Humor – KNOMO CHOICIUS

Ear Candling with the Dominicans

Here is Part 2 of Phil VanHuffel’s series on Aging. Hope you enjoy. He’d love to hear from you!

Have you ever heard the term “ear candling”? Neither had I. When someone suggested this procedure to improve hearing, curiosity took over. I learned that it was not a recommended medical process but a homeopathic remedy. It was offered at the Dominican Center in Grand Rapids. That someone was raving about the results. Like a cat with a ball of catnip, I couldn’t resist trying it.

So, in about 2004 I scheduled a session. It was not inexpensive. It was not covered by Medicare. Nonetheless I had to try it. The procedure began with a massage to relax me. Then a warm towel was placed on my head, and I was told to close my eyes. The therapist lit a candle and held it close to my left ear. The heat from the candle began to warm my ear. I experienced something flowing from my ear. The sensation of ear wax leaving the ear canal is the best way to describe it. It took fifteen minutes She did the right ear next. When she was finished, I walked outside and heard birds singing loudly. I couldn’t remember ever hearing birds that clearly. I was sold.

Airplanes, rental cars, hotels, and work continued to occupy my time. My travel schedule didn’t ease up. After a few years, I decided to engage the homeopathic procedure once again. This time the results were not as dramatic. Then, one day, my left ear went dead.

In 2007 I scheduled an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat doctor. He ran a series of audio tests. His conclusion was that I had severe nerve damage in my left ear and less severe damage in my right ear. He didn’t offer any further advice or remedy. So, I went on my way and continued to hear with my right ear.

When Jean, my wife, complained that I wasn’t listening, I decided to invest in some hearing aids. I began to use the internet to find options. Then I received an ad in the mail, offering cheap hearing devices. I bit. A week later I received a package from a company in Illinois containing two earpieces. I followed the instructions and put them in my ears. I could actually hear better.

But problems persisted. I could not hear conversations when we ate at a restaurant, unless we were in a booth. Even then, the background noise caused a din that made hearing conversations difficult especially if the speaker were soft-spoken. I wanted more. So, I upgraded to a higher priced version from the same company in Illinois. This lasted for about six months. My hearing got worse. Keep in mind that I was purchasing products in double digits each.

My next adventure into the audio-racket was an ad that arrived in the mail. It touted a doctor in Arizona who had developed state-of-the-art technology in hearing aids and was now offering it locally in Grand Rapids. In 2009 I made an appointment. My ultimate mistake.

When I arrived at the storefront address, I was greeted with much ado. I should have seen it coming. I went through the routine hearing tests which confirmed what I already knew. I couldn’t hear! But help was on the way. I now graduated from double digits per piece to triple digits per piece. At first the new devices worked much better than the earlier ones. But they needed to be charged every night. That meant a new piece of hardware that accompanied me on every trip. Another thing to keep track of.

With some adjustments, after I had used them for a month, I was satisfied with their performance. About a year later one of the aids quit working. I went back to the office only to find a sign that they had closed. I went to the parent company’s website seeking help only to be advised that if I needed service I would have to travel to Lansing or Detroit. Evidently Zounds, the name of the maker, was in financial straits. Back to square one.

Now I was spoiled. I had some of my hearing back with hearing aids. It was now 2011. I sought out another source for more reliable service. I found Hearing Life located within 5 miles of my house. I made an appointment and visited the office. The company had several locations in Michigan. They were distributors of other manufacturers. The person who I met with was professional with certified credentials for evaluating hearing.

Another round of audio testing was performed. This time I was shown graphs of each ear’s acuity at different frequencies of sound. My left ear was under 50% at many levels and below 25% at the high end of the frequencies. Now I was given a choice. Some choice! I could get a pair for roughly $1000.00 a piece that would only adjust volume, or I could get a pair for roughly $2500.00 a piece that would modulate sound and cancel background noise. So, I had a thirty-day tryout period and if I kept them the sale would be complete. I kept them. In a quiet room I could hear much better. In a restaurant, not so much.

After three years, an upgrade was offered. It was only $1000.00 a piece extra. I am now wearing the upgrade, and I still can’t hear that well in a restaurant. But I had opted for non-rechargeable, battery-operated devices. I don’t need a charger and the batteries are free. I get a review twice per year and any adjustments to the software are made during these visits.

Tomatoes

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter

There’s nothing like an heirloom beefsteak tomato, hot from the sun, sliced, and drizzled with a little bit of Ken’s Steakhouse Greek dressing! This dressing looks like it might be my own home made recipe.

Soon, come February, the Zip-locks of seed packets will be taken out of the freezer. Their temperature will be allowed to equilibrate with that of the living room prior to opening for the annual census. Tomatoes. Tomatoes first. I used to start one or two seedlings of each of 25 varieties. The last two years, I have increased the roma types, because of their convenient size for my juice packs. That has decreased the variety of heirloom beefsteaks. The salad tomatoes are holding steady. But I still like to try at least one completely new to me heirloom every year. I’d been growing Paul Robeson for years, a delicious blue salad tomato that my racist right leaning pal likes, before finding out that Paul Robeson was a famous African American socialist.

I have not shared this knowledge with my pal yet. Who am I to take away his enjoyment of a healthy pleasure? Besides, there’s some poetic justice in the situation….

So anyway, first, I take stock of the tomatoes, and figure out how many new packs to order. The peppers. Let’s not forget the peppers. I’m more open minded on the peppers. The individual variety packets don’t last as long, so there’s more opportunity for experimentation. Next, the lettuces, cabbages, broccoli, cukes, melons, etc. Then, the flowers. Gotta have zinnias and cosmos, and something new. The garden provides the chance to see a cycle of life in less than a year. From infant to crone, despite the infant mortality that comes with weeding, and the early maturity deaths due to bacterial wilt, etc., March to September is all it takes.

They say gardening is good for health. It provides opportunities for exercise, and the potential for nutritious food. Some also say it’s cheaper than hiring a shrink, but serves the same purpose. I say gardening is all of the above, and the most spiritual activity there is, linking us from beginning to end, from dust to dust.

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter

I have never contemplated…

Bronze Snake Charmer Figurine from India. Nothing like a pipe and cobra to encourage contemplation!

Such a pleasure to be able to return to my Thursday writing group. The prompt was:

“I have never contemplated…” Hmm…I dug right in. SOC (stream of consciousness). Other members of the group apparently experience my writing as a flood of words. They think I type fast. They are not the only ones who think so, but I have always made errors and the severe arthritis in my right hand in particular means the typos are more numerous than ever. “Nevertheless, she persisted….”

I have never contemplated not contemplating a significant decision. And that is just the problem. Because I have learned, through painful experience, that it’s just the things that we don’t know that we should be contemplating that are going to, as they say, nip us in the ass, or, more politely, become a sea of alligators surrounding us.

You may or may not have noticed that the writer of this paragraph has changed from the first person singular to the first person plural, and now to the second person. Shortly, the writer will change from this hated second person narrative, allowed by conservative writing pundits only to poets writing in the love lost genre, to the omniscient third person.

Getting back to the subject at hand, the contemplationless situations in the writer’s life, is easy. That is due to the fact that all humans have no choice but to participate in the human condition. Thus, each of us has much, indeed most, of our life in common with all other humans.

So just what is the nature of this thing called the human condition? The root cause of it all is consciousness. A way to explain human consciousness is the ability to keep multiple things and viewpoints in mind simultaneously. Thus, humans have always, since Eve staked the claim for choice, been able to eat, or not eat, the apple, whereas a chimpanzee faced with the same apple, in similar nominal circumstances, admittedly here left to the reader / listener to define, will eat the apple.

Other animals, for the most part, crows, ravens, elephants and some others intentionally habituated to the human world excepted, are simply driven by nature’s preprogrammed instructions. And here is the problem. We have to choose our actions.

Have you noticed that I changed back to the first person, moving in a single paragraph among different points of view? Tough bananas for those writing instructors who don’t like that. I am convinced that this paragraph is perfectly clear and not confusing at all. And if it is confusing, it’s because you, dear reader, are in a rush. Slow down for goodness’ sake, and take in these pearls of understanding.

So, if individuals take not the time to consciously choose, then the subconscious mind will take over the choosing function, which will then closely resemble that of a hard programmed member of the animal kingdom. Modern humans have this situation compounded by the fact that we have multiple layers, only partially overlapping, of loyalties, demanding that we move in direction x, y or z.

This compels the thoughtful contemplators among us to create a personal value hierarchy, or valuarchy. More on this later.

Write about what you don’t know!

Write about what you don’t know. I just realized that is the opposite advice from what people usually give. Well, it’s not going to be hard for me. Anyway, that was the prompt in my creative writing group this morning. It was good to see several people LIVE IN BODIES for the first time since CoVid. It was good to have real raspberry truffle decaf at Sozo’s. Here are a few things that I don’t know!

If I don’t know what this afternoon will bring, the same is true no less for tomorrow’s delivery.

I am glad that I invented the idea of Celebrating Uncertainty when I wrote my science fiction novel for NaNoWriMo in 2011. It helps drag me up from the deeper doom I would otherwise be forced to explore when faced with difficulties and the choices that accompany them. What, for example, will I do about the tooth that broke yesterday? I don’t know. Unfortunately for me, as a materials engineer, I am exceedingly aware that tooth enamel is very brittle. A chomp on something hard is likely to remove another big chunk. When will a painful crack get down to the nerves? I don’t know. Feeling the uncertainty helps me empathize with those who, like me, don’t have dental insurance, and who, unlike me, don’t have a choice in the matter.

What else don’t I know? Will the few new clients that have come to my business bring interesting projects that will pay the bills? Despite a burst of activity in March, new inquiries are evaporating as the doubt about the infrastructure bill in Congress comes to the forefront of corporate decision makers. Should I, a mere month after I decided I would keep the business, give up and do something else? I don’t know. But I just applied for some PPP money, so if I get it, I will have some breathing room before I have to worry about the fact that I DON’T KNOW!

What would I do, or try to do, if I did close the business? Hopefully, finish my failure analysis book, get it published, and try to follow in the path of Chris Yared, who solicited and received a Forward from a relevant person, published her book, scheduled a launch event through a bookstore, and is now writing articles and accepting speaking gigs to promote the book.

There are multiple other books I would like to write. The Idiot’s Guide to Critical Thinking, for example, although I couldn’t call it that unless Penguin agreed to publish it. Citizen Science for the Spiritually Minded. I haven’t tried that hard, but the Union of Concerned Scientists and Audubon have their own ideas of what Citizen Science is, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap with my own. Why? I don’t know. Would I have success if I write it? I don’t know. Will I have more luck finding people to give me feedback on this potential book than I have on my current projects? I don’t know. One thing I do know. Thanks to the forces of the universe for my writing groups.

Thanksgiving

Molars at the bottom of a jar — Have all my teeth fallen out????

Being somewhat of a grouch, even though recently I had several dreams about my teeth falling out, which I finally decided were not a warning to go to the dentist, but rather a message from my subconscious that I was losing my bite, and maybe some of my perceived bark, gratitude is something that I have to cultivate. I am truly filled with gratitude for being able to live a very comfortable life compared to most of the people in the world. We middle class Americans, as much as we disappear, still have it pretty good. I am really grateful that I have managed to work for my own company for 25 years. I really am grateful for not having to be in at 8 or even 7 am, as most working people do. It’s not that I am a shirker. I rarely leave before 7 pm when the work-load is normal. But I like the flexibility to pamper my night-personhood.

But grateful as I am for the privilege of living in the good old USA, it is truly depressing to watch so many people apparently veering off into a mindset so divorced from reality. What do Americans still agree on?

Well, traveling years ago in Europe, getting to know pit toilets for the first time at a fairly tender age, and then getting to study in Switzerland for a year in college, I had the opportunity to know what Europeans thought of Americans…

Americans are the people who have nice plumbing.

A Western Style toilet — Wasteful and comfortable. I am grateful for my toilet.

So here we go. Whether Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, or Alt Right of some type, we all (well almost all) wake up in the morning, pee in a nice porcelain toilet, on which we can sit comfortably if desired. We can then take a nice hot shower, brush our teeth with water that is mostly not contaminated with deadly bacteria (even if it is increasingly contaminated with harmful industrial and agricultural chemicals, and heavy metals), dry ourselves off with a nice fluffy towel, and get dressed.

So, to all of my fellow Americans, let’s remember to be grateful for the plumbing we have. We live in a country where almost everyone has a toilet in their living space. India has recently almost completed a national campaign to reach that goal, and apparently Nigeria is just starting to do something about the 4.7 million people without toilets.

Let’s be grateful, this Thanksgiving, for the basic things. Not just the food we all commonly say we are thankful for, but a place to put it when we’re done digesting it. And the fact that we don’t have to watch anyone else getting rid of theirs. And that it rarely ends back up in our drinking water.

Mycologist’s Lament

Born of the rain, this mushroom only exists after enough rain produces the right conditions for its parent mycelium to fruit!

I think these mushrooms are good for making some kind of medicinal beverage, but am not sure. But they are well socialized, not lonely!

This was from two prompts in today’s writing group:

Pluviophile and Alone versus Lonely

In my early youth, I was no pluviophile. But in college, I bought a Totes brand umbrella that had a beautiful design of those 1920’s popular bathroom decor colors of coral and turquoise, with accents of lavender and grey. I loved the colors of that umbrella so much that I actually enjoyed walking in the rain, even if I won’t claim to have prayed for rain just for the chance of using it. Thanks to Totes lifetime warranty program, when a rib bent, I sent it back for repair. But those evil people didn’t repair it the second time. Nowadays MAYBE they would have sent me email asking my preference. Then, they trashed my beloved work of art, and sent me a smaller, new-fangled automatic opening black and boring replacement. I was crestfallen. Fortunately I kept the cover, so still have a tiny sliver of memory of the colors.

Still no true pluviophile, in early middle age, having moved to the country and acquired a small flock of geese, I tried to learn to merge my consciousness with theirs when it rained. Especially when it rained enough to turn the shallow depression outside the barn into a small pond. The geese were clearly pleased when this happened, and they provided one more step on the road to my achieving equanimity with regard to the state of the atmosphere.

In late middle age, at least according to the Hindu system of life segmentation, I was less bothered by rain, unless it seemed endless. Back in 2009, the first summer of The Great Recession, it never got warm and we saw the sun and blue skies only occasionally in Michigan. The two worst state economies were California and Michigan. Miraculously, my personal economy was saved by my being hired by a company in Tennessee which was managing an investigation in the Mojave Dessert. When we did the radiographic inspection of the steel component, everyone else sat in their air conditioned vehicles. I eschewed even the shelter of the canvas tarp the radiographers had brought along. I stood basking in the sun, trying to make up for the grey Michigan summer all in one day. That night, I had no appetite. Couldn’t even finish the salad I ordered at Denny’s. Even through the migraine, I never regretted my worship of the sun that day.

Now, in early old age, I am still no pluviophile. But my new hobby of mushroom foraging gives me a small push in that direction. These last few weeks however, have been a bit much. When at last a few hours of free time presented themselves in a time frame dried out enough for me to feel like venturing into the woods with my camera and net bag, I did find a lot of mushrooms. I MAY have even found some new edible varieties in quantity sufficient for a nice side dish. But many of the shrooms were well past their prime. Some even had fungi growing on them. Fungi on the fungi! Unfortunately, I did not find any lobster mushrooms, or aborted entolomas. If a new mycologist wannabee wants to be sure that it is an edible lobster, it is advised to only take it from a patch where both normal white and the red aborted lobster forms are found together. The red comes from another fungus that grows on the main mushroom, which changes its color, and somehow detoxifies or otherwise renders it edible. The mysteries of the mushroom are amazing.

The Green Quilted Russula’s that I think I found, Russula Viriscens, were the reason I went back in the woods last Sunday, after getting attacked through half a gallon of Deep Woods Off, by hordes of mosquitos on Saturday. I had seen the green capped mushrooms and thought “those can’t be edible.” Wrong, as David Arora, master mycologist says, there is no visible trait that distinguishes toxic, inedible and edible fungi. But I am still not sure, even after looking at the spores in my scanning electron microscope at up to 18,000x (see below), whether it is an R. Viriscens or an R. Crustosa, or something else. I am fairly confident it is one of those and all are supposedly edible, although only Viriscens is supposedly choice. But keeping to the advice of smart mushroom hunters that “There are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but no old bold mushroom hunters,” I have promised only to eat those I am highly confident of the identity. Maybe next year I’ll be singing with Sam, that yes I do like Green Eggs and Ham, with good Green Mushrooms and a side of Spam.

Single spore with presumed attachment stem at arrow

And now, to the second prompt, the beauties of aloneness. Yes, I do enjoy my aloneness. Most people are more aggravating than enlightening, so I find it easier to enjoy my aloneness when I can find friendship in the pages of a book, even if the author is dead. Mushroom foraging is a challenging hobby that takes my mind off of the fact that I am alone. The fear of painful death by organ damage, usually not starting until 24 hours after ingestion, sharpens my powers of observation. As I learn, I add new experiences to the collective consciousness. Mushrooms, unlike people, minimize my loneliness, rather than magnifying it.

Crapulence

One of my new acquaintances sent me a list of things entitled “Did You Know These Things Had Names?” The message arrived just as I was taking over for our writing group leader who could not make it that day. For the record, I’m generally fourth in command in that group. There are three other people who are equally or more capable and willing, personality wise, and have more experience in leading writing groups than I do. So that day the three of them were out. Crapulence stood out to me as a good word for a prompt.

DEFINITION: That utterly sick feeling you get after eating or drinking too much is called crapulence.

Here’s what I wrote:

To live is to be bruised. As Rumi, via Coleman Barks and John Moyne said, “Aren’t we all hazy with smoke?” This is the single-most effective, concise, succinct bit of wisdom ever generated. It’s a description of the human condition. Understanding this fact, in its depth and breadth, is the path to liberation from resentment, desire for revenge, and all the evil spirits that plague humanity. If you indulge in opulence and experience crapulence, you are unlikely to be able to see the fact that we are all hazy with smoke, as your vision will be cloudy, and you won’t be able to distinguish the cloud from the haze. At least not at first.

It is said that the Buddha had his phase of opulence, but he eventually grew dissatisfied with the result, crapulent, or perhaps not, before finding a path to the clear vision that must precede understanding, which must precede liberation from fear, doubt, and trouble of any kind.

Something Silly: Cataboolie, the Unicorn Hunter

From some fun writing prompts at Mid Michigan Word Gatherers!

a unicorn hunter, a planet inhabited entirely by cats, a glitter gun, and “strange times at the cupcake pagoda”

Chapter 1: The Unicorn Hunter of Catatanga

Catatanga orbited Star X-teen 43, as it had since the birth of the multiverse, or at least as long as any of its cats could remember. The great mountain, Catmandu, towered over its base on the smallest of the five continents which pierced the surface of the smooth, green sea of Catatanga.

“Today!” Cataboolie told herself. “Today.” That was the only word Cataboolie needed. Indeed, using any other word would dilute the strength of her incantation. And Cataboolie had more self control than to do that.

She strapped her holster on, and slid the new device into the pocket. She looked out the sky light, and nodded, satisfied, at the complete darkness. She turned, and opened the door to the tunnel out of her lair, and started out toward Base G of Catmandu, her silent paws bringing her ever closer to the unicorn camp. Her skin tingled as she thought of the honors she would receive as she led the Unicorn through the streets of Tangatown.

Cataboolie found the rock she had scouted at the last dark of the moon, and slipped behind it. She steadied her breath, pulled out the glitter gun, and peeked around the rock to see the circle of prancing unicorns. “Beautiful invaders,” she thought, then quietly saying, aloud this time, “Today,” she jumped out from behind the rock and sprayed the circle of white and yellow unicorns with green glitter.

“Success!” she called. This was the cats’ price for the unicorns’ settling on Catatanga. The ritual completed, Cataboolie mounted the glittering being and urged him back toward the city.

Chapter 2: Strange Times at the Cupcake Pagoda

Business went on as usual at the post card pavilion. Briskly. Catapoochi made sure of that. His photography skills were far superior to those of the other cats of Catatanga. His network of outlets gave him economies of scale that his competitors could not even dream of achieving. Now, the Annual Festival of Uncertainty had arrived. It was the biggest event of the cats’ year, and Catapoochi had every intention of using the opportunity to build up his retirement nest-egg.

Likewise, Catakowie of the sausage pavilion was doing a brisk trade. The aromas of spicy mustard and fresh hot rolls mingled with that of the meat to attract yet more customers. Tangablu had his nephew out in front of the beach paraphernalia stand, demonstrating the latest styles of sunglasses and umbrellas. The Temple of Catachristus had a long line of devotees waiting to pray their respects.

Catapoochie looked at his pocket watch. Time to head back and make sure that Junior was keeping up with the customers. One last place to check along the way: The Cupcake Pagoda.

Catapoochi stopped and stared, along with those being pushed out of the way, as the Cupcake Pagoda expanded and bright lights flashed along the edges of both roofs. The pagoda floated off the ground. The last customers were being pushed off the floor, which was now several meters above the ground. Fortunately, the unlucky customers were encased in transparent foam bubbles, so they bounced gently as they landed on the hard planet. “Indeed!” thought Catapoochi. “Strange times at the Cupcake Pagoda!”

Good thing he had his new camera. There weren’t many who’d be able to compete with him for this postcard. Catapoochi clicked one last shot, and rushed back to relieve Junior, so his son, too, could see the miracle of the Cupcake Pagoda, with his own eyes, before it left the atmosphere of Catatanga, perhaps for good.

Category: Humor

Write about what you don’t know!

Mycologist’s Lament

This was from two prompts in today’s writing group:

Pluviophile and Alone versus Lonely

Crapulence

Something Silly: Cataboolie, the Unicorn Hunter

From some fun writing prompts at Mid Michigan Word Gatherers!

Chapter 1: The Unicorn Hunter of Catatanga

Chapter 2: Strange Times at the Cupcake Pagoda

Happy Holidays!

All beginners onceSome day we come to an endRecycling matter

This was from two prompts in today’s writing group:

Pluviophile and Alone versus Lonely

From some fun writing prompts at Mid Michigan Word Gatherers!

Chapter 1: The Unicorn Hunter of Catatanga

Chapter 2: Strange Times at the Cupcake Pagoda

Happy Holidays!

All beginners once
Some day we come to an end
Recycling matter