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Weekend at Bernie’s

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to sort out my thoughts on the current political drama, but I can’t quite get there. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. Every time I land on an idea or form an opinion about what is happening in America and what to do about it, doubt or misinformation creeps in, and there I am, stuck in Lodi again.

While I’m not afraid to criticize the government or those who fuck with it, I’ve thought about quitting or at least changing the subject because it’s too damned depressing. But if there was ever a time to speak up about injustice, this is it.

All that to say I gave AOC some money. Bernie’s next. With their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, these two are showing great leadership in the face of billionaire bad guys running amok and threatening all aspects of American life. I used to think Bernie and AOC were too far left and ruined it for the rest of us well-meaning Democrats.

Now I see they have a point. After the current administration kicked in, I was fired up to save democracy and would have been happy to go back to the way it was. Status quo was fine with me. Sure, I knew our form of government was flawed, but I figured we could sort that out once we stopped the bleeding.

Bernie and AOC are opening my eyes to the reality that economic inequality is at the core of what’s wrong with our country. Until now, I mostly ignored it because even though I grew up in a low-income working class family, I was able to climb my way out. The system pretty much worked for me.

However, the system pretty much sucks for a lot of people. I was entrenched in this idea they probably made bad choices or didn’t have the will rise above it, but I now accept that what worked for many of us when we ventured out into the labor pool 50-something years ago isn’t the key to success today or tomorrow. Everything has changed.

There is a lot of bad stuff going down right now. It’s a lot to absorb, and any kind of discussion with friends and family usually ends in a food fight. Perhaps I’m naive, but what if we talked about how we can make our economy work for everyone? That conversation has the potential to expand across all parties and all ideologies. And that gives me a tiny glimmer of hope.

Ready? I’ll go first. How about everyone paying their fair share of taxes?

A bridge lesson

I was invited by one of the women in my golf group to participate in a series of beginner bridge lessons in her home, and I thought why not? They say this complex card game is especially good for the aging brain. It seems to me anything that might help us dodge dementia is a good thing. I’m retired. I’ve got the time.

Today was my first lesson, and that’s an hour and a half I’ll never get back.

Perhaps I should have known. When I told Dale, he reminded me math was involved. While it’s true I picked journalism as a major because it was about the only degree that didn’t require even the most rudimentary of math skills, I thought, well, it’s a card game. How hard can it be?

Many of you probably know this already, but it’s damned hard. I won’t even go into the complexities I tried to absorb during this first lesson, but it reminded me of high school geometry, when the teacher spent an entire semester saying, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Because that’s what it sounded like to me.

The bridge instructor scheduled an indefinite number of lessons every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Not bad, but not good for the retirement practice I subscribe to called, “The Slow Start.” But you know, staving off dementia, I guess I could move out faster for a good cause. Also, Thursdays at 10 is my preferred time for massages, and one must have priorities.

On the plus side, I wore jeans and my old Lucchese cowboy boots, which I haven’t done in a couple of years. At least I looked cute, and that takes a few brain cells, doesn’t it?

Bridge is interesting, and I can totally see the attraction. I generally like games. I really liked this group of women. If they had a Yahtzee league, I’m all in. I used to play Hearts back in the day, and that didn’t kill me. Backgammon. Scrabble.

But bridge, wow. I’m 67, reasonably intelligent and in excellent health. However, I don’t think I have enough time left to understand this game.

Even without the card counting and all that, there are all kinds of weird things including where you sit and what cards you play – north, south, east and west. What’s so wrong about left and right?

Sometimes your partner will show all their cards, and you play those, too. Like one hand wasn’t enough. And all these little codes to signal your partner how you want to bid. If everyone subscribes to the same convention, why not just say it in plain English? I have five spades!

I didn’t want to disappoint my friends, but I also didn’t want to pretend I’d come back when I knew it was a lost cause. While I acknowledge some stress is good for you, this is the kind of stress that makes me miserable. Rather than drag it out, I just laid it out for them. They were gracious, but now they have to find a replacement, which sucks for them.

When I got home, I told Dale he was right. Numbers gone wild! Crazy stuff! And all my Thursdays eaten up just to learn the basics? I’m pretty sure I would start dreading Thursdays, finding excuses to stay in bed, when in fact it’s a rather pleasant day of the week that has done me no previous harm.

He said, “So, you’re saying it was a bridge too far?”

The man’s still got it. 

All this is good news for those of you who enjoy reading my blog. I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, and I had been thinking, maybe I’ll just quit writing. But that’s looking like a bad strategy now that I know bridge isn’t going to save me.   

I promised the bridge gods I would work harder at writing if they would just leave me alone.