Tag: Lydia

Lying about time

inaccurate

from the Oddity Mall

As long as I can remember, I’ve been lying about time. When I was growing up, my household, probably my father, decided that the kitchen clock should run 15 minutes ahead. This was an attempt to get us to attend church and other events on time. I think it worked for a short while, but after a bit, we knew we had an extra quarter-hour and would get to events late anyway.

Incidentally, the clock in the kitchen was the only timepiece everyone could see. My parents may have had an alarm clock in their bedroom, but I do not recall a clock in the living room.

I’ve learned to lie to some people about time. If I tell someone I must get to a train station or airport by a specific time, I suggest the train or flight is earlier. I find this to be an acceptable fabrication. Doing otherwise would make me irritated with the driver when I get to my destination with too little time. (I have specific examples.)

Including me

I lie to myself about when I have to leave for a CDTA bus. If I tell myself I must leave by 1 p.m., when I don’t need to leave until 1:05, I can return to the house and retrieve my wallet or find the house key.

When I worked at FantaCo in the 1980s, we had a great artist named Raoul Vezina. However, when he worked on a project, such as a Smilin’ Ed comic, he was such a perfectionist that he was invariably late. So Tom, the owner, would say, “Raoul, the book MUST be done by February 1!” It didn’t need to be completed until February 15, yet he’d still be putting on the finishing touches.

Sometimes, my wife tells me she’ll be home by a specific time. She is not lying, but she isn’t usually accurate. One time recently, I was supposed to start pre-heating the oven and then add the macaroni and cheese she had prepared the day before. I started the process 15 minutes late, just the right timing.

When planning a family trip in early February, the daughter suggested that we all agree to leave by 9:30 a.m., assuring that we would go by 10 a.m. We left the house at 10:08, pretty darn good.

Do YOU lie about time to yourself or others? Do others lie to you about time?

Lydster: making my life brighter

office chair

lampsMy daughter has been making my life brighter for two decades, but right after Christmas, it wasn’t merely a metaphor. My wife and I had gone out to see a Saturday matinee. When we got back, she had put together three lamps for the living room that Santa had brought for me.

The front of the living room was too dark, so I couldn’t read the spines of my CDs. The last time my friends visited for a hearts game, the room was too dark for them, so this was a really important addition.

That she did it all by herself was quite remarkable. She had wanted to do this earlier, but her parents were always around, so she had to wait until we went to the movies.

Better seating

She also brought an office chair upstairs and put it together. I had one that broke down. Then, I used a stationary chair, which was more comfortable but less easy to get in and out of—the office chair swivels. Additionally, the new chair makes it much easier to clean the room. The hardest task was taking the old chair to the attic; I was not strong enough to do it myself.

During the cleaning – I picked up, and she removed stuff – we also had a wonderful conversation about life. We talked about the friends she had when she was younger. She still has some of them, and others have faded away, but she keeps track of many.  We talked about our friend Bonnie, who she believes is the first significant person in her life to die. She doesn’t really remember my mother; the last time she saw her was when the daughter was five. Also, we discussed other relationships each of us have had.

We talked about the time we deconstructed the rotting shed in the backyard, one of the great joys I had working with her. It was a wonderful evening.

Lydster: Wall of boxes

miracle

When our daughter came home from college on December 20, we had a wall of boxes. The wall between the hallway and the living room was a bunch of presents we had received via UPS and the Postal Service. 

The Amazon box contained a small Christmas tree we received from relatives. As you might be able to tell, the huge box contained an office chair, which, as it turned out, was for me. 

The three similar boxes were packages with a bit of a story. UPS had been delivering certain deliveries to a CVS closing on Thursday, December 12th. I received a notice from UPS that the boxes had been delivered to that address on Wednesday, December 11th. So I went there, but the boxes weren’t there—hmm. 

As it turned out, the boxes were delivered to the CVS in Stuyvesant Plaza. The next day, I took my cart and went to that CVS to get the three boxes much bigger than I had anticipated. They weighed about 20 kilograms apiece, but they were also bulky. Getting them home on a bus with a cart was a challenge, as only one box fit into the cart. The other two hung on the top, and it was an interesting balancing act. After I got them home, I was pretty much spent for the day.

In addition

The tall, thin box was a bed frame for our daughter’s room.

Lydia's stuff

Then, our daughter’s stuff was hanging out behind the wall of boxes. It included the things she brought home this month and some items from when she came home for Thanksgiving, so half of the living room was swallowed up.

Fortunately, she did yoeperson’s work and cleaned all this up by the evening of December 23, plus set up and decorate the tree with a friend. The big box in this picture is the same chair, and the little tree was the one in the Amazon box, also put together by our daughter. 

The picture below was taken the morning of Christmas Eve. It’s not entirely tidy, but it’s considerably less chaotic than it had been only a few days before. It’s our little holiday miracle. 

Christmas tree 2024

Lydster: the election

“You may need to grieve or scream”

My daughter texted me around 11:00 PM the evening of the election (November 5th) and asked me many questions about how the electoral process works regarding voter estimates. She wondered what would happen, and I said I had no clue. It was true, very true. The next morning around 6:30, she called on the landline, and she was upset. I was asleep, but her mother talked to her and made her feel better.

I know that she recognizes that some of her friends were feeling even worse than she was. They believe, not without cause, that the election results endangered their lives. 

But her whole generation feels in peril because it seemed at the time, and even more so now, that the incoming administration will not be terribly responsive to climate change issues; a bit of an understatement, I suppose.

I’m unsure I found the right words for her because I’m still trying to find the correct words for myself. I muddle through, though it feels like walking through pea soup.

Rebecca Solnit

If I get a do-over, I will probably share these words with Rebecca Solnit. “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything, and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything, and everything we can save is worth saving.

“You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

“The Wobblies used to say, ‘Don’t mourn, organize,’ but you can do both at once, and you don’t have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots, call someone who’s upset, and check your equipment for going onward.
“A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.”
Yeah, I probably should have said something like that. Or what Kellie Carter Jackson wrote to her kids: “I prepared my children for a Harris win. I did not prepare them for her loss.”

Lydster: absentee ballot

W

The daughter called home earlier this month to ask about her absentee ballot, which she received at college after I gave her advice on securing it; she had to contact the county board of elections website.

She wanted to know why certain candidates are on more than one political party line. For instance, the Democratic candidate is also often listed on the Working Families line. This is likewise true of the Republican and Conservative lines.

It’s because, as the political science major knows, New York State allows candidates to be endorsed by more than one party or cross-endorsement. She wondered whether it made any difference in terms of the vote counting; I said no. So she asked what the significance was, and I said it had to do with ballot position and whether the minor parties remain official parties.

I only suggested one specific candidate. For reasons I mentioned here, I recommended Jaime Czajka over Jasper Mills in the family court judge race. Curiously, when we get political mail, and we got a lot during primary season, one piece has my wife’s name, and another, my daughter’s and mine.

My daughter was watching a television program recently that mentioned George W. Bush and how he was perceived; I’m a history person. Also, she knew I was the expert on games. She asked me about Monopoly for a project she was working on. I taught her how to play poker, Sorry, and much more. While I know little about current popular culture, I muddle through.

Her mom

On the other hand, she talks with her mother about paying for college, clothes, recipes, driving, medical issues, and banking—you know, the more concrete tasks. Interestingly, my daughter aided her mother in the summer with her workout at the YMCA.

I am involved with a few of these aspects. My daughter’s credit card is a spinoff of mine. Her health insurance comes from my former employer. I went with her when she applied for her passport.

Our daughter knows which specialist to ask when she has a query: the teacher or the librarian.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial