How come?

How come some certain things can work in some certain ways to make certain people mad as hell? Let's begin with the recharger cable for the IPad. Every single time I have tried to plug the charger into the pad, the connector is upside-down. One hundred times out of one hundred. I look at the connector and make an educated guess as to which way it goes and every single time I'm wrong! This should be a fifty-fifty split. I suspect that the plug-in port on the IPad deliberately twists itself so the plug won't fit. I suspect that Steve Jobs set it up that way just for laughs.

And it's not just electronics! I have a seriously looking leather apron, given to me by my wonderful wife, that's meant to protect my old and frail body from chunks of wood flying off the lathe. When I put this neck to knee shield on, I need to clip a strap behind my back. The clip only works one way. I never, ever, get it right on the first try! I attempt to fool the connector by twisting the strap behind my back. Wrong! Next time, I don't twist the connector. Wrong! Every single time I put on that apron it takes two tries to get it right!

My plan is this: tomorrow I will attempt to plug my IPad charger into my leather apron. What's to lose?

Life is a stadium

Sometimes an idea storms into your brain and expands, adding its own details and forming a picture that's precise, right down to the background music. Sometimes that process takes only seconds. It happened to me just yesterday, while I was chatting on the phone with my cousin. The topic was this world, and where we fit into it as we age; it's a discussion that we've had many times before.

This time I successfully summed it up in a single sentence: "Life is like a stadium: you begin as a player on the field, then work your up the bleachers as you age until, eventually, you fall off the top row and land on your head in the parking lot."

If I try really hard I can still remember the days when I sat right on the sidelines. I even recall a few times when I was called on to take to the field. Slowly, steadily, I moved from the front row to the nosebleed seats, where even the beer sellers don't venture. At this point, I can still see what's going on way down there, but not easily and not particularly accurately. I watch the players racing round and round, I hear the hollers of the fans below, but I can't really grasp the point of the game. My mind decides to pay less attention to the fray on the field and more to the shape of clouds overhead because clouds change and the game stays pretty much the same.

I'm not at the top row yet and I can't look down to the parking lot where I'll someday be headed, but with each move upward I feel a little less connected to all the stuff the younger ones in the better seats find incredibly important: the latest TV shows, sports of every stripe, political comedy, Facebook. From my position high up I discover that I can tune out the cheers, lean back, and watch the clouds go by. As long as I don't lean back too far...