Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple

For the past couple of years, over on Facebook, I've written a series of posts titled "A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple." No particular schedule, I post them when they happen, and my rule is that they're "99 percent real life." The conversations between Karen and I actually happened--usually on our morning dog walk--but I might buff 'em up a bit to make 'em sparkle. 

In any event, I posted the 11th "Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple" today, and wanted to consolidate them here before they slip away forever, as is Facebook's nature. Following are eleven peeks:

Peek 1 (Nov. 9, 2020)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple: 

Karen and I spent quite a bit of our dog walk this morning discussing whether Wishbone was a crime-solving dog, or a dog who narrated stories in which he just sometimes happened to solve crimes. We're pretty sure it's the latter, but when you're dealing with a talking dog it's hard to find solid ground upon which to base a well-reasoned argument.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 2 (Nov. 18, 2020)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Two:

Karen: What will short kids sit on at Thanksgiving now that nobody has a phone book anymore?

Me: A pillow?

Karen: A pillow is too smooshy.

Me: Two pillows?

Karen: *Looks at me like I'm an idiot and sighs.*

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 3 (Nov. 20, 2020)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Three:

(Karen and I are walking our dog Riley.)

Me: I read an article that said dogs poop in orientation with magnetic north.

Karen: They face north?

Me: North or south, more than east or west.

Karen: We have to do an experiment.

(Two minutes later, Riley poops.)

Karen: Is that north?

Me: Kinda northwest, I think. Hold on, my phone has a compass app.

Karen: 

Me, swiping: I know it's here somewhere.

Karen: The neighbors are wondering what we're doing....

Me: Got it! Son of a gun.

Karen: What?

Me: She's about 4 degrees off of due north.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 4 (Dec. 7, 2020)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Four:

Karen and I were comparing our lists of the many things we have to do this week, and I ended mine with "...My wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped." 

She was only mildly amused.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 5 (Feb. 7, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Five:

(Walking the dog this morning, we hear a frog croak in an unusually deep voice.)

Karen: He's got a different accent than the local frogs.

Brian: I don't think he's from around here.

Karen: Just passing through.

Brian: He's a traveling frog.

(Brian hums about 16 bars of the song "Movin' Right Along" from the Muppet Movie, featuring Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear.)

Brian: Bear left.

Karen: Right, frog.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 6 (March 1, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Six:

Karen: I've got the theme to "H.R. Huff 'n Puff" stuck in my head.

Brian: "Pufnstuf."

Karen: What did I say?

Brian: "Huff 'n Puff."

Karen: Like Harry Potter. Hufflepuff.

Brian: H.R. Hufflepuff.

Karen: Maybe that's where J.K. Rowling got the idea.

(Ten minutes later.)

Brian: H.R. Pufnstuf would have fit right in at Hogwarts.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 7 (May 26, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Seven:

(Walking the dog, Karen pulls the leash sharply.)

Me: Jerk.

Karen: Who?

Me: You jerked the leash. The verb, not the noun.

Karen: That wasn't clear.

. . .

Karen: How about "Yank?"

Me: Same problem. It's a verb and a noun.

Karen: "Pull?"

Me: Yeah, but that doesn't capture the motion of a jerk.

. . .

Me: "Tug."

Karen: Noun.

Me: Dammit!

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 8 (June 15, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Eight:

(Watching a man mow the grass at our neighborhood park using a speedy standing mower that turns on a dime.)

Me: That must be the best job in the world.

Karen: That's your inner 10-year-old boy talking.

Me: Can you think of a better one?

Karen: Yes. But it might be fun to do once. Or twice.

(Three blocks away, we notice a single leaf of a plant oscillating wildly in an imperceptible breeze.)

Karen: It must be catching the air just right.

Me: But there's no wind.

Karen: It could be a ghost.

Me: Yes, that's logical.

Karen: A ghost whose job is to spin that leaf.

Me: That's a MUCH worse job than cutting grass with a cool riding lawnmower.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 9 (Sept. 3, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Nine:

(Me, checking a mirror as we leave the house): How did I get so old?

Karen (gestures to herself, like "Me too").

Me: Yeah, but together we're almost twice as old.

Karen: Well, there's the dog . . .

Me: If we add her age, that's even worse!

Karen: But she does bring down our average.

Me: Yes! That's exactly the right way to look at it!

Karen: We could get a gerbil . . .

Me: . . . Or an aquarium, with like 20 goldfish! That'd drop our mean age WAY down!

(We walk away feeling pretty good about ourselves.)

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 10 (Nov. 19, 2021)

A peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple, Part Ten:

Dealing with some family business, Karen has been meeting with a bank officer named Con. She just got home from a long and tiring appointment with him.

Me: Did he set up an Individual Retirement Account for you?

Karen (confused): No, that's not why we met.

Me: Because if he did open a particular type of IRA, you know what that would be?

Karen (eyes rolling): What?

Me: The Roth of Con.

She's seeing a divorce lawyer first thing Monday.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Peek 11 (April 22, 2022)

A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple, Part Eleven: 

Me: I got asked to contribute some Fire Story art to a new gallery exhibition in the fall.

Karen: A loan?

Me: No, it'll be with a lot of other people.

Karen: But they're not giving it back?

Me: Of course they'll give it back!

Karen: What?

Me: What?

Karen: I asked if it was a loan and you said "No."

Me: It's not alone, it's with other people.

Karen: A. Loan.

Me: Oh. That's different. Never mind.

True story. This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple.

Don Rubin

Don. Photo by Peter Maresca.

My friend Don Rubin died last week, and it took me a few days to think of something fitting and good enough to say about him. Don built his reputation as a game designer and puzzle maker, creating brainteasers and graphic/textual/artistic entertainments of enormous complexity. He published many of them over the decades.

He was also in the comics business, working as an editor for publisher Peter Maresca, from whom I nicked this photo of Don because I couldn't find a good one of my own. Maresca is respected in comics circles for his oversized collections of meticulously curated and restored classic comic strips, and Don had a hand in producing those. He was driven to get it right, and could recall with great passion an instance or two when (apologies to Mr. Maresca) he thought Pete hadn't taken his guidance the way he should have. He loved and cared.

Don and I met not through our comics but through our wives, who worked together. Karen and Caroline compared notes--"Your husband makes comics? So does mine!"--and we hit it off. Don was a talker with East Coast energy and cadence. A natural storyteller. He had deeply penetrating insights into narrative and publishing, which made him someone whose word I respected and whose approval I sought. 

Don was one of only a half dozen or so people who've seen my current comics project. It's a bit odd and ambitious, and Don immediately got what I was doing and why I was doing it. "If this then that and then you can do this but what about that?" He was excited. I wish he'd lived to see it done. If it's ever published, he'll have an acknowledgment. 

I always thought that Don's great gift was seeing patterns that other people didn't. He found patterns in puzzles, stories, characters, graphics, current events. He looked at a series of panels from my new stuff and said "It's like music," which was in my head while I was drawing them but hadn't told anyone else. I once asked Don what inspired him to create a new type of puzzle. "Everything," he said. "Everything I do or see every day is raw material." His brain worked sideways from yours and mine, with wonderful results. 

Don and Caroline lost their home in the same fire we did. We didn't live near each other, the fire was just that big. I think it took a lot of wind out of his sails (as it did ours). They rebuilt like we did; the last time I saw Don was about a month ago when we brought take-out to their house for dinner. It's up in the hills, with spectacular views toward the west, and Don--who was very sick then--talked about the beauty of the terrain despite its fire scars. I'm glad that at least he made it back home to see many more magnificent sunsets. 

I'm heartsick for Caroline. For myself, I only wish I'd known Don longer and better, and had many more meals and talks together. He was the best.

EDITED TO ADD (Mostly so I hold onto it--here's Don's obit, which was published in newspapers nationwide):

April 6, 1945 - April 8, 2022 Donald Joel Rubin, one of the world's premier creators of games and puzzles, died of cancer at his home in Santa Rosa, California on April 8, 2022. Don was born April 6, 1945 in Malden, Mass. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston University's College of Communication.

His exceptional career evolved from teaching school in Maine, to serving as a creative consultant, scriptwriter, game designer, photographer, puzzler, research historian, contributing editor and writer. In the late 1980's his creation "The Real Puzzle" was first published in the Boston Phoenix, then The Real Paper, prior to its syndication in over 300 national and international newspapers and magazines through United Features Syndicate. The Real Puzzle generated so much fan mail that the U.S. Post Office gave Don his own zip code. Don became a mini expert in each field that was the focus of the weekly puzzle and attributed his creativity to a "poor diet and lack of sleep". He wrote many books including, "The Real Puzzle Book", "What's the Big Idea", "Those Incredible Puzzles", "Think Tank", "Brainstorms" and "More Brainstorms". His Parking Lot Puzzle has been called "one of the greatest puzzles of all time."

As print media gradually began to fade, Don refocused his creative genius on interactive games with original content working as a Senior Game Designer at Shockwave, Firemint, Ringzero Networks, and Electronic Arts. Don was a member of the Screen Writers Guild, with clients including Paramount Pictures, PBS NOVA, several Fortune 500 companies, and educational institutions. Don won numerous awards for editorial design, art direction, television and film design, photography, game design, advertising copywriting, and Web content development.

Although Don did not have children, he was an animal lover. At times he cared for many dogs, both his own and friends, bottle-fed a kangaroo, herded and fed cattle on an Australian working ranch, and back at home in Santa Rosa helped with the dogs, cats, chickens and bees.

Many friends sought out his keen intellect and insight into everything from current events, arts and cultural trends, to his astute reflections on everyday life. Don was a great fan of Samuel Beckett and could recite, "Waiting for Godot" in its entirety from memory, quoting recently, "I've talked with you about this and that, I explained the twilight, admittedly. But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough." (Pozzo)

Don is survived by his wife, Caroline Judy, the former Director of General Services, County of Sonoma, and his brother, Harvey Rubin. A Celebration of Life event is being planned with details forthcoming. Please consider a donation in Don's name to HIAS at https://www.hias.org.