Grendel and Me 02/07

GRENDEL AND ME (02107)






I was talking to Grendel the other day, trying to get a sense of what I might get him for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want to ask him directly, as I have always believed that if you have to ask you don’t know the cat well enough to be buying him anything anyway. Gifts are an acknowledgement of secrets between personalities, at least in the ideal. I know he has his heart set on a plump mourning dove that visits the bird feeder several times every day, but even though I love to watch predators, I believe they should never be assisted in their endeavors. While pondering this I was emailed from Amazon-you-know-who with the invitation, “Gifts from the Heart”.
“Hmmmm”, methunk, “This could be the answer.”
So I scrolled down and found nine categories: (1) For her, (2) for him, [“Oh, my stars and garters,” Thunked I, “They’ve done it all with only two categories, what on earth could follow?” wondered I], (3) Friends and Family, [Well, OK I guess, though I think that’s pushing it a bit. Isn’t Valentine’s supposed to have romantic overtones?] (4) Fresh flowers, [That seems like a little gender specific.] (5) Jewelry, [Difficult to imagine wearing anything but an octopus around my neck or anything other than a D ring. (6) Gourmet, [You know How we guys all like those little gourmet treats, especially when we have to pay for them.] (7) Love Stories, [What guy doesn’t like a good cry now and again?] (8) Mood Music, [Am I detecting a rise on one side of the playing field?] and finally (9) Romance on Film. I’m thinking “Apocalypse Now” isn’t going to show up on that list.
Daunted but ever optimistic I clicked on “For Him” to see what therein might yield. (These can be activated by clicking control and clicking on the url.)


Vera Wang For Men 1.7 oz Eau de Toilette Spray [A little Wang never hurt anybody.]
Intimo Men's Classic Silk Robe, Black, Medium [Goes well with our silk undies. Notice there is no large or extra large. No doubt they sold out!]
Rubbermaid Tough Tools 70320 56-Piece Portable Tool Case [Love the juxtaposition of “maid” and “tough”]
An Evening in Tuscany [fine wines and cheeses for the guys]
Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Control [One of the most explicit phallic toys I have seen in a while.]
Sling Media Slingbox PRO ( SB200-100 ) This is a little different. I even went to the description and couldn’t figure out what it is.]
The Melody At Night, With You [How much better the Scubabum’s trip would have been with this.]
~ Keith Jarrett
Molton Brown Re-Charge Black Pepper Bodywash [Purge that stench of neoprene. Probably a good substitute for “Sink-the-stink”.]
Acqua Di Gio By Giorgio Armani For Men. Eau De Toilette Spray 3.4 Ounces [Here I confess I don’t like scents that come in sizes smaller than a fifth.]
All Chocolate & Sweets Decadent Gift Tower - Gift Basket [How guys love to be told we’re sweet. It’s usually followed with a “but…”
Anthony Logistics Preshave Oil 2oz [Shave????]

Alas! I could find nothing for my emasculated feline companion. Not even surgery could bring him down this far, and it’s looking rather bleak for my dive buddies too. I’m going to keep my eyes open for fathers’ day though. I wonder if the same products will be offered.
Grendel, m’boy, looks like you’ll get a little extra tuna and a scratch behind the ear. After all, what could be better than that?

Grendel and Me 01/07

I was talking to Grendel the other day, explaining to him that he should not practice his topspin forehand smash on the low hanging Christmas ornaments. In response he flattened his ears a smidge, narrowed his eyes and sent another ornament across the room and under the couch. He knew he was doing wrong, yet he just couldn’t help himself. How like his master.
“No!!” I said with a firm voice, but in spite of my attempt at to sound angry, a smile split my face and we both knew I was only going through the proper motions. He then rubbed against my leg in a conciliatory smooch. Game, set, match.
His athletic prowess manifests itself in soccer as well; his ability to dribble a filbert across the room is almost too fast for the human eye. Sooner or later he fires the filbert into some cranny from which it cannot be retrieved, at least not more than four or five times in a row.
Yet, this athleticism excludes the element of competition. He plays at these things but does not compete; he just does it for the fun of it. For him it is sport like scuba diving is a sport, but with very little competition.
Yes, There are those among us who strive to go the deepest, stay down the longest, but even then they are seeking their own limits. Try to imagine scuba with a completive edge: OK, folks today’s contest is to go down to two hundred feet for thirty minutes. Then the first one to reach the surface wins the grand prize. (One could only hope the prize would be an unlimited stay in a hyperbaric chamber.) Or, Alright folks, this reef is 500 yards long with plenty of small creatures to photograph. First one down to the other end wins.
We dive in pairs, in groups, and even sometimes alone. Once in Canada I told my dive buddy, Gerry, I was going to test deployment of my alternate air supply (pony) as soon as we got to the bottom. He stood by as I, kneeling on the bottom, switched over to my pony. Within seconds four more divers materialized out of nowhere and converged around us to see if help was needed. I guess I should have told everyone that I was going through that drill when I got down, but it was wonderfully reassuring to know that so many are aware of their fellow divers’ situation. Most of the time our awareness of our dive buddy is almost equal to our own.
We compromise our needs with our dive buddy’s and come up with a mutual plan that allows each a satisfying dive. Our mutual dependence for safety kneads us into single units with two first stages, four second stages, two tanks, two BCs, and most importantly two brains should one become overwhelmed or panicked.
I have never panicked underwater yet, but I have felt its stealthy approach, and when that happens it’s time to get out of Dodge! Abort. It’s easy to make that decision when one thing goes wrong. When two things go wrong panic is closer, and panic does not encourage clear thinking, especially when in an environment for which we have no built in solutions.
Grendel plays instinctively; we have no useful instincts underwater, only our training, and that’s why it’s handy to have a dive buddy along. Not mandatory, but handy.
Our sport is so much more than competition; it’s cooperation, and the prize is the glimpse into worlds our ancestors could never imagine.

Grendel and Me 12/06

I was talking to Grendel the other day, and the topic was teamwork. He agreed that it was important, as sometimes he uses me as an unbeknownst beater to drive game into his pounce zone. Well, maybe not always unbeknownst…OK willing beater. The moves he can make in hot pursuit are really something to watch. Cats are nothing if they are not liquid in their flexible twists and turns while closing on frantic prey. And so quickly on to the point.
It is the perpetual consternation of the Eboard that we have so small a core of frequent divers. As we close out the New England diving season we look south to warmer waters and less hostile water. But there are some opportunities to challenge the elements and achieve that heightened rush of boosting yourself onto the ice after an invigorating sub ice dive in February. These are short dives as a rule but exciting, really exciting.
Brownstone Quarry is offering courses in ice diving for those among us who like PADI credentials, but there is a group of club members that do it at least once each year just for the fun of it. The ice dives have been done in wetsuits and in drysuits. Admittedly you can have a longer dive in a drysuit, but on the bright side you get out and to your rush sooner in a wetsuit.
Norm has been kind enough on these occasions to provide shoreside shelter, changing room, hot tub and always a byo feast. This is often followed by an Eboard meeting. It is a wonderful divers’ affirmation that we live even when the less hearty burrow under the rocks in dark holes. (Read that couches.)
The Frozen Fin dive organized by SECONN on January first is another affirmation that the diving life goes on. Again a short dive, but a full day of celebration and prizes and good food and best of all another chance to rub shoulders with the best folks on earth. You can go to dive or just to spend the day as “shore support”. Shore support members are frequently owners of fragile heads and queasy stomachs. It’s almost as if they are seasick. Go figure.
A couple of winter dives sharpen the skills, builds confidence, and forges friendships even if you just go as shore support. I’ve always thought that diving in New England (any time of year) prepares us for the big trips south. If you can dive here you can do it with confidence anywhere. And it never hurts to have friends with you when you are intruding into our favorite environment.
As Grendel always says, “You can’t beat teamwork, but you’ve gotta show up!” Be advised that he does not endorse outdoor activities after the snow flies, preferring the daily sport of pursuing the sun’s rays across the living room rug.

Hope to see you at the Frozen Fin dive; maybe I can score another Richard Marcenko (Rogue Warrior) action figure!

Grendel and Me 09/06

I was talking to Grendel the other day. I was doing most of the talking since he was miffed at me for giving him a bath due to his pursuit of a hapless chipmunk through a poison ivy patch.

“How dare you bathe a cat!?” he glared. “We are the cleanest creatures on earth.”

“When I see you go through the poison ivy, I’ve got to bathe you, because if I don’t, I’ll get the oil from your affected fur and break out in a rash,” I offered. The purity of my logic and self righteousness rivaled that of a born again.

“Besides, if you got some of the oil on you tongue from washing you might get a rash on your tongue.” This delivered sweetly like a heavenly benediction.

“Sounds like you needed the bath, not me.”

In fact bathing a cat is like trying to get control of a handleless full speed chain saw while tumbling in a clothes dryer, and it will draw just as much blood.

“A cat’s gotta do what a cat’s gotta do,” he purred.

You can train a cat until he plays Mozart on the piano, but show him a mouse and he reverts back to the predator in an instant. That reminded me of another predator I witnessed recently, a sparrow.

What!? A sparrow? Tweety bird?

Yep.

I saw a life and death Ariel combat recently that rivaled anything Spielberg staged in Star Wars. It lasted about thirty seconds and it involved a sparrow and a Luna moth.

This is a Luna moth.

Note the standard bricks for size reference. The moth’s tail is resting on the wide side of the brick. Put another way the palm of a man’s hand could not cover this moth.

The sparrow definitely had this shape stored in his little brain as a food item. Perhaps his depth perception was a little off, but none the less, barely bigger than the moth, he decided this was a tasty morsel and would bring it back to his nest in the first “o” of a large sign over the “Laundry Room.”

As he hopped about the moth looking for a grip upon which he could fasten his little beak, the moth woke up and began suspecting the sparrow was up to no good. Sparrow fetched up a mouthful of moth just about the time the moth decided he had enough and began to fly away with the sparrow in tow. Moth had definite designs on a westerly course, while Tweety’s “O” was east.

Moth is not equipped to render blows or bites of combat, so his only course was flight. Sparrow’s beak was too tiny to embrace this meal and clasp it to his will. Moths have a goofy navigational system anyway, but sparrow stayed with him repeatedly attempting to find some part of the moth he could hold fast to.

They finally tumbled to the ground where the combat continued, first Tweety on top then the moth, then roling along one atop th’other where you couldn’t tell what was happening.

Breaking free from the ground combat, moth ascended again with sparrow hot on his tail, but fatigue set in and sparrow fluttered back to a neutral branch thus ending this life or death struggle. Moth wobbled west and disappeared his the prize triumph being his life.

While I admire the ambition of Tweety, he was at no time at risk. Courage without consequence rings a bit hollow to me, but this point is moot, because neither was making choices, just playing programs hardwired into their brains.

We divers make choices. Properly trained, our choices are tempered with the wisdom of insight and a long trail of exemplary and deadly failures.

We are aliens underwater; we just don’t belong there. Knowing this is part of the thrill of being there. Our brains are not hard wired to survive underwater except to tell us to get the hell out.

Thus we are forced into making choices that have extraordinary consequences. We have been taught to make the right choices, but…

Have you evah…

Ø Returned with 300 or less lbs of air?

Ø Left your dive buddy behind?

Ø Penetrated a wreck without proper equipment?

Ø Gone too deep?

Ø Ignored you air supply until you had to cut decomp time?

There are many more and better examples, but the point is we are making decisions in a hostile environment where mistakes can have dire consequences. Don’t let experience make you think you are immortal and can do no wrong; death is the body’s way of telling us we really screwed up.

Grendel and Me 08/06

I was talking to Grendel the other day (not that he was in a talkative mood since my wife and I spent the weekend at a luxury spa, and he spent it confined to quarters with a stacked bowl of dry food and plenty of water). Anyway, back at the spa, being an early riser, I spent the early (like first light) morning disturbing the fitful dozing of the night crew with well-timed coughs as I approached their stations. I finally settled by a small table with a view of a well-manicured gardenscape complete with a waterfall and a lawn cut shorter than my fingernails.

“Grendel,” I said, which was all the motivation he needed to curl up into a feline ball, wrapping his splendid, bushy tail around any identifiable cat parts and rendering himself into an amorphous black shadow.

“You should have been with us.”

A small green slit appeared from within the darkness and slowly blacked out. Here I must point out Grendel’s aversion to automobiles. When confined to one he sets up a keening that would be the envy of any Greek widow. That’s why we can’t take him along.

“There was a great garden that you would have loved to hunt. One green slit opened and fixed on me. I had him hooked.

It was just beyond first light, and the darkness was being squeezed out of the sky, and I noticed a steady rain falling; not the gully washers of the day before but the light steady rain that in New England can go on for days without pause. Just enough to keep you indoors; just enough to render the great outdoors close and intimate. Gone the blue skies, distant clouds, hillsides; just the immediate world, which as I said earlier was a proper English-like garden. The leaves vibrated with the cadence of the rain and the sound came through the windows hushed and insulated.

On a blue sky day you look up and around; today you looked down into the immediate.

How well the gardener’s hand sculpted this little patch.

I cranked the window just a bit and the tiny waterfall swelled into the room with its calming rush across the rocks placed almost as carefully as wind chimes. I can sit like that for moments that defy measurement. OK in this setting but distressing to my wife at lusty highway speeds on the interstate.

The iridescent green slit began to seal, as Grendel started to zone, himself.

A couple of strokes across his well burnished head brought him back to the immediate, as the green slits popped into full almonds.

In a way it’s a lot like a coral reef.

“What!?” he intoned with a single raised eyebrow, “Is a coral reef?”

It’s like the garden I just described but with a lot of fish everywhere.

Grendel sat up and leaned forward, “A garden of little fishes? Just flopping around”?

“Well no. They are swimming in the water. The coral reef is underwater.”

“You go underwater?”

He was shocked.

“Why would you do a thing like that?”

“We like to see things like that,” but I know I didn’t sound convincing to him.

“Hmmph,” he blew through his nose as he curled back up. He had a lot to think about.

But isn’t that the reason we go through all that trouble and expense?

It’s one thing to look at a picture, even a prize winning picture, but who can convey to a cat or even another person what lies beneath.

The panorama, the endless variations of coral and critters, color and form, size and shape, the ever changing kaleidoscope of the reefs call us back to gawk yet again at visions we were never designed to see, but have been fortunate enough to see through our technology.

In a week some of us will return to Curacao. Most of us burdened with various cameras, hoping perhaps for that magical picture that can convey to a non-diver what drives us to the far corners of the world. Millions of photos clutter the walls of the landlocked, and I have not yet seen the one that captures the feeling of hovering weightless in a world we have stolen as sure as Prometheus stole fire from the gods.

But what the hell, we gotta try.

“Zzzzzzz.” Grendel was on his back, fast asleep.

Grendel and Me (July '06)

I was talking to Grendel the other day. The weather was dismal, had been for several days, and we were starting to get cabin fever. Well, he was, because he’s the one who doesn’t want to get his lovely Turkish Angora coat wet and soppy.
“Appearance is everything,” he blinked, slurping an out of place tuft back into line.
Judging from the time he spends grooming I would think that one’s from the heart.
“Well, you need to get out…chase something…run around the front door with a mouth full of critter,” I advised. You’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a weight watcher’s elevator.”
“Please! Not those stupid cat metaphors,” he moaned rolling his eyes, and stretching his chin onto his forepaws, sighing audibly and looking ahead and not at me, as if thus ensconced he might encourage me to go away.
“How about a little catnip?” I asked. “You always enjoy that.”
“Occh! How can you suggest that when it’s not even noon, and you know that makes me sleepy.
“Just trying to help”
“How about the string toy”, he purred with very little conviction.
You mean the one where I run around the living room dragging a piece of string like an idiot, and you just sit there looking interested enough to keep me going?
The corner of his mouth curled up just a little bit, as he contemplated the imagery of that last remark.
“You do that more than Charlie Brown tries to kick that silly football,” he grinned.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that it is my mission in life to keep you amused,” I offered. “After all, …”
“Wait a minute!” his head levered up. “Who entertains whom? Who climbs into impossibly small boxes and plastic bags with only his tail sticking out so that you and Gail can yuk it up?” he blinked triumphantly, his ears pointed forward to catch my response which he had serious doubts were forthcoming.
I just stared at him. Drives him nuts.
“Well,” he went on, “Who plays soccer with those stupid Christmas nuts you’ve got stashed all around this place? That never fails to crack you up.”
“True,” I replied. “You got me there.”
“The point is,” I added, “You’re moping around complaining that you’re bored, and yet whenever I offer something to do there’s always something wrong with it.”
I gave him some serious eye-to-eye and he turned his head away. No response. Didn’t want to hear about it.
“You remind me of some of the dive club members,” pushing the point beyond reasonable limits for a cat’s patience, but the thought popped up because it makes an appearance every now and then.
Sometimes divers in the club complain that they don’t get enough wet time, but we never see them at one of our local group dives. This year we have a nice selection. Let me remind you:
1. Doggie dives monthly. Comes with a great lunch and socialization and compressed air. What more could you want?
2. July 21st : Night squid dive with Woody at Wetherill
3. August 26th : Nubble light dive in Maine with hosts K&L A great trip.
4. September 26th : Another Nubble light dive. If you went to the last one I doubt you’ll miss this one. “Get ‘er done!

The shore dives have a record of being easy and fun and great get-togethers.
I looked up and saw that Grendel was fast asleep. Nothing cures insomnia like a self righteous moralist.

Grendel and Me June '06

Grendel

And

Me

I was talking to Grendel the other day and telling him how pleasant it was to be working at the computer, corresponding with friends, while the breezes outside swirled the scent of lilacs into our study. The slider was wide open and the sky was blue with crystalline clouds lazily drifting. He wasn’t very impressed. Not with the weather, not with my self proclaimed communication skills, or the scents of summer.

“Why you humans spend so much time signaling back and forth amazes me, he stared, “When all the essential information can be sprayed on a bush.”

I wish you weren’t so olfactorily impaired,” he continued. “You have no idea how all that is essential can be conveyed in a good spraying. I can mull over a good scent for four or five minutes and still find something I missed the first time around. To me it’s like a perfumed love letter.”

“Where’s the perfume in that stupid monitor?” he blinked, licking his chops like he’d just made an impressive point.

“I talk to my friends about diving under the sea,” I said a little defensively.

He smirked. The little bugger actually smirked out, “And you call yourselves intelligent? You should take a lesson from cats. Stay out of the water. If you stayed out of the sea you wouldn’t have to learn thousands of words to describe everything that is down there, though I must confess I do like the tuna you bring home in those little cans.”

“Well we humans like to multiply our experiences by exchanging them with others. It makes us feel closer to others. Don’t you ever want to feel closer to others?” I asked, sure I had scored a big point.

“Puhleeze, I’m a cat,” he sighed. So much for my big point.

I was about to get into the need to need others when I noticed that his eyes were getting heavy and his head sagging. Within seconds he was fast asleep and oblivious to everything around us. Cats do not like long Chautauquas.

Here upon I began thinking of our newsletter and how much it would benefit if more of us would contribute a little copy. Short pieces from different perspectives would do much in helping define who we are and the commononalities that bind us together. It doesn’t have to be long or profound, just an opinion on a piece of dive gear, a resort, a diveboat to avoid, a divemaster that made your day. Perhaps a discovery of a new lager! Share the info.

If you have jitters about writing send me your piece and I would be happy to edit it or even patch it up a bit before sending it off to the news letter. It would be nice for more of us to spray the bushes.