Meanwhile Fifty Year Later

Six down, one to go.  A fourteen-hour day just ended.  It went better than I expected.  It did end in failure and will have to be repeated in June but that’s a story for another day.  The main thing is I didn’t crash and burn in the middle and if I get through tomorrow, which will be easier than today, I can relax through my root canal or tooth extraction or whatever other dental horror story occurs on Thursday.

And I was completely isolated from the outside world today.  I don’t know whether aliens landed from the Andromeda galaxy and cured Joe Biden’s cancer and started flights of humans to their world based on a book whose title will eventually be translated to mean “To Serve Biden” (it’s a cookbook!).  I looked at the headlines tonight briefly and I couldn’t find anything of note but maybe I’m just tired.

While I was gone, I put Camera Girl in charge.  But the dogs know she is a pushover and they ran amok terrorizing her and just trampling her attempts to maintain order at the Compound.  It’s an old story.  She is acknowledged to be the world’s least effective dog owner.  She spoiled these dogs and now they neither fear no respect her.  I could restore order but what’s the use.  She refuses to discipline them in any meaningful way.  She just screams at them without any result.  But all of this is irrelevant.  Tomorrow is a day fraught with great significance.  Exactly fifty years ago tomorrow I first laid eyes on Camera Girl when she was just a seventeen-year-old babe at the beach in Brooklyn.

That day was an example of fate.  Neither of us was supposed to be at the beach that day.  And neither of us had ever met.  And just by the sheerest accident we each had a friend that knew each other and who had planned to meet at the beach.  So, by third hand luck we met and hit it off.  And now fifty years later we’re still keeping company and trying to figure out what the heck we’re going to do to keep this crazy merry-go-round twirling for a little while longer.

Fifty years is a considerable amount of time.  It’s basically my entire adult life.  The friend who knew her friend is long dead but still comes to mind from time to time because he may have been the funniest human being I’ve ever met.  I guess humor isn’t a good predictor of human success or even survival.  It is a very strange world we live in.  The unlikeliest chance can have a profound impact and steer the course of our whole life.

But all kinds of chance exist.  I had assumed we would celebrate our big day with some enjoyable event at our favorite restaurant.  But instead, I’ve got two chores to take care of and then I’m waiting on a root canal the next day that won’t let me enjoy food for a while.

What’s the expression?  You’ve got to take the good with the bad.  Well, that’s a crummy expression!  But also, very true.  Oh well.  It was a great day at the beach fifty years ago.  And there will be more great days to come.  So, on with the show.