scheme aaaaaa

Stephen Hawking is an amazing man. This guy is Einstein smart (smarter actually) locked in a body that without modern technology, can barely communicate with the world around him. The easy point to make would be the irony. The less obvious (and I think more interesting) observation involves the concept of applied identity. Most people have a single applied identity: Bob the teacher, Kris the deaf girl or Dani who killed herself. Dr. Hawking is a good example of someone who has a duel applied identity (there is a better term but I just can't think of it). He is maybe the smartest man...ever AND he is handicapped (with ALS). It is hard to shake either image.
There is another concept going on here known as body schema. This is how we see ourselves. This is brought out when people who have had a recent body altering event draw a picture of themselves. Often people who have had a leg amputated will continue to draw a picture of themselves with two legs for some time.
I was thinking about these concepts on the drive home from my best friend's house after he explained a couple of things to me: 1. the theoretical proclivities and structure of the church he is helping create and 2. how he is slowly sitting down into a wheelchair and how he suffers daily excruciating pain due to his CMT (Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease). It is kinda like Muscular Dystrophy without the press. He was telling me about the concept of Shcema (there is just really no way I spelled that correctly). In the first century, Rabbi's who were given shcema (recognition by two other Rabbi's to interpret Torah) could apply God's word to a (then) modern world. He believes that Jesus' directions of how to live are consistent through time but also delivered through cultural terms and concepts. The concept of culture shock is exponential if applied over 2000 years and translated through 2 or 3 dead languages. Shcema is the ability to translate God's directions for life in a culturally understandable and modernly relevant way. The church he is creating is designed to bring differing faiths and lifestyles together to figure it out. It is a leap from current thinking and practice.
I have told my best friend that I am having a hard time accepting his disease. I know him as a physically active person and talented drummer. It is hard for me maybe to accept his schema; but I think I am beginning to accept his concept of shcema.

Christmas Cover

Well the wife and I have just survived walking the annual Christmas party gauntlet. After two office parties and three family Christmas parties, we are ready to relax with each other looking at lights and listening to carols. Please don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed hanging out with both my and her office friends and I especially enjoyed being with and catching up with family. We had both the old conversations of:"Boy, you sure have grown!" as well as the new of: "Merry Christ... I mean Happy Hanuk... ahhhh, Happy Holidays!". One of the best things that happened has to be that we got the kid's gifts right for once. Nothing like watching a kid you are related to actually tear into your gift and then enjoy it throughout the morning; very satisfying. For the adults however, we got all the same thing: $25 gift cards. Oh there was an attempt at getting them to the right place, but yeah they got gift cards. Wanna guess what the most common thing we got as a gift this year? Don't think to hard, you probably bought a bunch of them this year too.
So, for the most part, the adult gift exchange consisted of handing each other $25 gift cards. It really just felt like a cover charge to get into the party. I mean we bought 12 cards this year and got several back. Basically it was a wash. Don't tell my wife this though. She spent several hours and you can do the math on the dollars all just to get about the same thing back. This is why only kids should get gifts. Now I am not saying that men get off the hook of getting you ladies those much coveted dishwashers or vacuums (you know they are coming ladies) but as for family Christmas parties silly rabbit, gifts are for kids. That or possibly a gift ACKNOWLEDGEMENT exchange. "Thanks for upgrade on that drill set back in June Bob, it worked out great."

Pets

Congratulations to us, my wife and I got a kitten. Rollie is a now 12 week old demestic short haired cat. He is gray and light gray stripped. The poor little shit was deceptively sick when we got him from the Humane Society. He had: fleas, tapeworm, fungal infection and an upper respiratory infection. Well lots of drugs shot down its throat and he is acting like a kitten. Rollie is either all over the place investigating with his claws or fast asleep on my jacket on the chair in the corner. I have found that once people find out about our cat, they are no longer interested in us, they first ask about the cat. "How is your baby?" they ask. Now that Rollie is feeling better I ususally tell them the same thing, "We don't have one."
I am ususally perplexed by this question because it is well known that we have no children. Come to think about it, we HAVE been getting asked this question quite a bit more since we got the cat. Maybe the cat is our baby and not our pet. Maybe I have been treating my own as an animal! Oh my God, we have been feeding Rollie by just leaving food out in a dish on the floor. We must be terrible parents. Wait a minute, I just thought about something, we have been leaving Rollie home alone for hours at a time and he is only 3 months old! I have not even mentioned how we make him poop in a tray of litter! What kind of monsters are we? We have been treating our baby like, like, like... an ANIMAL!
We have spent about $450 on the cat since we have gotten him and we are looking at another $130 next week for the follow up vet visit. I would do it again if given the option but I get to bitch about it, I mean you get a cat from the Humane Society with the understanding that the basic health needs have been taken care of. The most common thing I hear is, "What if it was your child?" The answer is that I should go to jail for the above confessions.
The cat is our pet and we are keeping him if he costs us another $600 next month because he is fun, and playful and I like playing with him. But he is our pet. We own the animal in the same way we own the computer I am typing on, my car and our single plant. You own your pet in the same manner no matter how much you want to call it, "My baby!" Don't believe me? If you can show me a receipt for your pet, this means you have "adopted it." Show me a receipt for your baby and I will show you an obsesive compulsive black market accountant.

Chicks

The other day I walked by one of my co-workers as she was parusing an E-card site to send her fiance' a romantic card. Every guy reading this knows what I am about to write about. They know because they have all received frilly, fru-fru, gold leaf scripted novellas of their significant other's passionate epic tale where he has been unwittingly cast as the protagonist. Why do women do this? They do this because women think they have the market cornered on romance. Women are absolutely convinced that: flowers, pink, ribbon, poems, Barry White and kissy teddy bears equals romance. This is fine in the receiving department, but the problem begins when women confuse the receiving department with the shipping department.
Guys HATE girlly fru-fru romantic stuff (no, YOUR guy too). Girls think guys like girly fru-fru romantic stuff because guys often give it to girls. This is because guys understand being romantic better then women. Calm down, I will explain. Guys HATE fru-fru girly romantic stuff but their significant others LOVE it so guys bite the bullet and present it as best they can in order to make the girl in their life happy. Now THAT is romantic.
Women get what they like for romance and insist that either their significant other like it or they are not romantic. This is tough for the auto mechanic who ventured into Victoria Seceret for that terrible smelling purfume that his girl loves so much. If women really want to be romantic, they should follow their guy's lead and get them a gift that helps their guy enjoy their annoying hobby. Bothered by his time on the links? Get him quallity golf balls. Does he watch too much football? Try getting him a framed jersey of his favorite team.
It is all about making your significant other feel accepted and celebrated by you as the unique and whole package they (and you) are. And by the way . . . yes YOUR guy too!

Old Farts

Let's GO grandma! Nothin' quite like being in a hurry and ending up on a two-lane double solid line road behind granny blue-dew with two of her wheels on the white line and the other two in park. Is there a car coming the other way behind that rise in the road? Maybe I should try it... Hell I could get in a wreck, spend 3 days in the hospital and still get there before Grandma even turns her blinker off let alone gets out from in front of me!
Nonetheless, old people are here to stay (none of them for very long individually of course, but the general concept of old people...). One of the first times I actually interacted with some of the "compass on the dashboard" crowd was when I first started back to school. I rented a room from a nice couple. Turned out pretty well. I got a really pretty nice room with cable and fridge; I had use of the kitchen and washer/dryer and even an entry that was separate from theirs (commonly known as the "backdoor"). In addition, I got a sample of whatever good the Mrs. was baking. I got some of the cinnamon rolls, stew and to be honest, way to many of the cookies she has made. The funny thing about it was that they had owned a very popular motorcycle business for several years. Why would two people who owned a successful business need to rent out a room (two actually) to strangers? The answer is simple and can be summed up in one word: meds. They could not afford to pay the four to five hundred dollars a month for their meds every month. Coincidently, this was also the case for the landlords of the apartment I moved into later.
How much do you pay for your meds? Me personally I pay $10-$25 co-pays on each of my drugs. You might be thinking; "Well sure..." this being you, "You have good insurance you pay for yourself and they have Medicare that we the taxpayers pay for." You would be correct (and quite eloquent to boot). What is also true, is that physical therapy pays more then Social Security. And old farts pay full price for drugs.
Many things are true about old people: Drive like turtles, smell like mothballs and give bad gifts. The other thing that is true is that they need their meds. Meds, in additions to other things, is what allows us all to get old (and for some of us out of infancy). The thing about it is, our grandparents are ourselves and we are the people who will take care of us when we are not young anymore. If nothing else, we should get the world in the habit of taking care of the old because we will reap the benefits of our own efforts. And hey, maybe grandma blue-dew will get a prescription for uppers and finally find the accelerator!