The Only State That Matters

According to the pundits, the only state that matters in the upcoming presidential election is Ohio.

If you wonder what it's like to live in the eye of the electoral storm:

• Your phone rings 10 times a night, but it's never anyone you want to talk to.
• The only ads you see are political ads. They're all mean and mostly lies. At this point, I'd give a kidney to see a commercial about what's on sale at the local grocery.
• Some nights it takes three times as long to get home because you're held up by the presidential motorcade. Or because streets are blocked off for some rally. 
• The pile of junk in your mailbox has swollen to twice it's normal size. With more lies and more meanness.
• Talk show hosts are already predicting that you're going to screw up the election, pointing out that even the Amish here act a little crazy. 

This is how bad it is: The instructor for my writing program is relocating from Cincinnati to New Jersey next week. She says it's to be nearer her family and friends, but I suspect the real reason is more political.

She just can't take it anymore.

The Game of Life

When I play a game of FreeCell, the first thing I do is make all the easy moves. Red nine? Black ten? There's a move. Red King? Black queen? There's another.

To be honest, this is not an approach that works well.

Most of the time, once I've made all the easy moves, my next steps become more and more restricted. I load up the holding spaces in the top row and have less and less room to maneuver until eventually my only option is to return all the cards to their starting positions and try again.

Old Dog, on the other hand, starts by making a careful survey of the cards once they're dealt. He figures out the possible ramifications of each move and each move after that and each move after that. He only relocates a card to the top row if he can foresee the opportunity to bring it back to the stacks. He figures everything out. Then, and only then, he moves his first card.

FreeCell is a pretty good metaphor for how we approach life. I'm impulsive, spending most of my energy cleaning up the messes I make of things by not considering potential outcomes more carefully. He's cautious, spending most of his energy avoiding making mistakes in the first place.

It's a good, if sometimes hard-to-align, combination. I push us forward, he keeps us from making too many errors.

It will comes as no surprise to you that he wins FreeCell a lot more often than I do. But, about 5% of the time, I win really fast, flying effortlessly through the game, the cards almost magically arranging themselves.

And, for me, the rush of that makes the other 95% worthwhile.