Catching Fog

My oldest daughter likes bringing home strays. Sometimes it’s stray people. We’ve had a few of her friends wind up sleeping on our couch for a few days at a time while they were looking for more permanent digs. One young woman, for instance, had been kicked out of her adoptive grandmother’s house with nothing but the clothes on her back; she didn’t even have any identification—like a social security number—making it tough to get a job. My daughter helped her get new ID and ultimately helped reconcile her with her grandmother.

More commonly, my oldest brings home stray animals. Sometimes she gets the other daughters—and even my wife—to conspire in this process. For instance, a cat has been living with us for the past six years thanks to just such a conspiracy. My daughter and her sisters got her from a neighbor as a kitten. They made me look into its eyes. It wasn’t long before the kitten was purring on my lap. And they already knew I was inordinately fond of cats, a common failing among writers. So the cat stayed.

Her name is Halo. She is not named after the Microsoft X-box game; instead she is obliquely named after our previous cat, Angel. We had acquired Angel long before we acquired my children. A more neurotic cat you’d rarely find: terrified of people in general, she spent a good part of her day hiding under the bed. Angel had come from a friend who had married a sergeant in the Air Force who then got orders to go to England. She decided that she didn’t want to take Angel with them. The months of quarantine the poor animal would have had to endure seemed more than her fragile psyche could handle.

So my wife and I agreed to take the cat. Soon, thereafter, shortly after we had acquired the children, we also had a dog: a black Labrador mix that my wife brought home when one of her colleagues at work moved and didn’t want to take the dog—called Bear—with him. My wife’s colleague had been a smoker and Bear died of lung cancer about four years later.

Not long after that, we took in the high school-aged daughter of a couple from our church who were going through some significant problems. She stayed with us until she graduated from high school.

Our current dog is a poodle that my wife got from a dog pound when he was about a year or two old. He’s doing quite well and is completely devoted and attached to my wife.

Okay, so maybe my oldest daughter learned to take in strays because that’s what my wife and I do.

And, in the last month, my oldest daughter happened to notice a stray black cat in the neighborhood of one of her friends. Unusually friendly, the cat also happened to be pregnant. My daughter became concerned about her as the weeks went by and so one day she brought her home and set up a space for her in our garage. My daughter’s hope was that she would stay in her little bed that she had made for her and that she’d have her kittens there. My children, and even my wife, do not know cats all that well, even though we’ve had cats now for decades now. I knew what was going to happen, and of course it did.

When the time came for the mama cat to give birth, she found a place in the garage to hide and had them there. I knew she had given birth when she vanished for long periods of time from her normal bed, only coming out periodically to get food and water. My children and my wife were afraid that the kittens had died because they couldn’t see or hear them.

Of course, one day as we were cleaning the garage, my wife found where the mommy cat had given birth and where she was hiding her kittens. There were four of them. Three black, one dark gray (the mommy cat is a black cat).

So, my wife and oldest daughter moved the mommy cat and kittens to the bed that my daughter had prepared for her. She stayed there with the kittens about twenty-four hours and then promptly hid them again. This happened a couple of times, until the kittens got a bit older.

Now, my oldest daughter has created a larger space in the garage for the mommy cat and her kittens to wander about in; and since it has started getting hot, now she brings them into the house and puts them in one of our bathrooms during the day, returning them to the garage in the evening.

My daughters and my wife have already found likely homes for the four kittens once they get older, and for the mommy, too. I would not be entirely startled, however, if we somehow end up with at least one extra cat. Some strays never go away.

Send to Kindle

Pollen season continues to be upon us. March and April are the worst for me, though I suffer all year round. And then, the Powerhouse Fire that started this weekend was devastating for me. The air started smelling of smoke around my house, and the pillars of smoke rose over the nearby mountains signalling the start of something bad. I was mowing my lawn but decided to do only the front. Already I could feel some discomfort from the particulates in the air. In addition to having normal hay-fever, I developed adult onset asthma. It is primarily triggered by pollen, and specifically the pollen of the Mulberry tree.

In any case, I went inside after that and felt okay the rest of the evening. But then at 1:30 AM Sunday I woke up because I couldn’t breathe. If you’ve ever had the wind knocked out of you, then you have a good sense of what it was like. As I grabbed my emergency inhaler (which I always keep nearby), I thought to myself that this would be a really unpleasant way to die. I’ve been told that asthma can kill you. I’d never felt like that was really a possibility until that moment. Thankfully the inhaler worked and my breathing soon returned to normal. It was the worst asthma attack I’ve had in the last ten years. In fact, with my various medications I am mostly symptom free of both hay-fever as well as asthma. But not early Sunday morning. I’ve been just fine, since, thankfully.

Allergies in general are the consequence of having an overly vigilant immune system. Or a stupid one. My immune system attacks harmless visitors with the same vigor it attacks bacteria. On the plus side, I rarely get ill. On the downside, I have a tendency to sneeze like crazy over nothing.

But my allergy medications have been very effective at soothing my overactive immune system. My allergy doctor tested me a few years ago to find out what I’m allergic to. His conclusion was that if it blooms, I’ll sneeze at it. He’s never seen anyone with worse allergies in all his years of treating patients. I always wanted to be top in my field, but that wasn’t quite how I pictured it.

One evening about twelve years ago I was feeling really gloomy, very despondent. I have a tendency toward depression as well as sneezing. Since I was also starting to get the sniffles—it was early March—I took my prescription allergy medication before I went to bed. In the morning, I not only wasn’t sneezing, I wasn’t gloomy anymore. Nothing had changed in my life, however, except taking my allergy pills to relieve my sneezing.

I began wondering at that moment whether there might be a connection between a life long tendency toward depression and my life long severe allergies. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that a link had been noted by doctors between severe allergies and a tendency toward depression, at least in some instances. The connection seems more definite for women than men. However, since I became aware of possibility that my despondency and melancholy might be connected to pollen exposure, I’ve been much more diligent and consistent about taking my allergy medication. My sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes have gone away; I’m essentially symptom free all year long now. Even more significantly, my depression is mostly non-existent now, too.

I’ve also been active in retraining my thoughts. Although eliminating my allergies eliminated the physiological basis for my with my depression, I still had a lifetime’s worth of bad mental habits to overcome. A depressive person has a litany of negative phrases that he will tend to play in his head like a demotivational tape. I had to record new thoughts for myself.

So, I adjusted my behavior. I began exercising more, made a point to get more sleep, and improved my diet. Three years ago I began writing a personal journal every night before I went to bed to recount the events of my day. It has shown me that the good actually outnumbers the bad in my days. To make sure I would keep up the journal, I email a copy of it to my wife and a friend every night. In addition, I regularly read poetry, reread certain passages of the Bible that encourage me, and practice regular prayer, and meditation. All these things have been helpful in correcting a lifetime of bad thought ruts.
The consequence is that I have eliminated my depression nearly entirely. I still have the occasional gloomy moment, but nothing like the pain I used to endure almost constantly.

If you have pollen allergies, Pollen.com is a handy place to visit. Just put in your zip code and you’ll get an idea of how bad the pollen is where you live, as well as what sorts of plants are responsible. You can even get free email alerts. Also, if you have pollen allergies, make an appointment with an allergist, a doctor who specializes in treating allergies. The medications and treatments available today are very effective and lack the side effects that the older medications used to have. There’s no need to “put up with” the discomfort.

If you suffer from depression, you should also make an appointment with your doctor. You wouldn’t imagine that you could “just snap out of it” if you had cancer or a bleeding ulcer. Why do you think depression is any less a medical condition? It is very odd that there is still a stigma attached to things like depression. Many people have a tendency to think that depression is something that you’d overcome if only you were somehow stronger or a better person. That’s nonsense. The fact of the matter is that depression is physiologically based, just as much as diabetes is. You’re not going to just snap out of it. And there are now very effective treatments for depression. Talk to your doctor.

If you have a friend or family member who is suffering from depression, encourage that person to seek medical attention. Offer to take them. If they were having a heart attack you wouldn’t just pat them on the back and tell them to “cheer up” now would you?

Send to Kindle

Some of my less pleasant memories of growing up are my years of wearing braces. I was glad that I had them. I understood at the time just how critically necessary they were. I was, in fact, thankful for the privilege, even though I had to have four teeth extracted to make room for the rearranged teeth. Nevertheless, getting and having braces was not much fun.

Modern orthodontia has largely eliminated the need to removing teeth. So when my children got braces, their experience was much less painful and much less traumatic than mine. And while I had problems, early on, with my lips turning sore and hamburger-like from the drool, my daughters were spared that painful embarrassment as well. Nevertheless, my children would never call having braces a good time.

I have three daughters. And all three of them needed braces. This seems remarkable to me when I calculate the odds. Yes, I needed braces growing up, and my mom before me needed them. But all three of my daughters are adopted. All three of them came from different biological families. I would have bet that at least one of them would have been born with straight, well-fitting teeth. And I would have lost the bet.

So I have three daughters. The oldest got braces when she was in elementary school; the middle daughter got them about the same age, and finally the youngest, likewise, got braces as soon as the orthodontist said that she must.

We have excellent medical, dental and eye care insurance. It covers just about anything one can imagine. We pay nothing out of pocket for eye exams or glasses. We pay nothing for ordinary dental care, and we pay but a twenty dollar copay each time we visit a doctor.

But when it comes to orthodontic work, our insurance paid nothing. Thus, for the three years each of our three daughters needed braces, we had to fork over the money out of our own bank account.

My oldest got her braces off when she went to high school. The same happened to the middle daughter. And when my youngest finished eighth grade, the orthodontist removed her braces at last.

She was overjoyed. I was ecstatic. Not only was the financial burden of the braces finally at an end, so were the endless trips to see the orthodontist. I was so very tired of making the monthly trek to his office—and for a period of time, when all three were in braces, sometimes three treks per month.

Still, it was worth it. Not only do the braces make their smiles look better, there is a practical reason for the orthodontia: their teeth and gums will be healthier over the remainder of their lives. Not only did the wearing of braces force them to get into the habit of rigorous care of their teeth, it also pretty much eliminated any fear of the dentist for them. They’ve endured about as much discomfort over the years that anyone can experience from someone working on their teeth. Besides that, with their teeth straight and properly arranged, it will be easier for them to keep their teeth clean and healthy. Teeth that are misaligned and overlapping are simply harder to care for.

Although the time spent wearing braces may have some negative impact on self-esteem, it is relatively short lived. In contrast, having perfectly aligned teeth and beautiful smiles in high school and beyond should have a rather positive impact on them.

And frankly, braces are very common on children now. A sizable percentage of their classmates in middle school were similarly ensconced in braces. And unlike the braces I endured, modern braces are almost cool. For one thing, they are no longer just silver metal; now they are often plastic, and come in a range of bright and cheerful colors. I was constantly amazed at their smiles after a visit, when their mouths would glow pink, sometimes blue, and occasionally green or red. They seemed to like it.

But they like being free of their braces better.

Of course, for a time after the braces came off, my children had to wear retainers. For the first month after the braces came off, they had to wear them all the time, twenty-four hours a day. After that, it was only at night, while they slept.

I remember a similar routine after I had completed my suffering. I didn’t much like my retainer: it resembled a pink crustacean with metal legs. But I dutifully wore it every day and night through high school and even through my years at college. I stopped wearing it sometime after I left college and have not missed it in the slightest.

Modern retainers no longer look like a monster that might appear in a J.J. Abrams feature film. Instead, they are simple, clear plastic. They remain remarkably easy to lose or break, but at least they no longer inspire nightmares. And the fact that my youngest will not have to wear it at school means that she is less likely to lose it, since she won’t be removing it and hiding it in a napkin while she eats—and potentially dumping it in the trash afterwards. I remember coming close to that on more than one occasion over the years.

So, for now, at last, my lifelong interaction with braces is over, both for me and my children. It has been a long time coming. I hope to never see the inside of an orthodontist’s office ever again.

Send to Kindle

When I was in school, it was not uncommon for teachers to assign an essay on the question of “What did you do this summer?” as one of our first assignments. For that matter, we’d ask this sort of question of each other. But nowadays, there’s nothing to tell. Our buddies know everything we’ve been doing, unless their home computers and cell phones are busted, thanks to the advent of Facebook and other social networking sites. Not only do we share everything we do, however mundane, we include photographs that we took with our phones as it happened.

Personally, I love Facebook and email, texting and Twitter. I wish it had existed way back when I was a kid. In the old days, the only time you’d hear from your high school or college friends would be at reunions every ten or twenty years. The day I graduated from high school, my father warned me sadly that I should look carefully and think hard about everything and everyone on that day, because I’d never see any of them ever again. He spoke from experience. And indeed, I’ve never had any contact with anyone that I went to high school with ever again.

Thanks to Facebook, however, I’ve reconnected with several people from my college days. Had Facebook existed back in the dark ages, we’d never have fallen out of each other’s lives in the first place. Perhaps there would have been a few people I’d have been happy never to see again, but for the most part, staying in contact would have been a good thing.

In contrast, my children use Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram. They text each other constantly. They are always connected to everyone they have ever known. I suspect that the only way they will ever lose contact with their friends is if they consciously choose to.

And I think that’s wonderful.

Computers have brought people closer together. If it weren’t for computers, I wouldn’t ever have started writing books for Quarto, a company in London. They’d have never heard of me and I’d have never heard of them. Thanks to the computer, my editors and I could exchange files and make necessary changes and corrections nearly instantly. The writing of a book is an international collaboration; I can cross an ocean faster than I can cross my office. Thanks to computers, it doesn’t matter where I live, or where the publisher is.

Three summers ago we had a foreign exchange student visit us from France for three weeks. At the time, she was fifteen years old; she had a great time. She remarked on how everything she saw in California reminded her of TV shows and movies—even our house, the way it looks in our suburban subdivision. Her first thought on her arrival was, “I’m in the house in Desperate Housewives!”

The tour group she was a part of took her to see most of the typical tourist sites, such as Universal Studios and Magic Mountain. We also made a point to take her to places that her group didn’t visit. My oldest daughter had a summer internship in the corporate offices of Guess that summer. So we took Lea to visit. We ate lunch in the Wolfgang Puck Grill on the corporate campus, then took her to shop in the corporate store so she could enjoy the substantial discounts available there. She happily contributed in a positive way to the American trade balance. Guess clothing is much cheaper in the U.S. than in France, and in the corporate store, she paid as much for the designer label clothing as she would have spent buying the cheapest no-name brands at Walmart.

We also took her up to see the Hollywood sign: not as most tourists see it, but up as close as you can get, within hiking distance. In fact, it wasn’t legal for us to get any closer to it than we did. We also took her to see Vasquez Rocks, a tumble of rock formations that are part of the San Andreas Fault. They frequently appear in westerns and in episodes of Star Trek—for instance the episode from the original series where Captain Kirk fights the Gorn, a reptilian alien that he finally bests when he makes gunpowder, stuffs it in a hollow log, and blasts him with rocks. Vasquez Rocks also served as a stand in for Vulcan during the first of J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie. But Lea didn’t recognize them from TV or movies. Instead, she told us she’d seen them in one of her brother’s video games, Grand Theft Auto.

She told us she doesn’t much care for French food; instead, she’d rather eat American style food. In fact, one of her goals was to eat hot dogs, which she did at every opportunity. The only uniquely French behavior we witnessed from her—besides speaking French when she was with her fellow students from the tour—was when we took her to a nice restaurant just before she left for home. She ordered a cheeseburger, but then proceeded to eat it with her fork and knife. She said that at fast food places like In-and-Out, it was fine to eat with her hands. But in a restaurant, she said it felt funny to eat that way. In France, she never uses her hands to eat–unless she’s at a McDonalds.

Since she left, we have remained in contact with her on Facebook; unlike most of the exchange students we had in the past, we’ll never lose contact. In fact, we first got to know her on Facebook, even before she arrived. And thanks to all of that, she and her parents invited my oldest daughter to come stay with her in France the following summer, which my daughter did. She had a great time and got to practice the two years of French she’d taken in High School.

Send to Kindle