I have only slipped away into the next room.

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak to me in the same easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the shadow of a ghost upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.

Henry Scott Holland, (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford

 

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Perhaps there'll be a time where I can read this without shedding a tear. But like many others in Blogland, the tears flow freely as I think upon a sweet Welsh terrier I never met and her pack who must now learn to live without her running with them on the beach or up the Gop or demanding the copilot seat in a certain Berlingo. RIP, Meg.

Marriage equality

The Supreme Court has declared that same sex marriages are legal across the US. In my state, it's been that way for awhile. In states where they bitterly oppose this, things could get interesting.

Scotch Eggs-round two coming up

I posted last year about making Scotch eggs, although I never attached the pictures. I think I need to try making them again, as they are yummy, but there is no Tesco's nearby here where I can pick them up whenever I feel like getting one.

The pictures below were from my first effort:

this was when they were cooking

I took a peek and saw the sausage coating had slid off one. It was helpful, as it showed me when the sausage was fully cooked (~20 minutes since I didn't deep fry).

I plated them when they were done. Not very artistic, but they were yummy.

Here's where I cut into one to see what it looked like. Next time around, I'm going to do what I can to avoid the ring around the yolk.

Help

I've been thinking of times where I've needed help and how often it comes in a manner so different from how i imagined. The kind word from someone with scruffy looks and gruff exterior, the silliness of a playful cat jumping into my arms to be held, as if that were the MOST important item on my list, the belly laugh of a young child. Sometimes we're not even aware we need the help until it comes.

I've had many such moments and wonder how many i missed. On occasion, I've been the helpful one, sometimes unwittingly.

One remembrance got me to laughing. It was before i moved here full-time. I had come for a few days to spend time looking at some real estate here and a friend who lives here and myself were in my car. My car is a first generation Honda Insight. They don't make them anymore, sad to say, as it really is my dream car. It's a two seater hatchback, meant to be a commuter car, transporting only an adult and some gear or two adults and not much more given that its maximum payload is 365 lbs
(26 stone, 1 lb/ ~166 kg).

My friend J and i were discussing dinner plans as i passed by a large man on a bike. J had been training for a multi-day charity ride and as a result, took a keen in interest in any cyclist, looking at the kind of bike he was riding, and since we were in a small town, to see if it were someone she knew.

"We have to stop," she said matter-of-factly. "That's Rich, and it looks as though one of his wheels isn't right."

I pulled off on the shoulder just a bit beyond Rich. He didn't recognize my car, and why would he? I wasn't living here at the time, and i had out-of-state plates. He stared with a look of puzzlement, and J got out from the passenger's side. He greeted her warmly, and she asked what was going on with his bike.

Well,  he had been on training ride, going about 26 miles (41.5 km) when he popped a couple spokes. He thought he'd ride slowly the rest of the way home, nursing it along.

"Where's your cell phone, Rich?" J asked. "Why didn't you call your wife?"

He had left his cell phone at home, as he didn't think he needed it. And the wife was busy with errands and possibly visiting a friend, so calling her wasn't going to be much help. We used my cell phone to try Rich's wife just in case, but the home line was engaged. He couldn't remember his cell phone number to call that, and even if he did, he wasn't sure it was turned on. If his wife was yakking to one of her friends, it'd take a while for us to reach her.

As he was speaking, another spoke twanged off the tire. J told him he couldn't ride home safely. He nodded a bit slowly. It was a bit over 3 miles (5 km) to his house and he didn't feel like walking the bike the rest of the way home. He'd just be careful—

No, that was being silly. We could take him home. J said this in earnestness, and he looked at her as if she had three heads. I was the smallest of the three of us, and while i'm not tall (nearly 5'2"/157.5cm), i am chunky. J is a bit taller and rounder than i am. Rich is tall and broad; easily 6'2" (188 cm) and 275 lbs (19 stone 9 lbs / 125 kg), and i'm sure he was wondering how we were all going to fit in my little car. Plus the bike. Fortunately, we were going downhill, so we wouldn't strain the car all that much, and we were close to the downtown area, so we didn't need to drive fast.

He took off the front wheel and put it and the rest of the bike in the hatchback. I was going to squish in with the bike, but there wasn't enough room for that. J thought we could make it work if she drove and i sat on Rich's lap. We couldn't get the seat belt around the both of us, so i held it across and as close to the snap-in part as i could.

J started up the car and eased it slowly back into the traffic lane. As we went down the hill, Rich said, "J, where are you going?"

"To your house."

"And are you aware that by going this way to my house, we'll pass right by the police station? Do you think that's such a good idea?"

A grin came to all of our faces. We laughed about clowns in Volkwagens, i said we could explain that i was from away and didn't realize this was a problem, and here i tried again in vain to buckle the seat belt. Well sometimes, it's the thought that counts.

We got to Rich's house by a circuitous route that took us around and away from the police station. His wife heard the sound of my car in the drive and peered out the window while on the phone. She plainly gawked as i climbed off Rich's lap, Rich unfolded himself, and then we got the bike out of the back. J got out of the driver's side, waved to Rich's wife, who waved back slowly, and then she finished up her phone call and came outside.

By this point, J, Rich, and i were laughing at how we crammed ourselves in, did he have all the spokes, how this might have been something we'd have done as teenagers not as 50-somethings or nearly so (i was the baby of the three and in my late 40s).

His wife wanted to hear the whole story, which we quickly relayed. She was amazed we all fit in there and the bike, too. Rich was amazed that an out-of-state car would pull over to offer help and more surprised when someone he knew alighted from it.

While i nearly always appreciate help, i think the times it pops up and volunteers tend to be most memorable, don't you?

I wish people would listen...

I must admit, I've always been hardheaded, stubborn, obstinate, whatever you want to call it. And yes, I've often made things difficult for myself. I can think of countless situations where there was the easier, softer, way and the Megan way.

I also learned that when someone was as passionate about something as I was, that other person could dig his heels in just as firmly as I could, and in the end, there'd be lots of energy spent, but neither person convinced one iota more than they were before the discussion that their viewpoint needed adjusting.

My best examples came not from people exhorting, but from those who'd simply state their position and have their actions illustrate their words. Something along the lines of getting more flies with honey rather than vinegar combined with someone walking the walk.

I remember reading an article years ago, sometime in the late 1970s, about a woman who had cancer. What I remembered most from that article was that she wanted to go for the cure and not just treat symptoms. At the time the article was published, she had finished chemotherapy and was declared in remission. I hope that held true.

What I saw was that going for the cure versus treating symptoms could be demonstrated in any number of situations. I saw it when I was in banking, for instance, and consolidation loans were being touted as the answer to everything (unless you're a sci-fi fan, because, of course, the answer to everything is 42. But I digress.)

As bank employees, we were coached to talk up these loans and how wonderful they could be. Now, this is akin to two different patients seeing the doctor, and both complaining of a headache. If he encourages each to take two aspirin, it's highly likely that their headache symptoms will abate, but there may be two completely different reasons why the headaches occurred. In one case, it might have been the person skipped a meal; in the other, it might have been from stress. So, while the aspirin will take away or reduce the pain, that addresses only the symptom. The cure in the first case would be to eat some food, and in the second to find a way to deal with the stress a bit better.

I thought of that article when I was in banking in the 1990s, hearing this "push the consolidation loans" message. Wouldn't you want to know why people needed the consolidation loan? If they simply were not living within their means, then the consolidation loan would not be the cure; it would only address a symptom. If they had some huge event occur, like a long-term illness where the major wage earner was unable to work and the money coming in was insufficient to cover necessary expenses, but said person had since recovered and was back to earning, then the consolidation loan could help them to repay the debt more easily.

What I came to see was that the bank didn't care why people were in that situation, they simply saw a way to make money and offered the product.

I saw easily a hundred of these loans closed at my branch office, and in nearly every instance, a few years out, the people were back for another consolidation loan because they had run back up credit cards. It seems that even though in some cases they were required to close some credit lines in order to be approved and did so, they found that after a while, they wanted some gee-gaw or other, didn't have the money, and if they didn't have sufficient credit on the card they had, they opened another one. So, when they returned for the second consolidation loan, the amount of their outstanding debt was more than it had been at the closing of the first loan. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Most of these people were well-intentioned, any number of them held down responsible, high-paying jobs, but they didn't seem to understand they had created their own misery by not living within their means. The thinking had to change in order to ensure success. Most often, it did not.

I took that as a warning, and rarely acquire debt. When I do, it's for big-ticket items, and even then, it's not done willy-nilly, and I do what I can to pay it off completely or as quickly as I can.

Twenty years out from banking, and bariatric surgery is booming. I see this fraught with the same problems that I saw with the consolidation loan scenario. The surgery is NOT a magic bullet. It can be a tool in the toolbox, but it's not the cure. It addresses only one symptom.

I've not known that many people who've had the surgery, so from a scientific viewpoint, my n is not  large enough from a statistical standpoint, but what I've seen is depressing. Nearly every person I've known who's had this surgery said they yes, they were ready to make a change, and do whatever it took. Yes, they jumped through the medical hoops, yes they were excited to make this change, yes it was going to be a lifestyle thing. blah, blah, blah.

In every long-term case, i.e., over 12 months out, save one, they've either gained back at least half the weight they lost, or they've stayed stuck at a weight that still has them in an obese category. Except for the one case, they all reverted to a number of their old eating habits. Eating foods that are nutritionally empty but taste good to them. Eating foods that allow them to gain weight easily. Like the consolidation loan candidates, these people were utterly sincere when they promised they would do all the steps. Well, they did do them, they just didn't continue to do them; at some point, they all stopped.

Except the one. She found herself gaining some weight and wondered why, so wrote down everything she ate to see. She determined that she was eating a lot of nuts. Nuts are nutritionally sound food, but the amounts she ate were too much for her, so she cut back on how often she ate them, and the pounds she had gained fell away.

I did not distinguish between lap band surgeries and the more invasive stomach stapling, and again my n is small.

One of my acquaintances has decided this surgery is for him. He's as pigheaded and stubborn as I am, and my concerns have fallen on deaf ears. I would love to see him succeed and prove me wrong, but I don't think it'll happen. sigh.

First recital down!

Well, i'm glad I can say the recital went well. There were 20 of us all told. I was about a third of the way down the list, and my teacher mixed up the list pretty well. Besides piano or keyboard students like myself, there were also those learning guitar or drums. There was a 12 year-old student who played beautifully, and one of the pieces was his own composition, a jazzy, bluesy piece. One of the older students, an adult played one of his own compositions, too, a love tune to his wife, which was quite sweet.

A few of the students also sang whilst playing. I can carry a tune, and sometimes it's even the right one, but trying to play and sing at the same time has proven a bit beyond me at the moment, so I applauded most sincerely at those brave several who made the effort, even if not all of them carried the tune well.

A few needed to start over or had a moment where they clearly lost their place and had to recover, but the crowd was very kind, and everyone was greeted with applause when they were done playing.

For my part, I played both of my pieces about the best I've ever played them, which made me happy. I could finally relax afterwards and am glad that first recital is out of the way. Would I do it again? Yes, I believe I would.

A friend filmed it on her phone but has yet to forward a copy to me. She did say she wasn't sure that she had enough battery power left, so i'm not sure that I shall ever see it. Still, I very much appreciated her coming to see me, and I nearly burst into tears when she said, "I didn't come to hear you play; I came for YOU." Never underestimate the power of someone wanting to see you succeed.

The next piano player after me has been playing longer, and you could hear it by how he touched the keys. "He plays better than you," my friend said. I agreed with her, and she said, "I'm not saying that to judge you, you know," which I also knew.

Funny thing is, I've heard beginning fifers and I want to encourage them to play, practice often, and when i'm in a jam session with them, I always ask them what they can play, so that they can take an active part. And yet, I have a hard time bestowing that same kindness on myself. I'm learning, though.

On a more cheerful note...

My goodness, the last few blog posts from me have been dreary! Besides the weather, death, and taxes, there has to be something else on the docket. And, there is.

As regular readers may remember, I got a new-to-me piano in August, and promptly started with piano lessons, so I could really and truly learn how to play. Bass clef comes to me very slowly, but that's better than Not.At.All. which is how it was when I first started, so my sight reading has gone from Not a Snowball's Chance in Hell, to Slower than a Dirge.

Since I'm doing this for fun and because I want to do it, I'm enjoying the process for the most part. I have gotten in my own way on a few occasions, and I still sometimes am amazed that I am not a prodigy. These are tunes I know, so why can't I just look at the notes and play? Like magic?

What I have found is that if I play a bit every day, even just 10 or 15 minutes, it makes a difference. The pieces I have to work on are short, and as previously mentioned, most are tunes I know, so it's just learning to read the music, know where to put my fingers, and when to touch the keys that's needed.

My piano teacher has two recitals a year, one in the autumn and one in the spring. I was still very new when he was lining up students for the autumnal recital, and when he asked some weeks back if I'd play in the spring recital, I surprised myself by saying yes. I am to play two numbers, and he will accompany me on both. He's doing the same for all his students in this recital. The last one was mostly for his younger students, and this one is for all those over age 12. There are quite a few of us, as it turns out, so a week from tomorrow, I shall make my debut.

I've told those who helped me move the piano into the house, in case they want to see the aftermath of their efforts. In some ways, I hope they don't come, so if I make a mistake, it'll be in a room full of people I don't know. But, if I end up playing well, I'd like for them to hear it.

When I first started my lessons, my piano teacher asked me what I wanted to play. I told him I didn't have anything specific in mind, I just wanted to be able to play. Since then, I find that the two bluesy pieces in my student book have been fun, and I have learned the first part of Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. Something happens to me when I play ragtime. I feel the music really flowing from my fingers to the keys in a way it doesn't with some of the other pieces, where I play the notes but don't "feel" the music.

It's still very early days yet in my piano playing chapter, but I do think I'm in love with Scott Joplin.