Nancy with the Laughing Face: January 2013

There is a new woman in my life and that is what I call her.

Of course Sinatra made that phrase famous whenever he sang the beautiful Phil Silvers song. Although the tune was written with someone else in mind, Sinatra always said that he thought about his young daughter every time he sang it.

Now it's my turn to "sing" about this new Nancy and her beautiful, smiling face.

We became aware of each other's existence around Christmas. We were both enrolled in a senior dating website called "wrinklesareus.com" (ok, ok, it was ourtime.com). We started a very tentative email correspondence. I believe I fired the first shot by sending an email that went something like this:

Hello...you,

Do you like the excitement of skydiving out of an airplane over the ocean? Do you like the idea of speeding along an interstate at 125 mph? How about saddling a hyena and wildly romping across the veldt?

Neither do I. 

Mostly I enjoy sitting and eating fruit.  If that sounds appealing to you, please look over my profile and email me.

Now I will have an apricot.

Joel Getman
Miramar Beach

Thankfully, Nancy found my initial overture inspiring beyond words and took the time to read my humble profile. She was delighted to discover that I was on deck when Ted Williams hit his final home run, and was thrilled to learn that I was simultaneously a Temptation and the third Top. What intrigued her the most was my ownership of the state of New Mexico. (It's been in my family for years. I don't like to brag about it.) Thinking a week in Santa Fe doesn't sound too bad, she decided to take the plunge.

And thus began our binary romance.

There was no opportunity to actually meet one another because Nancy was away visiting her daughter and family in Georgia. More phone calls and emails were exchanged and something slowly became quite obvious: this woman is exactly what I've been looking for because she's exactly like me!

To quote the estimable Terrell Owens, I love me some me.

Then I had a terrible thought. What if she looks like me?

Happily we were able to meet face to face over dinner recently and I was thrilled to be able to gaze longingly at a lovely, funny, very sharp woman whose default mode is kindness and optimism.

Nancy is the kind of person who can't wait to see what's next. Like everyone else, she's had to overcome some of life's challenges, but has managed to come out on the other side of things with a beautiful smile and an upbeat, joyful approach.

She has a wealth of stories about her large (four siblings) Michigan family. Most of the time we have spent together has been dominated by one of us trying to outdo the other as far as family wackiness is concerned. We've already laughed more than two people have a right to, and I haven't even told her the one about Ada asking me, as we were passing a truckers' weigh station, "Wanna get weighed?"

My instant response: "Wuv to."

I should be able to win that battle at least.

Nancy is a little camera shy so I've substituted an alternate picture I took recently. Let the beauty of this photograph represent both Nancy's beauty and, especially, the beauty of having yet another wonderful woman (This makes me 3/3,  people!) with whom I hope to share life's ups and downs.

Ain't life grand?
j

Joel Getman is an Excellent Golfer: January 2013

You heard me. Heck, I'll say it again: Joel Getman is an excellent golfer.

Deal with it.

For the past 65 years, I have been very reluctant to boast or gloat about any of my athletic achievements. From my Boston Latin School background I understood the concept of Hubris all too well. The gods did not look favorably upon those who boasted of their various victories or accomplishments. Suck on that, Odysseus.

I got the message loud and clear at an early age. You would never hear me brag about the fact that my pick up basketball team won a particular game at the YMHA-Hecht House. First of all, the sad fact was that if I were on the team it was highly unlikely that that team would win. But even if we did win, I would accept that victory with complete humility, helping the losing team members in their grief and consoling them with the thought that we were obviously very lucky to have won.

During our touch football games on Esmond Street, ("Head for the Buick and then cut to the left.") I never performed one of those ridiculous touchdown dances. I saw no honor in humiliating my opponent. Also, I was not then and am not now what one would call graceful. Instead I would accept the congratulations of my teammates and console the opponents with the thought that if I could score a touchdown, there was hope for everyone.

Readers of these lame thoughts know that I spent most of my adult life playing and competing in tennis. I got to be pretty good at the game and won much more often than I lost. But again, I made it a point of personal honor not to gloat or boast about any tennis victory. I was quite aware of the cosmic importance of the match I had just played: there was absolutely NO importance to it. The world would go on, the sun would rise the next day whether I won or lost. Instead of saying, "I'm a better tennis player than you are and I'm going to make sure everyone knows about it," I would say something like, "I have no idea how I was able to win our match. You are a much better player than I am. Fortune smiled on me today."

Well, guess what, Zeus...you can take all that Hubris crap and make a big ol' suck sandwich out of it.

Because for the third day in a row I have broken 80 on my challenging golf course. Not only that but today I shot a two-over-par 74, my lowest round of golf ever, anywhere.

I'm done with humility. Hey Poseidon, wanna play a nassau? I'll give you two strokes a side, ya waterlogged bastard!

How about you, Ares? I mean you're supposed to be so tough and all. I'll only use four clubs. You can pick them. Loser buys the beer. Waddaya say? Hah, just as I thought. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

And you, Athena? You think you're so wise and so ALL THAT! You want a piece of me? I'll play in a toga. I'll play right-handed. I'll give you a stroke a hole.

Guess what, people. I've made HUBRIS my b-tch! I own HUBRIS now. As a good friend of mine always says, I'm taking HUBRIS, putting it in a balloon and watching it float away.

Joel Getman is an excellent golfer and you are all just going to have to adapt.

Gotta run now. The Santa Rosa Golf Club wants to make an instructional video using my swing. Normally I would have begged off claiming that I'm not worthy. But, hey, it's 2013...THE YEAR OF THE JOEL!

Ain't life grand?
J

Joel's Fabulous Diet: January 2013

I'm going on a diet.

I've chosen to announce this gigantic piece of news in this space because I want to be held accountable by the many wonderful friends and family members who read these lame ramblings. I feel that I can pull this off if I have a Greek Chorus of supporters witnessing my efforts and shouting encouragement or screaming hurtful insults.

I need an audience, people. I always have.

You can consider the above photo the "before." It's not quite anatomically correct, but I fear it's in the ballpark.

In three months I will publish another entry featuring an undoctored, up-to-the-minute series of photos of yours truly, which will serve as the "after" and will provide unassailable evidence that I, Joel A. Getman, am now one of the skinniest men in America.

Or at least not has blubbery as I used to be.

I have chosen to make this announcement and take this action now for several reasons. First, it will be relatively easy for me to remember when this diet started. In the past many of my diets ended prematurely because I thought I had been on a diet for six months when in fact it had only been six hours. That won't happen in this case. This diet starts on 1-1-13 and it won't  be over until I walk down the street with onlookers saying, "Did I just see a gracefully aging American man or was that one of those stick insects that usually hide in trees?"

Another reason for this action involves the couch in my Miramar Beach townhouse. When I sit or lie on this couch, something I do quite often, I usually can't get off it. I am currently incapable of getting myself off the couch due to a redistribution of my bodily weight and some very plush cushions. (on the couch!) The other night, I was fearful of having to spend the night on the couch. It was only through the clever use of a series of levers, pulleys, and one very disgruntled longshoreman that I was finally able to make myself vertical again.

Verticality is one of the secrets of a fulfilling life and I want to experience that.

Finally, I have decided I am using too much soap. I currently average 37 showers per bar of soap. After my Fabulous 2013 Diet, with its accompanying decrease in surface area, I am hoping to bump that number up to 50. This will result in significant monetary savings which I will use to buy pizza.

Now admittedly this will not be my first rodeo; although, ironically, if I were to enter a rodeo, it WOULD be my first rodeo. At any rate, I have been on many diets in the past. Obviously, something went terribly wrong.

Of course I am aware that the second you call something a "diet" you doom it to failure. I mean I'm not completely stupid. I read the headlines in the check out line just like the rest of the gals. It's supposed to be a "lifestyle change" or some such new age phrase.

OK, how's this: On January 1, 2013 my lifestyle is going to dramatically change...I'm going to eat better foods and not as much as I did from 1947-2012. How's that?

I have succeeded with this problem in the past. As a matter of fact around 2003 or so I thought I had the problem licked. I went on the South Beach diet with the dedication of a member of Navy Seal Team 6 and lost a significant amount of weight. Strangely, I also started to enjoy pastels but that's neither here nor there. I was almost too good to look at. People couldn't look me in the eye for fear of spontaneously combusting. The weight I lost was donated to the Central African Republic. They used it to create a massive water desalinization facility. I'm told it still works. Alas, little by little my demons came back to tempt and eventually defeat me. It was a classic guerilla maneuver. Small, elite teams of M&Ms and Twix Bars would surreptitiously become available to me out of thin air. (Well, not quite thin air. I had to enter the convenience store to purchase and then eat them.) Heretofore struggling pizza-by-the-slice establishments all over New England would find their fortunes improving thanks to the generosity of a certain not-so-skinny-anymore benefactor. Eventually, they all knew me by name, like Norm at Cheers.

I promise that whatever happens, I won't fall into those same traps again. If my destiny is to remain one of the world's fattest humans, it will be because I've spent the next three months eating too much kale.

Stay tuned, people. It's going to be a wild ride.

Ain't life grand?
J