remarkable person: Ann. It is the most honest and true account of two women's friendship that I have ever read, including all the jealousy, transference, envy, attempts to manage the other's mind, as well as the delight, comfort, history, and deep abiding love that two women can have for each other. She reminds us that friendship is dark as well as light, lost as well as found, cruel as well as kind. It had me impulsively searching through my own history of friendships, and finding little pockets of insight along the way. The book wowed me.

And this morning my dear, dear friend will come over, just back from seeing her dying brother far away, and I will be with her. We will sit in the sadness and talk, maybe even laugh, and I will be sharing a part of her experience right now, right here. This is an immeasurable gift, and I treasure it.

Old Age Day by Day May 18, 2011

Last night I lay in bed hearing the rain and thinking - alright, already, this is enough, we don't need any more rain. I'm done. Evidently Mother Nature isn't, but I am finished. Green is nice and all that, but what about WARM. What about my sandals? What about a sunny day at the park? What about walking the dogs without an umbrella? Now I'm thinking of the ecstatic mosquitoes. How they are breeding in water standing around because we have too much of a good thing. Ticks are probably happy, too. I foresee being unable to sit out on the deck at the cabin or the patio here because we're bitten to pieces like some bad sci fi movie. I may be forced to use DEET on my skin, and thereby risk DNA damage. Citronella will be my new perfume. I will be forced to wear ski wear to protect myself, and therefore the shorts and flip flops time will NEVER come.

You may call me grumpy, talk about the glass half empty, or whatever. But for heaven's sakes, admit that everyone deserves a little spring and summer. Even us ingrates.

Old Age Day by Day May 17, 2011

It's pouring out, but I managed to walk the dogs with an umbrella in one hand and a leash in the other. I'm going with a friend to see an art museum show later. It beats staying in and complaining. She and I are big Gertrude Stein fans. With both wrote papers on her in grad school, and we're excited to see one of the two exhibits now on hand. She is my favorite writer. I know she's not readable to most people, because you have to go into an altered state to experience her language, but I find her funny, delightful and profound. She's the perfect support for right speech: she makes you hear and speak with awareness and freshness. I love the narrative of her life as well. I think she was brave and true to herself and determined to live life as fully as the men she saw around her.

So let the rain come, and the cold, and the soggyness of public transportation, we will have ourselves some fun today.

Old Age Day by Day May 16, 2011

My husband has been away all weekend, which means I got to watch two romantic movies he can't tolerate and had soup for dinner, and got up late and generally felt like I was off duty. I'm not saying he wants me on duty, it's just the way I feel. I'm such a compulsive caretaker that if anyone else is in the room I do my rescue thing, or did, until I began working on my practice in earnest. It's paradoxical how you have to take care of yourself to truly help another being. I have more genuine, heart-felt interactions when I'm there to help than I ever did when I was busy rescuing and assuming I could change other people's lives. Now I feel I have a choice and what I do is proceeded by the right motivation. But my husband and I have such a long history that the tug is always there and must be resisted. This weekend - voila! no resistance.

Yesterday my friend and I attended a memorial service for a neighbor. It was beautiful, the rain held off, the service was gentle and loving. My friend gave one of the three eulogies. She was a colleague and she said just the right things. The other two were his from childhood best friend and his older daughter. The setting was lovely, and we were decked out in the prescribed Hawaiian shirts. He has left a mark, but one grieves for his grandchildren who are young or unborn, who will not know or remember him. But his daughters will be parenting as he did, and his care will continue in that way.

I do miss my husband, and will be glad when he returns this afternoon. Seeing the widow yesterday reminds me that we will not always be together. Time is precious.

Old Age Day by Day May 13, 2011

At chorus rehearsal last night I had a mini epiphany when the director had me soften up and not press my voice. I am loud. I have always been loud. I have a voice that carries across an auditorium. I have a big laugh. Whispering is hard. Soft voice is difficult. Blending is is harder. Part of this is the Ethel Merman chops I was born with. The other comes from being the new kid at school and needing to be the class clown to get people to notice me. I had to be BIG. At least subconsciously I believed so. My father had this huge presence, and I wanted to be like him. Now, this does not mean I don't know how to blend. I was an alto most of the time, in school, and I was excellent at blending. But coming back to singing after all these years has triggered more emotional that rational behavior. I've lost my confidence, so I get loud in my nervousness. But I'm working on it with the director, and it's like therapy a bit. I am often the only person singing my part, so I get loud to try to be at least four people. In my case this is not necessary. So I'm listening to the other parts more, and blending, which is weird, because my part is different, and hearing the other parts is challenging. But it's getting better. And last night, when she wanted me to sing out on one piece, and I was too quiet, I told the group, "this is a change - usually I'm trying to damp myself down!" When to sing out and when to blend: now isn't that the trick in life?!

Old Age Day by Day May 11, 2011

I've just finished emailing two women who were childhood friends, neither of whom I've seen for many years. One is out here now from Florida, and the other is spending a week with me in June. We went to the same school in the same tiny town from ages 8 to 14, then I moved far away. The woman who is here ended up being mentored by my parents and moving here, and she and her husband and daughter often had Thanksgiving or Christmas with my folks. So I occasionally have seen them until they retired to Florida about five years ago. The other woman was my childhood best friend, and I've only seen her about four times since we were both inseparable an kids and teens. We've lived far apart, and both had a lot of kids and not much money for travel. She's now retired and has been talking about coming out for about three years. I never thought it would happen. But she's got the ticket, and it will be interesting to catch up. With both women I know we'll laugh a lot. We were gigglers then and we're gigglers now.

I'm reading "The Help", as so many people have recommended it, and it reminds me of living in the South in that era. I was in Virgina, and the book is set in Mississippi, but I also lived in Alabama, so the dialogue and situations feel familiar. But my father wasn't a believer of segregation, he was fighting to integrate the factories, so we were interlopers. Almost freaks. Luckily, my parents were so amiable and tactful, they did make friends and so did I, despite are coming from a strange place called California. We were really considered strange because my mother was the only one in town without a maid. She did all the housework, ironing, cooking etc herself. But somehow she had time for bridge clubs and cocktail parties and trips to Richmond for shopping and lunch. I also did housework and had chores, as did my brother. I developed skills that I've certainly used in later life much more than any other. Well, except for cooking. My Mom liked people to stay out of her kitchen, so when I married at nineteen, I had to begin by burning a lot of rice and cooking a lot of scrambled eggs and toast. I've improved since then, but my rice is still always sticky rice.

So I'm thinking Southern these days, and realizing what an odd position my family was in - liberal and pro integration in a town separated in all the same ways as the setting in the novel. It's enlightening reading what might the the story of one of the the women who is coming to visit.

Old Age Day by Day April 10, 2011

I'm still quilting and my desk looks like a garment factory. Very appropriate, since both my parents began in that industry, my Mom at 15, sewing in a pants factory, and my Dad a little older as a cutter in the same factory. He ended up with a career in jeans (Lee Jeans then Levis) and she sewed continuously: our clothes, drapes, slipcovers, coats, hats, tablecloths, you name it. She also knitted, croqueted, did needlework of all kinds, painted, and copied expensive cocktail dresses for her own use. Making something is so satisfying, and it's such a pity schools no longer have woodshop, metalshop, home ec, cooking and all the things that are useful and creative. Parents have to get together and raise money for art teachers or music. The importance of these creative outlets has declined, as if there is something a school can do to make every student into an executive with a big salary (we know already they don't make software geniuses, none of them finish college). We're sort of stuck with an educational idea that does not fit reality in any way. And if we take this concept too far, we will depend on the rest of the world to make things that we can no longer buy because we have no jobs ourselves. There is something wrong with this picture.

In my mother's day, making a baby quilt was an act of love and welcoming into the world. The check toward the $1,000 stroller is not the same. It's extortion, and takes all the ritual out of a significant event. It's a bit terrifying to me to see how we are erasing the emotional connections to others in this way. Anything can be bought at the store, but when you make something, it is special. At least I still think so.

Old Age Day by Day April 9, 2011

I had a lovely Mother's Day and hope you all did as well. My husband cooked for me in the morning and my younger daughter and her boyfriend made a luscious dinner. In between we went to an art museum and walked around afterward. The weather cooperated and it was relaxing and peaceful. I have two lovely bouquets of flowers in my house, and a Spanish computer learning CD, so I can keep up my Espanol.

I believe this will be my sewing week. I have fabric basted to other fabric and piles of projects overtaking my desk. And one baby is about to be born in June and the other in September, so time's awastin'! Too much partially finished stuff! I must like the idea of sewing more than the reality.

If I leave the door open and listen to the birds, I will reward myself while I work. I'll give it a try.

Old Age Day by Day May 7, 2011

I watched Double Indemnity by myself last night. That Barbara Stanwick was something else! It's really a gorgeous movie, with a complicated plot, unlikeable characters who are obsessive to the point of self destruction, and a sense of the comedy underneath our human frailty. Fred MacMurray is handsome one minute, but the next you see that weak jaw, and you know he's not going to make it. It makes a grand allegory of Los Angeles and the types who are pulled there and thrive or not. I love Stanwick's smirk. Her mouth turns down no matter what is coming out of it.

Afterward I bettered myself by watching a HBO series on India, and learned a lot about the prehistoric period. I had no idea that the Himalayas were caused when India which was an island, slammed up against the continent a few million years ago. Or that after a climate change, the Indus Valley which was a complex civilization with cities of up to 200,000, became a desert and the people moved down to what is now India. Or that the Aryans came most likely from Turkey, and brought Sanscrit with them. What an amazing, fascinating country.

So that is my night last night - the high and the low. A blend that suits me to a T!

So now I know more about

Old Age Day by Day May 6, 2011

The death of bin Laden and 9/11 talk this week makes me so aware of what all of us have inside us. We want revenge, we want justice, we want forgiveness, we want to move on. I went from shame to guilt to triumph to sadness and back again many times. When 9/11 happened, two of my kids lived in New York, plus my daughter's new husband and his family, plus my sister-in-law. I had the frantic phone calls and emails trying to locate them. The additional horror that my eighteen year old daughter was at college in Pennsylvania near that crash. And my older two children's half brother was flying in the air from Ireland for our older son's wedding in ten days. His plane was turned around when he was over the Atlantic, and they only knew why when they landed in Dublin. The wedding was not canceled, and everyone was teary eyed not just with joy, but with the stunned realization that our world had changed.

Perhaps there is closure somewhere down the line, but I personally cannot see how. Some events change you and you are altered forever. Certainly my kids' lives are different and will always be so. My parents' lives were changed by World War II, and much of it was not spoken of. Most of us don't speak of 9/11 any more. But my instinct tells me that it must be revisited by each of us periodically, not to work a wound, but to acknowledge that we cannot and do not know what is in store for us, what the future may bring. I heard a man say on NPR that he so grateful the last words he said to his two sons were that he loved them. He lost them both at ground zero. He says he has no regrets. I want to keep that voice in my heart, and live by it.

Old Age Day by Day May 5, 2011

Cinco de Mayo! And the day is perfect. I am hoping to convince my foster granddaughter to go to the zoo and see the new baby otters. First I have a voice lesson and afterward the chorus. I love the otter exhibit anyway, because there are plexiglass parts of the pond and you can see them underwater. Even a small child can watch. Though she will be six in June and is not the tiny thing I used to stroll around looking at animals. She's part teenager and part small child and part conflicted, strong personality. Her complexity reminds me that we were not simple little beings when we were young. We were full of everything that fills us now, but with less impulse control and overview.

Through watching these two granddaughters, I've remembered and discovered a lot about myself when I was young. All the jealousy, disappointment, feelings of powerlessness come up, as well as the adoration of the mother and curiosity and freshness. We are turbulent little beings. The socialization takes a very long time. In some of us it never happens, in others it's truncated. We are innocent, but we are not simple.

Now, I am not innocent, but I am more simple.

Old Age Day by Day May 4, 2011

Ah, it's summer today! I know it won't last, but how delightful. I'm going for a walk with a friend and then lunch. I'm debating what sandals to wear. Last night our younger son dropped by and we sat on the patio and watched the three dogs run around. Quite relaxing. Of course, the garden is already bone dry and needs rescuing, but it's a small price to pay for sunny, calm mediterranean weather. By next week the fear of fires will erupt, and our normal summer paranoia will be in full bloom. But this week, we're grateful for the warming up and drying out.

The book I was talking about yesterday is "The Geography of Thought", not the title I imaginatively made up. I'm still loving it. I'm reading a murder mystery at the same time and also a Buddhist book by Anjah Chan. That way I'm covered no matter what my mood. So far today my mood is Hawaiian music and a flower in the hair.

Old Age Day by Day May 3, 2011

I'm going to have tea with a friend and see and hear about her trip to Turkey. I've always wanted to see Istanbul and travel in that area. They did a tour, so I want to get her feedback on how that was. I hope that we will travel a bit more when my husband retires, but it depends on how we get along on less money. It's always a toss up whether to fix the old house or old cabin or travel. I think the cabin is our destination this summer. But I love to hear about others' adventures, and armchair travel is in some ways the best. I am a sucker for a book with an exotic locale and characters from another culture.

I am reading the Geography of the Mind, about research attempting to determine if people in the west have different brains than people in the East, or the differences in thinking are environmental. It is fascinating to read about tests done that show dramatic differences. Children in the East begin by learning a majority of verbs, while toddlers in the West learn nouns. This reflects very different ways of raising children. In the West we want them to be independent, in the East, interdependent. I am loving the book.

Interestingly, when I do the tests in the book I often see them with an Eastern bias. Either this has always been with me, or my mind has changed over the years of studying Buddhism. I know for sure my mind is constantly changing and has always done so, and I do not believe in stasis. Everything I've ever experienced has convinced me of my interdependence as well. Some of that may be Native American viewpoint, which seems to mirror the Eastern view more closely. No wonder the culture clash occurred in this country and continues with immigrants, especially Asian people. This is an eye opening book.

Old Age Day by Day May 2, 2011

It's sitting outside weather right now. I love it! Today we are planting some flowers and turning on the watering system and generally waking up to the dry season. Kind of like my skin regularly. I had normal skin all my life, and have trouble adjusting to the fact that I now need an oil derick attached to me - all moisture is absorbed instantly and no matter how many times I put cream on my skin it can always drink in more. I'm not very girly, and all my life have had an aversion to creams, perfume, foundation and manicures. I came late to the sunscreen dance, and still have to put anything on my face by an act of will. I used soap and water exclusively until my fifties. A salon is my idea of purgatory.

Now shoes are another matter. Like my mother before me, I am drawn to a new pair of shoes like a transformer to a magnet. And yes, I wear earrings, and sometimes even a necklace, and I have skirts and dresses, mostly lost in the recesses of my closet, but I'm not against them, I just never wear them. That is because, if they require tights or pantyhose, I won't put them on. They are a summer only option. I have sworn off hose in all forms. Socks are okay, and I do wear an occasional skirt with shoes and socks. Like once a year.

As a kid I was a tomboy with some girlie flourishes. I remain the same. Destiny is powerful.

Old Age Day by Day May 1, 2011

May Day! I grew up in Virginia, where there was a May Pole, huge May Day pomp and festivities at school, a May Queen and the whole nine yards. It was an all out bash for the promise of summer and swimming in the river and long games of gin rummy, Hearts, Monopoly and the like. School was as good as over by May 1. Here there is more Cinco de Mayo than May Day, but I still feel excited and anticipatory when the day comes. I have lots of thoughts of canoeing and sitting out on the deck of our cabin and staring at the lake. I'm sure there is still snow right now, but hopefully soon we'll be dragging out the chairs and putting up the umbrellas and struggling getting the canoe down to the water.

We've had such a wet year it also means mosquitoes galore, and my weaponry needs to be in order not to get bitten out of my mind. I'm actually more leery of spider bites. They last for weeks and really, really itch. But some pain must be born if one is to get this leisure thing down pat. Flopping is an art. And I am a master.