by Al Van Dyk | Sep 14, 2020 | Light and Fluffy
Who me?… I’m not gifted…I have a past…I don’t like sheep…I don’t know how to tweet!
Anonomous, Sort of…
How did you find me? I didn’t think that anyone would find me here, sunning myself on the banks of the river de-Nile. I can see why some people never leave. All that is missing is a sense of accomplishment. The best thing about living in de-Nile, is that I get to set my expectations. I’m sure that there is more to it than crashing yet another luau or indulging on another all-you-can-eat buffet. There must be some accountability; maybe a box to check or a milestone to recognize.
Setting expectations is dicy in its self. If I shoot too high, I may be too busy to get to the things on my bucket list, re-reading the classics — just the light and fluffy stuff, MAD magazine, and The Adventures of Archie and Jughead— or binge-watching of the first 31 seasons of Simpsons will suffice. If my aim is too low, I risk inviting chaos, a non-stop party atmosphere bound to garner the attention of Burning Man revelers and the COVID police.
Sure, it’s not as secluded now, but people still came — they didn’t want to be found. It’s to hide from whatever, or whomever, it is that’s chasing them. Most overstay, cocooning longer than they should. Those that do stay too long find it harder to leave. Most are demoralized to discover that they aren’t as relevant, as popular, or as essential that they thought they were. I pity the fools, as Mr. T would say, those who begged the protesters to visit creating mischief and mayhem, thinking it won’t come back to bite them. Now that is the epitome of denial. Is this what they expected?
Some big names have passed through these waters. You can probably figure who without me naming names based on which tabloid in the grocery aisle catches your eye. You hear about the few that make it out, escape so to speak, even though they are here of their own free will. You don’t see any gates or guards, do you?
Me, why am I here? I’m here because my flight was canceled, and this is where my plane took a forced landing when the virus hit. I tried to leave a few times but couldn’t get a flight to connect me to utopia. They tell me that scheduled flights to there are a thing of the past; I am told that you can only get there by happenstance. All this time, I thought hard work and perseverance would be enough to power me through to a better life. Oddly, I never thought I needed to stumble my way into bliss. It’s all starting to sound like a time-share scam to me.
I know this isn’t where I belong, but since I have been here, everything out there is much different from what it was. I wasn’t planning on staying. As you can see, all I have with me are the few things that I bought at the airport — a used copy of Pyramid Building for Dummies, a tube of SPF10 sun-blocker, oh, and a frisbee for the Wonder Pup.
It does seem to be more crowded since I came. Maybe it’s time someone thins the heard and give the masses a much-needed shove. They need to get out of their comfort zone and get on with their lives. Why are you asking me if I have a mirror?
What do you mean, I’ve been evicted? Short term housing…my lease? Where am I supposed to go…I have been called up…what does that mean? I have been assigned to…really? I should warn you, I don’t…the Wonder Pup doesn’t… do well with snakes or politicians. And cruise ships, I would prefer that I stay on dry ground.
Who are you anyway? Sorry, I didn’t see the scars. I’m going. I just need to grab the Frisbee if that’s okay — I promised the Wonder Pup a souvenir. By the way, what’s with that Jackal thing, part dog, part what? Are there no poodles here? It kept taking the Frisbee. How am I going to explain the teeth marks?
Sorry, where to? Just keep moving forward?
Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing,
Ivy didn’t come along, she had no interest in flying when she learned she would be stuffed in the overhead or under the seat in front of me.
Al and his faithful, yet absent sidekick, Ivy the Wonder Pup.
It’s a Frisbee, Ivy. I throw it and you chase it. I don’t know why it has teeth marks.
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by Al Van Dyk | Sep 4, 2020 | Light and Fluffy
Oh Yeah,
Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.
~ J. C. Melloncamp, Storyteller
Sometimes, the very best we can hope for is a pause. Life does go on, regardless of who we are, who it is that have joined us on our journey, how many family members visit our bedside, or how many of our friends share a crying emoji when word gets out that our business has been torched. Yes, even when the thrill is gone, life goes on.
Life does go on, doesn’t it? Even when all we need is a pause, maybe to catch our breath, to let out the dog patiently waiting by the door, or make the microwave oven stop beeping. One would think that there has to be a way to get the gears to stop turning, for time to stop ticking, and for chaos to yield to order. Unless, you know of a breaker to throw or knob to turn, to stop the earth from spinning on its axis and the planets to stop orbiting the sun, there isn’t. The very best we can hope for is a pause, a few brief seconds, or minutes, so that we can be free of what causes our pain, our angst, and our sorrow. What good can come out of a pause?
What would happen if we could string together a few of those pauses? Could they could become moments, and string moments into mindsets, and mindsets into habits and habits into a renewed purpose, and a new purpose into hope? Not just any hope, but a real, lasting hope that we cannot deny. A hope that reminds us that we are blessed and that our today can be the best day of our entire lives? We could begin to think of our lives not as a series of ticks, sequential and perfectly spaced, but as breaths to savor, to remember and to share. What can you do with a pause? We can embrace them, for the breaths we have been given will shape our thoughts and aspirations and will become the very essence of our lives.
Will there be pain? Of course; sorrow? Bank on it; mischief and mayhem? Yes and without a doubt. But there will also be new life, new opportunities, and true companionship with whom we can share those fleeting pauses. Each will last but a blink, and then be replaced by another, then another.
These pauses are uniquely ours to treasure. No bureaucrat can govern away from us, muffle our voices with a useless piece of fabric, or burden us to personify an oxymoronic lexicon that is designed to create distance when the social is what heals; when what the hurting may be yearning for is nothing more than the exchange of a compassionate embrace.
Yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill is gone. The more we see of the future, the more we yearn for the past.
Why do you ask, Ivy? 2 +2 = 4!
Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing.
I know, Pup. You have been waiting by the door for a while. Thanks for not leaving a puddle. What do you mean, I better check my shoes?
Al and his faithful, but incontinent sidekick, Ivy the WonderPup.
You could have barked a little louder. We could have gotten you a waiver—I didn’t know the mask gives you hairballs?
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by Al Van Dyk | Aug 24, 2020 | Light and Fluffy
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
G. Orwell – futurist, humorist, above-average Joe
It’s all so confusing. What is the statute of limitations on keeping our own secrets? And when does a secret cross the line and become insurance? I still keep a few, those that are worthy of the effort even though some secrets are buried so deep, it will take a retired farmer with a divining rod to help me figure out where to dig. It would be a bonus if I could find that hidden file where I keep all my passwords. Hopefully, one of those passwords might jog my memory as to whether I need to reorder those insidious masks.
According to my lovely wife, I kept my dislike of corn-on-the-cob a secret from her for almost 30-years. Occasionally she would find an ear in the Wonder Pup’s food bowl; I thought maybe she would get the hint. My mistake; I am sure that this secret is still safe, she seldom reads my posts. Apparently, she doesn’t understand my humor. I wonder why she didn’t tell me a generation ago. I guess she keeps her secrets too.
I kept my membership in the club a secret as long as I could. The secret handshake is still a secret; I kept it secure on my watch. It didn’t hurt that I was in the wrong line. I thought for sure the instructions were to line-up for a secret milkshake. There were a select few that I told as a courtesy, thinking that given their titles, they had the maturity and the know-how to keep a confidential conversation, just that. As it turns out, I would have been better off telling that secret to an SUV full of high school girls, or a drunken sailor, or their equivalents, members of Congress during an election year.
Some of my secrets may not be secrets much longer. A few weeks ago, my lovely wife informed me that I was talking in my sleep. She said that she couldn’t understand what I was saying, but I was smiling during my dream. That certainly narrows it down to ice-cream, firearms, or cars that go too fast. Thankfully, I’m fluent in Druid; otherwise, I might have to explain a purchase or two from Cabella’s, that am not at liberty to discuss.
In retrospect, I’m confident that there aren’t any forgotten secrets worth protecting or worthy of years of therapy to help in recalling, at least, that’s how I recorded it in my password-protected journal. But then again, I wouldn’t trust just anyone to keep a secret. Rumor has it that I am running for dog-catcher, or as the story goes, I have been seen running to catch my dog.
Keeping secrets is all so confusing.
Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing.
Next time you decide to chase a rabbit, you’re on your own, pup.
Al and his faithful, but liberated sidekick, Ivy the Wonder Pup.
I think you are confusing freedom with liberty, Ivy. Freedom is like getting out of your collar or you when forget to wear a mask. Liberty means that no one is going to hunt you down like a runaway dog when you do.
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by Al Van Dyk | Aug 12, 2020 | Light and Fluffy
Let’s get Vertical, Vertical…
~O. Newton-John (paraphrased)
In our quasi-civilized sociality, it is still considered a social faux pa when people tip over as spontaneously as the cows in a field in East Lansing. With few exceptions, getting and staying vertical during an MSU football game, playing a game of dodge ball, or the playing of our national anthem, the expectation of verticality still holds.
Props to You
I find myself using more props than I used to. I may lean against a wall or a piece of furniture to steady myself in a pose that looks natural, and projects an image that it is I that is keeping the wall from falling or stopping the furniture from going rogue. But it’s not only for selfish reasons that like to stay vertical. Occasionally, I think about how my disease will impact others, how it makes them feel. How my elephant and I can make others feel uneasy.
I doubt that I am alone. There must be more of us that need a prop to look natural while performing routine tasks. For those of us that struggle with equilibrium, a kneeling bench at the gas pump just may be the perfect solution that allows me to blend in with the penitent few, those that feel the need to call attention to their angst over climate change.
Go, Team!
Sure, image is essential, but equally important is one’s desire and ability to remain socially active and accessible. That is where props are useful and necessary. Whether you and your squad need your fix COVID 19 stats or college football but now your options on the big screens at BW3 are limited to watching reruns of the Not-So-Big–10 Network, a prop will keep you in the center of the action. Strategically placed leather recliners and overstuffed bean bag chairs, meticulously sanitized and painstakingly repositioned to maintain the social distancing protocols after each guest’s binge-a-thon, are a sure way to keep the enabled and disabled, engaged yet divided.
We are no different — those of us that have mobility issues still need a sense of community, a place where we can test the boundaries of mischief and mayhem, and dare to insinuate, to plan our next pillage and plunder. There is must be more than we can do than sitting idly by, indulging in yet another bottomless bowl of chips and dip, while providing much-needed commentary and rational thought concerning the latest public policy quagmire,
Props need not be divisive or partisan, appealing to a particular constituency. If social norms dictate that people are vertical, then those expectations must be met. A Life Alert button that plays the national anthem and simultaneously delivers a zap on par with licking the posts of a car battery is a sure hit among many demographics appealing to both the activist and the chronically sedentary.
Sharks Welcome
Where there is an unmet need, there will soon be demand, and demand breeds opportunity. Herein lies the tension between my inner-capitalist and my budding humanitarian leanings. The capitalist sees it as an opportunity to exploit, while the advocate within thinks props belong in the public domain.
I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a visionary capitalist who saw an unmet need, invested his toil and treasure into addressing that need, partnered with a Shark who later sold their interests for a hefty profit. Who knows; maybe the loss of college football has a silver lining.
We have a prop for that! maybe the catchphrase of the big thing.
Thanks for reading, liking, and sharing.
Ivy is lamenting the loss of college football. She just threw a yellow flag. Got it, I was just given this editorial clarification. MSU refers to Michigan State University, not Mississippi State University. Sorry, Sparty!
Al and his faithful, but grieving sidekick, Ivy the Wonder Pup.
That’s a pretty deep question, Ivy. Are you asking, “If a cow tips over in a field in East Lansing and there is no football season, is it still recorded as spontaneous?”
You got me on that one, pup.
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by Al Van Dyk | Jul 29, 2020 | Through Ivy's Eyes
“I know it’s still lying even if you’re trying to protect someone, Ivy. Sure it’s a rationalization, maybe even a leap, but…never-mind. Now that we asked the boy for help, we have to tell him.”
It certainly was a unique predicament, to be poolside and experiencing some mobility difficulties that were interfering with me getting back in the house. What would be useful is something that has a seat and that doubles as a floatation device. It’s a scary feeling when your vision is clouded and you can’t think logically. This time, all of the outcomes I could envision had me on the bottom of the pool. I certainly wasn’t going to let that happen, at least not with witnesses.
I have a secret; in fact, I have many. One that I managed to keep guarded is that I have not only one, but two walkers, one of which has a seat, that with some creativity, could double as a floatation device. Seldom do I take them out side, rarely during daylight hours, and never in Michigan. I confess I have had to sneak my cane outside once or twice, but only to get the Wonder Pup’s chain unwrapped from a young bush in the front yard.
For the last few years, maybe more, I have taken artistic liberty with the facts, telling my son that my cane was the source of my back-up power, hence the two AAA batteries. Fortunately, in the times that we live, the truth is subjective. I have the freedom to call my cane anything I want. If I choose to tell people that it belonged to Moses, because I found it in the yard sale of Charlton Heston’s barber, it must be. Who could argue?
Certainly, it would be foolish to argue with the brain-trust that rendered entire police agencies non-essential and declared that dead Europeans are the cause of everything that is wrong with our country. From their push for the metric system to their hand in the development of the Delorean,
their past need not define our future.
Where is the moral ambiguity in the little white lies that we tell our kids; Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, the estimates created by the CDC,
they are all real, are they not? A riot is actually just an alternate form of expression…
[loudspeaker alert] ”Mr. Van Dyk, you will need to step away from the soapbox.”
Sorry, I got a little too close to the line.
Our kids deserve to know the truth. They can handle it. Eventually, they will root out the benign from the idiotic, the Holiday Hoaxes from the sacred traditions, and a riot from just another game of Monopoly gone bad. Better they hear the truth from someone who knows and cares about them than from a news outlet that has pledged to disseminate
all of the news that is fit to print.
“I know pup, I’m stalling but I need to make a point. Besides, didn’t we decide that you were going to tell him? He’s 18 now. I think he needs to hear it from you.”
I ran through all of the scenarios that my creative imaginative mind could construct. Unfortunately, none of them allowed for my version of events to remain intact. I re-examined the slope of the concrete around the pool, I measured the height of the stairs leading down to the sliding door. I counted the number of steps from the back of the house to the front. My plan should have worked.
“Ok, I’ll tell him.
How embarrassing!
Son, I need to tell you something that I probably should have told you a long time ago. That thing I hid behind the closet door, that we asked you to get, It’s called a rollerator — it’s a fancy name for a walker. I know that’s not what I told you it was. It’s not a dog sled and Ivy isn’t a musher. And for future reference, rollerators don’t float.
That went better than I thought it would.
Happy birthday, son! Thanks for assisting in the rescue operation. Now that you are 18, you might want to think about a career as an EMT. You’re a natural!
Thanks for reading, liking and sharing,
Al and his faithful, but decisive sidekick, Ivy the Wonder Pup.
Do me a favor, ask if you will receive training on how to get a rollerator out of the bottom of the pool. It might come in handy.
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