All posts by X Teri

I Didn’t Write the Rules

04/11/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

In terms of creativity…

dasdas

I forgot to complain about the anti-vaxxers while I was up on the rantbox. I’m hoping you guys remember that they are always on the periphery of my general scorn.

“The price of living a long life is indeed a tortured mind.” -x

Make sure you’re getting all the qualifications right, or you’ll be married to the high school quarterback instead of the prom queen. Cheap is good but quite often is the worst choice.

Snarky observation perhaps, but society voted on this.

Springdale, Travel

Hogeye Marathon and Water Balloon Extravaganza

04/08/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

The Hogeye Marathon is today in Springdale. Last year’s male winner ran the 26-mile course in 2 hours and 59 minutes – which is great, considering that I hit him with 4 water balloons along the route. (He can run fast but a car always wins.) I almost got into real trouble until I pointed out that they shouldn’t issue ID numbers for the runners, who conveniently place them on their chests for us to pick them out of the crowd. Since the marathon is passing extremely near my house this year as it runs along Friendship Road, I thought it might be amusing to move the route one block the wrong direction. (My idea to place winner’s tape across the route at each mile marker also failed to earn any accolades.)

One tradition I’m definitely doing again this year is dressing like a runner and going out to do the post-interviews that local TV stations insist on doing. It usually takes them a couple of minutes to realize that I didn’t actually compete in the race – most often about the same time they look at my stomach fighting to stay confined in spandex shorts. One of these days I’m going to make it onto the news, because you can only show the same clichés a few hundred times until they become stale. “A marathon is a race against oneself,” and “Running is a lifestyle” sound great, just like “Ice, Ice Baby” until your ears start bleeding from repetition.

“Running is a mental sport and you’d have to be mental to run a marathon.” This was the motto I submitted to the Hogeye team this year. Instead of using it, I got a cease-and-desist letter, wrapped around a brick, tossed through the living room window. They didn’t even consider the new logo I proposed: a chalk outline of a body on the sidewalk.

The Hogeye Marathon is supposedly a boon for local tourism and since it moved from Fayetteville to Springdale this year, I hope this is true. Most of the folks on the east side of town only see people running when a large animal is chasing them; I’m afraid they’ll wrongly assume that some sort of apocalyptic event is underway if they see a mass of white people running through the streets.

I used to run when I was younger and I appreciate the stamina needed to run 26 miles. Please keep that in mind if the water balloons start flying this morning. The flyer says to ‘stay hydrated,’ and it should have been more specific as to the methodology.

Springdale did well in snagging this event and I hope everyone has as much fun as possible while they are out there demonstrating a strong masochistic tendency.

Runner’s Video

Personal, Whimsical

…that untouchable moment

04/06/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Each day contains a secret moment in time; in that moment, colors belie their nature, music kidnaps our senses, and laughter beats at our hearts like a long-lost friend. We never know when that moment might be or who will inhabit the moment as our day overtakes us. The happy people in life reside in a parade of those moments. We mortals are lucky to experience a handful.

Today, I hung the remainder of the crystals I surprised Dawn with so many weeks ago. Intent on my mundane tasks, I casually forgot that I had done so. The globe crystals went well with the obelisk I had already placed there, facing west.

I went outside to take out the trash and detoured around the house to startle my cat Güino, who was sleepily occupying the chair placed against the street side window. (It’s ‘Bird TV’ for him there, and he can lie there and accompany Dawn as she crazily types at her computer.) As he lazily turned his head to peer over the windowsill, I tapped the glass with a bang and yelled, “Boo!” The cat rewarded me with a total body lift from the chair. I laughed. The neighbor across the street looked over at me, her right hand shielding her face from the sun; undoubtedly, she was gauging what nonsense the gringo might be up to again.

Returning inside, my eyes switched from the glare of the nuclear sunlight outside to the dim confines of my living room. The cat had jumped up to either greet me or bite me, in order to register his contempt for my idiotic scareplay at the window.

I opened the door to the back bedroom and a million shards of polychromatic light greeted me. The crystals had chosen that moment to cascade in a dazzling colorscape. Even though I rarely succumb to such impulses, I wanted to capture the breadth of the surprise all over the ceiling, walls, and contents of the room. Instead of standing there to observe the fleeting barrage of hues, I left to capture the image.

By the time I returned to snap a picture of it, the words of Nate from Six Feet Under resounded in my head: “You can’t take a picture of this. It’s already gone.” And it was – not just the array of colors and shards of color thrown haphazardly about, but the moment of amazement.

I can re-imagine the spectacle of surprise and light, or feebly attempt to share it via failing words with Dawn, but it has departed. It has escaped, after having briefly pushed out the walls of my life for a moment. I have this picture of it, after 90% of it had vanished, a speeding car already in the distance. I can lie in wait tomorrow or another day, hoping to recapture the surprise but these moments are nimble thieves, stealing our precious seconds as we scamper from one possible moment of happiness to another, never tiring of the possibility contained in the moments.

Whimsical

(X)

04/05/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

With great astonishment, I find myself regarding the tenacity with which we insist on staying on the train platform even though we know we must board.

dev-benjamin-219184

wrwrwerewe

For all those needing a quip about a bad date…

Some would wrongly argue that this is a political comment, but it’s not.

90% of the problem…

“The Alcohol Precept”

1-1255529379whZ9

The beginner’s mind is always frothing, and youth inevitably masks many obstacles.

carrie-o-brien-38791

Social Rules, Technology

The Talking Dead of Our Youth

04/03/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Please forgive the undercurrent of snark, as I discuss the “Talking Dead” who live among us…

Last week, 4 different friends posted versions of the old meme, “Aren’t you glad we did THIS instead of THAT,” referring to pictures of being outside playing instead of on their devices when they were younger. I know you’ve seen these memes; most of them have children smiling as if the dentist just administered a quadruple dose of laughing gas and then catapulted them out the window – banished to stay there until mom hollered for them from the partially-opened front screen door. According to the nostalgic memes, no one ever stayed indoors. Evidently, we were too busy enjoying the splat of mosquito bites, Michael Jackson wannabes offering us candy from the open side door of a poorly-painted white van, and the sheer unmitigated joy of simply being outside – as if in truth our parents hadn’t forbidden us to come back inside until we were called. The rest of us were outside precisely to avoid the dangers lurking inside our houses.

The weird disconnect for me is that most of the “Talking Dead” have their phones out 24/7 and display symptoms of paralysis when they are without their devices. At least once a day I observe someone ‘freaking’ a little when they’ve misplaced their phone, the battery goes dead, or their device won’t function properly. They wander about like zombies or blind cavefish, eyes glazed, talking about seemingly nothing else. Gollum would be envious of the idolatry of their electronic devices.

All of them get defensive and pissy when I ask them why they need to have their phones by the bed, for example, even though they complain about it accidentally waking them. (Duh.) When I point out that it is possible to set parameters for emergency calls only, they recoil in horror, as if any limitation to being accessible is somehow objectionable. Our daytime hours are populated with the buzzes and pings of the devices of those who must be on constant alert, as if Star Fleet is going to call us to battle at any moment.

We evolve to use the technology available to us, tempered by disposable income and opportunity. To believe that anyone who now lives with their phone in their hand or pocket (or by their bedside at night) would not have done the same had the technology been available when they were younger is welcome to take a polygraph and get back to me.

It’s okay to have appreciated your time outside when you were younger. But if you would have had our current technology then, you might still be up in the tree but your hands would still be furiously scrolling and typing into the great internet, undoubtedly spending an hour telling me how wrong I am about your compulsion.

Comparing now to then in any respect is just another version of the “it was better back when” argument that serves only to highlight one’s age. And if you are one of the many who simply can’t walk to the bathroom without a phone, please don’t post memes about the golden days of youth, when you were outside, eating crickets or whatever thing you now glorify.

I love technology, especially when it is used creatively or as a tool. The phone isn’t the issue and it never has been.

PS: For many, the cellphone is the new purse; a repository of secrets.

Business, Personal, Uncategorized

Vindicated…

04/02/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Long personal story…. Please read knowing that all businesses, no matter their reputations, have countless great employees who don’t misbehave and/or don’t appreciate how their employers conduct business. It’s a conundrum we all face with businesses. Unless my issue is with a specific person, I in no way wish for people reading my words to think I’m painting all employees of any business with a broad brush of accusation.

A couple of years ago, I shared a story with you about Arvest mistreating my wife. An ATM failed to give her $400. She reported it immediately and Arvest fixed the error. Months later, without notice, they reached into her checking account without permission and without telling her and took the same $400 back out. There was no appeal. They had waited months, after all video evidence was gone, and without following up. Dawn politely worked to get the error fixed. Not only did she not get the error fixed, but a couple of the people working at the bank had an attitude which was dismissive, as if Dawn somehow had lied about what happened. Dawn’s feelings were hurt, to say the least. She’s polite and was certain that logic and patience would fix the problem. No one at the bank cared.

Dawn responded by deciding to leave Arvest, after many years of doing business with them. She took all of her accounts and later we got another mortgage to get away from their shenanigans.

Just because I can, I have also frequently picked on Arvest on social media. I’ve been polite, but I’ve satirically jabbed at them a few hundred times and made several memes to poke fun at the bank.

Yesterday, before coming home, we stopped at our community mailbox and checked the mail. I handed the mail to Dawn, who was seated in the passenger seat. I told her, “Look, you got a big check from Arvest,” and laughed. We joked that it was one of those fake mailers, especially since it didn’t have postage. Also, we had never given Arvest our new address, having wiped them off our feet before we ever decided to move.

I told Dawn to open the Arvest envelope. Lucky for us, she did, instead of discarding it. Inside was a check addressed to Dawn, in the amount of $400. In read, in part: “…during a review… we determined one of more disputes was denied in error. Due to this error, we are enclosing a check…” It was an unsigned form letter with no explanation as to how they got Dawn’s address, nor did it contain any sort of apology.

The look on Dawn’s face was priceless.

More than the $400 Dawn got in the mail, the admission that Arvest screwed up a couple of years ago when we said they did is worth much, much more than that. It should have never happened, because Dawn would have stayed with the bank for the rest of her life, if possible. Now we have the magical words in writing and those words all this time later prove that we weren’t lying or crazy: Arvest took $400 of Dawn’s money without cause and worsened the problem by strangling us with bureaucracy and apathy.

It’s easy to get a customer, but very difficult to get one back after you’ve mistreated them. You should never let a customer walk all over you, but you should also remember that customers are people. The $400 is nice, but nicer still would have been for one person at Arvest a couple of years ago willing to stand up and say, “Enough. We can’t do this to a customer. It is our error.”

PS: You should always address customer service issues or old business before taking any steps toward acquiring new business. The disgruntled folks are going to eat your lunch telling their stories.

Advertisement, Humor, Personal, Satire Parody

Joe Kwon Do

03/30/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Click link and button above to hear the latest ad I made for Joe, to compete with the Krav Maga system.

Joe, a large friend of mine, someone who looks like a human Bigfoot, despises those Israeli Krav Maga self-defense courses. Not content with merely turning off the radio when a commercial comes on for the local version, my friend rips the entire radio out of the dashboard and hurls it across the freeway. Naturally, this costs him a lot of money. His point is that if he can yank the stereo out of his vehicle while driving, he doesn’t need a goofy martial arts course to show him how to pull a human arm from its socket.

If you know anything in life, other than “You do not talk about Fight Club,” the second rule is that you do not tell your friends what you despise, or you will see and/or hear it for the rest of your life, and probably nine times at your funeral.

Given my friend’s hatred for Krav Maga commercials, I had no choice but to make 11 different versions of the same jokes for him.

You’re welcome Mr. Bigfoot. Stop ripping out your car stereos. Not everyone was born with arms that look like the back leg of a bull. PS: And if you try to whip my butt I will use those Krav Maga tactics I learned just from listening to the terrible ads on the radio.

Eureka Springs, Travel, Vacation

Another Great Trip to Wisteria Lane

03/27/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

100 — Isn’t it crazy that Dawn trusts me to cook, much less to grill? I’m the worst cook with the most enthusiasm you’ll ever meet. I suppose the lesson learned is that as long as no one literally dies from my cooking, I can be trusted to continue doing it. Edit: I was doing my best to have a horrible duckface in effect when the picture was taken.

DSCN0281 — A quip I left to let the owners know I broke a glass. I can only assume they knew I was joking about juggling the glassware.

148 — For my friend, who knows who he is, who just LOVES these clichés.

136 — Dawn is writing some sort of propaganda regarding my culinary skills. Weirdly enough, it was a comment of praise, which proves that clean air makes even normal people go crazy sometimes.

128

124 — This is the most normal picture I could manage.

120 — PS: sometimes I secretly joke that I’m going to switch this stained glass window with something totally crazy, just to see how long it might take for the hosts to notice I’ve done so.

108 — Sunday morning early, after surviving a rain-filled Friday and Saturday. Few views are more relaxing than that which one experiences from this porch and swing at the edge of the trees.

112

104 — This is the tree I traversed, wondering if I was going to hear a huge ‘crack’ as I plummeted to the water below. Assuming I would not have been impaled on the broken trunk, it would have been a hilariously good story.

My wife and I spent the last couple of days at our favorite cabins at Wisteria Lane. Much to our delight, the impending torrential rains waited until our arrival to unleash. Most people prefer the serenity of calm weather, but not us. There is no better place to be when the rain falls and the creek roars below the expansive front deck, adorned with the grill and porch swing.

The creek below our cabin rose as high as I’ve ever seen it, re-routing the bottom of the valley, with the creek widening to 25 feet at one point. I didn’t get any pictures of the stream at its widest, as the winds were howling and the rain was blowing up and down, in and out, and washing anything which ventured outside far enough to see it. But the volume was a delight to fall asleep to.

The next morning, I of course ventured out into the mess wearing flip-flops. I even climbed onto the fallen tree over the receding creek and traversed it. Dawn, of course, was playing different versions of “What Could Possibly Go Wrong,” in her mind while I was enjoying the frigid water turning my toes into little icicles. I managed to turn over an older tree without falling in the water.

My wife, being female, wasn’t keen on having her picture taken 47 times, but she took mine at least that many. I didn’t care how I looked, being intent on setting a new world record for eating “all the things” in the cabin. I failed in that quest but succeeded in enjoying being in the midst of nothing. Dawn, who usually ignores my crazy notes on the cabin’s welcome board, joined in a little this time, while I made all manner of quips, including one for my friend who hates the phrase, “at the end of the day.”

At the end of this day, though, I can only hope that most of you enjoyed a time comparable to the one I had this weekend.

Politics, Trump

Speak Up, Mr. Ex-President

03/23/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Speak Up, Mr. Ex-President or forever will hold your peace.

In my opinion, Obama was the embodiment of intelligence and professionalism as president. Many have expressed displeasure toward those supporters who see reason to criticize him for not putting on his cape, ignoring tradition, and wading into the current political mess swirling around Trump and congress.

The point of this commentary isn’t whether I liked Obama or not – and certainly not whether you did. (I listened to 8 years of mostly nonsense about why many of you hated Obama.) It’s about the disagreement of what a respected opinion should do in the face of strange and exotic circumstances, despite tradition.

I’ve seen some complicated verbal slap fights on social media, with some bellowing that others “shouldn’t” judge Obama for staying out of the fray. I agree with the spirit of those arguments. It’s Obama’s life to do exactly as he sees fit, especially since part of the gentleman’s agreement with ex-presidents is that they refrain from immersion in politics following their terms. There are benefits to our republic from doing so. But…

The truth, though, is that an ex-president never really has complete autonomy after serving: his life becomes entwined with the persona and duties of a figurehead. It’s part of the reason we provide immediate retirement benefits to our presidents. Traditions that served us well sometimes still continue to serve us, while others, including the expectations of diminished public interaction following a term, do not. Your voice is most useful when you’ve got the most to say.

Even though I agree that it is his life to do as he sees fit and that there are benefits to an ex-president giving a grace period to his voice in society, I strongly disagree that Obama is doing us any favors by being mostly silent on current events. If you have a respected voice and intimate working knowledge of the government, this is a skill that has real value on a day-to-day basis. Obama was president for 8 years and strictly speaking, knows more about the job that any other living person. His words – and silence – carry weight.

Obama does tweet, but carefully avoids public displays of criticism. His silence about current events is a disservice to us. If he sees that things are being done which violate the principles of the office of the presidency, he should confidently explain to us why. If he feels that the current president is wrongly stepping into affairs, he should say so. It is everyone’s choice to either heed his voice or ignore it. He has the right to use his pulpit in the manner he sees fit. His ability to exercise his right should be no more diminished than any other private citizen. He should wield his voice precisely because it is his to yield.

Trump placed dynamite on the old political establishment. Regardless of his term of office, Trump has voided many of the previous expectations of the presidency. If Obama is concerned, he needs to voice those concerns. Playing the game under an out-dated set of rules doesn’t help anyone.

It’s easy to believe that our republic will withstand the onslaught recently brought to it, in part because so far, it has done so. We compare Trump to Nixon, as if Nixon had so violently turned politics on its head. This is a foolish argument, given that Trump’s rise was considered a laughable impossibility until recently. Trump usurped both the GOP and Christians evangelicals, rejecting the traditional path and behaviors of both. The form that the presidency will take after Trump is seriously in question. Democrats quibble over who the party leader should be while their most respected voice sits mostly in silence, surrounded by incredulous people eagerly waiting to pass him the ball.

If Obama ever had a cape, he needs to fling it capriciously around his shoulders and start using his voice in the wilderness. His power rests in his skill as a trusted voice. Regardless of history, when people see silence in the wake of DJ Trump, it tends to dishearten those waiting for someone of stature to join them in condemnation of what Trump is doing to the country and to our collective intelligence.

We don’t need a grace period of silence in this country. We need Obama to put on his cape and grab the microphone now, as events unfold. Waiting until something has broken is a violation of our trust. I don’t want to know Obama’s opinion on smaller events if he isn’t going to share his experience, ideas and opinions on those things most on our mind as progressives. It’s his right to do exactly what he pleases. But if our places were switched, I would use each minute of my day to shout to all those people like me.

All of us collectively look at Trump and know that we are seeing something different, with wildly new unspoken rules. We need to stop thinking of these changes as temporary. We need new ways of keeping our country on course. Silence, even from ex-presidents with well-deserved vacation time in their pockets, is worse than nothing. Thanks, and my apologies for any poorly-executed explanations.