The Oppenheimer Report 1/21/13

Another banner week in the Taylor household. We are still interviewing aids and have tried out three unsuccessful candidates (out of seven or eight we’ve interviewed) so far. There is a live-in caregiver program wherein a Canadian family can sponsor a foreign candidate to live with them while he or she applies for permanent residency and eventually citizenship. In theory it is a win win for everyone, but it doesn’t always work out that way. First of all, there is a waiting period of several months before a sponsored candidate is actually placed with a family, and there have been reported abuses on both sides. Families sometimes expect too much of the caregivers, who receive minimum wage and are sometimes treated unfairly according to accepted employment standards. Subject to a 2 year probationary period these candidates sometimes become trapped in an unpleasant working situation. As well, some of the candidates are not suitable for the job. Shauna has had an abrupt education on the many challenges to hiring a responsible caregiver. Some lie on their resumes, others want to be paid in cash to avoid paying taxes, and some are simply not very good at what they profess to do. It takes a special kind of person to be a good caregiver.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt. One thing that has been on my mind a lot of late is that I seem to have skipped my mid-life crisis, and now find myself suddenly dropped on the outer fringes of that phase. I didn’t buy the sports car, or cheat on my wife. I didn’t get a hair transplant, or take up rock climbing, or whatever mid-lifers do when they see codgerdom creeping up in them. I simply got older and ignored it. As I get crankier and creakier, and as old age taps me not-so-gently on the shoulder, I stare perplexed at the salt and pepper-bearded codger looking back at me in the morning mirror, and I see my id fighting for its life. The denial I so criticize in my elders is the same denial creeping into my own life. The devil on my one shoulder is beginning to look like an atrophied little nebbish, as the “angel” on my other shoulder evolves into a bullying nag. More and more I fight a losing battle with the tyranny of common sense, and I foolishly long to lead my life with the reckless abandon of my 28 year-old self. Sadly that bad boy is disappearing like newly spilled invisible ink, and what is left is the Dr. Oz-your-health-is-your-wealth-no cholesterol-watch-your-salt-two-beer-limit-early bird-special Jamie. The last five year over-exposure to that which, if I’m “lucky”, represents the next twenty or thirty years of my life has made me hypersensitive to the aging process. More than once I heard my nonagenarian mom say she wished she were dead, and I find myself asking the imponderable questions, questions too dark for even politically incorrect me to discuss in an open forum.

Last Thursday, my longest running partner in crime and best friend Bob had to drop someone off in Toronto, and afterwards we attended the Toronto Boat Show together. It was a welcome break from what I have been doing for the past month. I must say the show was a disappointment, and every year there seem to be less and less hot boats to spark my marine fantasies. This year we spent a lot of time waiting in line to walk around shoeless on obscenely expensive luxury cabin cruisers. When I go to a boat show, I seem to gravitate to the fast, dangerous, overpowered little boats - boats one could envision naming “Suck My Wake” or “Oar-gasm,” and which have absolutely no practical value to a codger like me. In his typically insulting way, Bob suggested that I am “over the hill” so I should embrace my inner codger and buy a pontoon boat. You know, one of those floating living rooms. He thought that would be a suitable alternative for our little lake up north, taking into consideration that I am reluctantly entering that stage of my life wherein a floating living room even resembles real boating. By my definition, that is rafting. Although I am perfectly happy with the boat I have now owned for over 22 years, I did some pontoon boat comparison shopping just for fun. If I am going to consider one of these floating living rooms I want it to be stupidly overpowered, so I can annoy all the other cottagers by speeding around on this cumbersome blob of welded aluminum. One pontoon boat - I cannot remember the make - boasted a respectable top end of over 55 mph. There was a video of this 22’ pontoon boat making hairpin turns and blasting through rough chop with ease. High performance pontoon boats, now there’s a concept! Pretty soon they’ll start selling them with flames painted in the sides. Bob tells me that there are pontoon boats which can reach speeds of 100mph and that there are in fact pontoon boat races. Who knew?!

One of my nephews periodically texts me photos of his latest accomplishments souping up his Mustang GT. I think he’s got his 0-60 acceleration down to below 4.6 seconds. I suspect he wants to rub it in my face what a wimp I have become. Paranoia is one of the telltale signs of aging, by the way. I’d like to send him a photo of me cruising along in my new high performance pontoon speedboat at 80MPH, with “Ahoy Vey II” emblazoned on the side in fire engine red, while I’m driving with one hand, playing cards with the other, and watching television. This is how your fossilized Uncle Jamie does it.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS