Walking in the Marina

$#*! My Dad Says

My dad sums up the wisdom of trickle-down economics: If you want the sparrows to eat, you have to feed the horses.

Home truths

Charles Stringham, in A Buyer’s Market: “Parents … are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfill the promise of their early years.”

Aargh!

As soon as I saw the title in the Times, I knew I was going to get really irritated not just with the article but with the inevitable I-told-you-so’s from those who read it. The title: “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body: Popped ribs, brain injuries, blinding pain. Are the healing rewards worth the risks?”


Yes. 


The problem is that many practitioners can’t resist the urge to go for the max. I know firsthand. I’m one of those maxers, and I’ve suffered injuries that have chagrined me and changed my practice. I have to constantly remind myself to focus on the journey, not the destination. 


But yoga is not all about the mat. The mat’s my favorite part, but it’s really a trivial element in the overall philosophy of yoga, and it’s beneficial only if it’s approached with the other aspects well in mind.


As with any physical undertaking, yoga asanas have their risks. But the risks of doing nothing are far greater.

A dog's life

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." —T.S. Eliot ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

As Other nears retirement, he has begun to measure his remaining years not in coffee spoons but in concrete terms nonetheless. When we replace our 25-year-old deck next year, for instance, it will be our last, he points out. We have one and a half cats to go (if you measure a cat's life as 15 years and count them end to end). Or a couple of dogs (at 10 years apiece). Or four overcoats (five years each). Or 10 health-club memberships (two years).

For the birds

So many things about my daughter’s life seem unfamiliar. But sometimes a fad arises like a phoenix straight out of my own youth. The latest: dry shampoo.


It took a good deal of effort and time to stretch my kinky hair over orange-juice cans or wrap it around my head with clippies, then cook it smooth under a hooded dryer. To space out the ordeal by a day or so, on the third day I would sprinkle my roots with baby powder, let it absorb the oil, then brush it through. The final effect was a little gross: the fragrance of dirty hair and baby powder, the dusty look of fine dandruff. But it kind of worked at controlling the exuberant oiliness of adolescence.


My daughter’s standards are far higher than mine ever were, so even though contemporary tools are more sophisticated—high-tech unguents, professional straightening irons, specialized brushes—the process still eats up time. So she’s tried corn starch, baby powder and, now, a commercial line of dry shampoos. 


But here’s the thing: the notion of dry shampooing has been around for centuries, but it always get abandoned, because it doesn’t do the job as well as the real thing. Unless of course you’re a bird.

Doesn't this make you want to own a laundromat?

Second Avenue beween Fifth and Sixth: All it lacks is cocktails, crudites and dip.