Author: Bev

Seniors are like teenagers in one thing, the matter of restraint.  “Don’t tell me what to do,” we say.  “We’ll do what we want, you do what you want.”

As we age, we tend to release some of the restraints of youth, like accumulation, appearances, slights, etc.  The first half of life is for building a life; including maintaining an image.  We’re restrained by what we should be, how we look, and how to please this one, that one, and the other one.

The second half of life, is for resting in what has been built; and we prefer peace over price.  Speaking of restraint, I like T.F. Hodge’s words, “The path of peace is not a passive journey.  It takes incredible strength not to open a can of ‘whoop-ass,’ justifiably, when one’s button is pushed.”  Pleasing others isn’t as high on our list of priorities as fulfilling the overwhelming desire inside, for peace.

“I don’t care,” is our genuine take on most circumstances we face.  Not in the sense of a lack of compassion toward others and their circumstances, but in the sense of the overall release of care toward stuff or the malarkey of others.

But one restraint we didn’t even consider in our youth was in the realm of calories.  As we age, we have to restrain ourselves with the intake of calories.  We can do what we want in many areas of life, but we can’t continue to eat what we want or as much as we want.  The efficacy of doing so may eventually show up in consequences such as hypertension or Type 2 diabetes.

This doesn’t even address the “O”-words, overweight and obesity.  What’s with that BMI chart?  Does anybody match those numbers?

I thought I was doing well when I lost the seven pounds that I gained taking a steroid during my bout with poison ivy.  Then, I read that dastardly BMI chart and holy moly, suddenly I was overweight!

In order to please the BMI chart, I would have to grow quite a few inches.  This is unlikely at my age.  My doctor and her professional staff are way too sharp to let me get away with wearing spike heels on that dastardly monument in their office intended to measure such things.

By the way I’ve begged to have that thing torn down like the statues of Robert E Lee in the south and Joe Paterno in State College, but no way.  Even though I’m deeply offended by it along with its master, the BMI chart, it seems that tearing it down requires a whole lot more clout than I possess at this moment in time.

Then I had a birthday.  I exercised restraint and had one piece of my own apple cake with 3 tablespoons of Ritchey’s Dairy pumpkin pie ice cream on the side.  I know all the tricks, eating on a small, pretty plate, so that your portions look humongous but really aren’t.

And then there is the chewing thing.  One should chew your food.  Now I can’t really do that level of restraint where you have to count the number of chews for every bite.  That just seems a little bit OCD to me.  But the opposite of that are some cats I know, who inhale treats.  I put down two or three treats per cat, and turn around to close the bag.  I turn back around trying to avoid whiplash and there are four little begging eyes looking up at me gaslighting me.  Did I give them treats?  Surely not!

My senior mother-in-law has a problem with restraint in terms of her activity levels.  She claims quite accurately that one day she has lots of energy, feels good, and does way too much.  She then pays for overdoing it, the following day.  This triggers an, every other day syndrome of one day up, next day down.

Some people have problems with restraint and money.  Spending too easily, spending too much, or an inability to budget.  Others of us veer a little bit to the opposite, wanting to save more and spend less on fun.

In fact, I’m confused by the word spendthrift.  One would think combining those two words: spend and thrift, would mean that you’re a saver not a spender.  However, it is the opposite.  A spendthrift is someone who spends, spends, spends wastefully and to their detriment.

There are people who have a problem restraining their tongue.  They feel constantly compelled to speak, respond, orate, recite, etc.  These loquacious folks probably listen very little.  It is said that some people don’t listen while you’re talking, they’re planning what they want to say, and really don’t hear you at all.

So, take care to listen very carefully from now on.  Orson Scott Card said, “Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.”  Woo, that’s some restraint worth aiming for.

I think giving up the restraints that held us back in our middle age, as we move forward into our fifties, sixties, and beyond, are a little like the Kris Kristofferson song, Me and Bobby McGee: “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”  When we’re older, we’re content to lose some of the requirements of life-building, and sit in the proverbial rocking chair on the porch, or take a walk on the beach or in the woods, and let the next generation build.

Are you living with abandon or living with care?  How much restraint is conducive to freedom?

This isn’t expressly about the Me-Too Movement from a while back.  That was specifically concerning women who had been sexually exploited, coming forward in a sad sisterhood of sorts.

Nor is this about something as particular as “I had Covid.  Yeah, me too.”  Although this “me-too” is likely accompanied by an eye roll or a wide-eyed exclamation of acknowledgement.

When I casually asked, “how are you?”  He answered, “I’m ready to go home, but I’ve been ready to go home since I got here.”  I was shocked to feel myself light up, when I said, “me too.”  He lit up too.

It’s funny, not ha-ha funny, but ironic when those two simple words, “me too,” can bring comfort no matter the circumstance promoting them.  In fact, one feels heartened when your negative experiences have been validated by another human being going through the same negative stuff.  One feels known like at no other moment.

Camaraderie helps.  “Been there, done that,” or “I hear you,” “I know what you mean,” or abbreviated, “I know,” all say, “me too,” with an exclamation point.

Even if your boat’s sinking, someone else in it with you makes it less tragic.  Feeling understood helps us navigate any emotion.  Why else do you think we have clubs, as in “welcome to the club;” or support groups for this, that, and the other thing.

A cashier in the grocery store can morph into a sibling if you share a “me too” moment.  It can be as simple as you both hate summer, love summer, detest coffee and love chai tea.  Or it can be as unusual as sharing a birthday or your moms are the same age.

“Me too,” draws us close.  We can be oh so distant until we’ve shared a “me too” moment.  Then, we’re blood relatives.

Companions in misery are just as close as comrades in battle or teammates in a game.  Those who share “me too” experiences are just as bound, even if only briefly, as a prison chain gang.  Even if you have a million differences, just one “me too” variable can trigger your “I like you” hormones.

For example, maybe you hold opposite political ideologies and you believe in different religions but you both love animals.  That one, “me too” factor will draw you together even if it’s only for a second.

People will come out of hiding when they realize they aren’t alone.  Even loners don’t feel so alone when they know there are other loners out there.  They’ll still prefer being alone but they’ll be comforted that they will never be lonesome because of their “me too” knowledge.

If you don’t relate your experience no one can relate to it and you won’t expand your universe of relatives.  Every skilled conversationalist knows that you maintain a conversation by a back and forth “me-too” banter which includes a fair amount of “right,” and “I know.”

Self-disclosure and open communication are vital tools in gifting others with the spark of feeling that “me too,” esprit de corps.  So, when someone asks, “how are you,” maybe a response just a little more elaborate than “fine, thank you,” would be a beginning.

Scientists believe that contagious yawning is a social communication tool of higher thinking animals, indicating that we humans are more vigilant toward each other than we’re aware.  Like yawning, “me-too agreement” is an indicator that we just might be more like our fellow humans than we are different.  And that seems to be a good thing in such a divided world.

What a rotten time for the ice-maker to go kaput.  Supposedly there was a simpler time.  I wonder when that was.  I do recall using ice trays, once upon a time.

I vaguely recall watching a movie wherein the premise was about a family trapped in a fifties- bunker created by the science-geek dad, and they wanted out but couldn’t escape the timed-hatch. Their new “labor-saving devices,” systematically went haywire.

Technically, the vacuum cleaner was invented in the late 19^th century and many other labor-saving devices trickled in throughout the early twentieth century including the microwave oven after WWII, but the fifties are known for widespread, middle-class use of these devices, to free up families, supposedly for more leisure time to enjoy their upward mobility.

Computer science and technology has leapt light-years from our first Mac Plus in the mid to late eighties. The first brick-sized mobile phones have moved on up through the “palm pilot” to 5g devices that do things we never dreamed of “back in the day.”

And we have Siri and Alexa in our cars, homes, and pockets, to remind us what to buy, when to wake up, and where to turn, toward our destination.  Our new technology is not so different from the robot from that aforementioned movie where the people were trapped in their bunker-gone-wrong.

This was all a set-up for a complaint.  Our ice-maker hasn’t been making ice for a few weeks now.  I tried everything that the booklet says in the page called, “trouble shooting.”  This, in addition to some common sense, which apparently isn’t all that sensical, because it hasn’t worked thus far, and hasn’t’ redeemed any ice our direction.

I thought, oh well, summer is over and the demand for ice isn’t as plentiful now and I’ll keep trying DIY until and unless those efforts prove useless. For some of us, asking for directions is a last resort.  We’d rather be a lost explorer than a human needing help.  So, I’ll most likely resort to asking our favorite plumber if he knows ice makers.

In our delay in actually getting the ice-maker repaired, I forgot that ice has some uses other than for cooling down summer drinks.  Particularly I am referring to the “icing-down” of a bruise, sprain, surgical site or otherwise traumatized body part.

I tripped over a rock while jogging along one of my familiar wooded paths.  It was that slow-motion headlong sprawl that I’ve experienced before so I knew even while in motion that this might not end well.  I pretty much knew that I wasn’t going to be able to self-correct this time.  I was falling.

For this outdoor adventure I would forego the walking stick which had saved me a bunch of times in the past while maneuvering known rocky paths.  I had planned to pick up litter, found roadside adjoining the woods, with a dollar store grabber, not designed to save one from a fall.

When you fall at my age, it’s embarrassing on several levels.  You either feel like an impulsive four-year-old who will cry for a minute then get up and “shake-it-off.”   Or, you mimic an elderly actor in the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up”-commercial for personal alarms, found in the AARP magazine.

In either scenario, it’s beyond humbling, to fall.  Don’t tell me that when you’ve tripped on a public sidewalk, you don’t try to save face by looking down at the crack accusingly because it was the crack’s fault.

I was just barely into my jog, so from my position on the ground, I took a couple of pics of the injuries to my left-side and hand, texted them to my spouse and asked him to procure some ice from our kind neighbors, while I finished my workout.  “No,” I didn’t want him to pick me up, just find some ice so that I could ice my sprained finger/hand when I got home.

 

I held my left hand up in the usual jogging position and finished an abbreviated route, to satisfy my workout requirement for the day but get back home before any serious swelling ensued.  While trotting along, I pictured an old stainless steel ice tray with the handle on the top to loosen the frozen cubes, kept in my storage pantry for freezing lemon or lime juice for various recipes.  But I’ve heretofore not needed it for frozen water cubes because of the labor-saving device called an ice-maker!

All of this made me contemplate simpler times with lesser technology and fewer labor-saving devices.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the conversation with those more senior than me who lament about “these complicated times.”

With retail cashiers, online “chat” agents, and customer service representatives from our paper supplier to utility company clerks, I’ve discussed over and over again, that “computers” and “smart phones” make everyday life so much more convenient “when they work.”  But, oh how frustrating when they’re “down.”

That reminds me of a prayer I sometimes pray, “Lord God please cause this medicine to work for me and not against me….”  Doesn’t our modern technology act the same?  Sometimes although it’s intended to be a convenience, it just complicates things.

Sometimes the band from the old smart watch won’t fit the new smart watch.  The batteries from the old device won’t fit the new device.  The software from the old computer won’t work with the new one.  The old television won’t work with the new cable box.  The adapter/charger from the old technology doesn’t have the right plug for the new technology.

The next generation will be complaining about how simple our lives were compared to their complicated ones.  That’s the way of the world, it seems.  We’re alive, to complain another day.  So there.

Do you remember the hotel/motel “wake-up call?”  It’s gone by the wayside since the advent of smart phones with their alarm and timer features.

We no longer need a front desk person to make a courtesy call to make sure we’re awake to begin our day’s business or adventures when away from the routine of home.  But the metaphorical wake-up call hasn’t timed-out of existence.  We still receive those from time to time.

I’m referring to those nudges from God, or the universe, as in “universally” dispensed.  We all get them.  Whether we notice or heed these wake-up calls, is a personal problem or salvation, depending on one’s attitude toward wake-up calls.

Wake-up calls are reminders, something else we have on our smart phones.  But then there’s me and there’s Siri from my smart phone.  I asked her to remind me about something and she assured me she would.  No reminder.  Or was it me?

In some reminders we are prompted to “get our act (or the four-letter s-word) together,” or there will be consequences.   We might not like some of the consequences related to unheeded reminders.

Some examples of a metaphorical wake-up call might be an argument with someone with whom we are in relationship.  That argument may be the wake-up call that saves a relationship or triggers its demise.

But it does one primary thing: it shocks us out of the status quo, out of slumber. It can be a eureka moment of clarity that helped us dreaming children awaken to reality.  Suddenly we’re back in Kansas and not in Oz anymore.

Then there’s the financial or economic wake-up call.  Something bursts the spending/saving/investing bubble and we realize our means don’t match our lifestyle.

Something has got to be done, differently.  Restructuring is a key characteristic of bankruptcy laws, for a reason.  It’s a merciful second chance that the laws of our land once offered those in need of one.  This is reminiscent of a pause or snooze button, if you will, on the wake-up call or alarm.

Another familiar wake-up call is the one beep beep beeping inside your body.  It’s the health wake-up call, usually called “symptoms.”  If you see a doctor regularly, for wellness checks or preventive care, your wake-up call may be in the form of lab test results.

If we’re alert to our body’s signals and we’re keen to play the game, “what doesn’t belong,” we might be fortunate enough to stave off the chronic, from the acute.  Let’s play clue and respond when our bodies say, “this isn’t right,” or “this isn’t how my body usually plays the game.”

This is when it’s time to pull what submariners call a “crazy Ivan,” or deploy the emergency brake.  Maybe you’ve let a lifestyle habit that can’t be classified as “healthy,” get the better of you.  You know, they say it takes only three days (most likely, hellish ones), to change a habit.

I’m guessing that 3-day estimate is optimistic especially for a well-ingrained habit.  But I’ve done it so I know it can be done; can you say “sweet tooth?”

Change it up and do what you’ve always known you should do to reverse those needling symptoms.  If it’s not within your power to change on your own, then resolve to get some help.  Yes, humble yourself and seek help.  “No man is an island.”

Coincidentally, that saying originated with the seventeenth century metaphysical poet, John Donne’s meditational essay and sermon entitled, in part, “Steps in my Sickness,” based upon his serious illness.  He, like the rest of us needed “a little help from his friends.”  (It’s always the Beatles with me – With a Little Help from my Friends – Lennon/McCartney released 1967).

One of just a couple of country songs I like, and I include on my jogging playlist is, Island in the Stream, written by the Bee Gees but I know it as performed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.  The difference between their island and the one-person-marooning kind, is their partnership.  They dream to “sail away to another world,” together.

We all need to let at the very least some other human being into our lives to help us navigate the planet.  If you need medical help, seek it.  If you need financial assistance, ask for it.  If you need relationship help, there are people who care and will come alongside to help.

Don’t ignore a wake-up call.  It’s there to get your attention.  A smart phone, by the way is smart only if you take advantage of its smart features.  Will you answer the alarm, the call, or the text?

Will you heed the reminders you recorded on your phone or will you snooze right through them?  You’ve got this, just answer the call.

I hadn’t slept much the night before and my day had been one of the extra busy ones.  So, the sofa and I joined forces for a late afternoon nap, which we sometimes do.

I was awakened by the telephone answering machine from an epic dream of a storm and a fire, which hubby and I nonchalantly conversed through.  I was in that degree of awake that I’ve experienced before where I don’t really know where I am and only vaguely familiar with who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing at this moment.

Imagine feeling like that all the time.  Then you might have a glimpse of the life of someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

This reminded me of our days teaching at a college in New Mexico many years ago.  The college sponsored various programs of community support, one of which was awareness of disability.

How to develop compassion?  Let’s step outside ourselves for an experiment in empathy.  Play a game called “If.”  “How would I feel if…?”

I recall seeing an unusual number of wheelchairs on campus, one day.  Then I became aware of lots of blindfolded people walking about with support persons and white sticks at the ready.

Then there were the workshops showing us visuals of how it is to try to see through a cataract.  It was truly a fog.  We were taught empathy through those programs, given the gift of imagining what it might be like “to live like that.”

I don’t know why Beatles songs frequently come into my mind when I write, but here we are.  “Imagine all the people sharing all the world…. You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.  I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will live as one….” (John Winston Lennon, released 1971, Imagine).

I think, more often than we would admit, we imagine ourselves as someone else.  We wonder what we would do with the wealth of Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey, the power of the president, the popularity and influence of our favorite celebrity, the admiration from the masses, like Diana, Princess of Wales, etc.

These are the exciting things we might imagine, a dream job, a dream relationship or dream adventure.  Who hasn’t imagined their dream car, dream house or dream body?

But what about imagining toward empathy: the nightmares of losing your sustenance, your abilities to think and reason, sing and dance or even ambulate; losing your child, your spouse or best friend.  Have you ever imagined how you would live if cast into poverty through no fault of your own; how you would cope if you must one day awaken to a life of constant pain or an addiction you can’t shake?

Do we ever imagine how we would handle the amputation of a limb, blindness, deafness, mental decline, paralysis and phantom pain?  Do we ever practice in our minds, being a social pariah, despised by many, having no friends or family or paralyzed with fear or anxiety?

Do you ever imagine “walking a mile in my shoes?” (Billy Connolly, Joe South or Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird) Literally?  Again, with those exercises in empathy, I’ve walked in well-worn shoes of someone else’s who had a distinctly different gait, (feet tilted inward – pronation, versus tilted outward – supination), and it’s super weird, hard to walk.  The experience is a bit like wearing Asian wooden shoes or glass slippers, Cinderella.  Comfortable, it is not.

Several things not included in my birth plan way back in the day, was more than twenty-four hours of labor, a 3 a.m. walk through our neighborhood wearing my velour purple robe, carrying a wine glass filled with grape juice and assisted by midwives; oh, and greeted by a cruising police officer who escaped as quickly as he arrived.  I often wondered why I didn’t have flip flops ready, to support my severely swollen feet, for transport to the hospital with preeclampsia.  Then there was the emergency cesarean section.

 I wore my husband’s well-worn tennis shoes.  It was a rushed decision, and not my best one.  But they were the only shoes I could get onto my thickening paws, in a hurry.

I can’t really know what it’s like to be in your shoes, unless I imagine it.  I can exercise empathy, by trying to imagine what you’re going through.  Even then it’s not the same, but it’s close.

“I get it now.  That’s why they do that, say that, behave like that, feel that way.”  It doesn’t excuse them and I may not agree with them, but I understand them when I exercise empathy.

Try empathy, unless you’re a Narcissist, who cannot for the life of you, conceive of being inside someone else’s skin.  Then there’s God, who in Mary Fishback Powers’ poem, Footsteps in the Sand, carries us through the difficult times.  We could try imagining our way toward empathy by putting on some uncomfortable shoes, not our own and carrying some folks through their rough times; pretending we’re Jesus, just for a moment.

“It’s a matter of interpretation.”  Do we really speak the same language?  Or, is it imperative to rely on interpretations of what is said?

“Don’t read into what I said.”  I confess that I do this all the time.  In fact, if I don’t consciously stop myself, it is literally all the time.

“My life is an open book.”  Few of us can truthfully say this.  Most people are closed books and people like me are constantly trying to open all these books and when unsuccessful we resort to fictionalizing the stories that we get an inkling from off of the book jacket, the outside of the book.

I got to thinking about this whole idea of interpretation from a Facebook forward from Mindful Christianity.  In part, it goes like this: “Two people read the same Bible.  One sees….  The other sees….  Two people, one book.  One Book, two views.  The book is a mirror.  The reflection is you.”

For example, the third commandment (Deuteronomy 5:11) says in the old-timey KJV of the Bible, “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”  Now, I grew up with the idea that swearing or some called it cursing, especially saying words like damn, and all of its versions saying Jesus or Jesus Christ, or God, as in Oh My God (OMG), was breaking commandment number three.

So, did the actor in the British drama, Line of Duty misuse the name of God when he exclaimed, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and their wee donkey,” at a ridiculous answer to a question, under caution, an oath to tell the truth?  Did Will Ferrell’s character in Talladega Nights, blaspheme when he exclaimed in exasperation, or prayed to, “Baby Jesus?”  Should Protestants be up in arms at the line in Paul McCartney’s “Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom…” in one of my favorite songs, Let it Be?

But “swearing” in this way, is not the same as swearing in an oath by God’s name and intending to break that oath, or is it? That is swearing falsely and breaks the covenantal law set out in Leviticus 19:12.

Is this swearing, and or a breach in the third commandment?  It seems, a matter of interpretation.  What is swearing?  Talk about swearing under oath, I borrow a line from President Bill Clinton, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

If we’re talking Bible, there are multiple versions or interpretations of this magnificent book. Why do you suppose that is?  Why do we need so many versions or interpretations?  Why so many divisions in the Christian Church?

What is fundamentalism?  Is it a type of interpretation?  Orthodoxy, or adhering to correct, standard, or accepted creeds is fundamental to one’s interpretation of the Bible.  Whichever creed you adhere to, possibly the one you grew up with, will color what you see in the words written in the Bible.

Now, back to interpretation, specifically.  Interpreters worldwide are not only fluent in at least two languages, they are empaths as well, so to speak. 

Not only does the interpreter translate words, they translate meanings.  In other words, we don’t just interpret language, we interpret culture, emotion, intent, tone, and attempt to bridge the exchange between two speakers/listeners.

Two people reading this column may interpret it very differently, depending upon what each sees in the mirror.  Either way, I hope it stimulates you to think deeper than today’s weather, but that is also open to interpretation.

“Some like it hot.”  Some like it cold, cool, or colder than now.  Others like it humid, but not too much.  Because of the basic tenet of interpretation, one can suppose that is why we have degrees built into our language, e.g., cold, colder, coldest, Autumn, Winter, or frozen tundra; warm, warmer, warmest, hot, blistering, and right out of the gates of hell.  Where I stand, on the weather, well, let’s leave that up to your interpretation.

You know how it feels when you’ve eaten too much; “I’m stuffed,” we say.  In movies I’ve heard Brits or Aussies say, “get stuffed” and it doesn’t mean to eat to overflowing.

Then there’s the stuffed animal or the stuffed-up nose.  A pillow is said to be stuffed.  There’s the overstuffed chair, sofa, or ottoman.  These stuffed things are luxury items, welcoming and comfortable.

We stuff turkeys and chickens with bread that is flavored with their juices and which in turn keeps the bird moist; a give and take of thanksgiving.  Some of us eat stuffed peppers and I am at this writing about to stuff some yellow squash with a cheesy goodness in gratitude for their bounty.

Blankets are stuffed with batting or downy feathers, and high-end pillows are stuffed with a mystery material that can be washed again and again and bounces back to its original plumpness.  My mom used to stuff pillows with nylon stockings that had seen better days; the last of those I inherited, having been discarded in the not-so-distant past.

These are just a few of the things we live with that are stuffed.  However, when I thought of stuffed in the context of this column, it was in the overly-full sense of the word.

These musings are mostly concerning too much stuff, clogging or cluttering my senses.  I’ve already been-there-done-that with you about stuff in various hide y-holes in my house; so, I will try to keep my aging brain on track and not repeat myself.

As to the overstuffed brain, it can manifest as a boiling cauldron, threatening to scald anyone who comes too close.  Or, our cluttered senses can resemble an off-kilter pinball machine with metal balls bouncing off the edges of their confinement in an unrivaled clatter.  Some of us unplug that dastardly machine when the clutter begins to clatter.  We shut down.

Can you imagine the overwhelming work of Santa Claus?  All those deliveries, and with an important deadline looming.  No wonder the poem says that Mom and Dad, a rather busy couple in their own right, had just settled down for a long winter’s nap, when out on the lawn there “arose such a clatter.”  Of course, this guy would arrive with some noise, probably emanating from his overstuffed brain.

Have you ever had too much to do; too much going on, not to mention overthinking?  There’s even initials these days for too much information: TMI.

TMI usually refers to when someone over-shares what one normally or customarily would consider private information.  We say that this person has no filter; a subjective assessment.

But in this context, I’m thinking of TMI as literally so much information rattling around in that cartoon bubble over our heads, that we begin to be befuddled.

When your mind is stuffed, the whole atmosphere surrounding you feels full; like helium in a balloon. Should the balloon be pricked, you might bang from one surface to another untethered to solid ground.

We say that someone with an overly-full mind is, spacey; unable to concentrate, focus, or settle down to earth.  Some things just have to be “left up in the air.”

I think perhaps I unclutter my brain onto you all.  Each week I share some of the stuff that would otherwise have contributed to a serious clog in my brain.  So, thanks for listening and being my plumbers.