TID BITS

TID BITS
I watched part of the Minnesota - Dallas Playoff game today, after returning from Mass with Sue, and visiting Marie, at Laurel Creek. This afternoon, I watched all of the New York Jets - San Diego Charger game.
The Qualcomm Stadium, in San Diego, holds 71,500 people. From the Goodyear blimp above, it looked more crowded than that. The parking lot was, of course, jammed, too. We have three grand daughters living in San Diego. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of them were part of the crowd. (Last September, I visited San Diego to attend Melissa and Ryan’s wedding.) The channel showed another aerial shot from the blimp - of San Diego - looking towards the island of Coronado. It was a great view of a great city.
During the game, there was a commercial for a new movie being released. I can’t remember the name of the show, but I can remember that Anthony Hopkins starred in it. Every time that I see his name, I think of the time that Marie and I saw him. It was on our flight from JFK to Heathrow , twenty years ago. He was flying First Class, and we were sitting in the rear of the plane.
We were on our way to visit our friends, Maggie and Steve. They had traded their home in Berkeley, for a month, with the Grews who lived in Repton, England. Maggie said that he has since retired from teaching at Repton, and they( Grews) have moved to Blansford. Back to the football game, it was a bummer. It wasn’t very exciting to me. San Diego beat themselves, with some bone-head penalties - like head-butting, and kicking the red challenge flag that the Jets coach threw out on to the field. The penalty moved San Diego back from the Jets 20 yard line to the 35 - from there - the field goal kicker missed a field goal! These penalties weren’t the smartest moves of the day.
The Chargers appeared “flat”. They didn’t seem to be motivated, inspired or enthusiastic. Coach Norv Turner’s fault? I think not. He’s demonstrated that he is too good a coach to have overlooked “firing up” the team prior to the game. Just to be in the Play Offs, should have been enough incentive for the players to go all out! San Diego had home field advantage, which meant that The Jets had to cope with a very loud environment.
Mark Sanchez, the jets rookie quarterback, should have been awed by all of the pressure. It is hard to believe that he quarter-backed USC just a little over a year ago. Then, a year ago, he attended a Play-off game between these Chargers and the Indianapolis Colts. He sat six rows below the rim of the stadium. This year, he sat on the field - and led his team to victory. How thrilling is that? Only in America! It will probably be made into a movie!
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Last Friday afternoon, Mary invited Joan, Sue and I over for a “work party”. When we moved from Vallejo, to Fairfield, 21 months ago, our daughters cleared out our house and garage. To make it easier (at the time) and expedient, they filled about 25 large -plastic bins with books, photo albums, memorabilia, etc. - most of it coming from storage cabinets in the garage. Then, along with the help of their husbands, they hauled the bins to local storage facility. I have been paying $59 a month for all these bins to collect dust. I suggested that we start sorting through them, and keep what we wanted and then give/throw away, the balance. All of this “stuff” seemed so valuable back then, but we haven’t accessed the contents of the bins in all of these months - except for a few Christmas decorations, and other small items, which we removed.
This saga reminded me of the psychology (or someone‘s law) about a similar situation about 30 years ago! I was working for California and Hawaiian Sugar Company at their corporate office in San Francisco. At budget time I requested a new file cabinet. My files were starting to pile up on my desk and table. Instead of a new file cabinet, my boss brought in a “file consultant.” She sat down with me one day and started through my files from A to Z. With each document she would ask me if I had looked at it in the past six months.? That was a loaded question! Six months goes by quite rapidly - as you know - My parents taught me to be truthful. Usually. I would tell her, “No”. So, she would throw it in the waste basket. Being a “saver” all of my life (I blame it on my Great Depression training by my parents - especially my Mother. She was the patron saint of savers.) When I protested to the consultant, that I might need the document sometime, she said that “There is always a copy somewhere in the organization.” While it was a gut- wrenching experience, I ended up not needing a new file cabinet, and I had 50 percent empty filing space in my current file case!
Back to our ‘cleaning -out -files party”. I guess that we only have 19 more bins to wade through, before I can close my account with the storage company.
One of the things that slows down the sorting process (besides consulting with someone who might want the item) is running into old memorabilia, such as the sorter’s own handiwork that they produced decades ago. We naturally enjoyed perusing them, instead of tossing or claiming them. One good thing, we are not under the gun to complete the chore expeditiously. It took time to accumulate the bins contents, it is only reasonable to assume that it will take time to dispose of them.
There was a bright spot during the evening. Mary and Greg served crackers, cheese and dip; along with wine, salad and Pizza.
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I got my H1N1 flu shot on Friday. I wasn’t eligible the first time around. Now, that there seems to be a sufficient supply of the vaccine, I re-considered. I double checked with Farshid, my Heart Case Manager, for his counseling. He felt that since I was born during the big flu epidemic of 1918, I probably was immune to that same strain of flu. But, he said that it wouldn’t hurt to get it. One of those times when it is better to be “safe than sorry.” So, I dropped by the Kaiser Clinic to be shot.
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Ray L’Amoreaux
January 18, 2010.