What Would Jimmy Do?

Six months ago today Claire, and a huge part of me, died. I didn’t write what’s below for this blog, or even for anyone to read. I wrote it for myself. Someone told me sometimes it helps to write your feelings down. So far — it hasn’t. 

It’s just a fact of life that almost everyone will go through the loss of a loved one. When it happens — to someone else — people are sympathetic, but they don’t really understand. After a short time, they return to their lives and everything goes back to normal — for them.
But for us suffering the loss, things will never be the same again. Life won’t return to normal. Maybe there will be a new “normal,” but it won’t be the same, and reality sets in as we realize what that means for us.

Of course, you know that I’m talking about myself and my efforts to deal with the loss of Claire.
The first few weeks, I heard things like “try not to think about it,” “be strong,” “life must go on,” and other such words of “encouragement.” It’s normal to say things like that, but they don’t fix anything…. right now, the situation can’t be fixed.
Another group of people tried consoling me by suggesting that what had happened was “for the best,” or “it was a blessing,” or “she’s in a better place.” Of course it doesn’t seem like a blessing to me and I certainly don’t think she’s in a better place — she’s not here with me.

For a couple of months, people told me, “you are handling this so well” or “you are so strong.” The fact is that I was numb. Everything happened so fast and there was so much to do, that nothing felt real — I was convinced it all had to be a bad dream. So I kept busy and tried to comfort our kids and relatives, and to make sure they were ok.

But now that numbness has worn off and I’ve experienced a range of emotions and feelings that I didn’t even know existed. I’ve found myself getting worse — not better. I find every day a thousand times more difficult than they were at the time she died. 
Every day, I wonder what’s wrong with me — why am I not handling this better?  By now things should be getting better, but they seem to be falling apart. 
Someone said that grief is the cost of loving. I suppose that’s maybe true, but It’s certainly a high price to pay.

It seems like everyone has their own idea of how grief works — right now, I can tell you that I have no idea. I really can’t describe how I feel — I’m angry, sad, miserable, confused, befuddled, disoriented, reclusive, lonely, mindless, and I could go on and on — it seems like I go directly from one state into the next. I guess in a nutshell, it feels like I’m losing my mind. I’m constantly trying to accept something that is unacceptable. I find myself totally exhausted — I go to bed tired, don’t sleep well, and get up tired. All my energy is apparently being used up just trying to survive. 

While I do have short periods when I think I’m getting better, suddenly out of nowhere I get this overwhelming feeling of grief — it’s like I imagine a panic attack must feel…. I guess these are “grief attacks.” So far I’ve suffered through Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, her birthday, our anniversary, and our daughter and son’s birthdays, but sometimes just “things” bring on these attacks — her favorite TV program, a letter — still addressed to her, or even just seeing one of her good friends…..

Something that Claire used to say all the time — “it is what it is” — that’s true. I’m trying to make the most of what I have left. Right now, I’m not sure how I’m going to do that, but six months from today, I’m going to sit down and put my feelings on paper…. and then compare it to what I wrote today. Hopefully, my words then will reflect some amount of progress on my journey…..
— 30 —

When we lived in Manila, we were fortunate to have been able to make a few trips to Baguio — up in the mountains where the climate was temperate, even cold during the nights. Back in 1903, Baguio was made the Summer Capital of the Philippine Islands. As you may or may not know, the Philippine Islands became a territorial possession of the United States shortly after the Spanish-American War. Anyhow, shortly after Baguio was proclaimed  the Summer Capital, President Theodore Roosevelt reserved an area of 535 acres for military use in the area. This reservation was named Camp John Hay — in honor of John Milton Hay, the Secretary of State in President McKinley’s and Roosevelt’s administrations. 

When we lived in the Philippines, there was a very nice golf course at Camp John Hay. We usually stayed in Baguio — all the houses had fireplaces, and you needed them at night. On one of our trips, we had dinner one night at the Forrest House — It was an old house that was a restaurant. It still looked like a regular house… when you ate there you might be seated in the living room or maybe the dining room or even the hall. It made for kind of an intimate setting. Anyhow, the house was located on the edge of town and you had to go there the day before and tell them what you wanted for dinner, because they had to go shopping to get the food. We went out one afternoon to make reservations for dinner the following night. I knocked on the door and an old lady answered and took my order and asked how we liked our food prepared, etc. While I was talking to her, another guy came up and  followed the same routine and he ordered steak and wanted it well-done. The lady told him if he wanted his meat well done, he should order fondue and cook it himself, because she wouldn’t serve him steak well-done. He agreed and we both left. When I got in the car, I told Claire about the guy and fondue. She said fondue sounded like fun — maybe we should do that next time. 

It just happened that the next night we were seated in the same room with another table of four — one was the guy that ordered the fondue. Everyone seemed to be having a good time until suddenly Claire screamed, “your shirt’s on fire!” I looked up and sure enough the fondue guy had somehow managed to set his shirt on fire — and — hadn’t even noticed. Some of the staff came running and almost immediately put the fire out — it looked like it was the pocket on his shirt that somehow caught fire. Everyone finished their meal and didn’t seem to pay much attention to the big black hole in the guy’s shirt. 
Just another day in Baguio and a fitting way to end an enjoyable day of golf…..
— 30 —

A few days ago, I mention how our first dinner party, after we were married, didn’t turn out quite like we had planned. That brought to mind another dinner party that didn’t go exactly as planned….

We had just moved from our downtown apartment in Manila to a house in one of Manila’s suburbs. We had a “live-in” maid — her quarters were just off the kitchen. She did everything — cleaning, shopping, cooking, etc. 

Anyhow, shortly after we moved, a fairly high ranking official came to Manila to attend a conference. We invited him and several embassy people over for dinner. The night of the dinner party turned out to be Carmen’s (our maid) cousin’s birthday. Claire told her to go to the birthday party — she’d take care of dinner. Well, it turns out that Carmen prepared everything except the main dish before she left for the party and before our guests arrived. So Claire only had to do the main dish — I think it was a roast or something like that that didn’t need a lot of preparation. 

Carmen, being super efficient, like she always was, thoroughly cleaned the kitchen before she left. Shortly before our guests arrived, Claire put whatever finishing touches were necessary on the main dish and put it in the oven to cook slowly for a couple of hours. When everyone arrived, we sat in the living room having drinks and appetizers. When it was time for dinner, Claire and myself went into the kitchen to get food on the table in preparation for the meal. When we opened the oven door, there sat the roast — just like it was a couple hours before…. uncooked and cold. I checked and the stove was plugged in, there were no fuses (not circuit breakers) blown. Finally, Claire found the problem. Apparently when Carmen had thoroughly cleaned the stove before she left, she had turned on the timer and the oven was set to start cooking in a couple of hours. We went back in the living room and Claire explained what had happened and apologized profusely. Everyone (except us) thought it was funny. Everyone got in their cars and we went to a Chinese restaurant. I picked up the check — turned out to be one of the most embarrassing — and expensive — dinner parties we ever had.
— 30 —

I have to admit, these writings have been pretty boring recently — I imagine they have produced a yawn or two. Well, that got me to thinking…. why do people yawn anyway? And did you ever notice that yawning seems to be contagious? I think  it even has an official term — “contagious yawning.”

You may think that people yawn because they’re tired or bored, but the traditional medical explanation is that oxygen levels in their lungs are low. However, some of my extensive research on the subject discovered that babies yawn before they’re even born. They pick up the habit as early as 11 weeks after conception. If I’m not mistaken, babies don’t take in oxygen through their lungs and I don’t see how they’d get tired — they pretty much sleep all day. I’m not sure if they get bored or not….

It appears that the bottom line is that scientists don’t really understand why we yawn. I did find an interesting “study” though — it found that 55 percent of people will yawn within five minutes of seeing someone else do it. Sometimes just hearing, thinking or reading about a yawn is enough to make people unconsciously yawn themselves. 

Even though scientists don’t know exactly why, they have come up with a few theories.
One theory is that contagious yawning is more common among those who demonstrate a greater ability to understand and share other people’s feelings. I suppose that makes some amount of sense.

Dr. Gordon Gallup and his team at the University of Albany say that contagious yawning evolved as a way to “maintain group vigilance.” Gallup thinks yawning keeps our brains working at cool, efficient, and alert levels. So in the days of early man, contagious yawning helped raise the attentiveness and danger-detecting abilities of the whole group. I’m not too sure about that one….

Humans aren’t the only ones that yawn — foxes, sea lions, hippos, dogs and cats are some of the animals that do it. There are some studies that demonstrate some animals, like dogs and chimpanzees, may also suffer from contagious yawning. 

But it looks like yawning is here to stay… when I see someone yawn I always think of an old joke — A wife was talking to her husband and after a few minutes she said, I was talking to you and I saw you yawn 5 times — was I boring you? And the husband said, I wasn’t yawning, those were unsuccessful attempts to speak.
— 30 —

Claire was a good cook — I think she was a really good cook. But one of the first “dinner parties” we had after we were married, may have shaken her confidence a little. Actually, I don’t think anything ever shook her confidence, but this is a good memory and — I think — an interesting story. 

Since this was our first attempt at entertaining guests after we were married, Claire had prepared most everything ahead of time so she could spend time with our guests instead of being in the kitchen. I can’t remember what she served, but it was a dish that was served over rice. 

After the guests arrived, I served drinks to everyone and we all sat in the living room. Claire was heating everything in the kitchen in preparation for dinner. She had everything all set except to cook the rice. She put the rice in the pan, put it on the stove, turned on the burner and then poured herself a glass of wine and joined us in the living room. When she thought the rice had cooked long enough, she excused herself and went to the kitchen — but — it turns out that she had put the rice on the stove and turned on the burner, but the burner she turned on wasn’t the one the rice was sitting on. So she moved the rice, and turned on the burner, and poured herself another glass of wine. She came back in the living room and told the guests dinner would be ready in 20 minutes (I’m not sure about the time she actually said.) 

Well, 20 minutes later when she checked on the rice, she discovered that she had moved the rice and turned on the wrong burner again. I remember dinner being served a little later than planned that night, but by the time it was served, everyone had had enough drinks that no one seemed to mind.
— 30 — 

When we were much younger and living overseas, we had a well-stocked liquor cabinet because (1) liquor was very cheap (no taxes) and (2) we entertained a lot and for some reason back then people seemed to consume more mixed drinks or “cocktails.” At just abut any dinner party, guests usually had a cocktail of some kind and usually had wine with dinner. 

Anyhow, we knew how make lots of mixed drinks and discovered many others that were unique to the particular location where we were living/visiting. One of the more interesting drinks that I discovered while in Africa is called Dawa — it’s a legendary cure for ancient ailments. The first time I had a Dawa was in the Congo — later on the same trip when I visited Nairobi and asked for a Dawa, everyone was very surprised that I knew of the drink. Apparently they thought it was unique to Kenya. 

Dawa means “medicine” or “magic potion” in Swahili. The recipe that I have came from a restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya, called “The Carnivore.” It’s (was) a pretty cool restaurant —I’d call it a barbecue joint. But when I was there, it was licensed to serve gazelle, giraffe, and zebra. 
By now, you’re probably anxious to try a Dawa — so, as a public service, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
8 tots vodka (a “tot” is a small amount of a strong alcoholic drink such as whiskey or vodka.)
8 ounces lime juice
4 teaspoons honey
Rub the rim of old-fashioned glasses with a lime and dip the rim into a saucer of sugar.
Mix, in a separate glass, all the ingredients and stir well. (I use a swizzle stick or Dawa stick.)
Warning:  Do not add ice,because it will congeal the honey and be difficult to stir. 
When thoroughly mixed, add ice to the glasses and pour in the finished Dawa.

I think you’ll probably like this drink and I think I should mention that it goes extremely well with Elephant Stew. I highly recommend it.
And to save you the trouble of searching, here’s my favorite recipe for Elephant Stew:
Ingredients:
1 elephant
200 gallons brown gravy
30 rabbits
1 ½ gallons bottled hot pepper sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Cut elephant into bite-size pieces; cover with gravy and cook over fire at 465ª F. for 4 weeks.
This serves 3,800 people. If you are expecting more, add rabbits. But, this should be done only if necessary — people don’t like finding hare in their stew.
— 30 —

Years ago, when our son was probably about 3 years old, we visited my parents in Oklahoma. On Sundays we always went to church with my mother. One Sunday, my mom gave David a fifty-cent piece and told him to “give this to Jesus when we’re at church.” Well, we went to church and the kids sat between myself and Claire. I didn’t know that my Mom had given Dave the money and when the collection plate was passed he didn’t put anything in it — I didn’t expect him to. Anyhow, after church we went home and had “Sunday dinner” — a tradition at my parents house. During the meal, Dave was playing with the fifty cent piece my mom had given him. My mother said, “I thought you were going to give that to Jesus.” Dave’s reply was, “He never showed up.”
— 30 —

Quite a long time back, I wrote about ketchup — I chose the subject because when  our daughter was little she insisted on putting catchup on everything she ate. Anyhow, if I remember, I discussed kind of how ketchup came about — it was originally made from fish brine, and even today, all ketchup isn’t made from tomatoes. 

But when I sat down here, I intended to write not about ketchup, but mayonnaise. (If you’re interested more in ketchup, just type ketchup in the search box for this blog.)

There was a time when mayonnaise was a celebrated — even noble — sauce and not just some glop that you put on sandwiches. That time was 1756; the place was Mahon, a city on the Spanish island of Minorca. The city of Mahon was captured by the forces of Louis-Francois-Armad de Vigneron du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. That resulted in the expulsion of the hated English from the island. 
Well, after a hard day fighting the English, Louis decided they should celebrate, so he ordered his chef to whip up a feast.

The chef decided to make a cream sauce for the meats he was preparing, but he discovered that there was no cream to be found. So the chef grabbed some eggs, olive oil, and a whisk (and probably said a prayer.) The result of the chef’s inventiveness was Mayonnaise — named for the captured city. 
The French love that sauce so much that they’ve invented over 50 variations of it.

The basic difference in American-style mayo and French-style is that American-style uses whole eggs, lemon juice, oil and is seasoned with salt and sometimes a bit of sugar. French-style uses egg yolks as well as mustard in addition to lemon juice and oil and is seasoned simply with salt.

Robin Williams once said, “Gentiles are people who eat mayonnaise for no reason.” I’m not sure I quite understand what that means, but since I don’t know any more about mayonnaise, it seems like good place to stop. 
— 30 —

With the coming of Artificial Intelligence, all the scams on the phone and Internet, and the political rhetoric, it seems like we’re living in fact-free world. Of course whether they were for fun, notoriety, or profit, hoaxes have been around almost forever. 

When I was little I remember hearing about the famous radio broadcast “War of the Worlds” that caused widespread panic because people really thought aliens were invading the Earth. It turns out that on September 19, 1994 a similar incident traumatized an entire city in northern China. On televisions in Taiyuan, China a scrolled message warned people about the gruesome Sibuxiang Beast, a creature with a deadly bite. “It is said that the Sibuxiang is penetrating our area from Yanmenguan Pass and within days will enter thousands of homes. Everyone close your windows and doors and be on alert!”

Taiyuan residents panicked — some even barricaded themselves inside their homes. Local officials were soon swamped with anxious telephone calls. 
But it was all a giant misunderstanding. The Sibuxiang Beast was real, but it wasn’t an animal — it was a new brand of liquor. The townspeople had been watching a commercial. 

The creator of the ad was fined the equivalent of $600 for causing a public panic, but the incident turned Sibuxiang liquor into a household name virtually overnight. Three months after the incident, the owner reported that his client base had quadrupled. 

It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, people would react like that. But then again, politicians and congress apparently think the human race is pretty gullible.
— 30 —

When I lived in Saigon, I had an apartment downtown on Tu Do Street. I basically only slept there, because during the height of the war, we worked long hours and often didn’t come home for several days. But I had a really great maid that took care of the apartment and looked after me — as best she could. Rarely was I home for dinner and she seemed to “worry” that I wasn’t getting enough to eat. She would always ask in the morning if I would be home for dinner. I usually said no, but occasionally I told her that I might…. in those cases she always prepared a very good meal and always much more than I could eat. If I didn’t make it home for dinner when she was expecting me, she always left it all prepared for me to just heat it up. 

On one occasion, I was “up country” for a few days and the day that I was returning, she was going to prepare dinner. Well, as was kind of normal back then, I didn’t get back until later than expected and an associate that I was traveling with suggested we go out for dinner when we returned. I told him that I was sure my maid had prepared dinner, so I invited him to my place — he accepted, and even though we were both dirty and tired from the trip, went to my place to have dinner. We had a couple of drinks and decided it was time to eat. We went in the kitchen and there was a pan on the stove with some big lumps of meat and some rice in it. I turned on the burner and  sat the pan on it — my friend said he though it was supposed to be soup and we should add some water. I figured that it was some kind of meat over rice and we should just heat it… but — my friend convinced me, so we added some water and had another drink, or may three, until it was heated. We dished it out and it actually had a pretty disgusting taste — which I thought was unusual, because the maid was a very good cook. We both decided that we should just go out for dinner, or at least look around the kitchen for something else. We opened the oven door and there was a really good-looking casserole, or something that looked like a casserole. Anyway, we turned on the oven, had another drink, or three, and whatever she had prepared and put in the oven was really good — I think we ate all of it. 

The next day, my maid was terribly annoyed with me and finally she told me that I had totally messed up her cat’s dinner…..
— 30 —