books

Screwtape and Lent

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Our pastor decided that it might be fun to read The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis for a Lenten exercise this year. Having read that in high school along with “Out of the Silent Planet” and “Paralandra”, I thought it might be a kick.

C. S. Lewis in the guise of Screwtape, a master devil mentoring his nephew and apprentice devil, Wormwood, writes near the end of chapter 13, paragraph 4: … The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient (human subject) abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books….

That particular passage struck me right my prefrontal cortex. It was a bright sunny warm(ish) day in March. There are not many of those in Ohio. The Screwtape discussion group was scheduled for 1PM. I put my Trek in the back of the car and went to my favorite spot and rode 6 miles. There is something very special about early spring/late winter rides. They are infrequent and special. The book discussion was not in the category of “disinterestedly enjoyable”. I thought it would be a kick. It was not.

On the weekend prior to this book discussion meeting, we had met with friends for lunch and after lunch it was our plan to visit a small independent book store nearby. Debbie likes book stores. So do I actually but generally I am satisfied to patiently wait for the latest and greatest ‘important’ books from the library. Sometimes my wait is long enough that I do not remember why or who put me onto the title that magically appears in my holds queue at the nearby branch of the library. In this little book store I noticed a little book by Sarah Knight entitled “the life changing magic of not giving a f*ck”. The title alone made me laugh and I picked it up, turned to a random page and read, 7. Calculus. This may be my earliest recorded instance of not giving a fuck. My high school guidance counselor insisted …. I needed this for getting into college…. I did not take the class. I did get into Harvard.” That paragraph made me laugh and I bought the book.

I took calculus in high school. I also took it in college since the one I went to did not recognize the high school credit. Engineering students get a lot of math. Physics folks get more. Technical fields generally have statistical math of one sort or another. I do give a fuck about math.

Sarah’s book is much more interesting than “The Screwtape Letters”. The language is a bit crude but it captures the sentiment of, “abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books” succinctly. In life there is often (maybe always) someone to report to you what wine pairs with what food. There is, no doubt, also a YouTube video about wine pairings. If those things are important to you then you should give a fuck to it whatever it may be.

Be present to your own ideas, thoughts, morality, ethics. Educate yourself to your needs not other’s wants. Believe in yourself and as the Max Ehrmann quote goes, ” And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul….”

Carpe Diem.

In a Dream

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I do not think I have told this story here before.

I have told it to others, just not here.

I am not a big believer in dream experiences but several months after Cheryl left this existence she visited me in an early morning dream. The dream was so vivid it stays with me as a memory something that I lived through. I did not but my brain did live through it and it is still with me many months later. I remember it upon occasion to reinforce the connections between the neurons.

Here is what happened.

There was a gathering at our church. My memory of why we were gathering is unclear even now but that is not the important part of this story. For this particular gathering, however, we had been instructed (requested?) to bring our own chairs. I remember thinking in the dream that this was an odd request because our church had just replaced all the pews. They were relatively new. Still shiny with new varnish there were few sticky spots where the small children had been. But that was the need expressed so we took our newish recliners with us to the church that night.

My memory of how they got there is foggy at best. It involves something about the car which I think morphed into a moving van just for this excursion.

The scene that is vivid in my experience is this one. The service and gathering was over and we sat up to go. We had been reclining which was why we brought the recliners with us. Many others had brought their recliners also. As we were organizing ourselves to leave, Cheryl announced, “I have to go!” which I took to mean – go to the ladies room. For the previous couple years every time we left a restaurant or any event she felt the need of a toilet. I had visited many public “Women” in many restaurants as she bumped her way into the restroom and stall and occasionally got stuck in one. It did not occur to me that “go” meant any other meaning to her. My response to my wife of five decades was, “okay I’ll wait here until you return.”

I stood and watched her mingle with the rest of the crowd who had by this time started to exit with their chairs. The crowd generally swirled around our spot as they made their way to the exit. The lady’s room was near the exit but out of my view. Cheryl was moving really good. She was moving without the aid of a walker or a cane. She was moving like her old self. She was moving with determination toward what I thought was the toilet. She was shuffling between people and chairs towards the exit. She was not touching anything and she did not hesitate.

Still in the back of my thoughts I was not certain she could find her way back. Sometimes she was unaware of her surroundings and lacked direction. In restaurants and stores I would hover near the restroom door and occasionally open it a crack and ask her if she was doing okay. She had been gone long enough that I thought she might be in that predicament.

I started to maneuver the chairs toward the exit and hang around near the restroom door. As I was beginning this process a young man that I had not met before approached me and asked if He could help me with the chairs. At first I thought to say no. I was sure Cheryl could help when she came back. She was moving really well that day. But He was persistent and I explained that I was waiting for Cheryl to return from the lady’s room and she might have difficulty finding me if I took the chairs all the way to the car. He looked at me with a face full of compassion and sympathy and responded with, “She is not coming back. She has left. She is doing okay. I will help you.”

This dreamy experience comes to me at odd times of the day, not every day but often. Today as I sit here in my office writing this post I can see this scene. She has just disappeared around the corner into the crowd and a small anxiety shows up to make me worry that she cannot find her way back to where I am. A young man with curly frizzy hair approaches to help me. Who is this guy?

Cheryl had been struggling with cognition and awareness for sometime before she eventually succumbed to dementia and disorientation. I helped her into and out of the car, into and out of church, into and out of the restroom, into and out of bed, into and out of the doctor’s office. Who was this young man? Over many recalls of this image at the end of whatever happened in church, I have come to believe that he was Cheryl’s guardian angel. She sent him back to me to tell me she was okay now. She was without any pain or disorientation or other encumberment. She was where she belonged. I did not need to worry or be anxious about her. I am not.

I awakened that morning in my lounger in the living area of my house. Sometime during the night I had trouble sleeping and had moved to the living room to read for a bit and await slumber to return. Most likely the shape of the lounger cradling my body triggered the dream but that image is very vivid. I could then and still can hear her voice. “I have to go!” she said. I have let her go. I do not see the young man except in this context but imagine angels differently. I see her angel in other people.

I have come to believe with conviction that she visited me to convince me that she is okay and happy where she is now. Why else would she visit me in a dream?

Carpe Diem.

connections - NYT

2026 Complaint

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Dear New York Times Games Editor,

My girl friend and I wish to register a complaint with reference to the January 1, 2026 Connections puzzle published at midnight.

Often in the early morning we exchange SMS messages to determine how well we slept over night. It is also a routine of ours to put our heads together and discover the categories to the connections puzzle published in your paper. I have subscribed to your paper for many years and I am writing to register a complaint.

This mornings purple category is without question sneaky and incorrect. “vegetables without a letter” is incorrect. “vegetables without some letters” is the correct category but this designation applies to many words and is therefore sneaky and unkind to duo solvers such as us. Shame on you!

Your clue category of “ALE EEK HIVE QUASH” was very puzzling to us both early this morning. I suggested to my love – words without the starting “S”. Shive is in fact a word albeit an obscure one, so obscure this word processing program underlines it with red squiggles. Similar to a bung it is used to close a barrel or container. It is also the past pluperfect of the noun shiv when used as a verb to indicate the style of injury enacted upon another in a reformatory situation.

Although “KALE” is a veggie of some note among the svelte exercise and tight glutes set, it is of no interest to those of us who began life in the previous millennium. Similarly “SQUASH” aka mixed vegetables on the restaurant menu is only of marginal interest, however, these are valid choices in a certainly weak category of vegetables without a letter.

Whoever orders one leek will certainly looked upon with disdain and if that same person were to request no chive be included in their sour cream for the baked potato, she or he would in all probability be banned for life from any available table. Further shame cast upon that person! It is with this last that I am called to register the most grievous complaint for chives although is in fact a plant it is more likely to be described as a spice or a garnish than an actual vegetable. As proof of this position, I offer no restaurant menu offers as a side item chive. Nor would that same institution include one chive mixed with sour cream to enliven the taste of an otherwise boring baked potato.

Further support of this position being unnecessary, I close my letter of complaint and bid you and yours a very merry and happy new year.

With best regards,

The Adjunct Wizard

connections - NYT

Carpe Diem in the new year.

Assumption based on Facts not in Evidence

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Often I hear people make statements about ideas they believe to be true. What is it within us that excites us to passionately argue for some idea that is merely opinion, our opinion, no one else’s opinion.

If I miss-type opinion it comes out onion. Onions are bulb root veggies that grow in layers. Onions become metaphors, plant metaphors, for other thoughts and ideas.

“That is just wrong on so many layers!” Have ever heard that comment? I have. I have made that comment before about something. What does that mean to you?

To me it merely means that the nuances of some idea are wrong.

Recently I posted on Facebook, the fact based forum where anybody may post any comment about any idea or article, the link to an article from the New York Times. My opening comment: “Remarkable in many ways… Makes you understand why he called previous guy sleepy Joe. I hadn’t thought about before but Donnie is like Elvis – he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere! He’s in Joan Rivers but he’s trying to get out!” set off an unintended firestorm of commentary among my grandchildren and their great uncle. Other family and friends leaped into the breach to defend, contrast, explain and even chastise the poster.

Admittedly I did not read the complete article. I did look at and read the pictures associated with it. That cursory examination supported my own view that once the weather forecast happened and the latest Donald Trump comments went by, there was little of interest to me on the morning news shows. I observed that our current president seems almost despondent if he is not leading the headlines.

It sounds unkind to my own ear when I write that but this assumption of mine is based on facts very much in evidence by the New York Times as well as other news sources. Mr. Trump refers to any derogatory news article as fake news – but is not all news gossip?

Much like the wizard in Dorothy’s dream about Oz, who says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” Mr. Trump diverts attention as much as he is able when the gossip is unflattering and attracts attention when it suits. Occasionally he has fired the messenger. It is great entertainment.

John F. Kennedy embraced the media of television when it suited him. Franklin Roosevelt’s medium was radio. Donald Trump embraces social media and select interviewers on select networks. Part of the entertainment value is listening to reporters inane questions and hearing his peculiar insults when they ask questions that although impertinent are meaningful. On his social media platform Truthsocial he can ignore any commentary and take the pulse of his supportive base. On camera he is compelled to respond regardless.

I started with opinions and onions. Some onions are sweet and other onions are, well, oniony. Onions build themselves in layers as they develop. Opinions develop differently and similarly. Opinions do not require facts to develop. Opinions do require support but not necessarily facts.

Facts solidify opinions either pro or con.

I have read the complete article.

The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered. – Reinhold Niebuhr

The debate rages onward.

Carpe Diem.

Winter and Wonder

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I have always wondered, well maybe always is not the correct word, whether I could be a creative writer. I write a lot and think to myself what a neat thing it would be to be a real writer.

Others have told me that I have a pleasant voice, an informative voice. And I, as an observer of life and my own self detect a certain ego trip, something that makes you puff up your chest, a feeling that makes you want to, because I am male, straighten up your sports jacket when others have said or written that to me. I smile inside when I think about it.

Over the years I have attended writers classes and workshops. They are all full of ideas and techniques for writing creatively. I think my brain is too technical and hung up on the details of spelling, grammar, structure and voice. I am comfortable with my own voice when telling a story and I am comfortable with a camera view and the third person. I have a hard time writing past the little red squiggly line that Word uses to say, “Hey I don’t recognize that word!” That little red line shouts at me from the page and I have to do something right then which, and I recognize this, often bumps me off the thought I had going.

You are shaking your head and thinking, you can turn that off. Yes, I know that I can disable the spell check thingy in Word or LibreOffice which is one word with a capital in the middle, but it produces a background anxiety which is unwarranted but there nevertheless. Keeping all of that in mind I can go on with my story.

On my blog which has turned into a running commentary of life of the past few years with Cheryl and about Cheryl I notice that I am slowly turning inward to examine myself. The grief and anxiety of the past half decade put me in the mindset of taking care of her and making that work. She is gone now. Although I wish she was not, she is. But that is not the creative writing part with which I started this essay this morning. I am still working on that. I know many people who do puzzles. Stories are my puzzle.

—

Weather patterns in the Ohio valley in winter are gray and depressing. The occasional clearing sky lets in the sun. Muted browns and grays seem more so when the cardinals appear in the woods in back resting from attacking the bird feeder of my next door neighbor. The sky is bluer. Winter is in its early weeks but the light is returning to the planet and the cardinals know this. They will establish their territory to attract a mate. For now though it seems the females are waiting out the snowy season. The winter season has many weeks to go yet. And maybe, just maybe, one of many ideas floating around in my head will turn into a story before the end of it that I will keep instead of delete.

Carpe Diem

At the End of the Day

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“No matter what happens between now and then, tomorrow is another day” said the news anchor on “The Day.” I think, “Absolutely and thank you mister obvious.” I suppose it was his intent to sound profound. Walter Cronkite used to end with, “And that’s the way it is…”

I started using Carpe Diem a few years ago at the end of my commentary as a way to remind myself of the potential available to us to use each day. And yet, at the end of the day I spend little time reporting to myself the high points of the day. I also do not focus on the low points.

There are many things to think about at the end of the day. Am I brave enough to love again? Am I too open with others? What great things happened today? What did I learn today? What should I think about avoiding if I can next time? At the very end, I push all those and others away by reading a novel. It is a habit I developed over the last few years. About half of the time it worked. I was tired and Cheryl was asleep or mostly so when I came to bed. These days it always works. I have also become a critic of some fiction that I have selected to entertain myself.

Before reading some novel or ones that are not novel at all to me, however, other actions take over my interest. I am in charge of myself and what I watch and what is entertainment and what is not. I was disappointed in the movie version of “Wicked” for example. I think there was a rush to get a snippet of a story onto the big screen that is in many ways incomplete. Money people for movie producers need a return of money to keep going. I think I was greatly disappointed. The singing was great but the story line went nowhere. I have some of these projects.

Quite often but not when I was working I did not finish some project. I have many of these little abandoned projects (mostly little electronic things) scattered on my work surface in my office. I have a pleasantly cluttered office and once in a while I straighten things for a bit in order to find a place for another soon to be abandoned gizmo. And yet through it all I am able to keep track of important actions that I need to do to take care of myself – pay bills, cook, shop for food, laundry – the mundane tasks of life. It may be that I am not so disorganized as I perceive myself to be.

Sometimes my blog is a stream of conscience construct. This may be one of those times.

Many people I have known were, or seemed so, very organized. I am not – at least in my mind I am not. Is it okay to be un-dis-mis-organized? (Cheryl was so good at organization.) The answer is yes. Mis-organization, as I like to call it, indicates to me that I am often not satisfied with the path I have taken to somewhere. Something does not feel quite right. I look at it as taking the next fork in the road. How many forks are there in my road? Where is this trip around the sun taking me?

It may be that I am merely constantly learning about myself and this new life without Cheryl.

Carpe Iter!

Forty Two

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Is the answer to life and the universe but what was the question? Deep thought…

However I got there originally I rediscovered the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Doug Adams (H2G2). His trilogy of five books (yes, five) I read partially earlier in our married life. The children where small. Life was chaotic as it often is with small people around. I never finished the 5 before now.  And the story has reappeared in my reading list. It takes me off of life for a bit. Its depiction of the universe is philosophical and geeky, perhaps even, odd but why not? The story is chaotic.

My life currently seems odd to me without Cheryl. It is time to shake it up.

A big part of life is the journey. It is the part of life that is often ignored. It is important to get there fast. Wherever there is and sometimes when there only disappointment is available. At this time I resolve to enjoy and document the journey. It is early for resolutions.

I am just thinking about what I am thinking about. And putting my notes out there for all to see.

The Deep Thought in the book says that the answer is 42. It also says that the question is unclear.  Suppose I plan a bit for the future but do not be consumed by planning. Tough for a retired engineer. We’re trained planners. A good job is a job that has few to none awshits due to excellent planning.

No plans exist in H2G2. The characters are given to chance in the universe. Ford, Arthur and Zaphod are off to get something to eat.

It is time to put up the Christmas decorations.

Carpe Diem.

Hurry, Haste

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What is your hurry?

I ask myself that question several times per day. What is your hurry?

My encouragement to myself is “what is your hurry?” At this stage of my life the answer is I do not know. (IDK)

I do know that when I close my eyes in the sunny shade of these woods and empty my mind as best I can, and then I open my eyes again the evergreens are a brilliant color with a deeper blue. Why is that? IDK. I have hurried through life without looking.

Why did I pick this trail for today’s activity? A day ago I wrote that I am not a child anymore and I am not youthful but I still see a world of wonder with youthful eyes. I remember long ago when Cheryl and I came here we hiked this trail more quickly than I do today. I am not in a hurry. Maybe that memory brought me up the cliff face. IDK. Today I stopped often to rest but also to look, think, remember and read and listen while I read.

I selected several books to bring with me on this retreat and personal retrospective. I selected first “So long and Thanks for the Fish” by Douglas Adams. I have read a couple of the others from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. There are five books altogether and the theme is cynicism and simultaneous mediocrity as we splash through life. Wonko the Sane explained why he became a hermit – “The sign read: hold stick near the center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion. It seemed to me,  he said, that any society that had so far lost its head to put such a detailed set of instructions on a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization that I could live in and stay sane.” We have a lot of things like that going on. “Caution HOT!” is printed on the side of the McDonald’s coffee cup.  I always think, “I hope so.” Why are warning signs like this posted? I passed several today on railings erected along the trail. The other side of the rail was a sheer drop. “DANGER No Entrance ” is printed on the sign.  IDK. I did not hurry through the small volume. Several times walking today I found myself reading on a convenient log or outcrop of rock.


Why did I select this book to read first? IDK but it has been many years since I read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the absurdity of the story line is compelling. Maybe it is time to review my life and start anew. Maybe I long for the next great thing. IDK. There is no hurry.

There will be time to take time for wonder. There is no hurry.

Carpe Diem.