A Bird In the Hand

They're harvesting, across the road.

2007-10-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

This morning I looked out my front door and saw that they're finally harvesting the corn in the vast field on the other side of the road.

The dry yellow stalks being mowed down under pale grey skies; minuscule shards drifting on the air; and chilly temperatures at last. Yes, it's autumn.

I wanna be a Harvey Girl!

2007-10-06T17:54:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, it's not gonna happen unless I somehow get hold of a time-traveling DeLorean. I would've had to be in my late teens or early twenties at any time between the 1880s and the 1940s in order to get a job with the Fred Harvey company. But what a life! I used to wish I'd been young in the 1920s so I could be a flapper. Now I wish I could've been a Harvey Girl.

"But who were they?" you might well arsk. Well, I'm getting to that. In the second half of the 19th century, when the railroads were pushing out across the western United States, the technology (as it tends to do) got ahead of the social infrastructure. Railroad workers and passengers on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe were pretty much on their own when it came to meals on their journey. Many towns along the railway were little more than a depot and some cattleyards. Cafes would frequently cheat the passengers who stopped there to eat, by taking their money up front and not managing to have the food ready before the customers had to get back on the train. If the food did come, it was greasy and barely edible. Coffee was fresh once a week. Passengers could always bring food along from home, but in a hot railroad car crossing the desert it didn't keep very well. What to do?

A visionary restaurateur named Fred Harvey had the answer. He contracted with the Santa Fe to build a series of restaurants, one every 100 miles, along the railroad line. He would provide quality meals and service for the railroad's passengers and employees, and the railroad would give his company a deal on tickets and freight charges. Thus the Harvey Houses were born. This was a revelation to me: I thought the first example of a chain operation ensuring uniform quality service to travelers was Holiday Inn in the 1950s, but Fred Harvey beat Kemmons Wilson by more than seventy years. Harvey House restaurants were located in the depots or very close to them, and they ran their businesses by the railroad schedules. Each Harvey House knew when a train was coming in, and they had the food cooked and ready when it arrived. They served their special blend of coffee, and if the local water had a strange taste, they'd bring in water in tank cars to ensure the coffee's quality. Passengers could count on delicious meals in elegant and comfortable surroundings, served impeccably by... the Harvey Girls.

They were waitresses, but very special. They were hired to high standards and trained to be cheerful, efficient, dignified, and professional. They wore spotless uniforms, long black skirts and white blouses, and wore their hair parted in the center and pulled back. They lived in a dormitory with a house mother who looked after them. They earned decent wages, but with practically no living expenses they could save it all or send money home to their families. They worked hard, six days a week, serving several trains a day, but the working conditions were excellent: a supportive, family atmosphere, and an appreciative customer base. They could do whatever they wanted on their days off -- many Harvey Houses were in big towns with lots to do, but even in small towns the Harvey employees would do things together, such as have picnics or go riding.

And being a Harvey Girl was an adventure! The American West was still wild in those days, travel was difficult and expensive, and women had little opportunity. But a Harvey Girl could apply in Chicago or Kansas City, get hired, and immediately be whisked off to New Mexico or Arizona for a new life. The girls signed contracts for six months or a year, and had to work that long at their original posting. After that, they could transfer to other Harvey Houses all over the west. Some of these were quite plush, and included luxury hotels. They had vacation time each year, with free rail travel.

And if an enterprising husband was what a girl wanted, the Harvey system was the way to go. There were rules against dating other Harvey employees, but how strictly this policy was enforced depended on the management of the individual House. Some Harvey Girls married chefs, busboys, or even managers. However, more of them married railroad men -- brakemen, engineers, telegraph operators, even railroad executives. These were their regular customers, after all. The West was a land of opportunity then, and railroad men and their Harvey Girl wives were founding fathers and mothers of several western towns. There was a mystique about these women, having to do with their training, their professionalism, their mobility -- so unusual for females back then -- and the self-assuredness that resulted from all this. It reminds me of the stewardess/flight attendant mystique, beginning in the 1960s when air travel became affordable; in fact there are many parallels. Flight attendants are airborne waitresses, but the mystique comes from their training, professionalism, and the exotic setting in which they work. There's also the aura of the unattainable, the sexually desired, and I'm sure the Harvey Girls evoked this feeling as well -- but as subtext, not displayed openly due to the social mores of the times.

The Harvey system continued through the Depression, but began to wane in the 1940s. World War II revived it while also straining it nearly to the breaking point: with troop trains crossing the country, Harvey Houses were so full of soldiers that they had to put up tables on verandas, porches, and courtyards in order to serve everyone. In many towns they were no longer able to serve locals, and some even had to turn away civilian travelers and serve only troop trains. Retired Harvey Girls were enticed back to work, closed Houses re-opened, and still they could barely handle the volume of customers. But when the war ended, it wasn't long before the Harvey Houses ended too. It was the era of automobile travel, and then air travel, and rail travel declined concurrently.

If this sounds like something you'd like to read about, I can direct you to the book I've been reading -- The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West by Lesley Poling-Kempes. It's chock full of reminiscences from actual Harvey Girls and their descendants, and I found it so enthralling I could hardly put it down. I love my life, and my job and my world, but if I had to choose another era to live in, I'd want to be a Harvey Girl.

LOLcat for "Oregon Trail" Lovers!

2007-08-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

Stop wasting my time.

2007-07-07T17:52:00.000-05:00

You know what I want.
You know what I need.
Or maybe you don't.
Do I have to come right flat out and tell you everything?
GIMME SOME MONEY!

I love Spinal Tap! I've been singing along with "Gimme Some Money" on the commercials (for what? American Express Small Business? I don't pay any attention to what's being hawked; I'm too busy singing along with Tap) for the past several months. Their soundtrack is a regular in my car CD player, and I've got it on my iTunes as well. And today I got to see them perform again!

I hadn't paid much attention to the ads for Live Earth, so I didn't know until I saw it in TV Guide today that Spinal Tap was reuniting to play this concert. I quickly told Young'un, who found a schedule on the web and learned that they'd be playing this afternoon sometime. We're Tivo-less, but improvise quite well with the VCR: we started rolling tape when Metallica was on, and this assured that we wouldn't miss Tap even if we were outside working when they played. As it turned out, we had just come in from a couple of hours worth of lawn mowing when Ricky Gervais announced their set.

What can I say? They were fantastic! I don't know who they had playing drums -- I was hoping they'd come up with "John 'Stumpy' Peeps' twin brother" and have Ed Begley Jr., but that didn't happen. (And he didn't explode onstage, either.) They greeted the crowd at "Wembledon" (actually Wembley) in their typical confused fashion, then launched into "Stonehenge". ("Where the demons dwell! Where the banshees live, and they do live well!") The miniature Stonehenge didn't drop from above, but they did have a small person dressed as a Druid who hefted some large stone columns onto the stage. The other song they did was "Big Bottom", and for this one they were joined onstage by every single bass player who was there! They kept announcing all their names, preceded by "... and on the bass...". They then played a bang-up version of the song, complete with an extended bass solo by, well, everybody.

When the band was first announced, applause was light; I think a lot of people in the audience weren't in on the joke. They'd sure as hell gotten it by the end! And who knows, maybe this will inspire Tap to tour again. They've reconciled with Marty di Bergi (Rob Reiner, in that same hat), so maybe he'd even do another documentary. That's a sequel I'd definitely go see.

The End. (Pass Out Quietly.)

2007-06-11T21:33:00.000-05:00

The screen went black.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of a scene; Meadow's on her way into the diner, the bell jingles, Tony looks up; Steve Perry's in full cry: "Don't stop!" "--Bee-lee-vin'!" it would have been, except that it wasn't, because the screen went black. And stayed that way. Black screen, silence; and then credits rolling.

"That's it?" asked Young'un.

"What just happened?" I asked.

Unlike many viewers of this, the series finale of "The Sopranos", we never thought for a second that the cable had gone out. We knew what we were looking at was an artifact, meant to tell us something. But what?

I don't really care for write-it-yourself endings, and in this case in particular I was hoping David Chase would spell it out for me. In one of the early episodes, Tony makes the remark that in his business everybody ends up in prison or killed. Going into this final episode, I saw another possibility: the witness protection program. Tony and Agent Harris of the FBI have been getting downright chummy. When Tony met him and got into his car I thought that's what was going to happen... but no.

As the hour progressed we saw several examples of another observation Tony made early in the series: "I feel like I came in at the end; like it's all winding down." It wound down, all right. Bobby's dead, Silvio's in a coma, Uncle Junior is in his own Alzheimer's world. When Tony told him, "You and my father used to run North Jersey", he replied, "Oh. That's nice." Janice jokes that she's got to snag another husband, and declares quite seriously that she's going to keep her stepdaughter with her regardless of the girl's wishes. Paulie Walnuts, ever the dog in the manger, doesn't want to take over Bobby Baccala's crew but takes the job when Tony threatens to give it to Patsy "there's P in our OOL" Parisi. Patsy and his wife, played by 80s icon Donna Pescow of Saturday Night Fever and "Angie" fame, meet with Tony and Carmela to discuss their children's upcoming marriage. The other Soprano offspring, A.J., is all fired up to join the army (a la Michael Corleone in One?), but Tony and Carm convince him to go to work for Little Carmine in the movie business instead.

As for the war with the New York mob, a separate peace is achieved -- with the help of Little Carmine (he's turning out surprisingly useful). For Phil Leotardo, who's been out of control ever since Tony's cousin Tony Blundetto whacked his brother Billy, it ends badly. At the gas station. Under the wheels of an SUV. Amid bellows of nausea and projectile vomiting from onlookers. His vendetta against Tony Soprano dies with him.

Meanwhile Carlo, a member of Tony's crew, has flipped; he's going to testify, and subpoenas are flying. Tony's lawyer has warned him that he's probably going to be indicted. Tony and Carmela touch on this, briefly, while sitting in a booth in the diner waiting for their children to join them. Tony's jukebox selection, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" is the soundtrack as we look around at the other customers in the diner, and with each jingle of the door chimes somebody else comes in. There's a woman who resembles Janice... a guy who looks like Johnny Boy Soprano, Tony's dad... A.J. comes in at the same time. Now they're just waiting for Meadow. A.J. bitches about his job, Carmela chides him as always. Out in front, Meadow is trying to parallel park, and having a hell of a time. The waitress brings a plate of onion rings, the family starts to eat them -- Meadow runs across the street to the diner -- chimes jingle, Tony looks up -- Steve bellows "Don't stop!" Aaaaaand the screen goes black.

So what happened? I'll tell you what I think. In the first episode of this last half-season, Tony and his brother-in-law Bobby are out in a boat fishing, and they have a conversation about what happens when you're shot. They conclude that you aren't aware of it; you don't hear it coming: it just ends. We saw that clip at the end of the penultimate episode, after Bobby was whacked and Tony had gone into hiding, and again in the "previously on The Sopranos" montage at the beginning of this one. I think this was a message that when the screen went black, we were seeing from Tony's point of view, and that he just got shot to death in front of his family. Boom boom, out go the lights. He (we) never heard it coming.

Just my opinion, of course; your mileage may vary.

"Designed To Sell -- 1970s Edition"

2007-05-27T21:21:00.000-05:00

I'd hate to tell you how many hours of HGTV's "Designed To Sell" Young'un and I have watched. We love that show, and watch it every night at 11:00 whether it's a rerun or not. In case you've never seen it, the show begins with the host and a real-estate expert walking through a house that's for sale, and the real-estate expert critiques the features of the house. The DTS team -- a designer, two carpenters, and the host -- will then come in and help the homeowners fix the problem areas and accentuate the selling features. The team has a $2,000 budget which the designer has to work within.

Well, Young'un and I have seen enough of these shows to know what kind of things give the real-estate expert the horrors, and the most often used pejorative is "dated" -- pronounced "DAAAAAAY-ted!" It occurred to us that all of these nausea-inducing decorative features were once the last word in modern design. With this in mind, we came up with a few things you'd be sure to hear on the 1970s edition of "Designed To Sell" -- featuring real-estate expert Bertha Freeman, designer Louisa LaPorta, and a generous $500 budget.

"We'll open up the space by covering this whole wall with gold-veined mirror tiles!"

"Bertha called the bathroom 'dark and dingy'. We're going to build you a beautiful and stylish light box to brighten it up!"

"We're giving the kitchen a makeover, complete with a modern butcher-block counter!"

"We'll bring the appliances up to date by covering them with this wood-grain contact paper!"

"Bertha said the bare wood floor in the bedroom was depressing. We're going to cover it with luxurious wall-to-wall sculptured shag carpeting!"

"We'll create an inviting conversation pit in your living room with this generously oversized, versatile modular sofa!"

Yes, I definitely would've watched that show -- unless it was scheduled opposite "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", of course. ;-)

We danced the night away!

2007-05-14T07:38:00.000-05:00

Firstborn is officially married, and what a marvelous time was had by all! This was my first Jewish wedding, and I loved it. There was much ritual and ceremony, some of it stately and solumn but mostly lively, raucous, and vibrant. I'll go into more detail later, but I think my favorite moment was when Firstborn and his bride saw each other for the first time that day -- minutes before the ceremony. Her mother and I had just broken a plate together down in the room where the men had been meeting, and we then hurried upstairs to where the bride sat in a throne-like chair. We hurriedly got into place on either side of her as a herd of well-dressed men stampeded, yelling, up the stairs behind us! They brought Firstborn to see his bride, and to veil her -- to make sure he would be marrying the woman he expected to marry, according to tradition. When he saw her in that chair, in her beautiful gown, a vision of loveliness, and her face lit up when she saw him -- well, that was the first moment when tears filled my eyes.

As the ceremony began, his grandfather, uncle, cousin, sisters, and brother walked in one by one. Then Husband and I on either side of him walked Firstborn up the aisle, up the stairs, and under the canopy. The flower girls came down the aisle -- another triumph for Adorable Granddaughter! She and the bride's niece did a fabulous job strewing petals on the white runner, and went right up the steps and dumped the rest of the petals under the canopy! Then the curtains at the other end of the room parted, and there stood my beautiful daughter-in-law. Her parents walked her up the aisle. Under the canopy, she walked around Firstborn 7 times, with her mother and me carrying her train. Then we moms stepped out from under the canopy, and it became her and Firstborn's first "house", where they separated from their parents and became a family. That was the second time I teared up.

And afterward -- oh man, what a party! Our deejay was Sarah Lewitinn, "ultragrrrl" of Spin magazine and VH1 fame, an old friend of Firstborn's. The first set of dancing was traditional, men with men and women with women. Lively! Fast! Ladies spinning in circles around the bride, men pulling Firstborn in their circles with them! Me with the women, Young'un with the men! Then the newlyweds lifted high on chairs! After that, a wonderful dinner; then more dancing to the usual lively wedding-reception fare. I danced all evening, as did our children and grandchildren. Stepdaughter's two had a ball with the other children there, running in a pack as little kids always do at these affairs. I had a couple of lovely dances with Husband, and also with my dear Firstborn. What a night! The staff were stacking up the chairs and rolling up the tables, and still we all hung out together; family, Chicago friends, New York friends -- sitting on the dance floor talking for a long time.

This morning I'm feeling the night of dancing, especially in my knees (but my feet are fine, thanks to those Hush Puppies pumps! LOL). We'll be checking out of the hotel soon, and heading home. I'll have pictures to post too! For now, I'll just say that yesterday was the best Mother's Day I ever had in my life.

Ten Years

2007-04-02T20:41:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday, March 31st, was my ten-year anniversary at Heaven, Inc. You don't get a cake for ten years, but you do get a lapel pin or charm (your choice) set with a gem -- I believe it's a topaz. I chose the charm, to be worn on a gold chain as a necklace. Last Thursday my boss, Jerry, came over to my cube and gathered everybody around, and presented it to me. I made a little speech in which I thanked him, told my co-workers how much I enjoy working with them, and ended with a little joke: "My husband says he's spent longer than 10 years in the bathroom at this place! But then, he worked here 33 years, then retired and came back. I got started later, that's all." Everybody congratulated me, and shook my hand, and it was just generally a very happy occasion for me.

Ten years! It hardly seems possible that so much time has passed. I guess time really does fly when you're having fun. Oh, I'm not saying that all of it was fun; far from it! I had one boss who about drove me nuts -- I'd never been so glad to get away from somebody! I was quite relieved when he retired, because only then was I sure I'd never have to work for him again! (Because even if he came back, they don't let retired-rehired people be supervisors.) I had some amazing experiences, most notably my trip to Australia in March of 2000 -- the Business Trip of a Lifetime, as I call it. There were other trips too; Chicago, San Antonio, Peekskill, Las Vegas... Round round get around, I get around. There's nothing quite like staying in a fabulous hotel room, going out for a delicious dinner, and whipping out the company credit card.

A lot has changed in my life since I started at Heaven, Inc. Firstborn was a junior in high school; now he's 27 and soon to be married. Young'un was in kindergarten; now he's 6'4" and has a driver's license. Stepdaughter was single and living in Denver; now she's married with two kids, and lives about 20 minutes away. Other things have stayed the same: Husband and I are still happily married, and still in the same house; still pretty much the same people we were ten years ago. Overall, it's been a good ten years.

Thinking about "The Girls Who Went Away"

2007-02-17T20:16:00.000-06:00

I'm reading a fascinating, compelling, haunting book. It has caused me to take a step back and examine a part of life, a given in society, that I'd never questioned before. The book is The Girls Who Went Away and it's a true story -- "The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade". The author, Ann Fessler, is herself an adoptee. She had wondered about her birth mother, and then she met a woman who'd surrendered a daughter many years ago and thought Fessler might be that daughter. She was not, but this incident started her on a quest to give voice to women who'd been silenced and shamed into keeping the secret of bearing and surrendering their babies.

Oh, I remember it so well, the mindset, the societal pressure that victimized Fessler's birth mothers. The period she writes about begins after World War II and continues through the 1970s. When I was in junior high and high school, in the latter half of the 1960s, I can well remember the dread and horror of unwed motherhood. Girls' magazines and books told the story over and over -- a girl has sex, discovers she's pregnant, and is quickly made to disappear. She's on vacation, or staying with a relative, so the story goes; but in reality she's in a maternity home. Her baby is born, she gives it up for adoption, then she comes home and goes on with her life -- or at least, that's how the story goes. Then the child is raised by the adoptive parents. Everybody's happy...

Except they aren't. And I never suspected that they weren't, because I'll confess I never knew anyone who went through this. According to the women who told Fessler their stories, the people around them pressured them to give up their babies. It wasn't that they "wanted to be rid of this situation" -- they all desperately wanted to keep their babies, some to raise them alone somehow, others with the birth fathers. But in story after story, we hear that the girls were told that they were "selfish" to even think of keeping their babies. That they were "unworthy" to raise their babies, because they had had premarital sex. That the child would be taunted on the playground as a "bastard". That they owed it to their babies to give them to a good home, to good parents, who were older and married and could raise them right. In several stories, the young woman persists in wanting to keep her baby -- and is told that if she does, she will have to pay for her time in the maternity home, and the hospital, and the birth.

The social workers and nuns in the maternity homes weren't the only ones pressuring these mothers, of course. Their own parent families felt shame, fear, and panic because society in those days would condemn them too. The big fiction was that girls from good families, girls who were raised right, saved themselves for marriage. Therefore, if your teenage daughter got pregnant, you were a bad parent. In the 1950s and even well into the 1960s, conformity was important to adults -- they were frantically concerned with "what the neighbors would think". How well I remember that mentality in my own parents! How I resented and despised it! My own attitude of not giving a rat's ass what the neighbors think is a direct and enduring result of this repressive atmosphere in which I grew up.

So here these young women were, with nobody supporting the idea of them keeping their babies. Not society; it called them "sluts" and unworthy to raise a child. Not their parents; they just wanted to put this horrible tragedy behind them and hope nobody ever found out. Not the social workers and nuns in the maternity homes; they just wanted the mothers' signatures on the surrender papers so they could give the babies to the "better, more worthy" adoptive families. Many of the girls were even lied to about what they were signing -- some signed blank papers; some signed under pressure while still flat on their backs after the delivery; some were told the baby's placement would be "temporary". So they signed the papers, they surrendered their babies, and they went home to forget...

But for the women who told their stories to Ann Fessler, forgetting was not an option. Each of them felt there must be something wrong with them; they'd been told they should put it behind them, but they couldn't. They grieved for the loss of their babies -- but they weren't allowed to grieve; they were even made to feel unworthy (again!) because they couldn't just forget it and go on. Some of them never had another child, even if they got married: they felt it would be a betrayal of that first child they surrendered; or they'd bought into the "you're a bad mother, unworthy to raise a child" litany that had been drummed into them. Many married abusive men, unconsciously seeking punishment -- for the unworthiness others had accused them of for getting pregnant, or for the guilt they felt for surrendering their babies. Many of them did have other children, but had separation issues, always unconsciously fearing that someone was going to take these children away from them too. When one of these women saw her daughter die of leukemia, she felt that God was punishing her for giving up her first baby. Some have had substance abuse problems, seeking to relieve the pain of the grief they were never allowed to acknowledge.

Even those who have reunited with their children found that it didn't solve all their problems. Meeting the child as an adult brought home to the birth mother all that she'd missed by not seeing the child grow up. If the child had a bad adoptive home, this added to the birth mother's guilt that she didn't fight harder to keep her baby. For some, the reunion brought back the feelings of misery, shame, and resentment that they'd repressed at the time and never worked through. There were troubles for the children as well: many of them had been brought up on the conventional wisdom that their birth mothers hadn't wanted them, had rejected them; and it was hard for them to completely accept the idea that their mothers basically had no choice.

I have never lived any of the roles in this sad drama. I have only been pregnant as an adult, married, both financially and emotionally prepared to raise a child; so I never had to even think of giving up a baby. I had no trouble getting pregnant when I wanted to, so I never had to consider adoption. I always knew all too well that I was my parents' natural child ("accident" that I was!), so I don't know what it's like to wonder who I really am or whether or not I have siblings somewhere. Reading these women's stories, hearing what they were told, how they were treated, and how it affected the rest of their lives, has been a revelation to me. If you've read very much of my journal, you know I have no illusions about "the good old days", or the wisdom of "the greatest generation", so in that context, this is just more of the same. However, it was surprising in that I'd assumed that at 53 I wouldn't be learning anything else new about the world of my growing-up years.

I got yer Iraq timetable right here!

2007-01-14T15:12:00.000-06:00

Yep, that's the plan, as if we didn't already know. Find a way to drag it out until Commander Codpiece leaves office, at the cost of God knows how many lives. Then when it's the next guy's problem, relentlessly slander and berate him for what he does to try to solve it, regardless of what that is. Blame him for whatever happens, and if he's a Democrat, blame the whole party for losing Iraq or losing the Middle East. Never mind that (a) neither Iraq nor the Middle East was ever ours to "lose", and (b) we weren't in any danger of "losing" them until we cut and ran from Afghanistan to charge into Iraq on PNAC's bone-headed whim.

And does he care? Of course not! He's already focused on his "legacy" (Hah!), and that half-billion-dollar presidential library he's going to have. That's a hell of a lot of money for a library that will have only two books, "The Report of the Iraq Study Group" and "My Pet Goat". He must be planning to have Halliburton build it.

Everyone could use a good laugh...

2006-11-20T20:58:00.000-06:00

... and this is the best laugh I've had all day! I give you -- FURBY IN A MICROWAVE!

Traditions

2006-11-14T19:01:00.001-06:00

Well, I'm starting to get excited about the holidays. I'm on vacation next week -- we get next Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, and I always take the other three days as vacation. I'll probably do a little Christmas shopping; I've already got a few things, so I'll pick up a few more. When I go back to work Christmas will be less than a month away, and I can start wearing my Christmas sweaters! Hee! I'm kind of tongue-in-cheek about wearing them, but all in all it's just another one of my many annual traditions.

And speaking of that -- yes, my birthday is also next week, and I'm reading Death of a President again. Husband and Young'un saw me lugging it around, and they had to tease me a little. "Don't you have that book memorized by now?" Actually I almost do, but I savor the ritual of reading it. I'm so much older, now, than JFK lived to be -- that's surprising to realize, since he and his administration were towering adults to me, back when I was ten. I don't know how many of them are even still alive... and those who are, are old. But for me they're frozen in time on November 22, 1963, like a fly in amber. Every year about this time, I open that book and there they are, waiting for me. Hello darkness, my old friend...

We had a great time last night!

2006-11-04T15:00:00.000-06:00

Last night Young'un, his best friend, and I went to see comic Jim Gaffigan perform at Illinois State University. That's about an hour's drive from here, and Young'un drove us there and back in the Grand Prix. He did fantastic! Interstate driving, at night, some of it even on I-55 -- and he handled it like a pro. Of course, it helped that we'd driven the route last Sunday afternoon! I hadn't been to ISU in so many years I'd forgotten exactly how to get there, so we got the route from Mapquest and ran it in daylight. That way, when he was actually driving it at night in traffic, I could concentrate on being his driving mentor without the distraction of being map-reading navigator as well. It all went smoothly as a dream; I was even prepared with the exact change for the $4 parking fee.

We had great seats, right in the middle and pretty close to the stage on the orchestra level. It was a full house! And what a show! The opening act was a young comic who I'll bet will be headlining his own shows before too long -- he was really good. Then Jim Gaffigan took the stage. I've seen him on Comedy Central and really enjoy his comedy. He does a sidesplitting bit about "Hot Pockets" that was the climax of the show. I laughed so much I was out of breath, with tears on my face.

Afterward Jim was in the lobby to meet everyone, sign autographs, and pose for pictures. This was handled really well, with those portable tape things set up like they have in banks, to herd us in a serpentine formation. There was something of a crush at the entrance to this, and here it helped the boys that they were with one of the few grownups among all the college students! The MamaBird gently but firmly edged us into position to start down the line. Young'un had come prepared, with a "Hot Pockets" box for Jim to sign. He was delighted! He wrote, "[Young'un], these will kill you!" with an arrow to the filling, and "Diarrhea pockets", as well as his name. We hadn't brought a camera, but we had Young'un's phone, and we used it to take a picture. That's my tall Young'un on the right.

My creative Young'un!

2006-10-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

A recent cover of The New Yorker about teens inspired Young'un to Photoshop a version that applies more to his interests!

On 9/11/2001 I was far from home.

2006-09-11T21:51:00.000-05:00

I was in Atlanta at a training class for my work. It was a two-week class, and this was Tuesday of the second week -- it already seemed like a long time that I'd been away from my family in the Midwest.

We were in the Eastern time zone, so class was in session when we heard the news. An instructor came into the room and spoke with our instructor for a few minutes. Then he told us that two planes had struck the World Trade Center towers, and it was believed to be a terrorist attack.

It was a bad time to be far from my family. Firstborn was living in Chicago, and of course I thought of the Sears Tower as another possible target. (So did the Chicago police.) I didn't have a cell phone then, so I would have to wait until I could got back to my hotel to call my family members and reassure myself.

I will never forget how our class, as a group of people all far from home and thrown together, made ourselves a support group for each other. We had never all gone out to lunch together before; usually went our own way in twos and threes, but that day we all went to a fast-food place. One woman was very worried: she was from New York, and she knew her brother had a job interview scheduled at the WTC for that morning, and she hadn't been able to reach him on his cell phone. She left class the next day and drove home in her rental car (as nothing was flying, of course).

They dismissed us early that day, at around 1:30 as I recall. The office building where the class took place was closing down, by order of -- security? The police? I don't know; I only know that many buildings, offices, stores closed early that day. I went back to my hotel room and watched the coverage on TV, and talked to my family on the phone, and cried.

The class resumed the next day, and we all kind of threw ourselves into study in order to block out the worst of it. The horrible event had certainly broken any remaining ice between us; we were practically a family for the remainder of that week. Even now, we e-mail each other every year on the anniversary. I can still see all their faces, hear their voices, remember them as well as if we'd spent a year together instead of just two weeks in September of 2001.

I love the internets!

2006-08-19T22:58:00.000-05:00

Specifically, I love the way you can find anything you want, or find out anything you want to find out, just by casting about on that loveable series of tubes. Many a time I've started on Google and followed a daisy chain of links, swung through the jungle from vine to vine, hopped from floater to floater and avoided the sinkers... Oh, any metaphor you want, it's all good.

Tonight it's the music that has me burbling with joy. See, I got to thinking about some of the old songs I used to love. Now just a few feet below me, and a couple of feet to the south, there's a cupboard wherein resides a tall stack of vinyl record albums, all in their immortal cover art, some with inner sleeves pristine white and others bearing artwork and doodles of my long-ago creation. Thanks to my husband's audio collection we even possess a turntable whereon these platters can be played. However, I can't sit on the computer (up here) and listen to them (down there); nor can I burn them onto a CD of my own making and play it in the car. And the thing is, tonight what I wanted more than anything was to go on a Steppenwolf jag.

Steppenwolf! Back when I was in my mid-teens and thought I was so much older, and wished so hard that I was older still, Steppenwolf got heavy play on the soundtrack of my life. "Born To Be Wild" of course, because we all loved Easy Rider, and "Magic Carpet Ride" was just so spectacularly psychedelic. But some of their best stuff didn't make it onto Top 40 radio. My favorite album of theirs was "Steppenwolf the Second", with such gems as "28" and "Faster Than the Speed of Life". There you stand, untamed and in confusion, Spread your arms and come to me... There was "Don't Step on the Grass, Sam", kind of a story song with a catchy guitar hook and a fabulous churchy organ, ending in a drug bust and the sound of a toilet flushing. There was "The Pusher", a another great one they'd never play on the radio because of the drug content (even though it was anti-drug!). It was a more innocent age -- though we sure as hell didn't think so then.

So anyway, I went to iTunes, and a few clicks later I had my Steppenwolf jag well under way. "Let the sound take you away..." Oh for sure, and it's all come flooding back, like I knew it would; and I know why the girl in the picture is smiling.

Shed Ender

2006-08-07T22:11:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before how infomercials have a special place in our family's entertainment pantheon. Young'un has several favorites that he'll watch whenever he's flipping channels and comes upon one -- much as I do with favorite movies. He's shared a few of these with his father and me, occasionally with the intention of convincing us to buy what's being sold, but other times just to introduce us to whatever he likes about it. That may be artistry, or comedy intentional or otherwise, or just a really cool gadget. I've written a couple of entries here about "70's Music Explosion", the Time/Life collection that's not for sale in any store, and features fabulously kitsch performance clips of people like Alan O'Day and Glen Campbell and the Starland Vocal Band. I'll admit it: I like that one as much as Young'un does.

So one day while I was at home on vacation, I had the TV on while I was doing one of my cleaning blitzes. Husband had been watching some sports event and he'd wandered off somewhere, and I'd just left it on that channel -- and gradually I realized an infomercial was under way. A man was running a comb through a dog's coat, and fur was piling up behind that comb like nothing I'd ever seen before! It was the Shed Ender. According to the spiel, the Shed Ender combs out the underneath hair that the animal is ready to shed, that doesn't come off with regular combs or brushes. (Visual: an arm holding a regular brush, just brushing the hell out of the dog, and no fur is coming off.)

Well! Here was something I could use. Cling doesn't shed all that much, and being a greyhound she has a short, smooth coat; but it does seem that every time I pet her I loosen clouds of fur. And as for Angel, I could walk around behind her for a day and gather up enough fur to make another cat. (Or at least a pair of kitten britches.) So I logged on and went to the site, and ordered a Shed Ender without delay.

Today it arrived. Young'un opened the box, got it out, and it was time to end some shed! We found Cling in the living room and began to comb her. At first she acted nervous, like she'd rather go downstairs or something, but soon she settled down and enjoyed it. We got quite a lot of fur out of her, so much that I half expected to see skin through what remained -- but no, she looked as sleek as ever. Next it was Angel's turn, and I really didn't know how well that would go. To my surprise she got into it almost immediately, and started purring! The Shed Ender got about a cat's worth of fur out of her, and when we stopped combing her she curled up and took a nap.

Have we preemptively removed hair that would otherwise have been shed over the next day or two? We shall see, shall we not?

He's so funny!

2006-08-01T21:01:00.000-05:00

A conversation between Young'un and me:

Young'un: Dad says I smell like a Russian whore. Do I?

MamaB: *sniffs* Well, I've never smelled a Russian whore, so I couldn't say for sure. But I think you smell great. What are you wearing?

Young'un: "Russian Whore" by Tommy Hilfiger.

... and I laughed my arse off!

A day of "down time".

2006-07-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

I didn't do much of anything today. Got some laundry folded, straightened up the house a little; that's about it. At lunchtime I suggested we go to the Chinese Buffet for their $4.95 lunchtime special, and Husband and Young'un responded with enthusiasm. Off we went to stuff ourselves, and everything was delicious as always. However, when I got home I just wanted to lie down -- could hardly keep my eyes open for some reason. Just a quick nap...

When I woke up it was about 4:00 PM, rain was pounding the roof, and the sky outside was greeny-dark. Uh-oh. Was it supposed to do this? No matter, it was doing it, and downstairs I could hear the "tornado warning" announcement on TV. The wind was high, for sure. I went out the front door to look across the field, to the southwest, as I usually do in these situations. I didn't see any funnel clouds.

By 5:30 I decided I should make something for supper. I turned the TV to the national news... and found that it's very interesting to prepare a meal while having the dry heaves. This was the worst ever as far as my reaction. At one point they said Israel had called up more reserves, and I immediately ran to the computer to log on -- and found out somebody had turned it off. I turned it back on, then couldn't get on the internet. SHIT! That had happened the other morning when I turned it on, too. So I tried turning everything off, turning the router off, then back on... still nothing.

I flipped out. Sometimes I just can't take one more frustration. In tears I ran upstairs and asked Young'un to help me. He hurried to my rescue, and soon had everything working properly. I'd done almost everything I needed to do, except I should've also unplugged and replugged the wireless router in my off-and-on routine. Meantime Husband had come in and seen my distress, and he concentrated on comforting me while Young'un fixed the computer.

Honestly, I'm usually not this high-maintenance! It doesn't seem like me at all... I don't feel quite like me. I'm more upset than I let myself know. It kind of reminds me of the first few weeks after my father died -- I wrote in my notebook then that I "feel like I'm going around with an arm torn off, dealing with the shock and blood and pain, and somehow having to live my life and do the daily things that need to be done at work and at home..." Yes, that's about the way it feels now.

Well, I'm on vacation.

2006-07-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

I don't have my usual light-as-a-feather, it's-vacation-time euphoria, of course. I don't think about the Middle East all the time, just most of the time. I know I have to live a normal life, or as normal as possible, and I'm trying my damnedest. I really, really miss my parents at a time like this... but at least I have their example, and that gives me something to strive for.

All day I've been checking the news sites periodically; the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz, and Google News. I watched NBC News, and Countdown on MSNBC. I've been slightly nauseated most of the day, and when I watch news reports about Israel I come really close to throwing up but so far I haven't.

Husband and MIL are going on a road trip tomorrow, so Young'un and I will be going over to her house a couple of times to feed and exercise Chloe the pug. He's also going over to one of his friends' house, to spend the afternoon in the pool. Temperatures are supposed to be in the 90s all weekend. I plan to do something nice for myself, like a leisurely shopping trip -- I know if Mom were here she'd be urging me to be very kind to myself.

Praying for Israel

2006-07-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

This is the most helpless I've ever felt as a mom. My child and his whole country are in danger, and I'm on the other side of the world, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. My thoughts have taken some shocking turns (shocking to me, anyway), but ultimately led me to a place of acceptance. I'm going to share those thoughts with you.

I was driving home from work, worrying and fretting, and it occurred to me that I needed to get my head in the game. If I got into an accident and was seriously injured, poor Firstborn would get that news on top of everything else he's going through. Then I thought, "And he'd come home."

That's not what I want, though! Or if it were, I'd also want his girlfriend to come, and her family, and his friends and co-workers, his landlord, the man who drove him to the hospital after his bike accident...

You see where I'm going with this. Namely, to the same place where another train of thought led me, earlier this afternoon. I was looking at the pictures that I have up on the walls of my cube: Firstborn eating pizza in a sidewalk cafe in Haifa, his girlfriend posing in her Army uniform, the two of them in a park-like setting, a Google Earth shot of his neighborhood. I saw the beauty of the scenery that surrounded my dear ones in those pictures, and I thought, "Don't bomb that! Don't shell that! It's so lovely, please leave it alone."

Firstborn loves Israel. His life is there, the life he made for himself; the life he loves. His girlfriend was born there, and so were her parents, and so were many of his friends. They all have deep roots there. It's their home. They're Israelis. And this -- fighting like hell when they're attacked; fighting for their lives -- is what they do. They don't hurry and get this over with, spend as little money and time on it as possible, fight war on the cheap. They give it everything they've got, for as long as they have to, and make whatever sacrifices are necessary. Because there is no alternative.

All this I have realized about my son and his life. Loving him as much as I do means wanting the very best for him, and this has to be what he would consider the very best. Which necessitates valuing what he values. Therefore what I want is him safe and sound, but on his terms: namely, also his home, his people, his surroundings, safe and sound. Tonight I'm praying for him, and for Israel.

Israel Under Attack

2006-07-12T21:51:00.000-05:00

The news from my Firstborn's part of the world is nerve-wracking for a mom. Hostilities have been increasing between Israel and the Palestinians, and now Hezbollah has attacked Israel from Lebanon. According to the Jerusalem Post --

"The IAF on Wednesday began to issue call up orders in preparation for retaliatory air strikes against Hizbullah targets in Lebanon, Channel 2 reported. The air force will target power stations and Hizbullah outposts inside Lebanon.

"The army was also calling up reservists. Only weeks ago, an entire reserve division was drafted in order to train for an operation such as the one the IDF is planning in response to Wednesday morning's Hizbullah attacks on IDF forces along the northern border."

I've been monitoring the news all day, and this afternoon I was e-mailing back and forth with Firstborn. He's in the reserves, of course, but has not been called up yet. His girlfriend is currently serving in the army, stationed in an office in Tel Aviv. Because the fighting is on Israel's northern border, I was concerned about Haifa -- where he used to live, and has many friends as well as his girlfriend's family. He reassured me that things are fine in Haifa and in Tel Aviv where he lives. As for the general situation and what's going to happen next -- in Firstborn's own words, "things are a bit out of control at this point, so we can only wait and see."

I would appreciate any and all prayers and good thoughts for my son.

Blast From The Past: The 70s (Again)

2006-06-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

I'm listening to 70s music tonight. Young'un got me started, with a quite unexpected gift! He found me "Seasons In The Sun" online. I'd told him several weeks ago, during one of our watchings of the "70s Music Explosion" infomercial, that I'd always liked it and wished I could add it to my online music library. I explained what the song was about, and admitted that it was generally considered annoying -- but it has memories for me, it has associations. It takes me back to early 1974, when I'd just moved back home after my divorce and was trying to figure out who I was after this shattering event, and where I meant to go from there.

I was 20 years old, and my state had just passed the 19-year-old drinking law, so I was legal to go to the neighborhood tavern in which my ex-husband and I used drink underage before we got married and moved out of town. Still in residence every night, aged anywhere from 22 to mid-30s, were the friends we'd been drinking with then -- actually more his friends, at least at first; he'd met some of them and they'd urged him to come down and bring his girlfriend. That kind of thing. Anyhoo, the atmosphere was kind of like "Cheers" but with a younger, mostly single crowd.

Where everybody knows your name... and they're always glad you came...

It turned out to be just what I needed. The girls there took me into their sisterhood, helped me to be philosophical and move on. I remember long, boozy conversations with them telling me sincerely that my ex-hub was always a dick anyway and I was much, much better off without him. Meanwhile, the guys fell all over themselves putting moves on me, which was absolutely marvelous balm for my wounded self-esteem. This caused resentment among some of the girls, but I took it pretty much in stride; I was a 9-days' wonder, and in 9 days there'd be another wonder and I'd be cool with that.

That was a magical time for me. I'd gotten my job back at the insurance company, where I'd worked before my marriage, and after being back a couple of months I found an apartment and moved out of my parents' place. I still ate dinner over there a couple of nights a week, and did my laundry over there instead of going to the laundromat; my relationship with my parents was the best it had ever been. And two or three nights a week I went down to the tavern and sat on a bar stool and drank Rhine wine and seltzer with a twist of lime, and talked and laughed with a great bunch of twentysomethings; played the jukebox, danced on the bar a time or two; fell in love...

That's an amazing story in itself, one I'll tell another time. Tonight I'm thinking about the jukebox, flipping the bartender -- "Flop for the box?" -- heads he paid for the tunes, tails I paid. Five songs for a quarter. I'd play my favorites, and my friends' favorites; whatever I wanted to hear or whatever mood I wanted to create. If I wanted to dance I'd play Elvis Presley's "Burning Love", or "Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim; and if I was feeling impish I'd play "Seasons In The Sun". That was a major Chick Song; we girls loved it and would get all weepy, while the guys would groan and make fart noises.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...

*giggle*

In the underbrush

2006-06-04T19:35:00.000-05:00

Husband and I worked at our property down the road today. We've finally come to the conclusion that we'll never beat the wild mulberry trees, hedge apples, etc. by clearing the land by hand and following up with lawn mowers. It's just too labor-intensive. We can't use the garden tractor to mow because the hedge apple thorns would puncture the tires, so we have to use regular lawn mowers. When we don't get down there for a month or so, the trees start growing back up and the mowers won't handle them. So our neighbor's son is going to go back there with a bulldozer and clear it out.

He gave us a roll of flourescent pink tape and told us to tie it around any tree we want to keep. That's why Husband and I were clambering around in the underbrush today! I really like evergreens, so I tagged any evergreen tree that wasn't dead or dying. We also tagged the oaks, walnuts, and maples. We ran out of pink tape, so after lunch Husband went to the hardware store to get another roll. Meanwhile I took a bucket and trowel and went down there to dig up some ferns I wanted to transplant. When he returned with the tape, we tagged some more trees.

The property covers almost three acres and is five-sided. The side that faces the road is 120 feet long, and the two sides fan out from there. On the right it's 255 feet back to the creek, then a little over 400 feet along the creek. On the left it's 485 feet back to the stake in the ground that marks the property line. From that stake to the one in the hillside going down to the creek is 160 feet, and that's the only line that isn't marked with a fence, the creek, or the road. Several years ago I took a ball of string back there and tied one end of it to the stake on the left side, then hacked my way through the underbrush to the other one, and tied it there. Then I went back and adjusted the string where it went on the wrong side of trees or bushes, cutting and re-tying until it was straight. Well, my string had fallen down but we could still find it on the ground in places, and we decided to re-do the property line in our bright tape. When we were finished we could see where the line was from a distance away, which helped us orient ourselves within the property.

When we'd finished tagging trees and clearing paths, we headed back home. I re-planted the ferns next to the house, Husband watered them and the rest of the flowers, and then we called it a day. I was so ready for a shower! I had my hair up in a banana clip, but it was full of pine needles and little sticks and God knows what. And I'd probably gotten into plenty of poison ivy.

I'm not sure when the bulldozer will come in -- or how the place will look after it's through. I don't think it will all be bare dirt, but it may be that way in places. All the brush will be in a huge pile, which it is our intention to burn. We've got several piles of brush that we've cut down there, that we've never burned, but hopefully when it's all one huge pile we'll burn it and get it over with.

Now, I ask you:

2006-05-21T18:46:00.000-05:00

Isn't this adorable?

There are Angel and Cling, cozily sharing a sunbeam! They both love to lie in the sun. Young'un was on the computer in the sunroom, working on his video for school, when he happened to see this cozy moment. I'm so glad they allowed him to capture it, and didn't get camera shy and run off!

Love Letter to Jalna

2006-05-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

My fellow Harry Potter fans will completely understand this simile, and even those who aren't so wild about Harry will probably get the message. Imagine that you discovered the Potter series many years after its completion. You finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher's [or Sorcerer's] Stone -- loved it! -- and hurried back to the library. To your unbounded joy, the works of J. K. Rowling owned a four-foot section of library shelf, and they were all about the Potterverse! At the center, of course, stood the seven books that chronicle Harry's years at Hogwarts; but there was so much more! Sequels abounding, full of tales of the Trio's life after Hogwarts, work and marriage and children; and of their children's adventures as well. But that's not all! Prequels too -- the Marauders at Hogwarts and after, James and Lily in hiding with baby Harry; Tom Riddle's school days; Dumbledore battling Grindelwald; even a book about the founding of Hogwarts itself! If you can place yourself in that moment, feel your emotions as your eyes drink in that four-foot shelf, that wealth, that embarrassment of riches -- then you know how I felt one summer afternoon in the late 1960s, when I discovered Jalna.

The Jalna books! Have you read them? There are sixteen in all, and they chronicle one hundred years of the Whiteoak family, beginning with the building of their great house, Jalna, on the shores of Canada's Lake Ontario. Their author, Mazo de la Roche, wrote them over a period of thirty-three years. As an amateur writer myself I suspect she fell in love with the Whiteoaks and their world, and didn't want to leave it -- and fortunately for her (and us) she didn't have to. The first book, Jalna, came out in 1927 and won Ms. de la Roche a prize of $10,000 from the magazine Atlantic Monthly. Forty years later I took it from the shelf, started reading, and was immediately drawn in! In fact, if I could read myself into books in the manner of Thursday Next, Jalna would still be one of the first I'd visit. Let's take a look...

Adeline Whiteoak, the onetime Irish beauty who with her husband Philip came out from England to found Jalna many years ago, is now a widow in her late 90s. Her grandson Renny is the master of Jalna, and his responsibilities include his four half-brothers, ranging in age from pre-teen to early twenties; his older sister Meg, never married and still bitter over a nasty breakup with their next-door neighbor almost 20 years ago; his two aged uncles, once world travelers and men-about-town; and his headstrong, opinionated, irrepressible grandmother. The eldest of the four younger Whiteoak brothers is a poet, and when his first book of poems is published he falls in love with his editor and brings her from New York to Jalna as his bride. Meanwhile another of the brothers has also fallen in love; he elopes with the neighbor girl whose out-of-wedlock birth and subsequent appearance on the doorstep were the indirect cause of that nasty breakup that Meg is still so torqued about. The plot continues to thicken from there; in fact, the whole book is a delicious dish of thicken plot pie.

Of course, Potterphile that I am, I've also considered the opposite scenario to the one I described in the first paragraph. To wit, what if the Internet had existed when Mazo de la Roche was still writing? Just imagine the fan sites, the Yahoo! groups, the rumors and conjecture! The fanfic! (Whiteoak slash; ay, carumba!) The role-play sites -- I'd want to play Gran (Adeline), she's always been my favorite character. "Compose yourself?! I'll compose this family, with my stick!" (A favorite Gran line.) Now there's a role I could sink my teeth into. "Somebody get my teeth!" (Another favorite Gran line.)

The Jalna books are among the oldest and most favorite of my old favorites. Back when I thought I might grow up to be a novelist, I dreamed of being authorized by Ms. de la Roche's heirs to continue the series into the 1960s and beyond. I had my own very definite ideas of what should happen next! (For one thing, the poet Whiteoak's works would come into vogue a la Rod McKuen, inspiring his daughter to heights of venality in making a buck off her late father. I was writing fanfic before I knew such a thing existed.) These books have continued to resonate with me through all the ages and stages of my life. When I first read them, I identified with Pheasant, the young doostep-baby-cum-bride -- she was drifty, flighty, kind of a fuckup but with a good heart, and that's how I saw myself. Back then I viewed Grandmother Adeline as everything I wanted to be in old age, and I still think I could do a lot worse. Hard to say what I'll be like as a centenarian, if I make it; but I only hope I can still read -- and that I've got large-print editions of the Jalna books.

Too tired

2006-04-10T19:38:00.000-05:00

I have several things to do, but I'm too tired to do any of them. I gave blood today, and it seems to have sapped my strength more than usual. This afternoon I was slogging away at the error report, and I got very frustrated -- a program that compiled before will not now, because of another necessary phase of the cleanup -- and I threw a fit. Well, it wasn't much of a fit! In fact it was barely a ghost of the ones I used to throw back in the 1980s, when I worked at the direct marketing company, and was so impetuous and arrogant. When I'd fling a printout back then, you'd know I flung something -- they were on those huge sheets of green and white striped fanfold paper; they'd make a cubicle wall shake when they hit it! But yeah, I flung one of the error reports, then I grabbed it and gestured with it as part of my rant, then I flung it again! It was such unusual behavior for me.

Afterwards I felt so much better. But still weak.

Easter Baskets

2006-04-09T19:40:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe it's almost Easter already. I'll need to get some candy and make up baskets for the grandchildren -- got to give them their sugar rush! Hee. And of course I'll get some of our favorites.

When the boys were all at home I always used to make up individual Easter baskets with the candy each one liked. Firstborn was never much for sweets, but he really liked Jolly Rancher hard candies, so I'd get a bag of those. He also liked unusual things like Nik-L-Nips -- those little wax bottles with colored sweet liquid inside. I'd always look for something in that line for his basket. Stepson liked Reese's Peanut Butter Cups best, so I'd give him a lot of those. And for Young'un, there always had to be Peeps.

Peeps! I remember the first time Young'un ever saw them. He was a toddler, just tall enough that his head was even with the Easter baskets on the sun room table. I showed him the package of bright yellow Peeps, and he smiled rather formally -- as if wanting to share my enthusiasm but puzzled as to its source. "Peeps," he repeated. Then he asked, "What I do wit dem?" Oh! "You eat them," I told him, and I opened the package. Well, that's all he needed to hear! From then on, whenever he was in the sun room I'd catch him sidling over to the table, and when he left, a Peep would go with him!

So again this year, there'll be Peeps in Young'un's Easter basket. And at some point his father or I will say, "What I do wit dem?" Parents are like that. :-)

Meme: 11/22

2006-04-08T13:01:00.000-05:00

Go to Wikipedia. Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

Events:

1922 - Egyptology: Howard Carter, assisted by Lord Carnarvon, opens the tomb of Tutankhamun.

1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded. Later the same day, US Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.

1968 - The Beatles release the double-album The Beatles, commonly known as The White Album.

Birthdays:

1890 - Charles de Gaulle, President of France (d. 1970)

1950 - Steve Van Zandt, American musician

Death:

1718 - Blackbeard (Edward Teach), British pirate

This was a fun one! Of course the event that Changed My Life (and my kids' lives) is the centerpiece, but I was surprised to learn that a few other interesting things happened on that day as well. I've always been fascinated with King Tut ("Buried in his jammies!" --S. Martin); and with the Beatles in general, and in particular the White Album (for its eerie Manson Family connection). I didn't know I shared a birthday with Le Grand Charles, and I'm Little Steven's fangirl for his music and his role on my favorite TV show. And Blackbeard the pirate died on my birthday! Who knew? "ARRRRRR!"

Slapstick In Everyday Life

2006-03-26T21:45:00.000-06:00

The funniest thing happened this evening! Just a little while ago, in fact. I was walking on the treadmill and reading a book as is my custom. Young'un came in to show me that he'd finished his paper for school and had everything together in a folder. After he showed it to me he tapped the end of the folder on the dashboard thingie in front of me. All of a sudden the treadmill took off like a striped-ass ape! It went ripping out from under my feet, and I was scrambling like crazy to keep up with it! Luckily I was holding on, so I never lost my balance; I just had to get my feet moving. I was squawking with surprise and dismay, and so was Young'un, and while I concentrated on not falling down he managed to hit the "off" button. The treadmill came to an abrupt halt, and I immediately started laughing like a maniac! He kept saying he was sorry, he didn't know how it happened, and worrying about me, but I wasn't hurt at all -- just hysterical! It must have looked so funny, like something that would happen to Lucille Ball or the Three Stooges.

I've Seen It!

2006-03-26T19:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Young'un and I went to see "V for Vendetta". We loved it! I was spellbound, enthralled from beginning to end. Like some of my flist, I find the character V fascinating and compelling; Hugo Weaving does a magnificent job creating that character using only body language and his voice. Natalie Portman is breathtaking. It's serious, suspenseful business, but there's humor too -- notably a Benny Hill-like sequence that had me hysterical. The breakfast that was kind of a recurring theme brought back memories from my early teens. When I saw the piece of bread with a hole in the middle and an egg in the hole, cooked in the frying pan, I remembered how a friend's grandma used to make that for us when I stayed over. You never know what's going to bring back an old memory.

I just love this! Talk about wishful thinking. I got it from watertiger, who calls it "Bush gives one war speech too many":

Deeply Cosmic Basketball

2006-03-12T16:42:00.000-06:00

Young'un and I had a great day yesterday. We were on our own, because Husband and Mother-in-law were on a road trip, so our day had a different structure than usual Saturdays. Young'un had baseball practice from 11:30 to 1:00, and we stopped at MIL's house on the way, to give her Chloe pug some food and a little outing. Chloe really tears into her food! She fills her entire mouth with it, then chews and chews and chews until she's got it all down.

In the afternoon Young'un took the basketball outside, to shoot some hoops in the great weather. He asked me if I'd come out and play too, and to his surprise I said yes! And out I went. Now I used to be pretty good at the whole driveway-basketball business, and (like riding a bicycle) it all came back to me. First I startled my son with my ability to sink free-throw after free-throw, shooting with one hand on either side of the ball in the old-fashioned way I learned from my dad. Then we shot from various angles, and I recalled how I'd always enjoyed the geometry of bank shots: where on the backboard the ball must hit in order for the bounce to send it through the rim. Happily I ran for loose balls, slung passes, and leaped for rebounds.

My boy expressed surprise at all this technique from Mama, and I said to him, "But don't you know? This is how I met your father, 40(!) years ago this very month. You're here because I can do this!" That really gave him something to think about. He knew the story of our living across the alley from each other, had even stood on the historic spot where we first met, but hadn't thought through the actual basketball part. As for me, I just soaked up the cosmicness of once again being outdoors in the fragrant warmth of a mid-March afternoon playing basketball with a 6'4" 15-year-old guy -- but this one is the son of me and the first one.

Happy, Sunny Saturday

2006-02-25T16:52:00.000-06:00

I've been out walking, with Husband and Cling the Greyhound, down the road and back in the sunshine. It's chilly but not excessively so; would be downright pleasant if not for the north wind. Cling started getting excited as soon as she saw me putting on my weighted shoes: she knew what came next! Husband held the leash, and she started pulling him before we even made it down the driveway. Of course the scenery is still painted in winter bleakness; bare trees and bushes, faded tan grass; but it all sparkled in bright sunshine under robins-egg blue skies. The hope of spring is in the air all around us.

For Cling, it was a time to catch up on her snuffling. She hadn't smelled that roadside all winter, and many of her friends and acquaintances had left pee-mail for her. She "read" it all and left several replies. With nose down and ears up, she wasn't missing a thing. Meanwhile Husband and I checked out scenery that we'd only seen from inside a moving car these past few months. Our neighbor with the "Fill Wanted" sign is making quite a lot of progress getting his (practically vertical) property filled in and leveled off. The folks at the end of the road, who keep chickens, ducks, turkeys, and goats, have added a horse to the menage. Hmmmm, I was expecting pigs -- but we'll see what the summer will bring.

Stuck in my head: 70s music explosion

2006-02-19T15:35:00.000-06:00

Young'un enjoys the infomercial for the "70s Music Explosion" on so many levels. His favorite part of my commentary is when I talk about songs I couldn't stand. "There's one I hoped I'd never hear again," I snarked, when they launched into England Dan & John Ford Coley. "Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much, and I have to go back to lying my ass off..." or whatever. Crappy song. Another one I absolutely loathe is "The Pina Colada Song". Now in my opinion the narrator in that song is a jerk, and his lady is another jerk, and it's a blessing they got together and didn't spoil two other families. "If you have half a brain..." Yeah, he's got half a brain, she's got the other half, and it doesn't surprise me a bit that nobody else answered his stupid ad.

There's truly no accounting for tastes. I'm well aware that there are people who hate "Undercover Angel", another exploding 70s hit, and find it every bit as annoying as I find Mr. Holmes and his pina coladas. And I just love it! It grabbed me the first time I ever heard it, on the AM radio of my 1972 AMC Gremlin. Now that was a song I was glad to hear every hour and seven minutes, while my then-husband and I drove through Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. And back then I had no idea that someday I'd own a cat named Angel who likes to sleep under the covers. ;-)

Betty Friedan, 1921 - 2006

2006-02-04T18:05:00.000-06:00

"It changed my life"

The Feminine Mystique, that is; when I read it in the early 1980s and realized that I wasn't destined to lie the rest of my life in a bed that I'd made with my early, bad choices. "Call your local junior college", Ms. Friedan urged in her book. I did exactly that, achieved a 2-year degree in 1 1/2 years, and went from miserable stay-at-home mom living with laid-off husband on his unemployment to breadwinner whose every day was filled with the joy of being paid to do what I love.

In another of her books, she wrote of feeling more 18 at 50 than she did at 18; and I found that inspirational as well. Like her, I was too old and serious at too young an age, and her words gave me hope that I could feel that young and vibrant in my 50s. (I'm now 52, and I do.)

Like Betty Friedan, I was born and raised in Peoria. Unlike her, I'm still here. But Peoria, like 50, is a state of mind; it doesn't have to define you -- and that's the kind of freedom she made possible, with her earth-shaking, life-changing book. I'm very, very sorry to hear that she's left this world, but I celebrate how much better a place she made it during her years here.

Betty Friedan (at left) at a 1971 march

Suzy Homemaker

2006-01-29T20:56:00.000-06:00

I've felt so lousy for so long, but today I had energy and felt like baking. I decided to make some of my beloved chocolate-chip cookies for my family and co-workers. I also had a ton of laundry to do this afternoon, so the washer and dryer were running all the time I was baking. I took the last batch out of the oven at a little after 4:00, and that meant it was time to start dinner. The oven never cooled off; I just jacked it up to 425 and started juggling pork chops, potatoes, and onions. Well, not actually juggling them, but sometimes it seems that way when I'm trying to get everything ready to go into the oven at the same time. I had the chops browning in two skillets while I peeled and sliced the potatoes and whacked up the onions. Once everything was in the oven and the timer set for 45 minutes I had time to go walk on the treadmill.

After dinner I loaded everything into the dishwasher except the two skillets; they have to be hand-washed. Then I folded laundry while watching "60 Minutes". It was pretty good tonight. Oh wow, another Bush appointee who's incompetent, in over his head, and if we ever have to depend on him to do his job we're totally screwed. So what else is new? My God, is incompetence a condition of employment for Bush appointees? "Oh, you know your ass from a hole in the ground? You're smarter than a box of rocks? Sorry, you're not qualified."

Being a member of the 911 Commission must be the most frustrating job in the world. You know what needs to be done, and none of it is done, and the people who should be doing it are full of excuses why they're not doing it. (Well, that's one thing they're full of.) It reminds me of being married to my previous husband. I was a genius until I disagreed with him; then I didn't have all the facts, or I was biased, or I was just plain wrong. Then when it turned out I'd been right after all, as it always did; and the thing I'd tried like hell to avoid came down on us, we all suffered but me most of all -- because I knew, I knew, and I couldn't stop it.

Fast & Loose With The Truth

2006-01-28T00:15:00.000-06:00

Have you heard about the “Oprah’s Book Club” affair? Last fall Oprah Winfrey chose A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, billed as a nonfiction memoir, as her book club selection. Frey’s tale of his life as an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a criminal is full of shocking anecdotes such as undergoing two root canals without anesthesia, and being arrested for running over a policeman while drunk and carrying a bag of crack. Oprah and her entire production company found the book riveting, heartbreaking, un-put-downable; and she presented Frey as an inspiration to alcoholics, drug addicts, and criminals everywhere. Of course, the book went screaming up the best-seller list, enriching the author and turning him into a celebrity.

There’s just one problem with his story: it isn’t true. The Smoking Gun investigated the arrests, looked at the mug shots, visited the jails and the hospitals and the rehab centers – in short, they did the research that Frey’s publisher should have done but didn’t. And they found out that some of it was outright lies, and other parts were wildly embellished versions of real events that happened to Frey or to people he knew slightly. You can read about it at The Smoking Gun.

When the truth began to come out, Oprah at first defended her author. Ultimately, however, the weight of the evidence convinced her that she’d been duped. Yesterday Frey appeared on her show again, along with his publisher, Nan Talese, and Oprah excoriated both of them for playing fast and loose with the truth.

My own view of this runs along the same lines as Oprah’s: they’re both guilty; the author of fraud and the publisher of laziness. However, it started me thinking about the kind of embellishment and fantasy that turned Frey from a normal, spoiled frat boy to a swaggering, brawling, drunken, drug-addicted, dangerous BADASS! In fact, the whole thing started to sound familiar to me. Maybe it does to you, too.

We’ve all known people who can’t seem to tell a straight story. From early childhood we’re exposed to kids who tell whoppers and snowjobs in the vein of Dr. Seuss’ And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street! I went to kindergarten with a girl named Joy who used to tell me tall tales about a boyfriend who took her out driving every evening: “And don’t you dare try to fodder us! ‘Cause Leslie’s got a real fast car!” Yeah, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up on my roller skates. *rolls eyes* These storytellers become fewer and farther between as we get older, because most of them grow out of it; but I ran into a few while in my teens. I remember one guy who would tell the most outlandish yarns about what he’d been doing since I last saw him – frequently involving travel “out of the state” and martial arts training by government agents.

By the time we reach adulthood these compulsive liars have become pretty rare, and really stand out when we do encounter them. If anyone ever asks me about my most unforgettable character, I’ll tell them about “Roy”. I met him in college and later worked with him, and he used to sit in my office, chain-smoking cigarettes and squashing them out in the big green glass ashtray on my desk, and talking to me about his collection of assault weapons, or his former job as a bodyguard for a Mafioso, or what he heard last night while listening in on his neighbors with a parabolic antenna.

So yeah, James Frey’s fantasized story sounds familiar to me, because I’ve heard it before. The only difference between him and Roy is that Roy didn’t write it down and call it a memoir, and get it published. Which makes me wonder: do these people believe their own tall tales? Frey did make an effort to cover up the true nature of his past, which indicates awareness of the fraud. But it seems to me that it would take more than just nerve to write something like that up and publish it as a book, knowing that so many people would remember him, the events he described, and the truth, or lack of it, thereof. It indicates a pathology that goes beyond spinning yarns for friends and relatives, a need for -- validation? To prove to himself that it really happened that way? Hard to say. At any rate, I don’t plan to read the book. As often happens, the truth (as found at The Smoking Gun) is stranger, and more interesting, than fiction.

There they go again.

2006-01-14T21:49:00.000-06:00

The Bushco smearmeisters are at it again. They’re swiftboating Rep. John Murtha, retaliating against him because he called for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq last November. The man is a retired Marine with two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with Combat "V", and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. The first Vietnam combat veteran to be elected to Congress, he has served honorably there for more than thirty years. As the top Democrat on military matters he has frequent contact with soldiers, from the boots on the ground to the top generals, and what he’s seen and heard moved him to call for withdrawal. "Our military has done everything that has been asked of them,” he stated, and, “It is time to bring them home." Now there’s someone who supports the troops.

But he disagreed with the president, so the chickenhawk-in-chief and his thuggish minions are trying to discredit him. The right-wing slime machine is chugging out allegations that Congressman Murtha’s two Purple Hearts were earned for wounds that weren’t very serious, and that consequently he is “a phony and a liar”. They always go after the Purple Hearts. I remember when Bushco was handing out the purple heart band-aids at the Republican Convention – that one made me so furious that I literally saw red.

Now if our imperial president and his court really gave a rat’s ass about our troops, they’d realize how demoralizing it must be for them to hear Murtha’s combat record denigrated, his medals discounted, his distinguished service to his country sneered at – all because he stood up for them! And of course, AWOL-from-the-NG Bush and 5-Deferments Cheney did the same thing to John Kerry. They may not have spit on the troops returning from Vietnam thirty years ago, but they’re sure as hell spitting on them now.

All of this bothers me on several levels. I have deplored the politics of personal destruction ever since the Nixon years; it distracts the electorate from the issues, which is exactly what it’s meant to do. In addition, I resent the breathtaking hypocrisy of the party that reviled Bill Clinton as a draft-dodger, and now has two draft-dodgers as its #1 and 2 men, attempting to impugn the patriotism of combat veterans who put their lives on the line for this country.

I hope this latest stratagem brings a sharp and sudden backlash. Or as Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, “I'm gonna rip the eyes out of your head and piss in your dead skull! You fucked with the wrong Marine!”

I am STUFFED!!!!!

2006-01-13T23:37:00.000-06:00

Stuffed, with many exclamation points! --No, I'm not stuffed with exclamation points, I'm stuffed with food. Husband, Young'un and I went out to dinner tonight at Chili's. We'd gotten a $25 gift card from Montana Stepdaughter & family, and we thought this might be a good time to use it. I'd had a somewhat trying day at work, so I ordered a frozen margarita to start. We also got an Awesome Blossom, the breaded fried onion thingie, because Husband loved the ones at Outback and I figured he'd go for this as well. (And he did.) While reading the menu I kept saying I wanted to get myself a dang quesadilla -- thinking of the similar line from "Napoleon Dynamite". I ended up with southwestern shrimp scampi with a small (dang) quesadilla explosion salad. Whoa! If that's a small one, I'd like to see the regular sized one. It was huge! I ate all the shrimp, but took about half of the salad home in one of those little styrofoam containers. Young'un had tacos with rice and beans (he didn't eat the beans), and Husband had a New York Strip steak.

Our bill was $52 and change. I got out the $25 gift card, then said "I think I've got another one here that still has some credit on it." I was thinking of a card that a friend gave me several years ago, that I hadn't used all up -- but when searching in the zipper compartment where I keep coupons, I found another $25 gift card! It was the one Montana Stepdaughter sent us last Christmas! So for just a couple of dollars and the tip, we had a fabulous dinner and a wonderful time.

The Quiet Christian

2005-12-31T12:18:00.000-06:00

Yes, I’m talking about myself. I’m not saying I’m quiet – I know that’s not true! But I am quiet about my Christianity. Oh, I don’t keep it a secret. People who know me are aware that I belong to the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod; that I attend regularly, nearly every Sunday; that I sing in the choir and serve on the Board of Stewardship; that every Wednesday evening for four years I drove Young’un to confirmation class. But I don’t ever push my religion on other people. I don’t try to convert anyone, or criticize others for what they do or don’t believe.

In this way I’m disobeying my church, because we’re actually supposed to evangelize. I just look at it as one of the ways I’m not perfect. One of the sins that I can lay at the foot of the cross, and not have to pay. I’m the world’s worst salesman, I absolutely hate trying to sell anything: the years when my previous husband and I were in Amway at his insistence were among the worst of my life.

There is one way in which I evangelize, though, and that is if someone asks. Over the years, a few people have asked. As a matter of fact, it happened pretty frequently about twelve or thirteen years ago, when Firstborn was a troubled junior-high student and my mother was a widow with Parkinson’s disease, and I worked at a job I could just barely stand. My co-workers might ask me “What did you do last night?” or “How was your weekend?”, and with a wry little smile I’d deliver a one- or two-liner about finding my son another way to school because he was kicked off the bus, or going to a meeting in which all his teachers unloaded on me, or taking Mom to the emergency room because she was convinced her kidneys had shut down. Now mind you, this wasn’t an occasional thing; a couple times a month, or once a week – this was virtually every day. The people I worked with saw that I lived like this day after day, week in and week out, and somehow managed to come to work every day, to put up with the bullshit there. And many times I was asked, “How do you do it? How do you keep going?” Then I’d tell them.

Because my religion is for me. I don’t go to church for God; He doesn’t get anything out of my being there. But I get something out of it. Now mine is not a feel-good religion by any means; I don’t get pumped up by going to services. I get reminded of my sins, of my humanity; of what a great thing my Redeemer did for me by taking all that and more upon Himself. No, the benefit I get from going to church is a sense of proportion and peace. God is in His place, and I’m in mine. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Why am I telling you this? Well, you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting lately. The truth is that I’ve been deeply depressed, apparently more than my daily dose of Zoloft could offset, and I’m not very good at hiding it. The whole situation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee breaks and flooding caused me to think, really think, about what our country and our government have come to… and that was enough to send me spiraling down into despair. I couldn’t even cry. All I could do was research obsessively, read blogs and websites and newspaper editorials, gorge myself on how bad it is and how powerless I am to do anything about it.

Yesterday I snapped out of it. It was as if something that had been jamming the signal suddenly cleared, and I could easily differentiate what I had power over from what I didn’t. With that came energy to do what is in my power, and serenity to accept that which is not. That serenity is my religion’s gift to me, and it’s why I’m in church most Sunday mornings. Serenity, acceptance – I can’t live without them; I can’t be sane without them. But with them I can be still, and know that God is God.

It's November, for sure.

2005-11-27T20:51:00.000-06:00

There's a look that November has, a color palette dominated by brown, grey, and taupe, slashed with black accents. The last stubborn leaves cling, brown and crumpled, to the tree branches. Brownish haze of wood smoke mingles with greyish mist under pale grey skies. The grass is still green but turning tan in patches, under fallen leaves of burgundy and brown and faded gold. The bare trees in the woods, their black branches sharply etched in the foreground, fade off into a soft frieze of taupe and grey. The sun is weaker, farther away, so even when it shines it doesn't warm but only wanly illuminates. The wind, authoritative, hurries the dead leaves against fencelines and into corners. The day comes reluctantly; the night comes quickly. The air smells of smoke and rain, mud and wet wood. Time winds down toward the end of another year that now seems old, ancient, moldering away.

Snazzzy In Wonderland

2005-11-19T15:34:00.000-06:00

When I was a little girl, the Alice books were among my favorites. I loved the language, and the fanciful situations, and the general thinking outside the box that went on. I loved the dreamlike morphing of things into other things, the wordplay and puns. As I grew older, I began to see that everything I ever need to know, I learned from Lewis Carroll. I find it quite useful to believe six impossible things before breakfast, for example. And this exchange resonates with me in my personal life: "Are we nearly there?" "Nearly there! Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!"

Lately, however, it seems that we're all living in Alice's looking-glass world. The world of politics, particularly the politics of the current administration, is starting to resemble the Mad Tea Party. I first noticed it during last year's Presidential campaign, when a draft-dodger ran a campaign impugning the patriotism of a decorated veteran -- and the electorate bought it. Huh??? That same draft-dodger loudly proclaims himself a "uniter", while his party's politics of hatred, mudslinging, and class warfare drive deep, festering divisions between Americans who should be on the same side. That administration waves the flag and shakes the "national security" rat on a stick and sends our soldiers into ill-planned battle without proper armor, vehicles, or ammunition -- then accuses anyone who questions that behavior of "undermining the troops". Say what???

The party that paints itself as compassionate, religious, Godly, respectful of life, has declared war on the poor people of this country -- even while their policies drive the middle class into poverty. They borrow from the communist Chinese, mortgage our children's and grandchildren's future, and spend spend spend on their own enrichment and that of their cronies. Social programs get gutted while Paris Hilton gets to keep her tax cut.

President Enron and Vice President Halliburton are destroying the country's economy. President AWOL-from-the-NG and Vice President 5-Deferments are calling decorated combat veterans cowards.

I don't know how they get away with it. I don't know what it will take for the American people to wake up and realize what's being done to us. All I know is that we've got to get out of the looking-glass. If we don't want to find ourselves living in a third-world country, we've got to leave Wonderland behind.

Are We There Yet?

2005-10-01T11:31:00.000-05:00

Thinking about Iraq

How will we know when we can declare victory and go home? What has to happen? That's hard to pin down, because our goal keeps changing (of necessity) as the reason we invaded Iraq in the first place keeps changing. There weren't any weapons of mass destruction, so we don't have to stay until we find some. All the things the President's advisors predicted so confidently -- we'd be greeted as liberators, the Iraqi people would say "Thanks! We'll take it from here!", the insurgency would respect our authoratah and fade away -- not gonna happen. I think the latest version of our mission is to "bring stability to the region", but even getting back to the degree of stability that existed before we invaded is probably a stretch at this point.

Back when we first went in, I used to say, "You know, it will take years before Iraq will be free of terrorism." People didn't want to hear it, but honestly, it just seemed like common sense. After all, look at Israel. It's a mature country, having been around more than half a century. It has the best army in the world, and that army is totally focused on preserving the country's safety. Service is mandatory for all citizens, so just about everyone in the country who's 18 or older has been through basic training. This is a country that has its shit together. And yet they still get the occasional suicide bomber on the bus or outside the restaurant or waiting in line at the dance club. "Look at Israel," I'd say, "and you see the absolute best-case scenario for Iraq, after fifty or sixty years, if we're lucky." And that was at the start of the war.

So where does that leave us? You might well arsk. We often hear the Pottery Barn theory: we broke it, we bought it. I suppose the "bring stability" idea falls into that category: we at least make a valiant attempt to clean things up, and to train the Iraqi military. But how far do we go, how long do we stay? How many of our sons' and daughters' lives do we sacrifice? How much of our tax money do we pay Halliburton to do whatever it is they're doing over there? How much is enough; how much is too much?

Drownie does a heckuva job on the American people

2005-09-27T20:14:00.000-05:00

It's a wonder my head doesn't just explode.

Words cannot express my outrage at the news that Michael Brown, the disgraced, discredited former head of FEMA, is being paid (with MY TAX DOLLARS) to "help FEMA assess what went wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina". (See article here.)

What. The. FUCK!!!!!!!

It was a massive slap in the face to the American public when the Bush administration appointed this nincompoop to head the agency. However, PAYING him to investigate himself, whitewash his own performance, and throw blame on state and local government AND THE VICTIMS--! That goes way beyond a slap in the face. That's a foot so far up our collective arse that we can taste shoe leather.

New Orleans

2005-09-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

The news stories and pictures from New Orleans are so shocking and heartbreaking, I can only watch for short periods of time before I have to break away. Yes, I know that other cities and towns were devastated, and that pains me -- but my mourning for New Orleans is personal. I visited there once, and loved it so much that the memories of that visit are among the best I own. I always intended to return someday.

This was back in 1977. I was married to Jay, the father of Firstborn -- who of course was NotYetBorn at that time. We took a vacation the last two weeks in July. We spent the first week in Texas, with a friend who'd formerly lived in the Midwest but moved back home with his parents. When we left there we took off driving with no firm idea of where we were going. We had a tent and our camping equipment, a road atlas, and a magazine-like directory of KOA Kampgrounds which I looked through as we drove. (We also had a bag of truly obnoxious beef jerky that we'd bought on the road somewhere in Texas. I swear, you could chew on a hunk of that stuff all day without chewing it up or getting any nourishment.) I alternated between the atlas and the KOA guide, analyzing where we could go and what we could do there. We'd started north toward Baton Rouge, if I recall correctly, but when I turned to the Louisiana pages New Orleans caught my eye... and we turned around.

We checked into the KOA in Hammond, which is on the other side of Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans. The great thing about the KOAs was that each of them offered something beyond the camping experience itself -- in Hammond's case, daily guided bus tours of New Orleans. By the time we started setting up our tent we'd already signed up for the next day's tour.

The bus left in the morning, 9:00 or so. It was actually a van, a 12-passenger, and almost full. The driver was witty and informative, giving us history and local color on the drive across the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway and into town. Once there, we spent the morning driving around the various neighborhoods and learning about them. It was a blindingly beautiful day, and I took all the typical tourist pictures out the window of the van: Canal Street, the Garden District, the hotel where much of Uncle Tom's Cabin was written, shotgun shacks, the back of Pete Fountain's house.

By lunchtime we were in the French Quarter, and here we left the van and wandered freely for a couple of hours. We had maps that guided us to reasonably-priced restaurants, points of interest, and souvenir shops. Jay and I ate outdoors at a charming courtyard restaurant, then went exploring on Bourbon Street. We took several pictures of Antoine's Restaurant: I've always loved Dinner at Antoine's, and this was the first time ever I'd visited the actual setting of a favorite book. We bought a few souvenirs -- a "Bourbon Street" sign is the only one I remember.

When we returned to the van, the guided tour resumed. We formally toured the French Quarter, looking and learning, and taking pictures out the windows. After that we went to one of the above-ground cemeteries, St. Louis No. 3, and disembarked again for a walking tour. We walked among rows and rows of elaborate tombs and crypts. The back wall fascinated me: it was a white marble mausoleum, with the dead stacked four-high as if in file drawers.

The next, and last, stop was a park on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain. Here we got out and stretched our legs one last time, and enjoyed the beauty and tranquility of the huge lake and its surrounding greenery. (That memory in particular haunts me.) Then we were back in the van, back on the Causeway; back at the KOA in time to fire up the Coleman stove and make supper.

Our vacation had a few more days to run, and we camped our way through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri before arriving back home. But the New Orleans tour was the glittering highlight of the trip, so fascinating and fun I could hardly believe we'd stumbled onto it. The city beguiled me with its beauty, its history; its raffish and slightly disreputable glamour. I wanted to go back, maybe even move somewhere close by. This was pure moonbeams; we were a factory worker and a stenographer, everything we cared about was here... and the years went by.

Now New Orleans is wounded, perhaps mortally; and I cry when I think of what has been lost. I hadn't started keeping my journal yet when I visited there, so I've done all this from memory with the aid of my pictures. The fact that those memories are so accessible, so vivid, after all these years is a tribute to how deeply New Orleans affected me. I wish I could give more money, more than money; I wish I could make it not have happened.

A Bird In the Hand

2005-08-28T17:27:00.000-05:00

From earliest childhood I've been aware of the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." As a little girl I thought it would be very cozy to have a bird in my hand, but even if I'd found one I wouldn't have dared to pick it up. My parents cautioned me that outdoor birds had "lice". Of course, looking back I see that any bird I could've caught would probably have worse problems than lice, but that was a good way for them to keep me from picking up birds. So it was just as well.

The meaning behind the saying is a good one, and one I've lived by (without thinking much about it) all my life. Appreciate what you have. Don't make yourself miserable longing for something else -- at least, not until you've done everything you can to make the most of the current situation. (And then don't just long for it, do something about it.) It's a theme that occurs frequently in pop culture: "Bloom where you're planted." "Love the one you're with." "Oh Auntie Em, I learned that when you go looking for your heart's desire, you shouldn't look any farther than your own back yard, because if it isn't there, then you never really lost it in the first place." Okay, that last one doesn't entirely make sense, but I've always liked it anyway because I've frequently found myself in Dorothy's situation: I've had the ruby slippers all along.

When I was in my teens I had some pet birds (parakeets), and I enjoyed having them in my hand. I learned at that time that a bird in the hand usually leads to bird poop in the hand, but that's just another life lesson -- about taking the bad with the good. (Or as my mother used to say, "Nothing's perfect; everything's got lumps in it.") With the bird's little claws gripping my finger I'd lightly stroke its warm, feathered back. Sometimes I'd even murmur to it, "You're worth two in the bush, you know that?"

I've even got an artist's conception of a bird in the hand:

Mom used to love going to craft sales, and back in the 1970s she found this plate, made by a local artist, which she thought "looked like me". I've kept it in my bedroom ever since then.

Saturday Morning In My Bathrobe: A Cosmic Experience

2005-08-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

I was just reading this article (at which I'd arrived via my usual loopy daisy-chain of links), when I realized I was having a cosmic experience. Even as I "heard" the words of the article in the voice and cadences of its author, I heard that voice and those cadences coming from behind me: the TV in the dining room. Stereo? No, not exactly; they weren't saying the same things. But as I'd clicked on the article first, and then the TV segment had started, I thought it was quite the coincidence. (And you know how I am about coincidences.)

6FU Junkie Dodges A Bullet

2005-08-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I'm addicted to old Six Feet Under episodes. With the series ending this Sunday I felt like looking back to when it all began, so the other night I popped in my tape of Season One. (Yup, I've got them all taped. Every season, every episode.) I meant to stop after the pilot, but somehow I couldn't quite press "Stop"... The same thing happens every night. I'm just enjoying it so much! Over the years the characters progressed and changed, and it's funny and touching to see how they were when I first met them. Kind of like watching old home movies. And as with the home movies, looking back with foreknowledge makes it all the more poignant.

Today was a better day at work than yesterday, but not much. It's always tough when I'm the only one there in my group; I either run myself nuts trying to fix things I don't know anything about, or feel guilty that I don't have time to try. Today it was the latter. But I dodged a big bullet -- at least, I hope I dodged it! An analyst was using a procedure that I'm responsible for, and it was blowing out when he ran it under a started task. It ran fine when submitted in a batch job. I'd never looked at the program before (hell, I'd never even heard of it!), and when I did, this is what I found in the first line of comments: "THIS PROGRAM IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART." I said to myself, Self, you are so screwed. But then I looked at our team's list of responsibilities by person, and noticed that two asterisks followed the name of this procedure. Down at the bottom of the list I found the notation "Contained". Dare I hope that that means...? I went over to my team lead's office and greeted him, "Here's your chance to make my day." And he did! My guess was correct, "Contained" means "No enhancements", and the change to enable the program to run under a started task would indeed be an enhancement. I'm so glad I noticed those asterisks! You know what I always say: I'd rather not risk my ass, but I'm just glad I've got an asterisk.

An Alarm in the Night: A Reminiscence

2005-08-11T21:46:00.000-05:00

When I was a little girl, I was very aware of the sounds in my world. If I heard something I couldn't identify, I'd ask my mother or father what it was. There were lots of sounds to know. I became familiar with train whistles and the sounds of trains switching, factory horns, church bells, even (when the wind was right) clankings and crashes from the junk yard a few miles away: the original heavy metal. These were the sounds of everyday life, familiar and reassuring. Then there were more unusual sounds. Sonic booms were still allowed over residential areas when I was small, and I understood that when I heard one an airplane had just "broken the sound barrier". When sirens wailed, the police, fire department, or an ambulance were on their way. These always made me a little uneasy, knowing something was wrong somewhere. But there was another siren that scared the living daylights out of me no matter when I heard it -- but especially in the night. They called it the Wildcat.

The Wildcat! It was the fire alarm at Commercial Solvents, a chemical company located a few miles from my house. This was a siren unlike any other I've ever heard, in all my years: an eerie, spine-chilling wail that slid uuuuuuuuuuuuup the scale, then doooooowwwn --
EEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeooooooooOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEE....
-- up and down a few times, then a series of short blasts, then back to the undulating wail. My parents explained to me that fires are particularly dangerous where chemicals are kept, so Commercial Solvents had an alarm that the fire department could instantly recognize and respond to. The short blasts indicated the department number where the fire was. What they didn't tell me, but I realized many years later, was that the Wildcat also alerted the nearby residents that there was a fire at Solvents, and it might be a good idea to turn on the radio. If the fire were to get out of control, we might have to evacuate due to possible explosions or dangerous gas escaping. They didn't tell me -- but I picked up on their carefully controlled tension in these times, and it doubtless added to my dread and horror of the Wildcat.

One sunny Saturday afternoon, when Dad and I had dropped Mom off downtown for her weekly shopping trip and were on our way back home, he said to me, "How'd you like to see the Wildcat?"

SEE IT? Oh HELL yes! I didn't say that, of course, I was probably six or seven; but my eager response assured him that I liked the idea. I had goosebumps, I was on the edge of my seat! We drove to a big brick building, a typical boxy factory-type place with a wide empty parking lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. This was Solvents? Home of the mysterious, dangerous chemical potions? I'd expected something more along the lines of Dracula's castle. About halfway between a side door of the building and the parking lot stood a tall pole, like a telephone pole, and on it was mounted a grey metal box about the size of a cereal box. Wires ran up from the box to a smallish siren at the top of the pole.

"That's it," said Dad.

I looked... and looked.... Man, it didn't look scary, but just knowing what it was -- even though I knew better, I half expected it to burst out wailing and blow my hair back but good. "Can I -- touch it?" I asked.

"If you want to."

.... "Will you come with me?"

Well of course he did, and with my big strong daddy to protect me I walked right over to the pole and touched my small hand to the box. "The Wildcat," I whispered, as a chill ran up my spine.

OMG The Mice Got Loose!

2005-07-31T16:39:00.000-05:00

I was in the den watching a movie when Young'un came running down the stairs yelling, "MOOOOOOMMMMM! There's a mouse in my room!" I didn't get it right away; I thought he was talking about a stray mouse. I got out a few incoherent words as I followed him up to his room... but ultimately he said something that stopped me in my tracks: "--And the girls are gone!"

The girls! Lily and Squeakers. I didn't understand how they could have gotten out... but Young'un showed me that their petting zone lid was unhooked. Well, damn. Now what??? I went first to where he'd seen a mouse go, namely under his dresser. At first I didn't see anything, but then I moved a small box that was under there, and who did I see but Miss Lily. She just sat there looking at me, I picked her up -- and she bit the hell out of my hand, in two places. That kind of surprised me, because she'd never bitten before. I suppose the whole situation of being out of the cage for the first time in her life had her all fussed up. I put her back in the cage and she went directly to the food bowl and started eating as if she were famished.

"What about Squeakers?" asked Young'un. What, indeed. I first thought we might be able to attract her with food, so I prepared a food dish and set it underneath the table in the mouse room. But then we decided to search the bedrooms, just because. Young'un returned to his bedroom with the flashlight and started searching under the bed, while I turned on the light in the master bedroom. There beside the bed, right in front of the little chest of drawers that I use as a bedside table, sat our Miss Squeakers. She was cleaning her front paws! Pretty darn casual for a mouse who happened to be sitting mere inches away from Angel's "panic room" -- but of course she couldn't know that. I quietly alerted Young'un, then got down on my hands and knees and crawled slowly toward our mousie. Unlike her sister she didn't bite me or even struggle when I carried her back to her home. But like Lily she went straight for the food!

It's my guess these two wandered out and then realized that they didn't have a clue how to find food. Squeakers in particular seemed downright relieved to be back in the cage! And we were certainly relieved to have them back safe and sound.

I should probably tell the mice's story -- I haven't done that here. A few years ago Young'un asked for pet mice, so we bought him two (to keep each other company). They were supposed to be females. Despite this, Young'un named the white one Hermione and the brown one Harry... and it turned out he was right. One afternoon I came back from walking the dog and found Husband and Young'un waiting for me, looking like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. "You've got to see this," they told me, and there in the mouse cage with Hermione and Harry were eight naked pink baby mice.

Well, two of them didn't survive the night, and a third one failed to thrive and died after a week. The other five grew up sleek and lively. I went out on the Internet and found information on mouse breeding, so I would know what to expect, how to deal with this, and (most important) how to sex the mice. I knew we had to split the males and females up before they got old enough to breed, or we'd have a population explosion. When the pups were four weeks old we bought another cage and I divided them up. Hermione stayed in the original cage with Minerva and Lily. Harry, Hagrid, James, and Albus moved to the new cage. None of the babies were white like Hermione; they were all brown except Hagrid, who was glossy black and quite large.

So the day after I split up the mice, we learned that Harry had been too quick for us. Hermione's second litter gave us five more mice to love. We named the females Bella, Trixie, Lovely, and Squeakers, and the male Sirius. (He was a Black mouse.) When he was old enough, we moved him in with his three brothers and papa Harry. Well, that didn't work well at all. The guys' dorm had always been a boisterous place, and with the addition of another male it turned into Fight Club. After months of this we realized that male mice couldn't live together in close quarters with no females. "They need to be able to date," I explained to Young'un. So we sadly gave away all except Hagrid, his favorite.

Meanwhile, the girls' dorm was a perpetual slumber party. Hermione and her daughters got along wonderfully. Two and sometimes three of them would run in their wheel together, and they slept up in the "petting zone" all cuddled together like a furry patchwork quilt. (Squeakers and Lovely had dark fur like Hagrid's.) Minerva, the smallest, smartest, and most hand-tame, liked to sleep with her head across Hermione's shoulders. The girls have always played together with their toys, and run in and out of their castle together.

Over the years they've passed away, one by one. Bella went first, then mama Hermione; then Lovely, and then Minerva. Only Lily and Squeakers are left in the girls' dorm, and Hagrid is still the king of his world. We still enjoy watching them at play, and getting them out to walk around on us... and they can still surprise us occasionally!

Day One of Vacation

2005-07-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

Another hot, hot day in the great American midwest. Temperatures rose above 100 again today. I got up at about the time I usually get to work, putzed around on the computer awhile, then got dressed and went into work. --Oh, but only for a few minutes! I had to drop off the charger from the on-call phone, and I also wanted to check in and make sure everything ran all right after our emergency fix on Saturday. As I hoped, all was well.

After lunch Husband, Youngun, and I went out shopping in the HEAT. We came home with a box of mousie litter, a portable DVD player which Young'un bought with his graduation money and saved allowance, and six plastic storage drawers for the furnace room. Before I had time to think much about it, I went in there and got all the cardboard drawers out and set them on the floor of Firstborn's old room. I spent the next couple of hours going through their contents.

This cardboard storage unit had been my mother's, and I hadn't really gone through it when she died -- I just brought it to my house and put it in the furnace room. I knew she kept her dollhouse miniature stuff in there, and also some other collectibles and small antiques. The top two drawers also contained some of Firstborn's old books, and some of Stepson's model-railroad equipment, and a plastic thing that I was not able to identify. I put those aside to deal with later.

All the rest of the drawers contained Mom's miniatures. I was truly amazed at how many tiny objects she had! There were sofas, beds, lamps, chests of drawers; wicker furniture; Chinese chests and bureaus. She had dollhouse-scale wallpaper and carpeting. I was touched to see that she had saved the tiny "broomstick lace" rainbow afghan I made for her dollhouse, using a pencil in place of the broomstick. She'd also saved the miniature karate gi and green belt I sewed for her when I was a green belt. She had a miniature piano, and a chaise longue, tiny vases and knicknacks, a slot machine and an old-fashioned Art Deco-style jukebox. I'd just about decided she had everything in there but the kitchen sink! --But then I saw...

By 5:30 this afternoon I'd been through all of the cardboard drawers, and had everything packed neatly in the plastic ones. They're not in the furnace room yet; I'll save that job for tomorrow. It will be a bit of a job, because I'll have to take out everything in that corner in order to get the cardboard structure out. But that's the easy part compared to what I did today. Go me!

Music takes me back in time

2005-07-22T19:56:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I heard a song that took me right back to the first summer I worked as a programmer -- "That's All" by Phil Collins. One of my co-workers kept a radio on top of his flipper-door cabinets, where we all could hear it, and he kept it tuned to an AM rock station that played the hits in heavy rotation. The songs from that summer are entwined with the memory of my early days as an IT professional. Whenever I hear one I know again the pinch-myself feeling of suddenly not being poor anymore; of going from literally no income to sitting in a cushy burnt-orange executive chair at a massive desk, in a work space paneled with golden oak and trimmed with brass.

My group's ages ranged from mid-twenties to mid-thirties; at thirty I was in the middle. We worked hard but played hard too: I remember one day when we took the afternoon off and went over to our boss' house, where we played whiffle ball in the backyard and drank pitchers of margaritas until the sun went down. We were young and working for a young company, so young that some of the systems were still in their early stages. Two or three times a week our mainframe computer used to go down hard, and when it did we'd be unable to work for several hours. One of my favorite memories from that time occured during such an outage. I was leaning back in my cushy chair, with shoes off and nylon-stockinged feet up on my golden oak desk, and the radio started playing Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For The Money". And I said to myself, Self, you have got it made.

Time, time, time, look what's become of me

2005-07-16T08:31:00.000-05:00

The 16th of July, another hot, sunny, humid day high on a hill above the beautiful Illinois. Right now I feel like a ball of energy at rest, kinetic, held in place by all the things I'm not doing. But when I decide what direction to go in, I'll start to move and I won't stop! It's a great way to feel on a Saturday morning in the season I love best.

I can just barely believe how fast the summer is going. I wish I could grab ahold with both hands and say, "SLOW DOWN!" I wouldn't even mind that that would mean spending more time at work; I love my job. (Even when it's kind of a meatgrinder, as it's been this week.) The older I get, the faster time goes by. I can't go fast enough to keep up! --Or am I looking at this backwards? Maybe that's the problem exactly: as I get older my natural pace is slowing down, and I have to work harder to keep up.

("It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere, you'll have to run much faster than that!" All I need to know about life, I learned from Lewis Carroll.)

I got this from Pam:

Your Blogging Type is Artistic and Passionate

You see your blog as the ultimate personal expression - and work hard to make it great.
One moment you may be working on a new dramatic design for your blog...
And the next, you're passionately writing about your pet causes.
Your blog is very important - and you're careful about who you share it with.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Shock, sadness, and wishful thinking

2005-07-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's terrorist attacks in London made for shocking news to wake up to. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. When the free people of the world face such a heartless, fanatical enemy bent on destroying our way of life, I can't understand how we can still let our relatively minor differences polarize us. I wish we would -- or could -- unite against that enemy instead of nitpicking each other to death.

Tom Cruise is crazier than a shithouse rat.

2005-07-01T19:34:00.000-05:00

He went off on Matt Lauer in an interview on the Today Show. They were discussing Brooke Shields' book, in which she talks about how anti-depressants relieved her post-partum depression. Tom Cruise went into a rant about how psychiatry is a pseudo-science, Ritalin is a street drug -- it was just amazing.

Here's a link to an article about it: Tom and Matt

Now I have no problem with this high-school dropout believing he knows more about psychiatry than doctors with eight or more years of college education. I don't even have a problem with him believing he knows more about post-partum depression than someone who's actually experienced it (such as Brooke Shields or myself). However, he must realize that when he goes on television and says so, he's going to sound like a raving nutjob.

My guess is he saw what Michael Jackson can get away with, and asked himself "Why am I knocking myself out trying to appear normal?"

An Ant Migration

2005-06-28T14:37:00.000-05:00

It's the strangest thing. The first time we noticed it was Friday evening: red ants were streaming across the driveway, diagonally, and over the railroad tie and into the front yard. Young'un and I traced their path, he investigating their destination while I tried to determine where they were coming from. All I had to do was scan across the crispy yellowish grass and soon I'd see the motion of the ant parade. I followed them across the side yard, into the neighbor's yard, almost to the big tree... and there the trail went cold. I just couldn't see a source. Meanwhile, Young'un was in the middle of our front yard, and he'd found their new home: a small hole in the ground, a bit smaller in diameter than a pencil.

The first ants we'd seen were empty-handed (or empty-pincered), but the ones on the driveway were all carrying little white blobs of varying sizes. We determined that these must be eggs! They were moving the eggs! Some of them were so large they were probably larvae. Soon the egg-bearers began reaching the hole, and down they went. Ants were coming out of the hole, but none of them ever brought eggs out. There was a lot of activity around the new home. There were a few black ants in the neighborhood, the same size as the red ones or maybe a little smaller, and they'd occasionally wander into the middle of the busy red-ant traffic. We wondered if they'd fight -- but no, they seemed to check each other out and go their separate ways.

We probably watched them for fifteen or twenty minutes. I found myself humming the theme music to Young'un's "Sim Ant" computer game, and he recognized it and joined in. We hoped we might see them bring in the queen, but there was no sign of her. She was probably already in the nest; perhaps she'd put down the scent they were all following.

Then yesterday evening we saw another migration of red ants across the driveway. This time they were coming from a different direction in the side yard, but their destination was the same as the ones on Friday. Again, lots and lots of activity around the nest in the front yard; again, black ants wandered into their midst and then wandered back out unmolested.

We've really been enjoying our ant-watching. It's been a long time since Young'un played "Sim Ant", but now he's going to install it on his computer and fire it up again.

Summer Reading

2005-06-25T20:02:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping to have a Book of the Summer again. It's been a long time since a book came and got me in the summer heat, put a schhhhhpell on me, enthralled me from beginning to end. Oh, I know, the new Harry Potter is coming out, and I'll read that one feverishly whenever Young'un puts it down -- but that's not what I'm talking about. There have been books I've happened upon in the summertime, just by chance browsing in the library or bookstore, that instantly became favorites. There's something about the summer that's conducive to this.

For example, there was the summer of 1983. I'd been going to college for the past seven months straight: mini-mester, spring semester, mini-mester, and summer semester. I was racing against time; trying to get my AAS in Data Processing and get a job before then-hub's unemployment ran out. At the end of July, though, I finally had a month off, with no classes, and plenty of time to lie in the sun and read. At this time I discovered Endless Love. The movie sucked, but the book is absolutely incredible!

Another good summer read is Laguna Heat -- a noir beauty set in Orange County, California. When I lent it to my mom, I said, "I envy you. You're about to read this book for the first time, an experience I can never have again."

A chance encounter brought me together with one of my favorite books of all time. Firstborn and I had walked to the grocery store one hot summer day, and as we waited in the checkout line I glanced over the paperback book rack... and Fuel-Injected Dreams caught my eye. This is a fabulous book that I never tire of re-reading.

The granddaddy of all my obsessive summer reads is The Other Side of the Sun, which I first read the summer after I graduated from high school. I've practically got it memorized by now, and I love every word of it.

For something more recent, there's The Houdini Girl, yet another in the finish-it-and-start-again category. I liked it so much that by the time I returned it to the library, I had it on order from Amazon.

So, will this summer bring me another new favorite book? I hope so, because it's a wonderful feeling, and it's been too long since I had the pleasure.

Eep!

2005-06-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

Well, we toured my old house. It's... really different. Somebody (probably in the mid to late 1970s) redecorated practically every room with heavy, dark wood. The honey-colored hardwood floors are now dark brown. The living room and hallway wall-to-wall carpet is gone, with the wood underneath stained dark. Dark, dark paneling is up in the living room and my room. Dark beams were added to the ceiling. It's very, very 1970s. After seeing that, I expected the kitchen to be harvest gold or avocado, but they surprised me: putty-colored fake brick, trimmed with light blue. The kitchen was pale blue in my day too; tile up to about five feet and then paint on plaster.

That was then (and that was Mom)...

...this is now:

In my old bedroom, the glass handles on the cabinets above the closet are the same ones my mother installed there. Other than that, the room looks radically different. Between the dark paneling and the dark floor, it gives the sensation of being inside a cigar box. In my day everything was light and airy, and the room looked larger.

They kind of enclosed the breezeway and garage, but kind of didn't either. Though there's paneling on the walls, I suspect there's no insulation. The garage floor is painted but otherwise looks just as it did when my dad used to park our 1952 Pontiac there -- complete with floor drain and the crack that bisected the concrete. They built another little room off the breezeway, into the back yard -- and I didn't immediately realize what they'd done until I spotted the curved edge of the original slab. The floor of the room was the patio my dad built! They'd filled in with more concrete to make the corner square, but it was easy to see where the edge of the patio was.

The basement -- ohhhhhhh, mercy. Mercy. It's hard to describe. Our wonderful rec room has stained walls, some half-built wooden and concrete structures, suspended ceiling drooping in places, ugly brick-red linoleum at one end, and a pervasive odor of mildew and cat urine. Oh, but the furnace was exactly the same coal-to-gas conversion monster that was there in my day. I'd forgotten how low some of the beams and furnace pipes were: Husband and Young'un kept having to duck their heads to avoid injury.

Outside, the tree I used to climb is gone. Another tree is there, though, at the side of the yard. The heavy iron T-shaped clothesline posts are still there. Somebody put down a concrete pad from the room that used to be the patio, all along the back side of the house. It looks awful. The two-car garage at the back of the property is jam cram full of JUNK. I'd want to be wearing a biohazard suit to clean it out; I'll bet it's crawling with brown recluses. The whole yard is enclosed in a chain-link fence which has rusted. Out in front, at the very front of the property, stands a rusty mailbox on a pole. It's the mailbox we brought with us when we moved from our other home -- it shows up in pictures taken of me when I was a toddler, so it's almost fifty years old.

Are we going to buy the place? We're considering it, and looking at our options. We wouldn't be physically doing the work of restoring it ourselves; we don't have the time. We'd want an actual rehabber-type to do that work. We could do things like painting, papering, landscaping and so on. I'd want to get rid of that nasty concrete slab, and we'd probably just dismantle the "patio room". I'm going to talk to some people at work who own rental property; get some advice.

Watergate Revisited

2005-06-03T23:44:00.000-05:00

Everything old is new again. W. Mark Felt is old, but he's newly revealed as "Deep Throat", Bob Woodward's legendary deep-background source on the Watergate story. The right-wing types are practically foaming at the mouth, trying to discredit Felt as a traitor. --To which my response is, "You've got to be kidding."

Felt saw how spectacularly corrupt the Nixon White House was, and when a reporter acquaintance called him to confirm or deny information obtained from other sources, Felt did so. He didn't approach Woodward, nor did he directly feed him information. Woodward would tell him, "So-and-so told me this, which makes me wonder if this other person is involved" and Felt might say, "You're on the wrong track with that one." He guided Woodward and Bernstein's investigation, and doubtless saved them a lot of time they might otherwise have wasted.

To those who say, while looking down from atop their high horse, that Felt should have used "official channels" to reveal the corruption, I would reply "Such as what?" The problem here was that the president of the United States believed himself and his aides to be above the law. Who, exactly, do you report that to? W. Mark Felt was the number-two man at the FBI. The top man, L. Patrick Gray, was a Nixon appointee -- and was generally believed to have his head so far up Nixon's ass that if the president took a corner too fast, he'd break Gray's neck.

There's also the fact that the president and his men were absolutely ruthless in pursuing and punishing their enemies -- for nothing more than being their enemies. They used the IRS (tax audits) and the FBI (wiretaps, intrusive security checks) as harassment against private citizens whose only crime was disagreeing with them. They used high-powered investigators to dig up dirt on people. This White House kept an "enemies list" estimated at anywhere between 490 and 600 people: journalists, celebrities, businesses, academics. It seems so juvenile as to be almost laughable -- but the laughter freezes in your throat when you think about the power these guys had, and didn't hesitate to use. That's the barrel that Felt was staring down.

So Felt's conscience demanded that he get the information about White House corruption into the light of day -- and self-preservation demanded that he keep his identity secret. Even at that, the Nixon tapes reveal that the president and his men suspected him. Nixon has a few choice words about him: "a Jew in the FBI???". (Nixon was a real treat. Take a gander at the transcript of his White House tapes -- but don't look too long; they'll make you feel dirty.)

Why is Felt revealing his secret identity now? I don't know, and I don't really care. If it's for money, I don't have a problem with that. Many, many other people have profited monitarily from telling stories of their part in Watergate -- including the criminals! In my opinion the man who blew the whistle, who was instrumental in the bringing down of the Nixon presidency, deserves our gratitude, his fifteen minutes of fame, and as much money as the infotainment industry is willing to pay him.

We can't go back in time...

2005-06-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

...but we're going back in space. This Saturday afternoon, Husband and I (and Young'un) are going to take a tour of the house I used to live in, the one where I lived when he and I first met. We went for a drive last weekend, took a look at our former homes, and saw a "For Sale" sign in front of mine. We wrote down the realtor's name, and on Tuesday Husband called him.

My parents and I moved into that house when I was eleven, just after starting seventh grade. It was just a couple of blocks away from the junior high school I attended, in a newer neighborhood than the one we were leaving. The house where I was born had practically no yard at all, but this one had been built on a double lot that was also on a corner. The backyard seemed luxuriously huge to me. Out in the north 40, almost to the alley, stood a pole that had held a basketball goal when the previous owners lived there. Come spring, my father would put one up for his basketball-loving daughter, and this would be the premise for the boy who lived across the alley to come over and meet his future wife.

That house was the setting for most of my teenage angst. I was nearly seventeen when we moved out, soon to be a high-school senior, and trying on the role of adult daughter. The walls of that house echoed with angry shouts, sobs, door slams, laughter, hours-long giggling conversations on the phone. The wild mood swings of adolescence, almost bipolar in retrospect: the highs so high, the lows so low. Slumber parties. A petition to keep "The Monkees" on the air. First love. :::sigh:::

I haven't been inside that house since we moved out, in the summer of 1970. I have no idea how subsequent owners have changed it. In my time, there was a one-car garage attached to the house by a breezeway. Many years ago the breezeway and garage were remodeled into part of the house, and a two-car garage was built at the back of the property, entered from the alley. I wonder if the increased square footage of living space makes up for the decrease in backyard. (My past self would say no.) In the first year we lived there my dad built a smooth, curving concrete patio in the corner formed by the breezeway and garage. It didn't surprise me a bit that my father, a factory worker, could build such a perfect and professional-looking patio: I was still in the Daddy-can-do-everything stage then. That stage didn't last; I wonder if the patio did.

Husband told the realtor that we're looking at the house as possible rental property. This is a bit of a stretch, but could become true if the price is right and the property in good enough shape. The neighborhood has declined since the 1970s, but the houses are still well kept, lawns mowed and gardens tended; walls and surfaces free of gang signs. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this house that loomed so large in our past could be a part of our lives again. Right now I'm not thinking that far ahead. The very idea of walking into that house again, into those rooms, down the stairs to the basement rec room, out to the tree I used to climb, gives me a hell of a rush. I can hardly wait.

Getting It Up

2005-05-28T01:02:00.000-05:00

So now they're saying that Viagra and other remedies for erectile dysfunction can cause blindness??? That reminds me of the old joke about masturbation -- "I'll just do it until I need glasses." Hee. But seriously, folks. While it certainly distresses me that anyone would have to suffer such a fate, I (cockeyed optimist that I am) can't help seeing a bright side. MAYBE NOW THEY'LL STOP RUNNING THOSE OBNOXIOUS ADS.

Yeah, I really hate them. The ones for Cialis remind me of those "Ladies' Man" sketches on SNL, with the low-down music and the smugly insinuating voiceover. Their worst one isn't running anymore; I think it was taken off the air by public demand. It said something like, "Remember that guy who used to follow you around the house all the time, and hump your leg while you tried to do the housework? He's baaa--ack!" (I'd talk back to that one: "Oh really? We'll be waiting for him, me and my friends Smith and Wesson.") But the other ED drug ads are also annoying. The guy walking through the office and everybody's saying he looks better -- "Did you get a haircut? New suit?" -- and it's because he finally got laid. Charming.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking sex among oldsters; you may have noticed I'm no spring chicken myself. And at the risk of TMI, let me tell you -- Oh never mind, it is TMI. Okay. Suffice it to say my problem is not with the act, or even with the drug; just with the way they try to sell it. And there are better ways. Whoever thought up Levitra couches is a genius.

News of such a dire side effect won't necessarily cause the drugs to be taken off the market. They'll probably even still be advertised, but the ads will treat the product more soberly -- as a medicine rather than a recreational drug. Or in other words -- goodbye leering horndog; hello seeing-eye dog.

Happy Birthday, Mom

2005-05-24T06:36:00.000-05:00

As long as I live, May 24th will be my mother's birthday. It's been almost nine years since I lost her. I wrote the following essay in a letter to my stepdaughter, a couple of weeks after Mom passed away. I wish I could have written it before her funeral; I would have read it there as a eulogy.

Barb. It was a perfect name for her, Barb -- she was steely and sharp and incisive, right to the point, and very tenacious in her way. She was witty, irreverent, and down-to-earth; nobody could crash to the heart of the matter like she could. God, she was fun. We had more damn fun together, just out shopping or whatever, both of us with such a zany sense of humor.

There was one time when I was eighteen or so, we went shopping for shoes in Peoria, and the shoe salesman seemed to be on drugs. He was very attentive, as though he were trying to act normal and thought he was succeeding, but he kept doing weird things like trying to take the shoe off my foot when it was already off. Mom and I didn't dare look at each other, and spoke as little as possible, all through buying the shoes -- then as soon as we were outside the store, just went into hysterics laughing. There we were on a busy sidewalk in downtown Peoria, with people and cars going by, and we were shrieking with laughter, doubled over, holding our sides, tears rolling down our faces. Ever after, all either one of us had to say was, "Remember that guy in the shoe store?" -- and we'd be laughing again.

She was utterly unsentimental, and would avoid any story or show that was supposed to be "heartwarming" or a "tearjerker". In the summertime when I was out of school, the daytime TV she and I would watch was not soap operas (she couldn't stand 'em) but game shows. She didn't drive, so we walked or rode the bus, or in the event of an emergency, took a taxi. I loved those walks with her so much that when I was married and a mom, and Firstborn was little, he and I would leave the car parked in front of our house and walk three blocks to the ice cream stand, or five blocks to the store, so he could have the same experience I had.

She loved springtime, and butterflies, beauty and peace and contentment... and me. In her last years she used to say, "I'm so lucky to have you." I always felt like I should have been doing more; wished that I had more time to spend with her, or to do things for her... But I'd just answer, "And I'm lucky to have you." And I was.

Happiness is a 1-GB jump drive

2005-05-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

I finally quit talking about it and bought one. I ordered it from Dell, which happened to have the lowest price, and it arrived last week. I was too busy all weekend to do anything with it... but tonight I decided I was going to make time for this. I plugged in our old computer, attached the monitor, found a keyboard and mouse and hooked them up -- and turned it on. It lives!

Then I plugged the jump drive into a USB port. At last I could transfer my music. I'd burned all the rest of my files onto a disc when I knew I'd be getting the new computer, but my music files were just too big. It took almost an hour to copy all of them onto the drive...

...But only a few minutes to copy them from the drive to the new computer! Oh bliss. And now I'm listening to my Israeli songs that I've missed for the past several months. No, I can't understand a word they're singing, but that's not a problem. I love the music, and I don't need to know the language to pick up the rhymes. And anyway, when I listen to these songs I remember Firstborn sitting here copying them onto the computer and telling me a little about each one, when he visited last year.

Thinking About "Star Wars"

2005-05-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

Firstborn and I had a wonderful talk today about the new "Star Wars" movie. He's seen it in his country, I've seen it in mine, and we shared the experience after the fact. That series of movies resonates with me and my sons; it's a recurring theme in the story of our lives. The fact that with the release of this movie it's now complete is sobering and thought-provoking.

The original Star Wars movie -- "Episode 4: A New Hope" -- came out twenty-eight years ago. I was twenty-three years old, married to the man who would be Firstborn's father. We'd heard a lot about this new science-fiction movie, so we were prepared to enjoy it. We weren't prepared to be astonished, spellbound, left breathless. There really had been nothing like this on the screen before -- the special effects were beyond comparison. A few days after seeing the movie, we went on vacation, and spent a few days with a friend who lived in Beeville, Texas. The theatre there didn't have "Star Wars" yet, but it was coming soon, and they had Star Wars T-shirts for sale. This was the first we'd seen of them, so we eagerly bought a couple. The people at the movie theatre who sold us the shirts were curious: was the movie really that good? We assured them it was way more than good, and that once it opened they'd quickly sell out of those shirts! (I've still got mine, stored away these many years, a souvenir of a phenomenon.)

In the years that followed, the next two movies in the series were released. We had a baby, who grew up watching the Star Wars series at his grandparents' house. They had premium TV channels long before we did, and they often made VHS copies of movies. When Firstborn stayed at their house, he always wanted to watch "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return of the Jedi". Eventually he had all three of them memorized.

By the time the fourth movie but first in the series, "The Phantom Menace", came out, Firstborn was nineteen years old and in college. Although that movie had its bad points, it was exciting to see the backstory hinted at in "A New Hope" and the others finally being told in detail. "Episode 2: Attack of the Clones" we saw in Chicago, at a digital theatre downtown. Firstborn, who lived in Chicago at the time, had got us the tickets, and we lined up about an hour ahead of time in order to get good seats (and we did get excellent ones). I'll always remember the wild ride that opened the show, with Anakin driving and Obi-Wan his white-knuckled passenger: it was almost exactly like my ride to the theatre with Firstborn at the wheel of my Neon!) After seeing that episode, we talked about what Episode 3 would have to be like. We'd seen the two pieces that it would have to join...

And now I've seen that piece, I've seen the arc completed. I found this episode to be the most tragic and moving of them all. I knew what had to happen, but not how it would happen -- or how painful it would be to watch it happen. When we see the choices Anakin makes, we realize how and why Luke's choice will someday redeem him. There are foreshadowings of "A New Hope", recognized like old friends long unseen. The end... is also the beginning.

Meet Me In The Bathroom

2005-05-16T23:04:00.000-05:00

I'm getting almost desperate enough to look for a black-market toilet. You know, the kind that flush with 3.5 gallons of water instead of the environmentally-friendly but frequently-ineffective 1.6 gallons. I've been fighting the problem of stopped-up toilets for several years now. The guys in this family are big, their appetites are big, and... well, everything else is big. 'Nuff said. The last time we remodeled the bathroom I had the carpeting taken out, and put ceramic tile down instead. That reduced the work I had to do when the toilet would run over -- but it's still treating the symptom instead of the disease. I wish I could just install a toilet that wouldn't get stopped up.

I remember back in the early 1970s, when we still had the old style toilets, some people were putting a brick in the tank to make it use less water. My cousin came home from college with her environmental consciousness raised and put a brick in the potty at my aunt and uncle's. My uncle got tired of having to flush multiple times, so he took the brick out as soon as she went back to school, and they only had it in there when she was home.

Are there figures on how much water we've saved since the law banning the Big Flush went into effect? I'd like to see those figures. If people are using multiple small flushes instead of a single big flush, I would think it would be a wash. (Hee.)

I've read that in other countries they have toilets with two levels of flush: a small amount of water for liquid waste, and more for solids. I believe you control this by turning the handle different directions. This looks like a very sensible solution to the problem, but one that's not available here because the larger flush would violate the water conservation law. I wonder how hard it would be to get one anyway.

Snazzzybird's Award-Winning ANIMAL STORIES!

2005-05-14T22:34:00.000-05:00

Wild Baby
Yesterday on our walk, Cling the Greyhound found a baby possum. She was doing some serious snuffling and I thought I'd better check it out. I saw a little furry back and at first I thought it was a mouse. But the color was wrong -- a kind of off-black or charcoal grey -- so I used a stick to push back the long grass and get a better look. Its feet were pinkish and looked like great big paddles with fingernails, and it had a looooooong snout with a little pink nose on the end. It was making a little squeaking noise, kind of like a mouse but more high-pitched. I wanted to pet it but thought I'd better not, because maybe its mother wouldn't take care of it if it had human scent on it. I figured she must be around somewhere, probably freaking out because of Cling and me -- either that, or rounding up a gang to attack us. A possum posse. Either way I thought we'd better clear out, so I arranged the long grass back as it was, and we left.

At the Vet
Today we took Cling and Angel to the vet for their annual check-ups. We knew we needed to bring a fecal sample from both of them, so Husband got one of Cling's while I dug for buried treasure in Angel's litterbox. Cling got all excited when Husband put her collar and leash on her, and became ecstatic when he led her to the car. She adores car rides. Angel hates them, because the only time she's ever in the car is to go to the vet. I always take her in her crate, because at least she's in a cozy space that she likes. Nevertheless, she meowed from the time I closed the door of the crate until we were almost to the vet. After we'd signed in, I took her out of the crate and Young'un held her while we waited our turn. The veterinary assistant weighed her (7.1 lbs), then got a digital camera and took a picture of her. It took a few tries, because Angel was not in a cooperative mood. Cling got her picture taken next. (Later when we got our receipts, their photos were printed out beside their names and information.) Then the vet came in and checked Angel over, looked in her ears and mouth, took her temperature rectally (ouch!), and pronounced her healthy. When it was Cling's turn, she had to have a shot and get blood taken for a test. The vet also trimmed her nails, which Cling hates worse than almost anything. But she got over it quickly, and by the time we started for the car she was her sunny self. Angel sulked all the way home, and as soon as we let her out of the crate she went running upstairs to ignore us for awhile.

Sunshine Girls
By the time I was on my Saturday call with Firstborn, Angel had decided to forgive me. She came into the sunroom and lay down behind me, in a patch of sun from the skylight. She stretched out luxuriously on her side and dozed off. Pretty soon Cling came trotting into the room, headed for the sunbeam -- and stopped short when she saw Angel in it. She stood there for a moment, looking at Angel... then turned around and wandered to the other side of the room and flopped down. A few minutes later she got up and came over again. This time Angel woke up, lifted her head and looked at Cling. They just looked at each other for a few moments; then Cling turned and wandered away again, this time whimpering softly. Angel laid her head back down for a little while... then I guess she took pity on Cling. She got up and strolled out of the room, right past Cling -- who immediately leaped up and claimed the spot in the sunbeam! I love the way Cling's sweet disposition and cat-friendliness lead her to acknowledge Angel's seniority. And I love the way Angel makes her point but doesn't need to run it into the ground.

Happy Mother's Day

2005-05-08T14:41:00.000-05:00

I'm having a happy Mother's Day... and yet. And yet. It's high summer, but I feel a hint of winter's chill. Time goes so fast. And it only goes in one direction.

Young'un will be graduating in three weeks. Yes, it's from eighth grade, not high school, but it's still a big transition for me. For me. It will also be a dress rehearsal, a warning shot across the bow, for the big graduation. I've got four years to prepare for it... but will that be enough?

Yes, of course I've gone through this before. Firstborn graduated from eighth grade and then from high school, and moved to Chicago, and to the other side of the world. It affected me deeply; my very screen name is testimony to that. For anyone who doesn't know, I first went online right around the time Firstborn was preparing to move out. I was feeling very much like a mama bird whose baby was leaving the nest, and that's what I named myself.

But my nest wasn't empty; I still had Young'un. I was still a busy, day-to-day mom. Though I had tears in my eyes as I watched the truck bearing Firstborn and his possessions drive away, I could also high-five with Husband and exclaim triumphantly, "Got one raised!"

When the one leaving is the last, and the nest is truly empty, I'm not sure I'll handle it so well. It will be a situation unknown to me since the fall of 1979. I'll still be a mom, but without the day-to-day momness that I'm so accustomed to. Children keep you young. When I no longer have young children, will I no longer be young? Oh, I know I'm not young now, but you know what I mean. Will I no longer be adaptable, adventurous, excited to take on each day?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled right down to my socks that Firstborn is out in the world making his way with confidence and strength. That's the goal of raising a child; it's why we're children for so few years and adults for so many. My deepest wish for Young'un is that he too will fly away on powerful wings and ride the high currents. That's how I'll know I did it right. When both my children are strong and able, out in the world, then I can rest easy.

I can't even complain that I didn't appreciate the "little kid" years while they were going on; that life happened to me while I was busy making other plans. I did; it didn't. I've known that now is the only time we have to appreciate now, ever since a defining moment on the back porch of my house when I was about 5 or 6, when I told my mother that I'd rather not come in just yet because this was the only time I'd ever be able to see the sunlight looking orange on the trunks of those trees across the alley in just that way. I call myself "fourth-dimensional" in that I'm always conscious of the passing of time and the changes it has made and will make. I've not taken anything for granted... and yet it hasn't been enough; it could never be enough. Years ago in my journal I wrote of my tendency to "rage and rattle the bars of the cage called time." I'm still raging and rattling.

However, since I have savored every moment, and continue to do so, I really can't complain. I've gotten the best that Time has to offer. By being ever conscious of each day's transience, I've imprinted them all in my memory -- even the ones that were unpleasant, or boring, or sad. I own them all, as much as it's possible for any human to own his or her days.

And now that I've thought all this out by writing it -- much as I used to think things out by talking on the phone with my mother -- I realize that it's all right. As long as my children need me I'll be there for them, and I'll be me for them. And I'll be me for myself.

Happy Mother's Day.

White Strips! Unpaid, unsolicited testimonial.

2005-05-07T16:19:00.000-05:00

I don't usually do this... but I've simply got to share the discovery I made. I found a consumer product that actually solved a problem that had been bothering me for many, many years. And it's affordable! I'm talking about Crest Premium White Strips.

(Okay, anyone who thought this entry was going to involve Jack White -- it won't, but let's picture him in our minds, shall we? Mmmmmmmmmmmm....)

Yes. Well. For my entire adult life, my favorite beverages have been the ones that stain the teeth. I drink coffee all day at work, and iced tea with lemon at home. That's pretty much all I drink. I don't drink soda at all: it's practically pure sugar, which I don't need calorically; and I can't stand sugar-free soda because of the aftertaste. That stuff tastes like moose sweat. (Ten points for the reference.) As if drinking all this staintastic stuff weren't bad enough, I also spent several years as a smoker. All of this has been the sheerest hell on my teeth. I brush and floss faithfully, and go to the dentist for a cleaning every six months, but still my teeth were the color of old ivory.

Those of you who've seen photos of me might be puzzled right about now, because you've never noticed these purportedly yellow teeth. One word: Photoshop. But I'm not Photoshopping my teeth anymore, because they're white! They sparkle! They haven't looked this good since probably the late 1970s. I shit you not.

At my most recent dental appointment, I asked my dentist about bleaching treatments. My teeth are horrifically sensitive; I have to use special toothpaste for sensitive teeth, and fluoride rinses, and I still can't drink anything especially hot or cold. I thought this would mean that I couldn't use any kind of bleaching agent. I imagined putting it on, feeling it soak into my wimpy enamel, and experiencing the kind of agony that would make the Marquis de Sade feel all warm and fuzzy. Not true, said my dentist. Any such treatment might make my teeth a little more sensitive at the time I was using it, but that would pass. I could have it done at the dentist's office if I wanted to, but that would cost more than $200 -- and Crest White Strips would probably do just as well. Oh, really? It so happened I had a coupon from Amazon.com for $5.00 off on Premium White Strips. Click click, yes use my Amazon card; it's on its way to me.

The merchandise arrived a couple of days before our trip to Las Vegas, and I started the treatments the day before we left. You apply the strips to upper and lower teeth and leave them on for 30 minutes, twice a day, for seven days. You can do the 30-minute periods one right after the other if you want to. We'd be getting ready to leave the hotel and I'd say, "Just a sec, I'm gonna do White Strips", and I'd put them on. Then while we were out and about I'd glance at my watch every now and then, and when a half-hour had passed I'd remove them with a tissue and drop it in the nearest trash can.

The packaging says you'll notice a difference after three days. Well, I noticed after two, and so did Husband, but after the full seven days the results were truly spectacular. Twenty-some years of coffee and tea, cigarettes and wine, have all been erased from my teeth!

Hardly ever do I come across a consumer product that I can recommend enthusiastically, but this one has me thinking in exclamation points! If your teeth are stained and you'd like them white and sparkly, this is the product for you.

My day could only get better!

2005-05-02T19:59:00.000-05:00

Today started out shitty. I came downstairs to get Young'un's breakfast ready, and found piles and puddles of doggie diarrhea. Yes, poor Cling had some digestive problems again. It wasn't her fault, and I made sure she knew she wasn't in trouble. I let her out, put Young'un's waffles in the toaster, got out the margarine and the syrup, poured some orange juice, and got him out of bed. Once he was settled in at the table, I went to work with rubber gloves, paper towels, newspaper, and a dishpan full of hot sudsy water.

Cling's distress had clearly begun downstairs in the family room. Her bed was really a mess, and she'd gotten the carpet too. Then up in the front room there was a little tiny spot on the linoleum and a huge runny puddle on the shag carpet. Ain't that always the way?

So by the time I had all the floor messes cleaned up, Young'un had finished eating and had gone in to see if the mice needed food. As I was putting the dog bed into the washing machine, he came down to report that our Trixie mouse was dead. It wasn't unexpected -- she had a hellacious tumor -- but the timing couldn't have been worse. I started the washer, then went and found a small box (the kind checks come in) and lined it with a bed of paper towels. I gently lifted Trixie out of the cage and laid her in the box, petted her little head a couple of times, put the lid on, and set the box in the refrigerator to await interment.

Cling had been waiting patiently in the yard. I let her back in, gave her a carrot (good for digestion), then went upstairs and finally got ready for work. Before I left I told Young'un, "After a beginning like this, our day can only get better!" And it did. My day was kind of frustrating and fragmented, and I did a lot of digging with very little progress. But hey, none of it involved shit or death! And that was improvement enough.

Services for Trixie will be at 6:00 tomorrow evening in our back yard.

The Mysteries of Packaging

2005-05-01T13:32:00.000-05:00

Why do I have such a hard time with packaging? Whenever I'm faced with opening something fresh from the store, it's like a Chinese puzzle. Well, actually it's not, because I enjoy puzzles; I don't enjoy trying to get at consumer products I've bought.

It's not that I'm careless and don't try to find the proper mode of entry. Far from it! My family get a major kick out of watching me turn the box over and over, peering desperately at it, looking for some hint such as "Tear Here" or a tab or a minuscule row of perforations. Nothing! Nothing! So I settle upon the most vulnerable spot and go in with all the delicacy and precision of a bear ravaging a campsite.

Sometimes after I'm in, I find the place where I was supposed to have entered. This happened with a box of oatmeal that I bought to make cookies. I could not figure out how to open the damn thing! It was a cardboard tube standing on its base, topped with a plastic ring with a cardboard circle recessed underneath it, and sealed with clear plastic over the top. This one had me totally baffled. The recessed thingie was particularly confusing: because it was so unusual I felt it had to be key, but how? At last, practically in tears of frustration, I plowed through the cardboard circle. Once I was in, I discovered that the plastic ring was part of a lid that seated down in the tube. If I'd placed my thumbs under the outer edge of it and pushed up, the whole thing would've come off. :::sigh:::

Today it was a razor that came, unasked-for, in the mail. It was in a blister pack of stiff clear plastic over cardboard. Ordinarily I would've used the scissors to cut across one end and separated the two, but I was up in the bathroom with no scissors handy. There I was, turning it over and over... Finally I chose a corner, peeled back the edge of the plastic, and got a fingernail under the cardboard. When I pulled, the cardboard peeled apart, leaving part of it still adhering to the plastic -- and the razor still unreachable. Damn! I tried another corner, and this time peeled deeper layers of the cardboard, so that what was left looked thin enough to penetrate with the plug from the hair dryer. With a hole made, I plunged in, breaking two fingernails in the process (my fingernails are useless), and managed to extract the razor.

I seem to remember that years ago, packaging used to include directions on how to get into it. There'd be an arrow, or a dotted line, or a list of instructions. Why don't they do that now? Do they think it's intuitive? (Perhaps it is, for everyone but me.) Or is it a cost-saving measure? (Six Sigma project: if we eliminate the perforations, we save the cost of maintaining the perforating tool and cut x number of seconds off the time to produce each box...) Or is it a generational thing; the packaging is designed by and for people who grew up with video games, or something like that?

Whatever the cause, the effect is that hardly a day goes by that doesn't find me baffled by packaging. On the rare occasions when I do stumble upon the correct way in, I get a warm glow of accomplishment. Failing that, I'll get in the wrong way, sometimes providing a good laugh for my family in the process. So it's all good.

My Turn

2005-04-10T16:50:00.000-05:00

I wrote the following essay in 1981 when I was a young stay-at-home mom. I had been puzzling for some time over what seemed to me to be a lack of quality, and lack of reverence for quality, in the modern world. I did extensive research, tracing the problem back to where it seemed to have begun; reading books that led me to other books; reading old magazine articles on microfilm. This essay is the result. I originally intended to submit it to Newsweek magazine for the "My Turn" feature, which is why I used that title for this entry.

The Antichrist is here. He has been among us for over twenty years, and he has poisoned our lives by indoctrinating us with the message that money and possessions are more important than people. He has robbed us of our pride in our work, given us high crime and unemployment and inflation. He kills thousands of us outright every year. He has destroyed the quality of American life, and convinced us that no other way of life is possible. He is too big, too pervasive, too powerful to be killed by any one person. The Antichrist is not a man but a theory which became dogma, then was elevated to godhead. The Antichrist is here, and his name is Planned Obsolescence.

As frequently happens, a good idea not thought through was found too late to have disastrous and far-reaching consequences. Planned obsolescence was an attempt to continue the wartime economic boom in peacetime. In wartime, goods are produced in mass quantities to be used and destroyed and replaced in an endless cycle. What if we could create that cycle artificially, by convincing consumers to replace the things they bought on a yearly basis? Smaller goods could be constructed shoddily, made to break or wear out; then they would cost little to produce and last just long enough to become indispensible. For big-ticket items, an artificial style snobbery could be cultivated by making subtle changes every year so the difference between last year's model and this one would be obvious. Consumers would trade in a perfectly good item on a new one, simply because the new model had arrived. It could work...

I grew up believing that everything I saw advertised on TV was my birthright. Is this some aberration of mine, or have other people labored under this delusion? And if the latter -- was it just chance, or were we meant to feel that way? Is this why so many looters and burglars and armed robbers, when questioned, state that they took the merchandise or the money because they felt they had a right to it?

When you sell an entire population the notion that quality is meaningless in one segment of life, it is inevitable that that notion will spread to other segments. They told the consumer quality is meaningless in his possessions; what matters is that they be brand new. Nothing lasts, everything falls apart long before you get your money's worth, but when that happens you throw it away and replace it. For the industrial worker this message was reiterated and reinforced on the assembly line: Don't worry about doing it right. Do it well enough to get by -- and do it fast, or we'll get someone in here who can. Thousands of industrial workers have been replaced by machines, and thousands more saw their jobs reduced to a mechanical level, so that goods could be turned out quickly enough to meet the demand. It's hard to take pride in your work when even what little craftsmanship is left to you is denied by foreman and factory managers -- who in turn suffer from the low standards forced upon them.

The lack of meaning, of quality in work, leaves a vast hole in the human psyche which advertisers use to their clients' advantage. In the 50s and 60s everybody either kept up with the Joneses or broke their backs (and their hearts) trying. Why? Because psychological studies told advertisers how to play on this formless yearning caused by the expulsion of craftsmanship from the workplace. Ever-increasing mechanization didn't just make planned obsolescence possible, it fed and nurtured it by what it did to the workers. Fill that empty hole with things! Brand new things, with style changes every year so the whole world will know they're brand new! Of course some people couldn't afford to replace their goods that often -- but when they fall apart, as they're designed and constructed to do, you must either repair, replace, or do without.

Repair becomes ever more difficult as more and more products are built not just to fall apart but to be irreparable. For example, my son received a toy for his second birthday which was broken by the time I cut his birthday cake. I dried his tears, fetched my trusty screwdriver -- and discovered that the case had been molded together at the factory. Now I'm not suggesting that that toy was programmed to self-destruct within one day's normal use by a child for whose age group it was intended. But neither do I delude myself that it was meant to last until he outgrew it. Among my son's toys are a few that survived from my own childhood, brought out of storage after twenty-five years and put into service again. I couldn't break them, and neither can he. However, the best toys I can find for him from today's selection don't even last long enough to be passed on to a younger sibling, let alone preserved for his own children.

How can I teach my son that there is quality in life, when everything in life falls apart all around him from lack of quality? His toys break, my kitchen appliances break, the family car breaks. Soon he'll be old enough to read the newspapers. He'll read about people who died in cars whose manufacturer knew they were defective but decided lawsuits would be cheaper than recall. He'll read about people who die when nearly-new buildings collapse, walkways fall, roofs cave in; because corners were cut to save money. He'll read about corporations that routinely poison, maim, and kill their industrial workers and swear that they don't do it, while at the same time they maintain that protection safeguards are too expensive anyway. He'll read about people who die in hotel fires because somebody decided it was cheaper to pay off the fire inspector than to comply with fire codes. He'll read about innocent Americans killed by foreign terrorists who bought their knowhow from former US government agents. He'll read about all these victims of planned obsolescence and see a dangerous world. He'll see a world in which no one except his nearest and dearest values his life at all. Perhaps he'll even ask me why these crimes go unpunished when an individual who commits the same crime -- hurts or kills another person for money -- goes to jail.

"We value our own lives with a desperation born of the certainty that nobody else values them at all."

Saddest of all, it is the most numerous generation in American history -- my own, the Baby Boom generation -- who grew up indoctrinated with planned obsolescence. Grew up surrounded by proof that American products are inferior to foreign-made ones. Grew up believing the industrialists and builders who say "We can't afford to do it any better". Grew up accepting planned obsolescence as a given, an immutable fact; rather than what it really is: an artificial economic stimulant that became an addiction. Like any drug addict, America suffers not only from the dependency but also from the damaging effects of the drug itself. In these areas we've been treating the symptoms instead of the disease. The "Me Decade" with its spate of self-help books was a band-aid to put over the gaping hole left in our lives when the quality was stolen away. Now we're demanding tougher laws and bigger jails to deal with the shocking rise in the crime rate.

Rehabilitation seems not to work anymore -- but is that really surprising, when the society to which we return the criminal believes wholeheartedly that wealth matters more than human life? That's the very assumption he was acting upon when he committed his crime! Planned obsolescence taught him that, it taught all of us that. We value our own lives with a desperation born of the certainty that nobody else values them at all. We lament the scarcity of heroes without realizing that the prevailing societal attitude discourages heroism. There has always been crime, and there probably always will be, but we should at least retool our society so that it does not foster sociopathic ideas.

American producers gave, and continue to give, no choice to the consumer: Planned obsolescence or nothing. The choice finally came from foreign automakers who built cars to last; cut their corners on styling and frills rather than quality. The results of this choice can be seen in closed factories and long unemployment lines all across America. But the message was clear in 1955 when the first Volkswagens arrived in this country and were snapped up as fast as the quality-conscious Germans could build them. American automakers responded by making their cars even bigger, flashier, and more costly, and leaning even harder on the message that last year's model is no good. But enough of us kept right on voting against planned obsolescence, voting with our dollars, that now our tax dollars must go to bail out the very industries that refused to hear our message. The factory worker lost his pride in his work, saw it sacrificed on the altar of planned obsolescence, and now he faces loss of the job itself -- sacrificed on that same altar, to that same false god.

The Antichrist is here, he's been among us since the 1950s, and his first commandment is "What's good for General Motors is good for the country". Planned obsolescence is no longer a theory, it's our way of life. It's killing us all, and nobody cares because it's taught us not to care.

Okay, so that was My Turn. A bit overheated, to be sure, but supported by the facts as I knew them and applicable to the world in which I lived. Do I still believe it? Pretty much. I think planned obsolescence was a bad decision, and that we're still living with the adverse results of that decision. I'd be interesed to hear what you think.

Why you should read The Gift of Fear

2005-03-12T14:29:00.000-06:00

According to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, a screener at the Portland airport on 9/11 could have changed history and saved lives if he'd only trusted his gut instinct. Michael Tuohey screened Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari before their flight to Boston that morning. In Boston they boarded American Airlines Flight 11, which they ultimately crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.

Atta's appearance and demeanor set off alarm bells in Tuohey's mind:

"I said to myself, 'If this guy doesn't look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.' Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it's not nice to say things like this," Tuohey told the Maine Sunday Telegram.

This is why I wish everyone would read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Internationally known and respected security expert de Becker tells us that we humans have instincts that warn us of danger and enable us to protect ourselves -- if we heed them. These instinctive warnings are derived from clues and cues that we may not even recognize consciously. For example, Mr. Tuohey's gut feeling that Atta was a terrorist didn't come solely from the fact that he was an Arab. He was picking up on Atta's facial expression, his body language, his one-way ticket, and countless other clues which taken together added up to "terrorist" in the mind of this experienced airline screener.

Already some are blaming political correctness for Tuohey's failure to act, but according to de Becker it's more complicated than that. The very fact that we're civilized can work against trusting our instincts. He gives the example of a woman feeling hesitant to get into an elevator alone with a strange man, then rationalizing away the fear: "Oh, I'm just being silly. It would be so rude of me to refuse to ride with him. I'm sure he's perfectly harmless." Maybe he is and maybe he isn't, but if he sets your Spidey sense tingling, that's reason enough to wait for the next elevator.

Please read this book. I originally checked it out of the library, but later bought it because I like to re-read it every now and then and keep its lessons fresh. It's not often that I can recommend a book that could literally save your life -- but this one can do exactly that.

Communication, and a remembrance of things past.

2005-03-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

Communication has changed so much, not just in my lifetime but actually in my adulthood. I was discussing this the other day with Firstborn. He is literally on the other side of the world, eight time zones ahead of me; and yet we talk for a couple of hours every Saturday. I sit at my computer in the morning, he sits at his in the evening, and we put on our headsets and chat about everything and nothing. And that's what it costs: nothing. (I <3 SKYPE!) There's no delay, and the sound quality is so good that he sounds like he's right there with me. (Once I had him on the speakers instead of the headset, and Young'un came downstairs, startled to hear his brother talking in the sun room!) That's our regular conversation. In addition to that, I can call him anytime from home, and if I'm at work I can log onto AIM via Sametime and get in touch with him that way. The only bad part is that there's no way I could get to him quickly. It would take a couple of days at the very least to get myself physically from here to there. That's a bit unsettling for me as a mom. Even when he lived in Chicago I knew that I could hop in my car and be at his side within 2 1/2 hours if I needed to. But other than that fact, we've remained as close as we were when he came home from work at 10:30 every night, and we'd talk while he made himself a late supper of Tuna Helper.

Contrast that to the summer of 1973, when I got married and left home for the first time ever. My husband and I moved to another town, about 70 miles from my parents. We were both nineteen and just starting out; I was a stenographer at an insurance company, and he attended college and worked part-time at Penney's. Suddenly my mom and I were out of communication, and that really was an adjustment for me because we were close. We never, never talked on the phone, because that would be long distance: prohibitively expensive. Every couple of months or so we would drive up on a Sunday afternoon, and visit both my family and my husband's -- but we couldn't do it more often than that, because gas cost money too. (A lot less than it does now, but still.) Some Sundays my parents would drive down, but they couldn't do that very often either because my husband's parents (actually his mother) didn't want to come down often but didn't want my parents to see us more than they did. (It was complicated.)

So my mom and I wrote letters. We constantly had letters to each other in progress. There was a model for this; Mom and her best friend who became her sister-in-law had been writing each other this way for more than twenty years. I fell right into the pattern. My letters to her were almost like a journal: I'd write a little each day, recording whatever of interest was going on in my life. She would do the same. When a letter from her arrived, I'd comment and answer any questions, then send my letter off to her. She'd have another letter started, and when she'd get mine she'd comment... and so on. I watched for bargains on boxes of pretty stationery, and wrote and wrote and wrote.

Sounds unbelievably primitive, doesn't it? If I had to communicate with Firstborn that way the delay would be even longer, because it takes a couple of weeks to get something from here to there and vice versa. His remoteness from me would be a constant fact, a big issue; painful and hard to live with.

However, there is one small advantage to the way my mother and I communicated during that long-gone time. Upon her death, I (as her only child) inherited all of her worldly goods. While going through these and making the inevitable determinations, I found that she'd saved every one of those letters I wrote her. One evening I sat down and read them all, and discovered a forgotten world. Surprising as this may sound, I really don't remember much about my brief, mostly unhappy first marriage. In those letters I found a wealth of detail about my day-to-day life at work, at home, and with friends. I had saved a few of her letters as well, and now I keep them all together, interspersed by postmark and thus as chronologically ordered as they can be (overlapping as they do). After I'm gone my sons can read them if they wish. If they do, they'll discover two women they knew and yet didn't know: their grandmother in her prime and their mother just launched into adulthood.

It works! Even I can do it!

2005-02-26T19:45:00.000-06:00

Fold a shirt, that is, the way it's done in this video. I watched it over and over and over, and simply couldn't follow what she was doing. But then I found this translation of what's going on. I did laundry tonight, and there happened to be a T-shirt of Husband's in the basket waiting to be folded. With the instructions, and without much hope, I tried it. And it worked! The first time!

Here's something I used to be able to do, but can't anymore. I'd forgotten all about this picture until I ran across it the other day.

ChoicePoint: The Inevitable Comes To Pass

2005-02-19T08:55:00.000-06:00

Well, it looks like ChoicePoint has screwed the pooch big time. They're the outfit that bought the company where I worked for twelve years, where I had my internship; the first place I ever worked in IT. That company just does direct marketing, not the mailing list/name selling business that has just gone so desperately bad on the parent company... but they're probably not exactly proud to be bearing the ChoicePoint name right now. That's a name that's going to stink for awhile.

I was gone before ChoicePoint bought the place, but some friends who were still there told me that the new management was basically just like what we had before the sale. Considering that, it was inevitable that a disaster of this magnitude would occur. The last few years I worked at that company, their management style was a master class in how NOT to run a business. So now ChoicePoint has screwed the pooch, and they've screwed us too. All we can do is wait for our letters, keep an eye on our credit ratings, and obsess over our credit card statements every month.

Shut the hell up about Camilla!

2005-02-12T16:54:00.000-06:00

There has been much talk and writty about the recent announcement that Prince Charles, heir to the throne of England, will marry his longtime love Camilla Parker Bowles in April. Invariably the tone taken is one of ridicule, that a man in his late fifties should be in love with a woman his own age, who’s neither thin nor beautiful. These same people see nothing unusual in Donald Trump’s series of marriages to women a third his age, with cadaverous bodies and grotesquely inflated plastic breasts, and no discernable sign of intelligence. Such attitudes are demeaning to women and men alike: that women are only good for decoration, and useless when they’re no longer decorative; and that men aren’t capable of the kind of deep, lasting love that encompasses companionship as well as sex.

No doubt some of this spleen comes from the fact that Camilla was a factor in the breakup of Charles’ marriage to Princess Diana. Well, I don’t dispute that – but there are two sides to every story. Diana had a better PR machine, and the fact that she was beautiful and beloved by the people didn’t hurt either. The fact is there was fault on both sides. By all accounts he embarked upon that marriage intending to make it work, to give up Camilla and cleave only unto his wife. However, Charles and Diana were both badly screwed-up people, and unfortunately their separate screwed-up-nesses made them tragically incompatible. Diana needed constant attention and adoration (the kind she got from her subjects), and Charles just wasn’t raised to give that (and indeed it’s not usually included in the grooming of a future king).

Well then (you might well arsk) why didn’t he just marry Camilla in the first place? The answer to that is found in the monarchic machinery that surrounded Charles’ upbringing. It was the 1970s when the two of them fell in love – a wild and crazy time. Camilla was a lively, independent young woman who’d been out on her own for awhile. There was no way she could pass muster as the certified virgin that the Prince of Wales’ bride was required to be. This misogynist requirement was even then as anachronistic as the monarchy itself, and in that sense all of a piece with it. However, nobody believed in it more strongly than the Queen herself, and where her son and successor was concerned, her word was law. He was used to putting aside his own wishes for the good of England, and it just wasn’t in him to rebel while in his mid-twenties. So he went into the service, and Camilla married Andrew Parker Bowles, and that was the end of that.

Except that it wasn’t. The two of them really were right for each other. They stayed friends for years, through her marriage and the raising of her children, then through his marriage to Diana. Only after Charles and Diana had failed each other utterly, and he was trapped in a miserable marriage, did he turn to his old love with no attempt to fight the feelings that had always been there. Camilla is the woman for him. Their love has endured through hardship and tragedy, bad publicity and public denunciation. It’s stood the test of time, and plenty of other tests as well. Theirs is a genuine love story, right up there with that of Charles’ great-uncle Edward VIII and Wallis Warfield Simpson. Charles and Camilla are going to get their happy ending, and they deserve it, and I for one could not be happier for them.

Thinking About Rose Mary Woods

2005-01-25T22:59:00.000-06:00

One of former president Richard Nixon's most loyal employees has died at age 87. Rose Mary Woods was his secretary for almost 25 years. She worked for him when he first went to Washington as a senator, and stayed through the vice-presidency, his unsuccessful runs for president in 1960 and governor of California in 1964, and his very eventful presidency. The Watergate scandal tested her loyalty, and she passed the test with flying colors. When an 18 1/2 minute gap was found on one of the Oval Office tapes, Miss Woods stepped up and took the blame for it. She claimed she'd done it accidentally while transcribing the tape: the phone had rung, and she'd hit "record" instead of "pause"... She demonstrated the position she had to be in to do this, and it looked like something in an Olympic floor exercise routine. That photo became one of the most famous images from Watergate. Along with analysis of the tape which revealed that the one gap was actually several gaps, that photo proved Rose Mary Woods was lying for her boss' sake.

Now I have no use for Richard Nixon. In my opinion he was a crook, and a dirty fighter, and a nasty piece of business. But though I don't admire him, I do admire his secretary's loyalty and integrity. She was a secretary out of the old school. I worked with a few of those when I was learning the clerical trade, back in the early 1970s. They were a dying breed even then. They were the classic stereotype secretaries of movies and TV; they wouldn't have wanted to be called "administrative assistants". They knew everything about their boss' business, and they guarded his secrets more closely even than their own. Their bosses trusted them with absolutely everything, and delegated some surprisingly personal duties to them. When Nixon made the decision to resign the presidency, he had Miss Woods tell his wife and daughters.

Rose Mary Woods never married: she was married to her job. After Nixon's resignation she retired, slipped into private life, and was never heard from again until her death. She never told who really erased the tape, or who told her to erase it. She never disclosed what was in that conversation, obviously explosive, that had to be obliterated. She could have written a book and hit the talk-show circuit. She owned one of the biggest, most important secrets of the Watergate scandal... and she took it to the grave. Now that's loyalty.

The ceremonial first post.

2005-01-18T20:17:00.000-06:00

Hmmm, nice place I've got here. I can see that I don't yet know the half of what it can do... but for now, I've established a foothold in this new territory.