Wayne's Whirled

So yesterday was my birthday, and anyone who really knows me knows that while I love other people’s birthdays, I am not a fan of my own.  Perhaps it is because it is a reminder of what is still not accomplished while the years continue to roll relentlessly by, perhaps it is a fear of my own mortality, perhaps it is because it is getting harder to get that many candles on a normal sized cake.  I always wanted a way to see it in a better light, and something that people seem to take for granted (or that they even disparage) has turned my mind around 180 degrees on this.

As anyone who is on Facebook knows, any current birthdays of Facebook friends show prominently on one’s Facebook page in the right sidebar.  Clicking on that birthday list then brings up a pop-up that then allows you to quickly enter a birthday greeting for all of your Facebook friends who are having a birthday that day.  I’m sure everyone has seen it, but it looks like this:

They make it SO easy.  So easy in fact, that one will get birthday greetings from all sorts of people: family, friends, acquaintances, former co-workers, that person you went on two dates with and never saw again, people you haven’t seen in two years, people you haven’t seen since college, since high school, since GRADE school even.

So easy in fact, that I have heard people say how valueless it all is.  That someone who has not seen you in ages wishing you a happy birthday doesn’t mean anything; that they don’t know your current life and just did it because they were on Facebook, it popped up, and it only took them five seconds.

The people who say that are looking at it all wrong.

Instead, try it the way I am going to explain to you, which I did by accident last year and on purpose this year.  On your next birthday, give this a shot and see what you think, no matter WHAT your opinion on birthdays Facebook birthday messages happens to be.

This is what I did:

Whenever I saw someone post on my page for my birthday, I simply took a few seconds to think of them and whatever we had shared whenever we had happened to share it:  a cry last week, a laugh six months ago, a conversation five years ago, an adventure two decades ago.  When I took just a few seconds to think of that person, who I had perhaps not thought of in YEARS, I was able to nearly ALWAYS found something funny, interesting or moving between us, and this did not take much effort.

What it DID do was to give me such an appreciation for the people we are fortunate enough to know at different times in our lives.  Something that, in these days of constant data flow coming at us from what seems an unlimited number of directions, we can easily forget.  With all of the ability to connect these days in so many ways, our friendships can seem fleeting because we are so quickly on to the next.  Many last for years or decades, but some just last when we are in a certain place in our lives; but they all have an impact, and that is worth remembering.

But we need a marker in space and time to allow for the remembering, and that place and time is your Facebook wall on your birthday.  And as amazing as those memories were as they trickled in all day and filled my soul and my heart, I found a way to make it one step better.

When I would see their post and think of our shared experiences, I would choose one and reference it back to them as a comment on their birthday greeting.  A mention of when I was looking through photos of a friend’s vacation on her iPhone only to come across a nude shot of herself.  A reference to someone’s cool car they had back in high school.  A reminder of the time we got caught in a lightning storm above the treeline when we thought we were rugged outdoorsmen and instead ran like frightened rabbits.

Pretty simple, right?  But now my small effort of remembering had a larger effect: now you’ve given back to them what they gave to you, which is a memory that perhaps you had both forgotten.  Let’s call it paying it BACKWARD.

For me, I think the sum total was 134 different people posting a birthday message on my wall, and like I said, I could come up with something for nearly every one of them.  I mean, who gets to remember 134 different shared experiences that occurred over a lifetime in the course of one day?  And even better, reflect them back the person who shared it with you?

That alone was enough to change my mind about how I feel about my birthday.

So when your special day comes, give it a try, and let me know what you think.

And of course, happy birthday.

As you many know, I have always been a fan of fixing something that is broken if possible rather than just tossing it and buying something new.  There are so many reasons to do this: saving money (by at least delaying a purchase), throwing away less trash and just feeling good at the accomplishment.  Recently my pool cleaner was not working and rather than spend $400 on a new one, I was able to buy all the replacement parts and essentially rebuild the entire thing other than the case itself for $80, and some of you may have read about my restoration of a friends 1960’s floor lamp.  Awesome, right?

Sometimes repairs go wrong.

No big deal or big cost, but I was using my 25-foot tape measure recently to measure something damn near 25 feet long.  I should say that a 25-foot tape measure is really a 20-foot tape measure, since taking those last five feet out often results in it not going back in again.  As was this case.  No problem; I’ll fix it!

I took it apart, knowing it would need to rewind the spring in it.  I started winding it back up, checking to see if it had enough winding to pull the tape all the way in when I heard a loud SNAP, which was the spring breaking near the end.  Well crap, looks like I’m not fixing this.

What I was unprepared for was what was left of the wound spring essentially EXPLODING out of the case when I went to set it on my desk. I’m glad I was clear because the edges of the spring are razor sharp!

Moral of the story: Much like in life in general; we can’t fix everything.

Though I have always have been one to try to fix something that is broken before considering buying something new, my time away from work recently has caused me to look at this even more closely.  Whether it is repairing my own shoe sole when the shoe uppers are still in great shape, having my dry cleaner put a patch on my Lucky jeans where my ass has worn the them thin or getting all the parts to repair my pool cleaner, there is satisfaction for me in extending the life of something that I own.  If I can get another year out of something and delay a purchase, awesome.

This has generally been limited to my own “stuff”, though after reading an article in the New York Times about a “repair cafe” in Amsterdam it makes me wonder how many interesting and possibly useful items are sitting around in people’s home and apartments in downtown Phoenix.  Would something like that be possible here?  At the very least, perhaps I could keep my eye out for “things that need fixin'”…

It didn’t take long to find something; while visiting a friend downtown I noticed an interesting floor lamp likely from the 1960s; kitschy wooden leaves and big plastic shades meant to make it look like a multi-colored flower.  My friend had it sitting outside because it didn’t work; the wiring was gone, bulbs were out and the switch was not working properly anyway (it was one of those cool old mechanical rotary switches where one click turns on one light, then another turns that one off and other two, then a third click turns them all on and another all off).  I asked if I could take it and see what I could do.

I wish I had taken photos during the process; I disassembled the entire lamp, polished all of the brass pieces which were quite tarnished, cleaned and oiled all of the wood (being outside in Phoenix had really dried it up), fixed the nicks in the finish with furniture markers and cleaned the the shades which were caked with dust in all of the nooks and crannies.  So it was clean and looked nice, but my goal was to light this baby up!

I found the problem with the switch and repaired that, ran new wiring all through it, got some bulbs and then even put a dimmer on it (I think EVERY light should have a dimmer).  Even I was surprised how nicely it turned out:

I brought it back to my friend and she was almost in tears.  Total cost for making this huge difference?  About ten bucks and couple of hours of work to bring back a 50 year old lamp to almost original.  I felt great for saving something so nostalgic and she loved the mood it created in her small but cool space.  The best part for me was when I asked her about a week later if she had used the lamp; her response?

“Use it?  It’s the ONLY light I use now.”

And it had been sitting, not working, and getting dusty on a patio.

Mission accomplished.

…try this one. Budget BUDGET!