The Days are Getting Shorter

Ah, summer.  My absolute favorite time of year.  Absent obligations, I would happily spend every waking hour (and most sleeping hours) on a beach.  Unfortunately, the notion of assuming away obligations brings me back to Economics 101, in which every lesson began with “assume perfect competition.”  That’s one hell of an assumption.  It’s impossible – perfect competition doesn’t exist in nature.  Nor does a life without obligations.

The rub is that my “obligations” each summer seem to become more demanding in direct proportion to my increasing desire to do as little as possible. 

I have pretty much wasted the month of July (my favorite month within my favorite time of year.) Oh, I did a few things that were fun, but for the most part I worked – fulfilling job-related obligations, meeting the needs of tenants in my role as a part-time landlord, maintaining the family fleet, and doing what has felt like endless yard work. I went swimming exactly once.  And I own a beach house.  That’s just pathetic.

I remember, as a kid, counting down the days in June in anticipation of school vacation.  It was the ultimate gift – two and a half months of freedom!  Like clockwork, we would head for the lake the day after school ended.  There we would find my uncle, who each year would wait for precisely the right moment to deliver his line (around about June 22^nd, for maximum effect): “Well, the days are getting shorter…” 

I wanted to kill him. 

At work, I am a victim of the Fortunate Dinosaur’s Paradox:  I’ve worked for the same firm for so many years that I’ve amassed an embarrassingly large number of earned vacation days; but my responsibilities prevent me from taking them in significant chunks.  In theory, I could take the entire months of July and August off.  In reality, were I to do so, I’d be spending the month of September on an unemployment line.  So instead, I typically take what I can, when I can; and dutifully check in via e-mail while I’m away.  I will be doing this next week.  Not exactly an exotic, off-the-grid safari, far from civilization, but I WILL be on that beach, dammit.

I wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago, in another forum.  In keeping with the cheesy journalistic tradition of posting “rerun” columns while on vacation, I will re-post my entry from August 17, 2009 here. I am following my own advice; so should you!  I’ll see you on the other side.

“No Excuses”

8/17/2009

This is for all my workaholic friends... you know who you are - all you good Company Men and Women. Monday morning bit pretty hard today, didn't it?  I know, I was there and I spoke with some of you.  There you were, huddled in your flourescent-lit office spaces, waiting for all those weekend corporate-network-security-patch pushes to finish up, when it hit you: it's August 17th!  It is late August!  And you've done nothing!  Nothing!   I saw the look on your faces - like you'd found a dead moth in your Starbucks latte.

You never saw it coming, did you?  You missed the memo.  No surprise, given how busy you are.  Who has time to think about vacations, anyway?  Vacations are for lazy people.  The disengaged.  The unemployed.  Hobos.  Besides, there'll always be time to figure something out.  Plenty of time left.  I'll sleep when I'm dead, right?

And the job... how can you leave the job for a whole [day, long weekend, {gasp} week]?  What if there's no signal for your BlackBerry at [the lake, the beach, the mountains, the cruise ship]?  It would be irresponsible.  It just isn't done anymore.  It's... unpatriotic.  They need you.

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating sloth, or dissing those who have a good work ethic.  I work pretty hard myself, most of the time.  But ask yourself: can you personally take credit for your 401(K)'s bounce back from the edge of recessionary oblivion, however partial and unrewarding?  I'm betting that had more to do with [the cash-for-clunkers program, the consumer confidence index, the triumph of greed over fear, the price of... well... eggs and stuff] than with the sweat of your own personal brow.  The thing is, stuff happens, with or without you.  We all want to believe we're in control, but you know what?  Well, you already know where this is going.

Here's a little exercise: Subtract your age from 74 (if you're male) or 80 (if you're female.) That's how many summers you have left. [source: howstuffworks.com, USA life expectancy, 2001]

So, this is the final boarding call.  Summer's heading off over the horizon.  A friend in Vermont reported seeing colored foliage at the top of Killington Mountain today (thanks for THAT, Willi!)  It's now or never.  What are you saving those vacation days for, anyway?  Christmas with the In-Laws?

I'll see you on the beach.  And if I don't... well, you can't say you didn't get the memo.

 

 

The Mona Lisa Smile

 

"Ginger"  ~1999 - 2013

 

It had all the trappings of a clandestine drug deal: we had planned to meet after dark, in the parking lot of a remote convenience store in a nearby town.  We arrived first, and waited.  A rusty old Volvo wagon pulled up next to us.  A woman emerged from the car, wearing grimy clothes.  She had what we had come for: a young, mixed-breed dog of unknown origin that she had rescued from a “kill shelter” on the South Shore.  She had described her to us by phone as a “Miniature Golden” and had given her a name: Ginger. 

Ginger had not had the benefit of a bath – she smelled awful.  The woman handed me a filthy leash, and Ginger proceeded to drag me around the parking lot.  She was young, strong, and wild.  Untamed, almost, but clearly not aggressive.  There was a moment when our eyes met, and I swear we formed a bond.  I glanced at my wife and young daughters.  They seemed skeptical.  I said “we’ll take her.”  The woman, whom we later took to calling the Crazy Old Dog Lady, drove off.  Ginger was ours.

Ginger, we quickly learned, loved to swim.  She was drawn to the water like a magnet to a steel post. Always impetuous, she’d leap off of our boat for a swim without warning.  We bought her a doggie PFD (life vest) which actually did save her life once.  We were anchored in Wellfleet Harbor off Billingsgate Shoal, a spit of sand that separates the harbor from Cape Cod Bay.  Someone tossed a lump of bread crust, the remains of a sandwich into the water.  Ginger dove after it.  She swam the short distance to the sandbar, paused long enough to look back at us as if to laugh, then ran into the water on the Bay side, whereupon she – and I, who had donned my own vest and swam out, crossing the sandbar, to retrieve her - got caught in a rip tide.  A kindly fisherman in a skiff hauled us both out and drove us all around the shoal back to our boat.  Our little adventure found its way into the local newspaper, in a story spun to illustrate the value of PFDs for pets.

We’ll never know which dog breeds contributed to Ginger’s heritage, but they somehow came together to produce an attractive dog (in our estimation, anyway.)  Her coat was thick and golden in color.  Even in old age, it never greyed.  My wife has always said that Ginger had eyelashes with built-in mascara, and a Mona Lisa smile.  We never knew what she was thinking, or what she’d do next, but she always seemed to be having fun.

Ginger was with us for fourteen years.  The past year or so had been difficult for her. Her hind legs had all but given out, her vision and hearing had diminished, and she panted heavily most of the time. She was on multiple meds to alleviate other ailments.  Still, there was that “smile.” I imagined, and still do, that her spirit was very much alive.  And so it was that we agonized for months over what to do – whether to “put her down” (God, I hate that expression.)   Yesterday, the decision was made.  With our family gathered around a stainless steel operating table in a veterinarian’s office, we said goodbye.

Now, having the perspective of a day’s hindsight, I’m left still wondering whether we did the right thing.  All I really know is that I miss her presence.  We were lucky to have had her, and given her rocky start in life, I'd like to believe she was lucky to have had us as well.

There is nothing unusual about this story. This was not the first time we’d euthanized an ailing pet, nor will it likely be the last. Countless others have faced the same dilemma and have lived to tell about it.  If there’s anything surprising here, it is this last point:  I’ve been literally overwhelmed by the number of sympathetic and supportive comments generated by my simple, five word Facebook post yesterday, announcing Ginger’s demise.  Grieving the loss of a pet, it seems, strikes a powerful chord with many people.  At some level, we had been thinking we were kind of crazy for being so emotionally attached to an animal; but as it turns out, if we’re crazy, we’re certainly not alone.  Oddly, there is comfort in that.  So, to all of our fellow crazy pet lovers, including the Crazy Old Dog Lady whom I imagine must be resting in peace somewhere herself by now, thank you.