Year's End

Yup. It's been nigh onto 2 months since I posted. I had an excuse in Novemeber: I decided to go for the NaNoWriMo challenge and see if i could write a novel in a month. I couldn't - but I had a lot of fun trying. Enough fun that I decided to stay with it, in my little magic world of people who have real conversations about Important Stuff, crack wise and wonder what their mission here might be. You know.
Then, of course, we get to the Holidays, when everything seems to go into overdrive. Must be all that sugar in the mix. And every year I think "Why am I not in Mexico or some other warm dry place near a large body of water?" And wake to find myself wearing my old Ugg boots and fourteen sweaters (at least one turtleneck) and its only in the 40's in Northern California. Good thing I am not trying to live in Alaska! (My mother and father met while teaching in a school in rural Ohio, where the farm kids got sewn into their underwear in the Fall and stayed that was til Spring, with bags of garlic cloves strung round their necks, to protect from germs. Can this be true?)
Two days ago, I decided it was time to conclude my Novel In A Month. I had finally succeeded in getting my protagonists to admit they were attracted to each other (sad, lonely people, badly bruised by traitorous spouses in prior relationships. That kind of thing) and I didn't think anything else was needed (yet) except a quick look at how it all came out. Since all of this is written in Bic on lined notebook paper (both sides) and now amounts to about 60,000 words, my next task is to coax it into the computer. Which gives me a chance to continue living in this fun, parallel reality, where people eat well almost all the time and, when they're eating junk, it's because they're in a hurry.
I did miss this quiet little corner to ponder in so, in addition to writing a letter that will be sent in the mail to my sister each month, I'll try to stay in touch with my blog. Carrying on!

Matins

My mother was with me, in the chill of the morning kitchen. She often does cruise through, when my mind is lazily gathering itself to rearrange letters in the Jumble or to stop re-reading comics I haven't understood. Morning, dark and early, is when my mind feels like dozens of pointless helium balloons, bumping into one another, glancing off to bump again. This morning, her visit felt malevolent.

Usually, I'm sucker-punched by some painful memory of failing to understand her needs. I spent decades failing to understand her needs. In the end, we came a little closer - at least, we started to understand that everything was code or verbal shorthand. She needed us to know what she wanted because she didn't. Couldn't or wouldn't, it hardly matters. She wanted my sister and me to be the best daughters ever and we were only averagely okay.

Well, my sister was more than okay. My sister, living a mere 16 miles away from Mom, was driven to keep her entertained and involved with the world of the living.They went to concerts and plays, to dinner where the earlybird special was salmon, to elegant teas and shoe stores. Mom slowly, politely, drifted away, getting closer and closer to friends who had left the mortal coil as she got further and further from us.

A typical morning bit of mother-pain will be occasioned by something as stupid as Rush Limbaugh being quoted in the morning paper. My Mom Hated Rush Limbaugh. She - somehow - listened to him and absolutely despised him. I had never known her to take against anything (except cheese, which she loathed for awhile, as her hormones adjusted to aging, and then liked again more than almost any food) with such gleeful venom. So, alright, so stupid stuff (and I do count RL in that genre) makes me miss her. Makes me wish I'd understood better.

Why was this morning's visit tinged with malice? Why did the dog poop in the hall? Why did the cat drink from my water glass? Why is not the question. What does she want is closer. My best guess is she's warning me not to be unkind. Point taken.

Shifting the Paradigm

All day long, it's been fixin' to rain. Herringbone clouds chopping up what little blue sky peered through the fog. Fog with an icy edge in the middle of the day, followed by humidity and wind. Well, it is California at the end of October. Rain for Halloween is not unheard of. And none of this would matter as other than a weather observation if it wasn't the Second Night of the World Series, featuring our own peculiar cast of characters, recently dubbed "Knuckleheads". And still, peeling off another layer of onion, I would have very little contact with the Orange and Black were it not for the House Gent, a genuine, unabashed Fan of the SF Giants - a season ticket holder.

Last week he had a bout of flu. I knew he was really feeling weak when he gave away playoff tickets. Last night, first night of the 2010 Series, we had a small party with his dog walking pals. And the Giants won! Tonight, night of the lurking rainstorms, he has a ticket and will be in the stadium, in his father's raincoat, until nothing more is happening. Given that there are tsunamis roaming around the Pacific Ocean, I'm sending a little hopeful screed out into the universe, humbly requesting that nobody who braved the elements to attend this game fails to reach high ground, in the event of killer waves invading the SF Bay. Not to mention those folks floating around in their inflatables, picking up hard-hit baseballs from the gelid waters.

So, none of my women friends would characterize themselves as baseball fans. We're not baseball foes, either. If we happen to walk through the room where the TV lives and a baseball game is in progress, most of us will have a small civil interchange with the person lolling about in front of the TV and perhaps even spend a moment or two watching the pitcher go through his OCD tics, watching the catcher splay his fingers in interesting patterns across his crotch, even getting a little het up when the bat makes contact with the ball and the ball soars over everyone's head and out of the stadium. Nobody I know pouts because her loved one is more involved with the TV than with any other aspect of their share existence, during a baseball game.

But I know things that are really none of my business: which one smokes pot, which one wears thong underwear, which one is dyeing his newly-grown beard with shoe polish. And, for the moment, I care about these things. And so, mirabile dictu, do my women friends. Is it really bread and circuses?

Just Can't Take No Chance

My car has automatic stuff - windows, locks, alarm system. I can mostly work around them almost as well as if they weren't there, complicating my well-being. But then there was the morning, not long after I got the Subaru (used), when the car let me in, then locked all its doors and started screaming and I didn't know what to do - it was still early morning, barely light, people were sleeping in all the houses and apartments in the area and my car was having a tantrum. Something I tried worked, before my tiny mind exploded, but only just.

Possibly, I hit the lock and the unlock in too-quick succession, activating ALARM. Possibly, I had inadvertently set the alarm before exiting the vehicle (so to speak). Possibly the car was just telling me not to get cocky. I did get that message. When I think I can get a way with it, I don't lock the car, now. No one would want the radio or the old towels that the dogs sit on, so I'm managing. Sometimes I get into the car and leave the driver's side door open until I start the car (ding.ding.ding) and run the window down. In case I have to bail out, yeah? I haven't practiced yet, to see whether I could actually twist my resisting legs and torso through a window that size. This stuff is just mind clutter, I know it. Dealing with it is the trick.

And then there's the BART. Sounds of BART haunt my nightmares. Some of them shriek. Some of them gasp and fart. Some of them go so fast that the cars rock on their tracks and skid into the station, screaming. And puffing. And smelling bad and looking worse.
At the Glen Park station, pigeons have taken up residence high in the concrete surround. Sometimes grackles are there, too. There are strips of spiky filament all along the ledges. The birds are deterred by them for several minutes, at most. My private noise hell is a bird sanctuary. Go figure. Can't birds hear?

I'm (Not) Superstitious

It's one of those absolutes, I guess. Either you are or you aren't. No such thing as "a little superstitious". As in, "Oh, me superstitious? Not so's you'd notice it. I mean, doesn't everyone have some piece of clothing that must be worn in stress-provoking situations?" Maybe.

Maybe everyone keeps a jar of dried lavender on the second shelf beside the bed, with the cap on but not tight, in case you need to open it in the middle of the night without waking the other person in the bed.

Maybe everyone resolutely thinks positive thoughts going down the basement stairs, so there won't be a rat hanging out in the storage room. Positive thoughts like "Little children are learning to like vegetables by watching them grow in Berkeley." A known antidote to rodents. Or "Only 70 days until the end of the 2010 Holiday season!" Singing can help: "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "Joy To The World."

Really, though. I cringe every time I hear some blithe young parent waxing lyrical about an offspring's accomplishments. Too much risk. Sensible tribes speak of their small people with scorn and ridicule, to protect them from jealous spirits. Not giving a child his/her true name until he or she has grown into it also seems advisable.

Then there are spiders. Mostly, try not to kill them. The smallest consequence is rain. There's something about killing one in a theatre dressing room - dooms either the actor or the whole play, so just don't. And even though I wish that every spider ever born (and there are some obscenely egg-swollen specimens at the center of a multiplicity of webs in my garden at this moment) would pack up and leave town on a random wind, I have learned that nice trick with a water glass and a piece of paper called "Relocation". (We do have a lot to thank realtors for!)

Falling Apple

My mother did not like to swim. She had a bathing suit when I was a kid. It was black watch, skirted and piped in white pique. I know she put it on at least once but she did not go near the water: not the scummy, frog-choked pool at Buxton, not the sleek, shallow bright blue plastic pool in the Jays' back yard, not Cape Cod Bay or the Atlantic, off of Nantucket. She didn't lounge around in the sun, either. Her skin was very fair. Even her arms stayed pale when she gardened in short sleeves.
I never thought much about her not swimming. It was just what she didn't do. Other mothers didn't get up in the morning or didn't drive or didn't work outside the house. Since outdoor water recreation was only enjoyable about four months out of the year in Massachusetts, Dad - on a teacher's schedule - could be the lifeguard parent.
In the last few years of her life, when she was happier living inside her memories than trying to make sense of the present, Mom retrieved a bittersweet episode from her young adulthood which she had never told us before.
She had a beau at Ohio State who was a racy sort of guy. He had a car. He belonged to a fraternity. He liked to dance and joke. And he was captivated by my innocent, doe-eyed mother.
He drove from some distance to visit her during the summer. She was living at home and working at a bank, languishing for something to do. He showed up to take her swimming.
By the age of 20, my mother had learned a little something about swimming. She had to take it as a gym course every semester until she could pass a basic swimming test. Students were not allowed to graduate until they could swim. Mom struggled against the water and failed the test over and over again.
When she and her beau got to the lake, he dashed into the water, racing her to the raft which was floating 50 feet from shore. She got wet and started swimming and couldn't stay on top of the water. The lifeguard spotted her and got her safely back to shore before she had time to drown. Her beau saw none of this occur. He showed up some while later, wondering why she hadn't swum out to the raft. This probably had a lot to do with why my grandmother didn't like the young man.
Some 50 years later, Mom took my sister and her family and and me to Hawaii. My brother-in-law was eager to do some snorkeling, so we rented equipment and headed to the beach across the street from our condo. I had heard that one should never turn one's back on the ocean but I did, and got slammed and dragged by a series of breaking waves. My sister and her husband had swum on ahead and had no idea that I was in trouble. Since then, my enthusiasm for ocean swimming has pretty much disappeared.

In Passing

At 9 a.m. this morning we will be attending a dog memorial event in our local park. Most of the morning dogs and their human companions will attend as well, since it's prime time for dog bounding. A pinch of ashes will be scattered at a major dog sign post and anyone who is so inclined can speak. Dog treats will be on offer.
The dog to be remembered was not a dog's dog. She had long since forsworn mindless charging around and had honed her treat detection and dignified begging skills to an enviable art. Her name was Porsche. With Paul, her escort, she roamed the park and surrounding streets in a stately manner, allowing affection to be bestowed, gracefully avoiding the body-slamming young punk terriers and Boston Bulls, being a quiet, wise and good companion.
Porsche and Paul had lived in many places and travelled far. When she was diagnosed with cancer, two months ago, his world imploded.
About a week after the diagnosis, Porsche came to the park with some guy no one had seen before. Paul was in the ICU, the guy said. Don't know how bad it is, I'm just a roommate. Bleeding ulcer, something like that.
Paul came back, thinner. He had recently dieted off some extra pounds and bought new jeans to fit his smaller girth. They now hung, low and baggy. His jacket billowed, full of air.
And then a neighbor reported a half-hour morning traffic jam on our main street. We get traffic there and trucks double-parked but no prolonged stopages. Some nut, my neighbor said. Just found out his dog has cancer and lost it, I guess. Stabbed some guy at an intersection. Nobody died. Lots of cops and stuff, given there's not much else to worry about in our neighborhood in the pre-noon hours.
What would Judge Judy do? (WWJJD)

Doll City

I keep trying to write romance novels. It shouldn't be that difficult, right? They're positively formulaic: girl meets boy, hatred and antipathy and rafts of misunderstanding, every good deed misinterpreted, blah blah, until she finally notices he's really good with kittens and he admits that it isn't just her ability to flip a grilled cheese sandwich that has drawn him to her, something about that cute little booty in a microskirt too, and then they cozy up and it's on to the epilogue where she's pregnant or they're gushing over their little tax exemption. If it's a more pretentiously literary bodice ripper, maybe one or the other of them goes back to a previous partner. And gender isn't a complicating factor. Girl can meet girl and go through the same patterns.
I've read lots of romance. Maybe too much. I've even read Luanne Rice and Jayne Ann Krentz, from which you don't want to know. I've avoided nurse/doctor protagonists, so far, but I'm afraid they loom in my future. Because I still want to write one.
Three or so years ago, I actually came to the end of my most ambitious attempt. Didn't "finish" - it really needed some amplification in some areas and fine tuning in others. It was about a friend of mine who was adopted by a sadistic madwoman, who sent her to school with bruises and slashes on her arms. Maybe not romantic enough? I did invent this utterly gruff and charming private dick, to help with her search for her birth mother and fall in love with her, so what could be wrong? Harlequin Books didn't like it, even for their emerging middle-aged-broads-daring-to-love-again market.
I've let that one sit ever since it bounced back with its form rejection.
It's probably time to pull out the first two incomplete manuscripts again. One is about a (what else?) middle-aged dollmaker in the Santa Cruz area, slowly coming back to life after a nasty and unexpected divorce. She was fun to write about, living in her little old farm house up a canyon road, lots of fabric and yarn and vases of flowers, a wood stove for her teakettle. She falls in love with a furniture maker. There are many complications
Earlier this summer, I was wandering through the crafts part of the Saturday Market, in Eugene. We were loaded down with blueberries and blue flowers and various tasty Middle Eastern dips, but a short run by the artisans seemed harmless. I moseyed down an aisle full of long, soft capes, toe rings and salad bowls. At the end of the row were shelves of whimsical dolls - quizzical, painted faces, all sorts of outlandish outfits, including tutus and wings. And lots of red hair. Pretty much exactly what I was picturing when I wrote my romance. I asked the woman in charge whether they were her creations and, if so, whether they were modeled on anyone she knew. She chuckled.
"That's my mother," she said, pointing to a pudgy doll with a sliding bun of hair and a tiny vodka bottle in her hand.
And yesterday the Blog of Note was by a dollmaker down in the bayou somewhere, whose dolls look like the Geico Gecko.
I'm not making this up.

aka Dearly Beloved: Take 1

Family and Friends: We're here today because two people who want to get married asked us to come and witness. Everybody in attendance who has been previously married has also been previously divorced. Among us, there are a very few stalwarts who either ducked the bullet or got it right the first time. We're all hoping that the bride is one of those lucky few.

We're all here because we love these two optimistic people, the ones putting rings on each other's fingers and swearing eternal fealty. We changed their diapers, put up with their predisposition to eat hot dogs or yoghurt for every meal, bought them pair after pair of shoes, made excuses for them when they forgot to thank their grandparents for the Christmas $5 bills. We paid for their orthodonture and for setting their broken limbs. We let them wear their heavy metal t-shirts and flip-flops to mid-priced restaurants. No big deal, here in California, right?

We're here because we're glad these two found each other. They enjoy each other's company. They're good sitting in a car with a flat tire by the side of the highway, waiting for Triple A because they know the flat tire was nobody's fault and it gives them a chance to sit and schmooze, in the middle of otherwise non-stop schedules. They trade off washing the dog. They'll travel the world together and come back with photos and recipes to share.

We're here to wish them smooth sailing, for as long as possible. We're here because, in these few and precious moments, their joy in each other reflects on us. Let us shine!

Say the Magic Words

My son is getting married soon. His second time, her first. They have asked me to say the words that will seal the deal. It's legit: I'm a ULC (Universal Life Church) minister, complete with a certificate and some helpful suggestions about services. For a few extra dollars, I could have had a park-free card for the car. Maybe I'll get one this winter, when the cold makes my hip joints ache.
I have done this marrying stuff before. Once at a winery in Napa, looking out over acres of brand new vineyard, barely greening. Once in someone's living room, with their adult children as attendants. Once at a sweet little church with glorious light, overseen by the real minister and his real wife, who weren't best pleased with this rag tag and bobtail outfit, unfamiliar with the holy use of candles and various folksy additions to the service. No matter, they were happy enough to take the check for rental of the facility. Kind of a religious hot pillow joint.
That's the sum total of my marrying experience. I don't pray and nobody's deity is invoked. And it's over in less than ten minutes, which is usually what the folks want, so they can start partying.
But this time it's my kid and his chosen person. The first time he married, he was the chosen person, though I'm not sure he realized it. She got him in the sights of her love gun when they met in the dormitory, age 19, and she had his pelt nailed to her side before Winter Break.
He called me up sometime during his senior year. "Mom? What does it mean to be engaged?" "Beats me," I resplied. "You're asking the wrong person." Me, I just got married.
Wife #1 once revealed her agenda. Engaged by the end of undergrad. Engaged and living together during masters' study. Married by the time of degree. She stuck to it. She probably had the kids, the migraines, the growing disaffection and the divorce on the agenda, too. I won't ever ask.
The best news is that I like this prospective daughter-in-law. Mostly because she so loves my son, but there are way worse reasons for liking someone. And I'd like to say something brief, thoughtful and worth remembering about the vagaries and quirks of love, the profound pleasure of mutual trust. I'd like not to be quoting Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman or Shakespeare. Any hints would be appreciated.

I'd Like To Register A Complaint

Today, my favorite gossip columnist mentioned a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to a woman who had written to her critically for having done oleomargarine commercials. Eleanor was gracious, as one would expect, gently pointing out that the commercials had all ready been completed and were no longer modifiable. And that, no, she wasn't ashamed of herself for participating.
What do you suppose she said, in her rich lady, plummy voice? What is there to say about oleo? It's not a dairy product? It tastes so/so? Less is more, but it works pretty well for cookies? Eschewing butter is good for the war effort? No doubt someone has reached back into radio archives and located the Roosevelt commercials and they will soon be available on YouTube. Until then, speculation is kinda fun.
I may be even more imagination-deprived than I'd like to think, but it never occurred to me to write to a president's wife to take her to task for some social misstep. What are the odds that you'd get a gracious reply?
How about this:
Dear Mrs. Truman: Even though you are pretty old and grew up in some middle of the country place where it's impossible to find a copy of Vogue magazine, let alone underwire bras, it would certainly reflect better on your short husband if you made some kind of effort, fashion-wise.
There is nothing impressive about flowered house dresses and grey hair. Your daughter is also a fashion slouch and will probably never be attractive enough to find someone to marry, unless you help her develop a sense of style.
I suggest you convene the top New York designers and perhaps a French one, for pointers on lingerie and accessories. Once you have experienced the joy of a well-cut jacket, there will be no turning back and our country can once again feel a stirring of civic pride in the appearance of our leader's wife. Maybe you could get Mr. Truman into at least a tweed jacket, if not an Italian suit. In hopes of seeing changes soon, I am a female person who votes.
Could have changed the course of history. Maybe.

What Do Women Want?

Until her marriage, my grandmother taught high school Latin and Greek. Married women were not allowed to preside over Hamilton, Ohio high school classrooms in that first decade of the 20th century, so, having gained a husband and lost a profession, Grandmother Lizzie tutored privately. Grandfather Charles taught high school math.
My grandparents met on a train, traveling to a teachers' conference in Los Angeles. Neither of them had travelled out of Ohio before. Lizzie was thrilled, snapping pictures with her little Kodak at every whistle stop, sending silly or scenic postcards each time she located a post box. And meeting Charles. That apparently thrilled her, too, though no one quite knew why. Charles was ten years older than she, he was dour at the best of times, with his basset hound face and taciturn manners. He dressed functionally. He was in no way articulate. Maybe the enchantment of riding the rails lent him a luster that would not have appeared, had they met in a Hamilton cafeteria. Whatever, Lizzie fell in love and dogged the poor man with her notes and letters and general positivism and hopefulness for four years, until he married her. To shut her up, one supposes.
Instead, she started in having children. John. Jean. Robert, called Bob. Lizzie called them Johnjeanbob. The boys looked like their father. Jean looked like she was made of twigs, hair as fine as dandelion fluff. They were teachers' kids and they hung around together. Maybe the boys had a friend or two. John played a mean game of tennis. Bob was a prankster. Jean couldn't seem to get the hang of friendship. She was good at reading and math, though, and started kindergarten when she was 4. A year or so later, she began playing the violin.
Jean left for college right after she turned 17. By then, she had substitute taught her father's classes when he fell ill with a winter flu. Charles hoped she would major in math. Both parents expected her to focus her education on teaching. Instead, she majored in geology. She learned to swim because it was a requirement for graduation. She fell in love with a tug boat pilot, who had a girl back home. She fell in love with a fraternity boy, who danced and sang and showed no inclination to work for a living. She got her degree, moved back home and started teaching. And met my father, at the first faculty meeting.
Dave was handsome, he was stylish, he was trendy. He danced, he painted, he sang. When he drank, he drank too much. He sent his students to her room with notes throughout the school day and bought her Coca-Colas after school. He took her to movies. He performed with her at her violin recital. And then, after two years of flirting, he announced that he was going to New York, to study fine arts at Columbia. And then he went.
He wrote her every day, thinking of you, he'd say, not much else. Instead of coming home for the summer, Dave got a job at a summer theatre on Cape Cod. Jean took a week to visit him, ate her first batch of fried clams and was violently ill for several days. She had also applied and been accepted into a geology masters' program at Columbia. Soon enough, they were both living in New York. And she was living in a small apartment with three other young women, loony and moonstruck, having more fun than she had ever had, standing in line for last-minute half-priced tickets for every Broadway show. And patiently waiting for Dave to propose. To be continued. . .

My Neighborhood

First, I want to say that this did not used to be a neighborhood, even though it might have looked like one. It was a collection of relocated earthquake cottages and faux Victorians (lower ceilings, soft wood floors). It was mainly a landing place for any immigrant population that made it to the West Coast. They'd stay until they had enough money for a downpayment in a slicker part of town. Unless they got stuck here.
The first ten years I was here there were still old Russian ladies (no old Russian men), living in decrepit hovels, wandering the neighborhood burdened with wooden crosses and black head scarves. They looked like apple dolls and sometimes preached at you on street corners. They got sparser and smaller, more humped, and one day they were all gone.
In those days, there was Martha, around the corner, who walked the block all day long. She had no teeth and smelled sweetish, like dried pee. There were never any lights on at her house after dark. She sometimes borrowed a jug of water. It wasn't until the hulk of a house was sold at tax sale and she was relocated that the news leaked out she couldn't read and never opened her mail.
The family two doors down drank all weekend, watching sports on TV. Their kids seemed to exist on chips and cheese sticks, washed down with Mountain Dew. If the Dad got drunk enough, he'd totter down the front steps and shoot a little hoop with his boys. At some point, he bought an interest in a bar nearby. The afternoon's entertainment became watching him try to back his enormous Pontiac into his narrow driveway.
Next door was the worst. She must have worked swing shift and gone partying when she clocked out. Her head banger music started up around 2 a.m. and continued until at least 4. Anyone who parked in front of her house would find a vicious note scrawled in lipstick on the front windshield of the offending car. She may have had a boyfriend who beat her up - there were frequently angry voices and sobs weaving around the relentless music.
And there were Dick and Bubbles, the alcoholics in the top flat at the corner. They started drinking when they got up, around 7 a.m. The beverage of choice was vodka and orange juice: Vitamin V, as it's known locally. The only time I saw Bubbles without a glass in her hand was the day we went to court to try to get an extension on the eviction order that had been nailed to her front door. We got a few extra days, but it took all morning, with several breaks at the closest bar. Bubbles wore her red wig to court. I preferred her in the blonde curls and bandana, with her wobbly cigarette and her gravelly voice. There was no way to stop the eviction entirely, so Dick and Bubbles disappeared.
All this changed when the dot com kiddies discovered this bastion of low-priced real estate.

If I'd Known Then

I really miss my mother. I've said it before, written it before, felt it for five years (and really for some time before that when she didn't seem to share a frame of reference with me anymore) and I know I'll say it again. And again. Because it keeps coming up in obscure little moments, small epiphanies - how shallow was our understanding of what it was like to be in the prison of her dwindling world.
Now that I take the same meds she did, I understand differently. Blood pressure meds? Made me dizzy. Made me ultra-sensitive to sudden noises. Made my feet and hands swell. I took off my toe ring (with the help of liquid detergent) so it wouldn't cut off circulation. Statins? Please! Hip pain. Joint pain. Sudden snaps in the ankles, descending a staircase. Nausea. Headaches. Dry mouth. The time comes when you just want to stop. Stop it all. Go live under a fern, drinking rain drops, eating tiny clusters of pollen.
My Mom was not a complainer. Stoic, she would send out little peeps, every now and then, so we came to know about this rash, that insomnia, continual constipation only in the gentlest, most dismissive of terms. She didn't want to be any bother. She wanted her 30 something doctor to like her so she never told him how hard it was becoming to find a reason to open her eyes in the morning.
My sister and I like to be helpful. "Try warm milk or mint tea in the evening," one of us would instruct. "Prune juice for breakfast would help."
Mom was nice to us about this folly. Seemed to take our sage advice under consideration. Never told us to shove it.
Last year, my sister had a sudden onset of back problems and asthma - nice little bundle of problems. For a number of months, nothing she tried seemed to help. About the time her morale hit subzero, she tried a brand new protocol, featuring injections of her own purified blood (I think I have this right) and now she's smiling, walking, talking, exercising again, able to sit at her potters' wheel for hours at a time (but mindful now of needing frequent breaks) so, Phew!
If I could call Mom, like I did every day at 4 p.m. my time, 7 p.m. hers, right after she got back from dinner, I'd ask her about these aches and pains, these memory glitches, that really odd stuff that happens in my head at 3 a.m., right after the first major hot flash, when scripts are running with words that don't belong together. At least we might commiserate.

Who Do You Trust?

My neighbor Sharon died 3 years ago this month. She was a scrawny little whip of a woman, born on a reservation in Oregon that no one ever heard of until it got a casino and started providing stipends and health/dental coverage to all its registered members. She loved the Giants and the 49ers and had hats and jackets with logos of each. She had a Lhasa Apso named Brown Sugar, who subsisted entirely on Milk Bonz and other treats. If Sharon was awake, she had a cigarette lit and the country station playing on her radio. I knew her by rare sightings for at least fifteen years before we became speaking acquaintances.
I really miss seeing her parade Sugar up and down the block until the dog's bowels condescended to move. I miss watching her manicure her tiny little front garden, where the lighted reindeer stand at Christmas. I miss that little twitch of her front curtain that demonstrated she was there, just behind it, keeping an eye on the neighborhood.
The past few months, I've wondered whether she was still watching the neighborhood, from some place beyond the clouds. I kind of hope not, since she'd have had to see her kids, the ones she'd carefully put the house in trust for, foreclosed on and literally out on the street. Not what she'd intended. And now you have to wonder whether she could have - or maybe did - see it coming.
I know she had no use for Diesel, that sorry female who chased her son, RJ, around. Fat tart in tank tops and flap down overall shorts in all kinds of weather, dressed to show her massive thighs and her ever-increasing florid tats. Kind of gal who dries out in jail a couple times a year while her passle of kids get farmed out to their daddies. Considerate lass, who makes 40 phone calls an hour all night long to her boyfriend's house when they've had a row, knowing that he won't answer the phone but his mother, lacking caller ID or an answering machine, will. Also known for her penchant for smashing car windows up and down the block when she's sailing in front of the winds of rage. Charmer. She became the Lady of the Manor, after Sharon died.
Sharon's oldest girl, Bobby, got the thankless role of executor/trustee. That made RJ so mad that he wouldn't allow her access to the house or functionability in any other regard, while he fought through the court (and lost the battle but won the war by other means) Her other girl, Daff, lives somewhere in rural Texas and didn't even come for the funeral, just held out her hand until someone put money in it. And brother Mac, having blown off his job with the Teamsters because his agoraphobia kept wiggling through his brain and his mother's illness gave him an excuse, capitulated to RJ's leadership and shrank the fat off his bones with ingestable substances. And Tree, the oldest of the kids, moved herself and her young boyfriend in with the brothers and tried to lead a regular sort of life, featuring work and regular meals.
What none of them seemed to learn to do was pay bills. It's doubtful that bills ever got opened, probably on the theory that what you can't see doesn't exist. Bobby says it wasn't just utility bills and mortgage statements that went unanswered. Sharon had left each child $20,000 in an insurance policy but RJ and Mac wouldn't open the agent's letters or answer his calls.
The axe fell on April Fools' Day. A batallion of large, slow-moving, long-armed guys flooded out of the back of a high-sided truck, swarmed up the front steps and began interior demolition. By noon, the toilets, shower stalls, kitchen appliances and plumbing pipes were heaped in the back of the truck. The garage door was wide open, displaying the spectacular, floor-to-ceiling accumulation of car tools, car parts and god knows what else. And the family was gone.
We neighbors knew there was difficulty. Diesel was not a ladylike sort, when confronted with opposition. Several times the house was dark for days until a PG&E truck came to reinstall wiring. The landline phone number was disconnected.
Last December, I saw RJ on the street, trying to revive a gasping, gurgling pickup truck. I asked him if he'd made his Christmas list yet. He said "Only thing I'd wish for is a mother and a father."
I don't know where they've gone, Sharon, those rowdy boys of yours. I hope you didn't lose a minute of heaven, scrutinizing the debacle.

Express Yourself

So what do we really think Stephen Slater, quarreler with women (!), said over the JetBlue microphones? Was he profane, as in all the jolly words hurled at women in angry moments, words that start with a and b and c? Was he poetic, railing at the heavens for the weary twist of fate that had caused him to bleed and founder? Was he praying to his own personal savior for patience in the midst of such adversity? What language did he choose in which to imprecate?
And how did the thunderstruck patrons of the airline, logy from lack of oxygen or anything to eat that wasn't sweet or excessively salty, respond to his rant? All they wanted was off the plane, right? Is this a new low in air travel or such a high moment that the lucky passengers will dine out on the story for ages to come? And how many of them will sue?
Personally, I have wanted to kiss the ground at the end of a few flights, not all of them especially long. I wondered if I'd ever walk again, after flying from Paris to California. There are certain young people, heedlessly romping the planet, whose lives would have been truncated after the spectacular six hour sessions of screaming with which they gifted a captive plane load, if my prayers had been answered. But I have not yet seen a woman bean a man with a suitcase or a flight attendant activate a water slide. More to look forward to?

The Importance of Ritual

We got our invitation yesterday to the wedding of a couple of young professionals. We've been on the e-mail roster, so have been privy to many of the steps and musings along the way. To wit: where should one honeymoon, given the availability of anywhere in the world? How many hotel rooms should be reserved in how many neighboring hostelries? Should the eve of the wedding be a casual bash, featuring copious lashings of alcohol?
The bride and the groom are high-style foodies, with special and exacting tastes. They have a website, of course, to address accommodations, driving directions, schedule of events and the inevitability of gifts. They are Registered.
It is astonishingly easy to find someone in a registry. And what you find is a spectrum of items which can be purchased from the particular emporium at a wide variety of prices. Not surprisingly, perhaps, everything in the $50 - $100 price range has already been purchased on their behalf. The big ticket items languish, all forlorn. The smart money probably goes for gift certificates.
So, ritual. We have the foamy white dress and head decor. The tuxedos and shiny black shoes. The huppa. The glass. There will no doubt be dancing, some of it with chairs. Wine will flow. Tears may flow - I'm a soppy mess as soon as the vows start rolling. Large amounts of delicious food will be consumed. People known and loved to the couple will hold forth amusingly or ponderously. And then it will be over. They will be as married as anyone ever was and off to seek their conjoined fortune.
I guess I don't like weddings much, although I had thought I was looking forward to this one. I'll definitely try to adjust my attitude before the big day.

Wine At Lunch

Unless you drink at noon-ish every day, it's probably not the best idea you ever had. Alcohol, I mean, with your otherwise calorically correct light lunch. Do you have time for a post-prandial nap or are you going back to some cubicle, where you'll sit staring stupidly at a screen, trying to remember why you can't just go home?
But what if the nice young waiter with the large ring in his nose and the GI buzz haircut has offered you a free glass, because of some bar mistake that resulted in an overpour? (How about that word? Reminds me of eaves and Morton's salt.) My good intentions flew right out the window, even though the wine itself was an Argentinian chardonnay, which could have been fairly awful. Why I hadn't cared that I didn't order it in the first place. It was actually pretty good - no oak, light like a sauvignon blanc. I drank it with pleasure and have the rosy cheeks to prove it.
My drinking companion, a friend I see occasionally because we may not really like each other, always has wine when we lunch. Fish and chips and wine. Hamburgers and wine. This time it made her mean.
"I wish he's take out that nose ring," was the opening volley. Next came a story of leaving a meal half eaten in some other dining venue because the wait person had so many tats and piercings that my friend couldn't stand to look. Next came ordering dessert and insisting we leave without eating it when it hadn't arrived in five minutes. Then she wanted not to tip. Then I wanted to go home and never be seen in public in that area again, even though I'm quite fond of the restaurant and had enjoyed my meal. My Dad would have said "She's a meany with big nose pores."

Don't Go To Sleep Mad

My father gave us cinnamon hearts on Valentine's Day. That would happen in the morning, at the kitchen table, him in his robe, drinking coffee and slipping pieces of buttered toast to our cocker spaniel. We'd be dancing with impatience to get to school with our stacks of cards, cram them into the boxes in our homerooms and endure the wait until it was finally time for the designated post person classmate to deliver the cards, for the volunteer mothers to circulate with tiny cups of juice and cupcakes. Dad drove us to school, so none of this anxious waiting could really begin until he showered, shaved, patted on the Old Spice, cracked a fresh shirt out of its cardboard surround, put his wallet in his pocket and found himself ready to leave the house, enter the Pontiac and navigate the mile and a half to our small school. He was a stickler for punctuality, when it was his events and very cavalier about other people's time.

The last time I saw him was right after the Manson family butchered Sharon Tate and her playmates. I heard about those murders while being driven across the Bay Bridge, on the way to SFO. The weird skankiness of it haunted my visit to my parents, as though all the air in the country was suddenly polluted with fear and hate and uncertainty. Where my parents lived, in Wisconsin, was a retro burg that had ordinances prohibiting people of color from staying within the city limits over night. It had an island covered with coal in the delta where a river flowed into Lake Michigan. It was an ignorant place and my father, a sybarite, suffered and wilted within its confines.

The visit started okay. Dad was enchanted with my sturdy, three year old son and took him off on toy store excursions, coming home laden with cars and trucks. We were treated to Dad's famous bratwurst (grilled and steeped in beer and butter) and semi-raw chicken. We hung around the backyard barbecue until the mosquitoes had drunk their fill. I woke one night to the insistent hum of a bloodsucking insect close to my ear, turned on the light and discovered over forty of the critters, hanging out on the cottage cheese ceiling. When whacked with my tennis shoe, they all left blood spots.

By the last night of the visit, I was more than ready to go home. Dad decided I should come along to the summer theatre performance he was directing and I did, knowing we would wind up closing some bar at 1 a.m. He let me drive home, at least, after stumbling on his way to the parking lot and dropping his keys when he opened the car door. He dozed a little in the car but revived as we pulled up under the carport and poured another several fingers of bourbon in his old fashioned glass as soon as he got to the kitchen. Then he started lecturing me on my thrown-away life.
That stuff used to make me cry. Crying, I knew, only egged him on. This time I listened, refuted, and finally shouted. My mother woke up and separated us, scolded, sent us to our beds.

On the early morning drive to the airport, he was quiet. He stopped once, to vomit off the berm of the road. I barely said goodbye. The following summer, he died of a heart attack in the Chicago airport.

Gaga In The Morning

Because, no matter what my Afro-Haitian teacher says as we stomp our bare feet and twirl our imaginary skirts, gaga may be a dance with a lot of hip action, but it's also a homely little girl in a lot of hair and cakes of makeup and the silliest peekaboo wardrobe ever to attend a Yankees game. And now, Gaga is also a blog and an organization for Grannies who want to tell the cockeyed world how they really feel about their grandkids. GAGA!
That's what I found out from the paper this morning, too early to have built up easy resistance to treacley information. Some Tinker Belle down the peninsula fell so in loove (GAGA) with her newly-hatched grandkid that she just had to blog it and Connect (we love that word in California. It makes us feel like refrigerator magnets, which we also love)with other, like minded Nanas.
You know who she is, you jog-strollered, coffee-sipping, yoga-clad mommies: she's the one with the glint in her eye, bearing down on you as you wait for the light to change so you and little Muffin can get back underway to Mommy and Me music class, but no, here comes this wrinkly, who wants to Engage about how cute Muffin is, how sweet her smile, how fat her thighs, all the things Mommies are supposed to love to hear, even when they're late for their activity.
Here's the other helpful thing that Nanny GAGA does. She runs meetings for other Grandmas, to help them understand how to conduct themselves in the presence of what used to be their children. "Get with the program" is her advice, since you won't be seeing much of the cherished moppets otherwise.
I'm here to testify that you may not see much of them, no matter what you try to do, although holding large sums of money enticingly clutched in your hand might increase your chances. You see, the Mommies think it is a damn miracle that they lived to grow up, considering who was raising them. They know that if they let the little poppets anywhere near the oldsters, all those horrible jokes will get told, games will get played, values will get warped. We'll never know, will we?

How to tell if you're old

Ha! Supposing your calves don't cramp in the middle of the night, catapulting you out of bed in search of a cold floor, keening a little until the charley horse unkinks. You don't fish your teeth out of their dear little plastic, cleanser-filled container in the morning and rinse off the mint slime before inserting them in your mouth. You don't eat the inside of the baguette and leave the crust. You don't wake up for good at 3 a.m. and start thinking about the last awful thing you said to your first boyfriend, which leads to a volcanic mass of ugly memories, starring yourself as the villain in the piece.
If you're young enough to be skipping through life with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart (no vomiting!) then you don't need to read the book based on a blog called something like hownottoactold.blog.
I didn't even try to resist reading some of it. Now I know not to take pictures of my flowers. Or wear socks with my shorts. Or indulge the hedonist in me with big, comfy cotton underpants. No, see, you can do all those things if you are clueless, like I was until yesterday, but - if you do them - you're ACTING OLD. Seriously. More to come.

Reduced in rank

I guess I can't really call myself "Grandmother of Three" anymore. Nothing grand about me and two of the erstwhile grandkids are drastically out of contact - at least two years since I've seen or heard from them. For most of that while, I sent cards and e-cards and money and small gifts at appropriate times. Nothing was ever acknowledged, so, you know? Screw it. Until recently, all three grandkids were beneficiaries of my small investment account but then I switched to Schwab (like the idea of tellin' it to Chuck) and now, when I bite the dust, my kids will get to decide how to dispose of everything.
My sister got to see the boys a few weeks ago, in Oregon, where they had gone with their delightful mother to visit an old friend of hers. Sis says it was stiff and she felt like her face would crack on the smile lines after the half-hour they all spent together but that the boys still have senses of humor and seemed genuinely glad to see her and her daughter. Last week, I was at the Russian River, driving through redwoods and remembering other summers. Clear flashbacks to all three kids with my son in a canoe, capsizing in waist deep water and swimming around like small, chubby porpoises. Badminton on dry crab grass, no one able to return the birdie. Stony beaches and flotation devices. Good memories, if sparse.

Summer's tease

When you live in SF, summer is a yearned-for event. Each cold, foggy morning, pulling on the woolen watchcap, zipping the fleece vest under the high-necked windbreaker, in order to withstand the gales hurtling through the decrepit cypress trees in the park (truly! On a mega force wind day I don't walk under the trees) you get this series of Summers Past visions: little white sandals, tan legs, pulling out your t shirt so the sweat could roll down your belly and soak into your waistband. Sigh.
Half the park people, out with their dogs, wouldn't have the weather any other way. Bring it!, they say to fog, to wind, to general weather adversity. Then there are those of us wimps who have forgotten our gloves and still have to pick up that icy frisbee and give it one more toss, or risk the dog's distinct displeasure.
My friend in Connecticut claims to be barricaded in his house, blasting the air conditioner and waiting for winter. My sister in VT says the late-August flowers are already blooming and fears this means early snows. I can't puzzle out what global warming really means.

Much To My Surprise

A whole year and change later and here I am, still knocking around the planet. Not around much: traveling gives me the pip. Probably because I expect it to, but I have to say I like the NY subways even less than the SF BART, which I don't like at all. Though coming home from the Taylor/King concert on a train full of Birkenstocks, bright pashminas and grey heads was a hoot.

A year ago I was still working. Stopping the daily commute and the dead hours spent trying to fool my computer into coughing up a solitaire program so I didn't have to waste so much time on the real estate ads on craigslist was a genius move, if I do congratulate myself. Now I give some time to Friends of the Library and do whatever else I want. Often not much, since there are books to read. Not working is bliss. I am less and less inclined to structure my time, with exceptions for Afro-Cuban dance class and Friday morning coffee with the friends from Curves (!) who hate FitLite as much as I do. Am I useful? Hardly, but sometimes amusing.