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For the first time in several years I am an hourly (as opposed to salaried) employee, and I am somewhat surprised at the direction this has taken me. For the past 20 or so years, I have worked through lunch. The rewards of that venerable institution were simply not worth the effort and preparation necessary. As an hourly employee, lunch is not an option, as skipping it would result each week in five hours of overtime pay. So... I have taken up nature photography. To this point, I have kept about 500 photos. The number of ways of ruining a picture increases with the square of the number of bells and whistles on your camera, and my new electronic gadget is loaded. A quick calculation projects that I will be fully competent to use it sometime around the turn of the next century. Still, it is something to do, and if I can interest my brother, Mark (who seems to know every fact about every plant on the planet), we may publish a book on CD entitled, "A Guide to the Wild Flowers of Southern Arizona."
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Usually I'm pretty easy to get along with, but occasionally that part of my genetic makeup I inherited from Grandma Bates asserts itself, and I want just what I want. Perhaps fastidious is the proper adjective. On the rare occasions when this occurs, I have been known to demonstrate all the stubbornness I learned from my first wife (augmented with training supplied by my second). Such a dramatic interlude is currently being played out, and as much as I would like to think otherwise, I seem have all the control of a spectator watching the Super Bowl. I never seem to find time to trim my fingernails. As a remedy, I decided to purchase a fingernail file, keep it in the car, and use the time spent driving to and from work for this portion of my personal grooming chores. That seemed like a reasonable plan, at least until I set out to make the acquisition. Now, the definition of a fingernail file that somehow became etched into my psyche, is a piece a metal with at least one set (and sometimes two) of parallel grooves cut into it. When this implement was not available in the first store I searched, I attributed it to the fact that San Manuel lies in the backwater eddies of rural Arizona, and the unavailability of merchandise is a fact of life. But after searching seven stores (including a Walgreen's and an Osco's in Oro Valley) things are starting to get a little tense. What seems to have replace fingernail files is a plethora of emery boards (an implement having some type of roughened surface), available in metal, plastic, or even paper. I suspect these would serve the purpose, but I'm unwilling to relinquish my grip on the world as I knew it. In my version of reality, metal files designed to groom fingernails still exist. It is simply not possible that the world has moved on and left me behind. I can't readily articulate why a metal emery board won't serve the same purpose, but for some reason, it is unacceptable. Further, this search has ceased to be a matter of reason, and has become (as the Brazilians would say) a matter of honor. I intend to have a fingernail "file" even if I have to go to an auto parts store and buy a tool for filing the points in an ignition system. (For those of you not tasked with automotive maintenance [and who therefore missed the irony of that assertion], points disappeared from automotive ignition systems in the late 70's, and tools to refurbish their burnt surface [point file] shortly thereafter). So, as I ride off into the sunset in quest of windmills with which to joust, wish me luck...
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Rebellious teenagers... you gotta love them. I am down to my last one, so you would think I would have it figured out by now. AJ is having problems at school (he disagrees, claiming four D's and one A [in PE] constitutes an acceptable report card, because D's are not failing). After a meeting with several of his teachers where they unanimously agreed that he had the ability but was short on effort, I reverted to the position that I started with for all my other offspring (previous discussion, talking, counseling, and chiding having not produce any changes), and insisted that the TV remain off on school nights (I originally abandoned that position because Barbara has the TV on continuously, and enforcement was proving problematic). After the initial storm, this netted me the silent treatment for the next couple of days, and then things slowly returned to normal. Grades are due out again shortly, and I expect the conflict is not yet ended. I don't know if this protocol change will influence the schoolwork, but I had to try something... The more experienced I become as a parent, the more I realize how limited the control a parent actually has. At the same time, I accurately predicted the initial and subsequent reactions, and (contrary to what AJ claims), have a pretty accurate picture of what he is experiencing (mainly because he reacts so much like I do). There is wisdom in tasking each individual with raising his or her own offspring. My mother counseled me on dealing with teenagers. She said (after raising four) that the proper procedure was to bury them when they turn 12, and dig them up when the turn 21. I ignored her advice, at my own peril.
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