Trekkychick

Dear Readers,

As an adoptive parent to a betta*, I find that being a good parent is in the little things, like maintaining the water level in my pet fish’s bowl to ensure he has enough oxygen to breathe. So when my dad came over the other night to fix my car brakes (thanks dad) and partake of the lovely meal I’d prepared for him (thanks Pizza Hut) and said “It appears you have not maintained the water level in your pet fish’s bowl, therefore, your fish hasn’t enough oxygen to breathe,” I reluctantly set down my slice of stuffed crust pizza (you know, the one I’d made from scratch) and brought Lieutenant Commander Betta’s bowl over to my kitchen sink for a quick cleaning and water refill.

*For those illiterate Readers (is that an oxy moron?) confusing betta with its homophonic relative beta, let me assure you that I in fact have a pet fish and not a pet isomeric compound. Isomeric compounds are so expensive to keep as pets these days.

Well as I poured the excess dirty water from LCB’s bowl prior to dumping him in the container of dechlorinated water that serves as his temporary residence as I clean and disinfect his bowl, LCB apparently misread the situation as an opportunity for freedom rather than certain death, and made a mad dash in the direction of the edge of the bowl. And before I could say, “No, Lieutenant Commander Betta, don’t go down there because that’s the garbage disposal,” LCB swam right out of the bowl and plummeted down the garbage disposal.

My father, champion of all living creatures great and small, heard my hysterically unhelpful cries of “No, Lieutenant Commander Betta, come back! The garbage disposal is a terribly unwise place to reside if you want to live!” and, tossing his pizza aside, hurried over to heroically fling his arm down the garbage disposal, grasping around desperately for his fallen comrade. Several times throughout the next 90 seconds he was certain he had found my fish only to bring up the remains of a meal I’d not quite finished the week before (“Troi, you realize the purpose of a garbage disposal is to use it to dispose of this food?” “Thanks, dad, I believe you’ve identified the source of the mysterious odor pervading my kitchen and dining area!”).

As my dad’s garbage disposal scavenger hunt lingered on, I had already moved through the five stages of grief and was pondering the greater post-mortem issues in life, such as where I should buy my next betta fish and what I should name him or her. Yet my dad, never one to give up on a lost fish, continued his heroic attempts and finally produced from the disposal my dear undeparted Lieutenant Commander Betta!

I was not optimistic at the likelihood Lieutenant Commander Betta would survive after his traumatic abduction by the garbage disposal, but remarkably he bounced back well from his extended stay in the disposal and, five days later, he is gliding gaily around his bowl as if nothing ever happened.

And my father the hero has recommended that from now on I use the other side of the kitchen sink and implement use of the handy stopper (that’s what that disc-shaped doodad sitting on my counter is for!) to plug the drain to prevent future mishaps.

Thanks, dad!

–Troi out

Have you ever attempted to teach a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. to a group of 2nd grade students with communication disorders whose first language is Spanish? A simplified yet factual exploration into the man behind the holiday managed to slip into the throes of revisionist history as yesterday’s lesson inadvertently wandered off-topic despite Ms. Troi’s heroic efforts to cling to her intended lesson.

Ms. Troi: Does anybody know why Martin Luther King is so important to us?

Kids: Wasn’t he the president?

Ms. Troi: No, he wasn’t the president. Martin Luther King was actually –

Kids: What about Abraham Lincoln? Wasn’t he a president?

Ms. Troi: Yes. But back to –

Kids: But Abraham Lincoln was ass-inated!

Ms. Troi: Do you mean “assassinated?”

Kids: (giggling) Ms. Troi just said a bad word!

Ms. Troi: So Martin Luther King was –

Kids: Was George Washington a president?

Ms. Troi: Yes, he was the first president.

Kids: Oh man, so he must be like so OLD!

Ms. Troi: No, um, he’s dead. But remember, we’re actually learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. He was important because –

Kids: Wasn’t he a president?

Ms. Troi: (Giving up.) Yes. Yes, he was the president. (Holds up a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. from a history book.)

Kids: Oh, yeah, I know him! He was on TV the other day talking about health care!

Ms. Troi: Here, kids, do this worksheet. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to go throw myself in front of a school bus.

–Troi out

The following is an excerpt from my brain, on 1/08/11 9:12am – 9:19am, PST.

The light has gone out in my bedroom closet. I’ll have to choose my outfits in the dark from now on. Either that or I’ll have to change the lightbu— HA HA, like I would actually attempt to change a lightbulb after the lightbulb fiasco of ’04, when I dropped the fixture and it shattered into pieces on my floor, and I was stepping on glass for weeks but it’s fine, really, because I was overdue for a tetanus shot back then anyway and it totally motivated me to make that appointment. Anyway, people got along just fine for centuries before Humphry Davy invented the lightbulb and Thomas Edison capitalized on it. I can color-coordinate in the darkness. Is this shirt navy blue or purple? Or dark brown maybe? OW is that a piece of glass I just stepped on??

Shoot, where’d I put my flashlight? Wasn’t it someplace obscure….?

–Troi out

Dear Readers,

We are all bonded by one thing each New Year —- The ill-fated New Year’s Resolution. Undivided by race, religion, or politics, the New Year’s Resolution is unlike the forty days before Easter known as Lent, where Catholics give up a desired food/drink item or behavior for five of those days but with the honest intent to make it the entire forty, nor is it akin to the fast taken on during daylight hours among Muslims observing the month of Ramadan. These practices are confined to select groups of people who share similar cultural or religious beliefs. The New Year, on the other hand, is universal. Indeed, all mankind will observe the passing of the old year, and even those who fall asleep before midnight will undoubtedly wake to the subsequent year.

And it is likewise universal that nobody rings in the New Year with the sentiment that perfection was achieved in the old year; typically one recalls what was deficient in that past year and resolves to change it in the New Year; whether it be eating less, exercising more, quitting smoking, being kinder to others, eating more raw yak, crickets, and ostrich sandwiches, or creating loose ends for others to have to tie up.

The problem, if you will, with these resolutions is that they all require willpower. Willpower (n): The power I will one day have to successfully fulfill a resolution, but don’t currently appear to have (ref. The Dictionary of Troi). And when our willpower fails us, we often feel guilt and/or shame at having failed ourselves.

Who wants to begin a perfectly promising New Year anticipating guilt and shame? Well, Readers, you can resolve to feel guilty and ashamed no more, by following my easy steps for New Year’s Resolution success!

Step 1: Make Realistic Resolutions. Eating less can be troublesome for those of us who are very hungry, but eating less between the hours of 1:20 – 1:27am each day feels very attainable. I am usually asleep during these hours, which decreases my likelihood of snacking and therefore increases my likelihood of success! Take another example. Being kinder to others in general can be challenging, but being kinder to the people we already like is really quite easy! You’ll find that you rarely have an urge to be unpleasant to the people you like the most, and you can continue to berate and belittle the people you don’t much care for while still achieving your resolution.

Step 2: Make Resolutions Vague. Never quantify resolutions. For example, don’t say, “I’ll go to the gym twice a week this year,” but instead say, “I’ll plan on heading to the gym this year.” Chances are, you’ll end up driving past the gym at least once by default, thereby successfully satisfying your resolution.

Step 3: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again, For Up to 365 Days. Technically, the new year lasts for a whole year, so even if you fail to eat vegetables for the first 364 days, you can still eat a carrot stick on the following New Years Eve and meet your goal of “eating more vegetables this year.”

Step 4: Compare yourselves to bigger failures. If you follow Steps 1–3 and you still find that you don’t meet your resolution, just find somebody who failed on an even larger scale. I like to laugh at this guy who resolved to lose thirty pounds in the New Year but fell off of his exercise bike the first day and fractured his leg, leading him to gain weight.

Readers, I hope this helps you on your way to achieving your New Years Resolutions. You can do it! (But if you can’t, follow steps 1-4.)

–Troi out

Disclaimer: Troi does not presume to believe anything she writes, nor write anything she believes. She does not endorse the 4-step resolution program. She encourages you to read her blog, and please subscribe, but discourages you from following her advice. She also wishes you a Happy New Year blessed with joy and love and kindness.

Dear Readers,

‘Tis always the season to give of ourselves to others, yet it seems we are more acutely mindful of this during the Christmas season. This is perhaps because it was on Christmas that the tradition of giving was sparked, what with the Wise Men giving Frank’s incense to the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem (“Hey, that’s my incense!” said Frank). So as I walked to Fred Meyer the other day, wearing my Christmas earrings and humming a classic Christmas tune in typical tone-deaf fashion, it may have been my Christmas spirit that led me to notice an elderly man headed in the opposite direction limping along at a snail’s pace and having to set down his big bag of groceries at nearly every step.

Suspecting that at the rate he was walking he might miss Christmas entirely, I approached him and asked if he needed help. Having recently had both hips replaced, he did in fact need help returning home with his bag, and so began possibly the slowest stroll I’ve ever taken. You know those people who stop to smell the roses? I usually walk so fast that I don’t even notice the rose bushes until I walk right into them (“Ow, every rose really does have its thorn!” I then say). Elderly Man and I chatted for over half an hour on our way back to his apartment, during which time I discovered I was in the presence of Don Johnson, former pro- baseball player for the White Sox and the Yankees.

I think of Portland as a friendly city, but Readers, maybe it’s not friendly enough, because Don seemed shocked by my help. He must have thanked me at least several dozen times, and was unrelenting in his offers to give me a couple of dollars for my troubles, which I was equally relentless in declining (“No, really, sir, a couple dollars might have been the down payment on a house in your day, but it won’t even get you half a latte these days,”). As we approached his apartment building, Don became concerned that a young lady entering his apartment building with him would make “people talk,” and while I helpfully tried to ease his concerns, (“Sir, I think our 50-year age difference will speak for itself, Anna Nicole notwithstanding,”) he nonetheless created a cover for our entrance and as another elderly man passed us in the foyer, Don shouted, “Why, hello! This is my granddaughter visiting from Washington! Yep, just my granddaughter! We’re related; did I mention she’s my granddaughter?”

The walls of his apartment were decorated with autographed pictures from his ball-playing days, and on my way out, Don presented me with one of his 1952 baseball cards, which he insisted I keep. That he entrusted his card to me—-a virtual stranger—-I was quite possibly as elated as the day I received Marina Sirtis’ autograph after standing eagerly in line for two hours.

My encounter with Don during this Christmas season reminded me to slow my pace, smell the roses, and lend a hand where needed. You never know whose day you’ll brighten: That day I was blessed enough to brighten not only Don’s day —- but my own.

–Troi out