A very slow day in the life of the great Randini today. Weather is gradually warming in anticipation of the weekend (they’re saying 80′s again). No particular plans yet, I hope we can go somewhere to get a little sun.

I’ve been checking the auctions at shopgoodwill.com recently and stumbled on some good deals. Most recently I picked up a copy of ‘The Last Whole Earth Catalog’ in excellent condition. I had one when I was in high school; it’s sort of a hippie-oriented enviro-wacko back-to-Mother-Nature collection of resources. As it was published in ’71, I’m sure most references are expired, but it brings back some happy memories.

Boring you yet?

It was Saturday, September 19, 1998 that Nancy and I were married in our own back yard, in front our families and a few close friends. I even wrote her a song, ‘Forever Plus One’ (which grew out of our teasing about who loved who more), that I sang to her during the ceremony, albeit through my own tears.

We had met on Labor Day a little more than a year earlier through a telephone matchmaking service, and together we moved into a newly-rented house just three months after that. It was a whirlwind, and I thought it was a miracle that I’d found someone who would put up with me after being a bachelor for so long. She was compassionate, loving, gentle, supportive – one of the most Christ-like people I have ever met, and I loved her deeply.

Today, seven years and four months to the day after we wed, our divorce is final.

Everyone says that it takes two to tango, but it’s hard for me not to take full responsibility for ruining that relationship and hurting Nancy so deeply. I lied to her (mostly about money) and to myself (mostly about my diabetes); my response to her long-term patience with me was paying her deep disrespect.

The worst of it was my temper and my anger, which caused her to become angry as well, an emotion with which she had never had a problem before. It destroyed our communication; she thought I wasn’t listening to her, and I was unable to make her understand what I was really feeling. It defeated me, made me withdraw, made me incapable of getting help, and cloaked me in denial until the day she told me she couldn’t do it anymore. We packed up the house we’d bought together, sold it, and I moved to LA on our sixth anniversary.

If you ever see this, Nancy, I want you to know that I finally heard you (way too late), and that I am so sorry for causing you so much pain. You’ve said you’ve forgiven me, and that you’ve let go of your anger, and for that I’m again grateful for your ability to show me grace. But it kills me inside to think that I made you so miserable, you who I loved so much. Most of all, I’m sorry that ‘forever plus one’, in real life, fell so short.

Here’s a very cool video, created by an American Airlines pilot for his daughter, to show what it’s like to fly from Boston to Paris, spend the day, then fly back.

Watch it! Oops – the video has been yanked – do a Google search for Paris Boston video and I’m sure you’ll find it.

Haiku: not easy
Seventeen syllables is
not enough to fin-

‘At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient’s anterior chest wall. “Big breaths,” I instructed. “Yes, they used to be,” remorsefully replied the patient.’

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