The Shouldice Hospital I have decided is a mean and nasty institution! Today I received an email from their Reviewing Doctor in response to my application for admission to repair a right inguinal hernia.  Here is the gist of what they had to say:

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At last! Rain! We’re relieved of our regular duty to go for a bike ride!  The rain welcomes a restful Saturday morning, lingering over coffee, breakfast, the computer.  And listening to a CBC classical music webcast. If the sun were shining I would have felt compelled to be out-of-doors, exercising.  Not that bicycling is something I dislike doing, not at all.  But when I have the opportunity – or should I say, the excuse – not to do so, I embrace it.  The rain  subdues me.

Honestly I can’t think of another thing in life I’ve always wanted to do that I haven’t already done.  My so-called “bucket list” is complete.  For now on it’s just a matter of refinement, tweaking the details, basically repeating the same things in a slightly different way or perhaps if I’m lucky with more sophistication and skill.

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HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert—
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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It’s 8:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, the middle of a long weekend and the end of another balmy summer day. I can barely recall what I did since I awoke this morning.  It seems so very long ago.  That’s becoming an increasingly common failing of mine, instantaneous memory recall.  I prefer to think of it more as a reflection of the inconsequence of what I do rather than a signal of my mental declension. Probably a bit of both I reckon.  This aging business is as incremental as it is irreversible.

I do however call to mind that I suffered consternation about the computer of my new car. I discovered that the Driver Information Centre (DIC) – that collection of computer graphics where the speedometer used to be – no longer showed the radio volume going up or down.  And it indicated that my iPhone was not connected though the Infotainment screen over the centre console showed that it was connected.  I then found that the button on the steering wheel used to operate the voice commands (such as placing a telephone call or changing a radio station) was inert.  In a state of accelerating panic I drove into a vacant shopping mall where I stopped the car to fiddle with the controls. But my aimless pursuit was without success.  I then opted for the standard reboot option.  I turned off the engine and removed myself from the car, locked it, re-opened it and started it up again. Still nothing.  I gave up. Instead I stewed about the problem sufficiently to exasperate myself even further. There were echoes of the all too familiar curse that these gadgets are inevitably doomed to failure.  It of course annoyed me to the core that the car was only three days old. That too is more common than I cared to admit.

When I later parked the car in front of my mother’s retirement residence I fussed momentarily with the controls but again the effort was for naught.  I shut the thing down and left it in a huff.  When I returned, after having spent a distracted hour with my mother answering her comparatively insipid questions about investments and general family matters, I was joyed to find that the system had restored itself to functionality. His Lordship later observed in reply to my account of the affair that the computer was probably doing some kind of background update.  I have no idea.  Naturally I racked my brain to recall what I may have done initially to precipitate the malfunction but that too proved fruitless.

It is I confess a personal embarrassment that I derive so much gratification from the proper operation of the vehicle and that I completely lack the philosophic depth to shoulder even the slightest blip.  In retrospect the troubles are always easily trivialized. But in the moment they are insupportable.

We rallied at the apartment around 3:30 p.m. then pushed off to the City for an early supper of Dim Sum at a place on Merivale Road that we have found to be superb.  Once again we were not disappointed.  The restaurant is clean and efficient; the food is beyond compare (and we can say this as we have tried quite a number of other local Asian food restaurants many of which are also excellent).  Afterwards we capitalized upon the late afternoon heat and the red ball of the setting sun to prompt us to get some ice cream for dessert. My not abnormal passion for sweets also kicked in and I bought a minuscule portion of Peanut Butter Explosion fudge.

When I recall the many other sins in which I have indulged over the years, this indiscretion must be palatable even to one such as Normal Rockwell.  Life is simply too short to miss the opportunity to punctuate these halcyon days.

Speaking of indulgences, lately I have been immersed in the tribulations of several others whose alcoholic habits are unquestionably getting the better of them.  It shouldn’t of course surprise me to encounter this demographic at my age.  It does after all take years for bad habits to take hold and to show their effect.  As wont as I am to contribute what I may to the possible solution of the problem, I keep coming up empty-handed, bound by the maxim that – especially when it comes to drinking – there is nobody but the culprit who can remedy the defect.  As glamorous as it may be to characterize the alcoholic struggle between spouses as a variation on “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”; or the over-indulgence of an intellect as the warranted resort of a relentless thinker, neither portrays the decidedly addlepated result of the affliction.

It is a one-way downward journey.  Sometimes the afflicted soul has only himself to concern; other times, he pulls family and friends with him into the abyss.

I spent almost forty years running my own small business (a project my mother correctly observed at the outset would “give me a headache”). I am if nothing else attuned to working for others, not that I necessarily always cultivated the best practices. Like most people however I learned from my mistakes. The duration of my tenure as a businessman at least enabled me to discover what I should be doing even if I hadn’t always the skill or foresight to do so. Being such a well educated veteran it raised my hackles today to reacquaint myself unfavourably with several irksome details of running a business. I’m the first to admit that their sum total hardly amounts to anything more than a trifling inconvenience but this hasn’t sufficient persuasion for me to abandon the account.

My first reminder was this: Don’t assume that people will do what you ask them to do.  This particular point was driven home to me in more than one instance.  The primary illustration was the advice of the car dealer that the car which I had ordered months ago was not exactly as I had ordered it (specifically the wheel size was smaller than I had stipulated).  It bothered me to hear this because in the same breath I was being asked to accept the smaller wheels “if I could live with it”.  For one thing this naturally defeats the entire purpose of ordering a car; one is instantly catapulted back into the commonplace practice of searching for a car that comes close to what you would prefer though not exactly what you want.  The more sinister feature of this foible is that no one had bothered to tell me about this until the very moment that I was at the dealership to conduct the pre-purchase inspection. Nor apparently had the manufacturer bothered to tell the dealership about the unilateral modification.  The General Sales Manager with whom I was dealing mistakenly attempted to dismiss the error by suggesting that the salesman with whom I had been dealing (and to whom the notice of the modification may have been sent) was currently away from the dealership (as he apparently had been for the past six weeks) and may in fact never return.  This left me wondering who if anyone was monitoring this salesman’s business communications during his absence.

Just to step back for a moment from this conspicuous concern, when we first entered the dealership showroom we were greeted by a tall young woman who asked what she might do to assist us.  I told her I was there to see the General Sales Manager to which she replied, “The name?”  That alone perturbed me but I nonetheless responded with equal warmth. “Chapman”, I said, which she then mechanically repeated, “Chapman” and went looking for the GSM.  I would have thought that considering the brevity of my association with the clerk, and that I wasn’t being addressed by a Headmaster while in Lower School, I was entitled to be called “Mr. Chapman” but that expectation clearly failed.  I might add that her appalling reception had been echoed by the young man whom we had encountered at the front desk several weeks earlier.  He too lacked any social polish.  I concede that the shortfall is likely a product of poor training more than intentional indiscretion.

After the GSM and I had engaged in lengthy discussions about what was to be done about fulfilling the initial contractual arrangement (a solution which  at the suggestion of the GSM involved commandeering the wheels and tires from another car on the showroom floor), we were then shepherded to a clerk to finalize the Bill of Sale.  This fellow I knew from previous experience (when we first placed the order) was someone lacking in attention to detail, a fault compounded by what I can only conceive is blanket laziness.  He had for example failed to note on the initial Bill of Sale that a $500 deposit had been paid by me on account (though he attempted to trivialize the omission by suggesting that I “needn’t worry” about the detail which he assured me would be picked up eventually).  He repeated this  theme today when I reminded him that he had not noted on the Bill of Sale that I was to get an alternate set of wheels.  Again he jokingly surmised that I could simply refuse to close the deal unless the correct wheels were installed.  This of course was small comfort to a lawyer who is trained to expect performance of the terms of a contract.  I let is slide on this occasion but only because I later reiterated the arrangement when I sent an email to the GSM in hopes of providing at least some written evidence of the deal we had earlier concluded.  I did however give the clerk a bit of push-back when I insisted that he ensure that there was no dealer ID on the car or the new plates.  I punctuated the point by stressing that this was the third time I had mentioned this point to various members of the dealership and that already I had noticed that there was a dealership sticker on the back of the car.  I also had to remind the clerk that I had asked him to buy new plates rather than simply remove and reinstall my old plates (as the clerk had first suggested when he thought to ward off the installation of the dealer ID, a tact which I informed him wouldn’t work if it was he who installed new plates and I was therefore not part of the overseeing process).  Another thing which disturbed me about this clerk is that when he was talking in my presence to another clerk about the arrangements for the delivery of the new vehicle, he not only referred to me as “the customer” (he clearly couldn’t recall my name and had no intention of looking for it on the Bill of Sale) but also spoke to the other clerk about the delivery of my “truck” (which to my admittedly narrow and obsessive thinking is inappropriate to describe a Cadillac sedan).

In the result the entire experience with the dealership was rather dream-like as we moved imperceptibly from accommodation to accommodation, tainted meanwhile by incompetence, lack of social skills and a general feeling of being merely a number in a factory-like production mill.  Certainly the dealership can tout its ability to be competitive for pricing and that of course is no small matter.  But as always there is a price to pay for any advantage. The repercussion can include not getting what you wanted, or least having to be extremely vigilant about getting it; and having to forgo the privilege of more than token politeness.  Because the experience left me feeling so wary and impersonal, I resolved within minutes of leaving the place that I would never return for routine maintenance.  Of course I know that the sales people could care less if they ever see me again but I have no inclination to feed their system any further.  The bottom line is that the failure of the dealership and the manufacturer to observe the detail of my order contaminated the integrity of the entire business association.  Frankly it is small consolation that I will have pilfered wheels from another vehicle especially one which is last year’s model and the wheels were not intended for the package I had ordered. Naturally I own that these technical caveats are bordering on neurotic.  Nor did it lubricate the friction of it all to be told I could simply abandon the order entirely.  Given the planning that went into the orchestration of this transaction and the limited time within which to refresh it, the option wasn’t embraced by me as liberally as it was offered by the dealer.  Notwithstanding all else, one in my position feels the obligation to behave reasonably and to rise above what for most people are undoubtedly minor adjustments.  Accordingly the deal was made and I was invited to pick the car up the next day.

The next day I received an early morning telephone call from the GSM in which he asked to postpone the scheduled rendez-vous 24 hours to which of course I agreed (particularly as the GSM stated he didn’t want to rush the transaction for fear of missing any detail).  In view of my likely reputation for pickiness it would have been unthinkable of me to have rejected the proposition!

To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever had a car purchase transaction which hasn’t had some element of frustration. The list of new cars I’ve owned includes a Ford Mustang (2), Pontiac Grand Prix (2), Oldsmobile Cutlass (2), Buick Electra, Buick Riviera (2), Buick Enclave, Oldsmobile Toronado (2), Lincoln Town Car, Lincoln LS (2) and Lincoln MKS (4).  The record of annoyances of those deals includes the following: one car wouldn’t go into reverse; another was built lopsided; another dropped out of gear at 100 km/hr; another rattled constantly; another suffered constant computer shut-downs; another etc., etc. etc.  Owning a new car is to be reminded of the adage that nothing is perfect.  Given the truth of that maxim, I have reluctantly dropped my head out of the clouds sufficiently to rationalize the balance of reasons for being satisfied with this particular escapade. Pointedly the GSM most recently said to me that he fully expected that I would be able to answer every question on the subsequent marketing survey “Completely Satisfied”.  I didn’t bother to tell him that I don’t do surveys.  Just as well for him, I suppose.

Post Scriptum

I cannot resist the urge to tell you what happened since we took delivery of the car on Wednesday morning. First let me say that, as I sit here late on Thursday evening after having driven the new car for most of yesterday and today, I am indeed “Completely Satisfied”.  In spite of the number of times I have endured this initially painful process of buying a new car (and learning how to work the various functions), invariably the tribulations have been quelled.  There must be another aphorism there somewhere!  For starters, the GSM in spite of the obvious pressure he suffers to run a large, high-volume operation, continuously maintained a firm hand on the tiller.  I grew increasingly to admire his business acumen and dedication to detail and performance.  He like most people with real talent never paraded it but his direct and summary actions spoke volumes.  He is a man who clearly has no patience for taradiddle. I have to thank him for having salvaged the deal which – again to his credit – he immediately recognized was in jeopardy when the seemingly small detail of the wheel size surfaced. My initial sense of manipulation dissipated on Wednesday once I saw the new car cleaned up, polished and sporting the very handsome replacement wheels (which were an unquestionable upgrade from what had of necessity been ordered but not delivered). The outcome was one of those desirable ones where an error becomes a blessing.

I must also thank the new young salesman who tentatively took the reins from the GSM to complete the bureaucratic details of the transaction (the exchange of keys, payment of funds, signing papers and the like). Granted the GSM nurtured him along right to the end, adding advice and once diverting his poorly calculated tactics, and ultimately reaching the goal.  This salesman distinguished himself as a pleasant person, someone who in any commercial enrolment is an asset even if the performance details require some refinement.

And finally the car itself.  Mr. Cadillac knows what he is doing!  On more than one occasion I wondered if I were sensible to abandon what had been an exceedingly pleasant experience with the Lincoln MKS.  The Cadillac more than passes muster.  I really enjoy driving it.

“I Wanna Go to Marz” by John Grant

Images from the movie ‘Weekend’. A story where two gay men meet and develop a love affair over the course of a single weekend.

A raw material, also known as a feedstock or most correctly unprocessed material, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished products, energy, or intermediate materials which are feedstock for future finished products.

The nature of the rank and file (and I include myself in that commonality) is more brute and indelicate than we prefer to believe.  This is so in spite of repeated social training and ingrained behavioural adjustment. The opinion – which I acknowledge must to some people amount to a platitude – does however reinforce the spontaneity and vigour of what might otherwise be dismissed as practised and hackneyed conduct.  No matter how refined or sophisticated we may fashion ourselves our patterns of behaviour are invariably characterized by a good deal of raw emotion and elemental response, hardly the material of robotic and text-book etiquette.

What intrigues me in particular about this observation is that it de-escalates the customary rational retort to the visceral level.  In a word, it makes it easier to fathom where someone is coming from.  If we permit ourselves to be or become confounded by little more than hysterical psychoanalysis, our understanding of others is thereby severely limited.  How much less clinical and more palpable it is to construe the passion of others in terms of appetites and desires, the underlying forces of nature, the building blocks we all share.

The raw material of life is pretty basic – food and protection.  In these two global  categories reside all other mortal concerns.  “Protection” for example includes housing (furnishings, art work, status), financial security and even sex (perpetuation of the species).  “Food” embraces health, socializing and travel (relaxation from hunting and gathering).  Life in its simplest terms reduces to those quintessentials, a slight improvement on the bare-bone necessities of water and air.  If one appreciates this reduction it is far easier to comprehend the thoughts and maneuvers of others.  You can be assured that somehow the gambit is directed to food or protection (in their widest terms of course).  It is not necessary to identify the detail of the scheme; what is however worthwhile is to accept that the motive is fundamental, not complicated or tortuous.  Then begins the real insight into what makes people tick.

Too often when seeking to explain the conduct of others we’re inclined to manufacture incredibly devious ploys for what are nothing more than direct thrusts.  Indeed the more disturbed one is by the events of life, the more blunt is the reaction to them.  When responding to life we haven’t the time or inclination to fabricate intricate channels of expression.  The expression may be love or hate, admiration or disdain, anger or pacification, happiness or jealousy, pleasure or remorse.  Whatever it is, when you brush aside the gloss, the motive will be high-profile in critical relief.  You can’t miss it!  It’s raw material!

“I Wanna go to Marz” by John Grant

Bittersweet strawberry, marshmallow, butterscotch
Polar bear, cashew, dixieland, phosphate, chocolate
Lime, tutti frutti, special raspberry, leave it to me
Three grace, scotch lassie, cherry smash, lemon freeze

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
You’ll meet the Gold Dust Twins tonight
You’ll get your heart’s desire, I will meet you under the lights

Golden champagne, juicy grapefruit, lucky Monday
High-school football, hot fudge, buffalo, tulip sundae
Almond caramel frappé, pineapple, root beer
Black and white, Big apple, Henry Ford, sweet heart, maple tear

I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
You’ll meet the Gold Dust Twins tonight
You’ll get your heart’s desire, I will meet you under the lights…