Onwards (still); it's not just about weight anymore.

Is this even food?

2011-08-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Click on the images and decide.

Andre Ward, the Boxer

2011-08-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

When my sweetie asked me if I'd like to join him at a press conference for Andre Ward, I said "no."

"I always do the things that you want to do," he said, "but you never want to do the things that I want to do," He said this partly kidding, but also partly not kidding.

Andre Ward is a boxer for whom my sweetie and one of his friends maintain a fan site. They even have press passes when they go to one of his fights . http://www.andre-ward.com/

"Even if you don't care about boxing," my sweetie continued, "we'll get to spend the day together."

Of course, I agreed to come.

And I had a great time.

Andre Ward and his opponent, Carl Froch, will be fighting to keep their belts at the
Super Six World Boxing Classic on Saturday, October 29th, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Both men were at the press conference as well as their managers, Andre's coach, and local dignitaries. (Andre grew up in Oakland where the press conference was held.)

What impressed me first was that neither men wore "bling." Andre wore a watch; I don't remember if Carol was wearing one or not. And that was it. No gold chains. No diamond rings. Both men, in casual clothes, could be your average Walmart customer.

Though both men talked about being confident about the upcoming fight, they were respectful of each other. In different words, they both spoke about the reality that there would be a winner and that there would be a loser. Carl predicted that he would win the fight. Andre said that he wasn't brought up to talk about being the greatest fighter; he'd let his actions speak for themselves. Both men said that each of them and his opponent were already winners for getting so far in the competition. However it turned out, the sport itself would be the winner of a well fought match. I'm not a sports' enthusiastic and have never seen a boxing match, but on October 29th, I'll be watching the match on ShowTime Sports and I'll be cheering for Andre Ward ('cause he's the local guy. )

What Seniors Do In Bed

2011-07-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

It is 3:12 a.m.

My sweetie and I are in bed. He is listening to a recorded book on his laptop
I have just finished reading on my iPad about Congress's inability to craft a new budget that
addresses current realities. The possibility of the U.S. government defaulting on
its fiscal responsibilities is being talked about as something that really could happen.

In my mouth I have a piece of sugar free hard candy because it reduces the coughing
that I've been experiencing since early February. The cough is part of the reason I am still awake.
I've seen numerous specialists and think I've finally been given the correct diagnosis. I'll
contact the ENT doc with whom I've previously consulted two or three months ago to work out a treatment plan.
I though my sweetie had fallen asleep but then he commented that I'm coughing more
than usual. I'm going to try again to enter Sleepland. I'll catch up with checking out my friend's blogs in
the next week or so. It's 4 a.m. now.

For Maddie- My Newest Blog

2011-05-10T01:20:00.001-07:00

I have just created a new blog entitled For Maddie. This blog is for my 3 year and 9 month old grand-daughter. Some of you may be interested in checking it out. I am not allowing comments on For Maddie, but encourage you to make comments about it on this blog. I will let you know when I publish a new post.

My first post is about the plants and flowers that I recently planted. This is my first foray into gardening. It began with boredom. I had accompanied my daughter, Rachael, and her significant other, James, on a trip to Costco. As it turned out, this was an unwise decision; they took f-o-r-e-v-e-r with their shopping. I started wandering around the store by myself. For a while I entertained myself by snarfing up the goodies from the food samples until awkwardness set in after I'd accepted the "hospitality" from the same people after the second or third time. Then I checked out the books for sale until I tired of that. Ditto playing with my iPhone. As time lay heavily on me along with the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in the wide wide world of Costco, the gardening supplies caught my eye. I ended up purchasing a couple trays of flowers and two bags of bulbs, each bag with 24 bulbs each. I planted the flowers about a week later; after that, a purchase of veggies seemed fitting. Today, I finished planting veggies. The bulbs, all 48 of them, are still in their bags. I intend to plant them in the next five or seven days.

It occurs to me that my emergence as a gardener parallels my entrance into the world of technology. A year ago, I only had a stupid phone. Shortly before my trip with Rachael to China last August, I purchased a Kindle. That ignited my interest (and yes my bravery) to decide to order an iPhone and a portable Bose speaker. At Christmas, about four months later, I acquired a GPS; a couple of months ago, an iPad.

Until these purchases, technological purchases were Matt's purview. I had no interest in acquiring any of the constantly improved offerings of the techno geniuses; if anything, I preferred remaining with the comfortable stuff that I'd finally learned to use. The exception was that I knew I wanted to get a Kindle after Matt's an my trip to Spain in April 2006. With my purchase of one last June or July, I exited the cave where I'd felt (relatively) safe. I was on the path of the New and the Exciting.

This is the link to my newest blog, For Maddie. It's spare on words and rich in pictures. It's written for a (highly cute) preschooler.

Water for Elephants

2011-04-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

Water For Elephants, the book, enriched me when I read it eight months or so ago. The vivid and haunting images, the characters, its highly satisfying end, the totality of it took hold of me.

Usually I'm leery about seeing movies based on books that I've loved, but when I saw the trailer, I knew I had to see it. Two nights ago, I was not disappointed. I was ready to stand and applaud.

Water For Elephants, the movie, was spectacular. On the Big Screen it delivered the Big Top to movie audiences just as it had arrived on the rails to the small dusty towns of depression era America. Back then, it was an unparalleled event. It was magic. And beyond the magic was brutality and courage, pain, grime, glamor, the critters - ah the amazing critters - and the people with their many stories.

I nominate this wonderful film for many many Oscars - knowing that it will probably be long forgotten when the summer blockbusters eclipse it and the money folks begin their electioneering for other worthy and not-so worthy contenders. (I'd love being wrong about this.)

See Water for Elephants on the Big Screen. It is a Very Big Movie.

A Rorschach in the Sky

2011-01-29T12:31:00.001-08:00

Lots of stuff about which I wanna post. Been meaning to put this one on the blog for some time. I will be back for real at some point. My default world has been a very busy one.

I saw this when driving to a friend's house on Christmas Eve.

A Multi-Headed Gorilla

2010-12-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up around 6:30 a.m., much much earlier than my preferred time. My thoughts about a gargantuan photo project kept me awake. How could I ever finish it in the two days that I had allocated for the project. This was a time-line that I'd established for myself in order to take advantage of a mega-discount (67% off) from an on-line photo company.

This morning I finally admitted the obvious. I can't do it. Sitting at the computer for the time needed to achieve the results I am aiming for is too much of a physical strain for me. My back hurts. My neck hurts. And what was supposed to be a FUN project has become a multi-headed gorilla that needs caging. I've decided to trade robotic perseverance for a saner incremental approach. I'll spend no more than 90 minutes at a time at the computer - and only 60 minutes if I'm hurting.

This approach, to throw myself entirely into a project at the expense of other things (eg. exercise) is not unusual for me. Over-all I think I lead a fairly well-balanced life; on a day to day basis not so much. The all or nothing approach is all too typical of the way I live my life.

Pain can be a great teacher. Today it is teaching me that it is time for a fundamental change in how I approach my days.

The Chimpanzee And The White Baby Tigers

2010-12-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

My long-time blog friend Mick sent me an e-mail with these beautiful pictures. I revised the captions to create a book for my three year old granddaughter, Maddie. I hope that she (and you) will enjoy looking at this. If you'd like the original or my edited work, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. Merry Christmas to y'all.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-21T15:44:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and beyond to my on-line friends. Click on this link from my long-time on-line friend Nola. It wonderfully catches what I'd like to think the Christmas spirit is all about.

Have You Been Bad or Good ????

2010-12-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

(Click on the picture for more detail.)

After I left the group of Santas after the sun had gone down last Saturday, I approached a woman who smiled at me as she waited for the boat parade to start. I was still wearing my Santa pants, but had taken off my jacket and may have also taken off my hat.

"I've been looking for you," I said.

"You have?" asked the woman. "Do I know you?"

"Why of course you know me."

"I don't know you."

I turned to the woman who was with her. "Does she know me?"

"I don't know."

"I don't know you," repeated her friend.

I waved my red jacket, trimmed in white "fur," at her. "Okay," I said. "I'm not used to this hot weather. It's cold where I come from."

"Oh," her face relaxed into a smile. "You're Santa Claus."

"Yes," I said. "And I've been looking for you to find out if you've been bad or good. I couldn't find your name in my records."

"Oh, I've been good," she said.

I paused, tilted my head and asked slowly, "but what about that one time. You remember don't you?"

She giggled. "Yes there was that time."

"Well, since you've been honest about it, Santa has something for you." I pulled out an ornament from the red bag that I was carrying. It was one of the more expensive ones enveloped in a wrapping of pale blue nylon.

"That's just the right color," said the woman. "But you already knew that didn't you."

I smiled and moved on to find other strangers with whom I could play.

Freedom

2010-12-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

I am freer now than I have ever been - or, more likely, I am just now realizing and appreciating that freedom from a different perspective.

My dream the night before last was my first indication. For as long as I can remember, I have had an active and well remembered dream life. My dreams are often inter-connected and evolving; new dreams are frequently impacted by the events in previous dreams. The same themes keep coming up.

In Thursday night's dream, I was once again returning to school. This time, I finally found the totally right program for me, a short program which would enable me to work with animals. On Friday night, I refused a contract to teach for another year. I've been teaching constantly in my dreams - up to 3 or 4 times a week -and it is rarely a pleasant experience.

I don't expect the returning to school dreams nor the unpleasant teaching experience dreams to end. It will be interesting (to me) to observe the new wrinkles in them, but this is not primarily about my dreams. It is about my shift into a new reality.

The truth is that most of the things that I have been telling myself that I HAVE to do are things that I can choose or not choose to do. My choices have consequences, but none impact the quality of my life except to the extent that I've made them "have to's."

I do not really have to:

organize my pictures from China (though I took many excellent ones that are lingering as bytes on my computer)

work with my glass (despite having invested a fortune in glass supplies)

finish a couple of sewing projects (including the compelling one on which I'm currently working)

finish reading Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution (even though it's absolutely fascinating and very well written - and a major intellectual challenge to me)

learn to do various things on my iPhone (though it is the most awesome material object I currently own; I do not own Daisy, my kitty)

learn to even use the GPS that I recently ordered (though not to do so would be a total waste)

make reservations for events I want to attend (There is the option of missing them.)

Organize various papers (that should be organized, but life can go on perfectly fine without this happening)

Donate the rest of Matt's clothes and other items, keeping excellent records of these donations in preparation for taxes (The consequences of not paying taxes make the payment of them not an option for me, but I don't HAVE to donate stuff and take a deduction for doing so).

Replace the very unsteady shelf in the garage that a careless move will destroy causing cans of paint to fall on the floor and possibly open causing an almost catastrophic mess

Roast pumpkin seeds, bake corn bread, make root vegetable soup (though I'll probably do the last of these after I finish this blog)

I don't HAVE to visit the grandson who will most likely be born this week-end, maybe even today. Nor do I HAVE to go to the symphony tomorrow. Nor put butterflies (fake ones) above my bed.

I have been making an agenda of things like those listed above, assigning their completion to a given day then reassigning them to other days because I always imagine myself doing more than I can actually accomplish. I will still probably do this. I have a need for such structure. The difference is one of attitude:

I don't mind doing the things that are "have tos" (in the sense that bill paying is a "have to" and not really an option). Even with the "have tos," I'm in the very lucky position that I really do have almost complete flexibility about when I'll do what I need to do. Most of the things on my list are NOT "have tos." I haven't been appreciating this. And now I do.

(For any youngun's reading this, the price for this freedom has not been insignificant. At 64+ years old, I've kinda earned it.)

300 Years More - Yes or No?

2010-11-29T14:47:00.001-08:00

First a few words about the opera, The Makropulos Case, which I saw last night in San Francisco:

Elina Makropulos lives 300 years beyond her normal life expectancy because the Hapsburg Emperor Rudolf II forced her alchemist father to administer to her the "elixir of life" that he had discovered. Throughout her very long life, she assumes a number of identities, always as a singer with the initials E.M. As Emilia Marty, her final identity, she discovers the supreme value of Death in giving meaning to Life. (For more details, check the synopsis at the site of the link above.)

This story line gives rise to the obvious question: Would you want such an extended life?

I find myself at cross currents with this.

Eventually, all the people about whom I care would die. At the level of great-great-great grandchildren (and there might be hundreds of these), the bond of progeny would probably diminish to the point of meaninglessness (as it did for E.M.)

But, there would be so many books that I'd like to read for which I now lack the time, so much knowledge to gain - including the knowledge of unfolding events and scientific advances. And the indulgence of my creative spirit; I could even manage to use up all the glass that I so greedily purchased when it was on sale for 50% of its usual cost.

But without people for whom I care a great deal, without that human connection, none of this would matter. I wouldn't care about the books or knowledge. My creative spirit would whither.

But, if I could maintain a connection with something larger than myself, with Nature most likely, that would be sufficient to give meaning to my life. (Were I of a more spiritual bent than is my current inclination, God - or god - would well serve this purpose.) And, if I could maintain this connection to something larger than myself, to Nature, I could care about Nature's critters as I do now. Simply put, as Daisy is important to me now, another cat and cats way way way beyond, might one day be my salvation. And, if I could care about other pussycats, I could care about other humans even knowing how comparatively brief their lives would be. I might no longer have a special attachment to my progeny, but there would be human beings who would become special to me if I opened myself up to caring about them.

An unexpected end point to this reflection is a renewed understanding about how important important human connections are to me. The repeated use of "important" is intentional. I do not need a large number of human connections. I need important human connections. Without them - and without one sweet pussycat - all else in my life becomes meaningless.

The connection to something larger than myself is of less importance to me with the prospect of death nipping at my heals than it would be with a much larger life horizon. Even so, I would be well advised (by myself) to better nurture my connection with the Nature that is so readily available to me. Interestingly (to me) the thoughts that I expressed beginning with the paragraph with the picture of Daisy came upon me as I was working out on my elliptical cross trainer and looking out the window at the trees and the sky.

(unrelated p.s.: There's a nice photo of me an another woman from the Autumnal Gathering here.)

Sometimes It's Enough To Just Be An Observer

2010-11-23T21:41:00.001-08:00

This past Saturday, November 20th, I attended the Autumnal Gathering, a fundraiser for the Black Rock Arts Foundation, an organization that grew out of Burning Man. As stated on its home page, its mission is to "is to support and promote community, interactive art and civic participation."

Burning Man is all about participation. My experience at this fundraiser was almost entirely about observation (not withstanding "the observer effect" whereby the observing presence impacts that which is being observed). Sometimes it is quite enough - and quite enjoyable - to just be an observer.

(Eight of the 17 photos in this post include"entertainers." The other 9 are just plain folks.)

A Maddie Visit

2010-11-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

On November 6th, my entire family made the two hour drive to my house for the first time in a very long time. Maddie, now three, was less than a year old the last time she visited. My pack rat tendency had me well prepared for this visit.

Among the things that I have saved over the years has been empty litter containers. I brought these up from under the house. Gari dusted them off and created a fort. Thinking of the multiple ways in which Maddie could play with the various container tops that I have saved over the years, I put out larger containers into which she could throw them. I also created a pinwheel design with some of them, an example I thought of something that she could do. I e-mailed photos of these treasures to Ben so that he could share them with Maddie before the visit. He told me that Maddie was very excited after she saw the pictures.

I seem to have forgotten how it was with my own children when they were growing up and I seem to no longer remember what I learned about child development (if I ever learned it) because Maddie's visit was an education (as well as a delight).

The first thing Maddie did when she arrived was to run to the blue crayon. "It's a big blue crayon, " she said. "What's it's name?"

"It doesn't have a name Maddie. Can you give it a name?" She did not respond.

A few minutes passed after this and then again, "What's it's name?" and "Can you give it a name?" by various other people.

Maddie didn't seem to understand that she can name things. Perhaps for her the names of things are absolutes.

Maddie seemed to enjoy all the toys, but she was far more drawn to the real ones and (especially) to the letters, stickers, and jacks than to the trove of container tops and empty litter containers than I would have expected.

Her orientation seems to be with real things as they really are. Container tops are fun to throw in the air, but they remain container tops for her not objects of potential creativity.

It seems as if the play of imagination is of disinterest to Maddie or possibly beyond her comprehension. She is interested in learning about the world as it is. The world of fantasy is probably very real to Maddie. She loves Dora the Explorer, the cartoon figure whose videos she watches over and over. When Dora the Explorer came to Maddie's birthday party in the form of a young woman who dresses and plays the part, Maddie seemed puzzled and sometimes distressed. Later, she said that the young woman was "Teacher Dora," thus keeping the "real" Dora undisturbed.

I'm fascinated by all this and also realize that I'm extrapolating a lot from a few isolated incidents. It is different with Maddie than it was with my own children. Weeks and sometimes months pass between our visits. I am in awe and fascinated by her development into the person that she is becoming.

How Can You Tell Someone . . .

2010-11-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

My friend Gari is reading Painted Ladies, by Robert B. Parker.

"I'm very disappointed in Susan," Gari told me, then read a bit from the book aloud to me. I am repeating the situation and dialogue as best I can from memory.

The situation: An older woman is feeding popcorn to the pigeons in a park. Susan is with her hunky boyfriend and is allowing her dog to chase the pigeons.

"You should control your dog," says the woman.

"Survival of the fittest," says Susan.

"You shouldn't be so flippant," says the woman. Or maybe she says, "Don't be so flippant."

She could have said, "That's a rather flippant response." If she had, would she still have gotten the following response from Susan:

"Kiss my ass."

My question, which Gari and I discussed but came to no good conclusion, is: How can you tell a stranger not to do something - or in this case, to do something: to control her dog - without creating a conflict situation.

Gari and I came up with, "Please please nice lady, will you please keep your dog from chasing the pigeons." We agreed that such obsequiousness was impossibly demeaning.

Maybe "I'd really appreciate it if . . ." would work, but I don't think so.

Eventually

2010-10-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

I will come back to this, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Posting and commenting via the iPhone is a bit more difficult than I had initially thought. Also, though I'm mega-competent with e-mailing, I still haven't figured out how to answer the phone without disconnecting the caller or how to retrieve voice mails. Eventually . . . .

Today, after a horrible night's sleep, I'm just too friggin tired. . . .

This Is Not A Post

2010-10-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

but it is an announcement:

Ta Da !!!

I am still figuring out how to use my new iPhone

(it sucks when you have a phone that is smarter than you are)

and have just managed

to put an icon on my home page

(if that is even the correct term)

that takes me immediately to my blog

and therefore also to the blogs of my on-line friends

I can keep in touch when I am on the go. It seems that I am always on the go.

Sometimes things stall, like in the bank yesterday when I was trying to change the titling on two accounts and ended up having to close them and open up two different accounts with an assortment of annoying paperwork that needed to be completed and notarized. The brand-spankin-new bank clerk, who had never done such a thing, needed to be taught step by painful step by another bank clerk who wasn't all that sure of the process herself. Her explanations, as she went from instruction manual to instructing, were hyper-detailed. I have little tolerance for putting my life on hold and waiting for other people to jump through hoops. I could feel my stress level amp up. And then I remembered my new toy. My iPhone became my mood stabilizer, my pacifier, my electronic Valium.

Yesterday I could only text and watch lame videos on u-tube. Today I have Pandora (Internet Radio), KDFC (a classical music station), my blog and Facebook. It's taken my all morning to access and apply these apps. Your average teenager to do it in ten minutes. (I really need to organize my passwords better.) Still, I feel a sense of accomplishment.

Most importantly, I think I will now be able to at least keep up with the blogs of my on-line friends when I'm on the go. It seems lately that I'm almost always on the go. I keep waiting for the arrival of that time when I'm all caught up and able to nest and play with my glass and read shelves of accumulated books. It has seemed like that time will arrive soon, but soon keeps distancing itself from me like something seen on the horizon and, no matter how fast or how long you have been traveling, you never seem to get there.

Now, at least, I have my new toy. Soon I'll be gallivanting around to check out what my on-line friends are writing about. I'll look forward to waiting while processes work themselves out.

Sea Lion Release

2010-09-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

I have been writing my next post in my head while washing dishes, showering etc. I just haven't had the energy to actually write it on the computer. Meanwhile, I received this highly cool link from the Marine Mammal Center, an organization to which I've been contributing for many years. I'm sharing it with you.

Home (again)

2010-08-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Back from "Outside Lands," the penultimate music festival of the season for me. Some day soon I will catch up with blogging and reading the posts of my on-line friends. Not today though. Too much to do plus I'm feeling lazy. May go back to bed. Right now I am Arlene, the ambition-less one.

A Teaser

2010-08-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

This video of a group of women exercising was taken when Rachael and I were walking a few blocks from our hotel in Chengdu. It is not unusual to see groups of people publicly exercising in China. Outdoor exercise equipment, including a non-motorized version of my beloved elliptical cross trainer, can be found in many places, available for free to anyone who chooses to use it. The young woman who is making a silly face towards the end of this video is wonderful Rachael.

I will eventually get to starting my China blog. When I was taking a quick peek at my photos last night, I knew I wanted to share this one with you.

I will probably not get around to checking out the blogs of my on-line friends until at least next week.

Back From China

2010-08-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

I returned home from China on Thursday. If I never understood jet lag before, I thoroughly understand it now. I have much catching up to do: putting stuff away, doing laundry, paying bills, etc. etc. etc.

Eventually I will return to writing this blog.

Eventually I will start another blog which will focus on my China trip. This will include photos, anecdotes, reflections, etc.

Eventually I will read the blogs of my on-line friends.

For now, I am fighting some doziness and am determined to put away all the stuff that has accompanied me home. I bought a duffel bag and a small wheeled suitcase for all the stuff that I did not need to buy. I have helped China's economy; my own, not so much.

First About Lavender Oil, Then About The Harmony Festival

2010-06-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Nola, one of my blogger friends, has transformed the way I can now live my life with her inclusion of lavender oil in a gift bag she sent me after Matt's death. This is not an exaggeration. I have suffered from difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep for well over a decade. I took Temazapan regularly until a doc cut me off from my supply, taken antihistimines until a dose of 4 had replaced my initial dose of one and had become ineffective, and have alternated between the two of these, along with insomniac nights, when I was able to get Temazapan from another doc and/or use the ones prescribed to my hubby. I was alternating between antihistimines and Tempazapan when I received Nola's gift. I started putting drops of the lavender oil on my pillow while simultaneously cutting down my pill usage. I was off the pills - except for when I am away from home and sometimes even then - in a matter of weeks. Lavender oil really really works. And I am significantly more alert in the daytime hours than I'd been with the lingering effects of "better living through chemistry."

This past weekend, I went to the Harmony Festival held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. I brought my RV so that I could enjoy the music and dancing that was scheduled to last until 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. (I pooped out at around 2 a.m.) Throughout my time at the festival, I couldn't decide if I was having an absolutely wonderful time or wanted to go home; when I was having a good time, I was having a very good time; when I was feeling distant from the events (out of harmony with them), I felt like leaving. The best music was NOT at the main stage - though I learned to like (very much) some of the big sounds that were played there that at first didn't appeal to me. The music and atmosphere that I enjoyed the most was at a small teahouse which also served vegan yummies. Here are some pix of from the event:

Just A Taste of Strawberry

2010-06-08T09:55:00.001-07:00

These are the kind of peeps with whom I feel almost instantly at home. This is an environment in which I flourish. Check out all the wee kidlets. What a highly cool experience.

Scenes From the Maker Faire

2010-05-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Maker Faire is a hyper-cool, mega-awesome event that should last for five days rather than two. I spent waaay too much time trying to learn how to solder and thought I had succeeded after much time and frustration. Ultimately the mini-Simon game that I created was non-functional. My very nice AND patient instructors gave me one that worked. I should learn that my faulty eye-hand coordination sets me up for failure. Having failed once again, I WILL try again (only not right now). Here are pictures from the event:

Overwhelmed

2010-05-20T02:12:00.000-07:00

I have been desperately trying to get up to date with paperwork. After two nights of staying up waaay past midnight and NOT working out on my elliptical cross trainer, I AM STILL NOT DONE.

The vast majority of the paperwork with which I am currently dealing is a result of my hubby's death. Much involves keeping track of various accounts, this because the heirs to some of these accounts are Matt's children. Even if Matt's highly (un)delightful daughter wasn't paranoid about my "intentions," I would be scrupulously keeping these accounts. Her paranoia adds to my frustration.

Other hassles:

Because some idiot in a certain company doesn't understand what information is and is not required, I have to sign an already completed form in the presence of an "authorized guarantor" and photocopy documents that are not required for what I want to do.

Because some government idiot has tried to correct one mistake and, in the process, has created another mistake, I have to write a letter to the governmental agency for which this idiot works explaining what has happened.

Files need to be updated. Papers need to be organized. Stuff that Matt used to do needs doings. Stuff that I used to do still needs doing.

Add shredding obsolete papers to this list. Some of this stuff goes back more than twenty years. I can not die now because it would be immoral to leave this shredding to others. Too much friggin work for them.

I haven't even mentioned the home fix-it stuff and the home maintenance stuff. My house is falling apart.

I haven't done much in the way of getting rid of Matt's stuff. This is not an emotional issue for me. I haven't done much about this stuff because I'm too busy doing other stuff.

I am so friggin tired of all this.

Tomorrow I will finish up with the form to the company and the letter to the governmental agency. On June 7th, I'll spend some time dealing with home repair and maintenance. On June 14th, I'll get back to the paperwork. After a few days at it, I will again put it aside unfinished.

It is Spring and soon will be summer. Music festivals, cool themed fairs, and far away places are loudly calling me. Neither numbers and forms nor fix-its and get-rid-of-its will keep me a prisoner when the sun is shining.

Tedius To-Do's and Fun Fun Fun

2010-05-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

It has been over a month since I've written a new post. My week in Oakland put me behind with getting done the various tasks of everyday life. I finally caught up at around 2 a.m. on Saturday. I'm now current with all the tedious to-do's, but expect this to be a temporary state. Spring has sprung and I am dazzled by all its offerings. I've been taking the time to walk on local park trails where wildflowers are in abundant bloom. I have also been pretty busy planning the upcoming months. Soon I will be in full on festival mode. I've got multi-day tickets for a number of music festivals. Also some special interest festivals like the Maker Faire in San Mateo. Unless I find a way to get by on three hours of sleep, I don't expect to be spending much time on-line.

So, . . . about that week in Oakland: My experience there was frustrating and rewarding. Glass flameworking, which is what the workshop that I attended was about, is different both in process and materials from the glass fusing that I've been doing. The type of glass used is also incompatible with the kind used in fusing. I was the slow learner in a class of three. I don't have the hand-eye coordination that is needed for that first crucial step of bonding one glass rod to another in a 4500 degree flame. (I learned that it is far less painful to burn yourself with a piece of glass that has just been in a 4500 degree open flame than with a pan that has been in a 450 degree oven.) At the halfway point, I decided to concentrate on the processes that we'd learned the previous two days rather than move ahead with more advanced projects. Despite my difficulty learning these new techniques and dealing with an instructor who was clearly frustrated working with me, I'm glad that I got to experiment with the process.

More recently, I spent Mother's Day week-end in San Jose. On Saturday, Rachael and I went for a 4.1 mile walk in Almaden Quicksilver Park. About an hour after we returned to her house, we were joined by Ben, Wendy and Maddie. Ben and Rachael took charge of dinner, while I got to enjoy Maddie. I am amazed by how much her language ability advances from one visit to the next.

On Sunday, Rachael and I played with her Mother's Day gift to me. A bit of history: When my kidlets were young, the three of us made group drawings. The project would start with one of us drawing something on a piece of paper then passing it to the next person who would add their touches. After a number of go-rounds, we'd have a completed picture. Rachael and I continued with these drawings long after Ben stopped doing them with us. Often we would get into "wars" where she would draw something to attack my drawing (or vice versa) and I would respond with my own attack or lethal defense. I can remember Rachael and I doing these kind of drawings when she was in Colorado teaching snow boarding and kayaking (in different seasons). We may have done them even more recently.

Rachael's Mother's Day gift to me was a set of acrylic paints, a blank 14" x 18" canvas and the experience of once again combining our creative impulses. This time we stipulated that there would be no wars.

The Santa Cruz Surf Kayak Competition - March 28th

2010-04-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

The High Performance Women's Competition is at 5:15-6:25 in the video. Rachael is wearing a blue jersey and a white helmet. Her kayak looks like it's black with a diagonal blue stripe though it's really a sparkly gold. As in the last couple of events in which she competed, she got first place. (I wish they'd have spelled her name right in the video.) Yeah, I'm bragging.

I hate doing friggin paperwork

2010-04-01T20:17:00.001-07:00

Grrrrrrrrrrr. Will it ever friggin end??????????

Mr. Bat Is Free (with 1 min. video at the end)

2010-03-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Mr. Bat, who has probably endured the most horrendous five days of his life, is FREE!

His sad adventure began on Tuesday night in the kitchen light fixture pictured in the third paragraph. This is the only picture on this post that is not in full power. The fourth picture, in which the bat is hissing, is especially worth clicking on to view it in full power.

I was on the family room couch going through accumulated mail on Tuesday night when I heard a rattling sound. At first I feared that a serial killer might have sneaked in, then decided that this was unlikely and went into the kitchen to investigate. I was pretty sure that the refrigerator was malfunctioning. I'd had a part replaced earlier in the week by the second repairman sent out by a local appliance store. The first repairman had a meltdown on his second visit when I told him that he'd broken the water filter when diagnosing the original problem. He left in a huff, replacement part in hand.

I opened the refrigerator doors, saw nothing amiss, moved the refrigerator away from the wall, checked behind it and pushed it back against the wall. The rattling stopped. I'd fixed the problem. Or not. The rattling began again within seconds of my return to the family room couch. I regarded the refrigerator with disgust and opened the doors again, then realized that the sound was coming from above, from the fixture housing the fluorescent lights it seemed. I turned on the lights and saw a blob with what looked like four little feet.

At this point and for the next twenty minutes or so, I vacillated between wanting to kill and wanting to save my unwanted guest. It was in my humane mode that I used a broom handle to move aside one of the panels. When I did this, I discovered the my guest had wings. He made his way to the opening and I freaked out. I became the typical eeeek woman who screams upon seeing a mouse.

I've been at close quarters with bats before. A number of years ago, Rachael and I took a class sponsored by our local junior collage and taught by two of its professors, in Costa Rica. One night we joined local naturalists as they discussed and displayed members of a bat population that they were studying. I had held two of the bats after learning how to properly do so. I thought they were highly cool.

This was different. The thought of a bat flying free in the close quarters of my kitchen/family room area terrified me. I tried to return the panel to its original position. In the process of doing this, another panel shifted out of position. At no point was I able to get all three panels back to where they belonged. The inevitable happened and a bit of bat wing slipped between a crack. I called 911, told the operator why I was calling, was put on hold, and was in full screech mode when the operator returned. By this time the bat had flown over the kitchen island and was circling the family room. The 911 operator calmly told me to go into a room where I could close the door. I feared for Mousie, my orange cat, but followed her instructions. She told me that Animal Control would be calling shortly.

Waiting for Animal Control to call, I got braver. Closing the bedroom door behind me, I slowly made my way to the family room, prepared for a quick retreat if I saw the bat. I did not. When Andrew from Animal Control called, I agreed that it would be okay to wait until the next morning for him to come. He'd been on-call and was asleep when 911 called him; my place was about a half hour away from where he lived. I returned to the bedroom leaving the door slightly ajar so that Daisy, my black cat, could come in the room. By the time that Andrew called on Wednesday morning, the bat seemed to have disappeared.

All day long, there was no sign of the bat. In the evening, when I had friends for dinner, there was no sign of the bat. When I was brushing my teeth, no bat appeared. It wasn't until I was laying in bed that I noticed that Daisy was in a state of hyper-alertness. I followed her gaze, saw movement in the drapes and then THE BAT swooping across the bedroom. I hid under the covers, peeked out, and saw the fearsome flight of the bat. This happened one or two more times and then the bat seemed to have disappeared. I grabbed my pillow, closed the bedroom door, and slept upstairs.

The next morning, by this time braver, I opened the downstairs bedroom door and gingerly searched for "Mr. Bat." My giving the bat this title was an early sign of the delicate bond that I began to feel with the poor creature, though I have no idea as to whether Ms. might have been more appropriate. I kept the bedroom door closed throughout the day and also on Thursday night, when I again slept upstairs. I also left out some water and food for him: apple chunks, raisins, almonds, and cheese. Besides not wanting him to starve, I figured that I'd know if he was there if he went for the food.

Friday morning arrived and with it, no sign of Mr. Bat. Andrew, on whose answering machine I had left a message on Thursday, returned my call and said that he'd stop by to look for the bat. After a futile search, we had the following conversation:

"I was thinking of using a sheet to trap him if I find him," I said, "and then, I guess, I'd let him go free."

"You don't want to do that," said Andrew. "You should call us."

"What would you do?"

"We'd test it for rabies."

"And then what? Would you kill him?"

"Yes," said Andrew and then reiterated the importance of my calling Animal Control.

I had made plans for this week-end to attend a regional gathering in Sacramento of a group to which I belong. I left shortly after Andrew was gone, closing the bedroom door and fully expecting to come home to a decomposing bat corpse on Sunday if Mr. Bat had not found a way to escape. Since my bedroom was free from the odor of death upon my return earlier this afternoon, I assumed that Mr. Bat had found his own solution.

Until I noticed a dead bat lying on the living room carpet. That I'd been so oblivious as to not notice it when I'd gotten home shocked me. I felt a heavy sadness that Mr. Bat had died after all. I got a couple of plastic gelato spoons from the kitchen and used them to try to move him. He seemed to quiver. He was alive! Eventually, I was able to put him in a box which I took outside and opened. Mr. Bat slowly moved his head and then seemed to be actively sniffing the air. His ears perked up as he heard the birds. He raised himself up. He moved from one area of the box to another. At some point, I was able to shake him from the box. He remained where he landed for a while, sniffing and listening to the birds. Then he craned his neck, lept into the air, landed on the ground and then flew, first in a couple of circles and then high above the house and away to where my gaze could no longer follow him.

At This Moment

2010-03-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

On the one hand:

I am no longer
The most important person
In the life
Of he who was

Without agenda
I am free
Out of context
Unhinged???

On the other:

There is an open space
Where I wait
Learning the lessons of patience
Letting relationships evolve

The Presence of Random Strangers

2010-03-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

I've just had the surreal experience of being the only person in a movie theater. Instead of being caught up in the on-screen action, I was keenly aware of my role as a spectator. The sound quality was the worst part; it was as if it and the visual effects of the film were separate entities. I almost walked out on the film and later was glad that it was "Up In The Air,"the dreary story of a guy who goes around firing people, rather than "Hurt Locker" or "Crazy Heart" that I was seeing this way.

As I left the theater, I felt weighed down by a sense that my experience was a metaphor for life's meaning (or meaninglessness) or the nature of reality. This feeling continued as I entered the parking garage where earlier I'd managed to find a well lighted place close to the entrance. Unexpectedly, the woman who was tonight's attendant greeted me as I entered the garage and stood by as I put in a couple of dollars in the payment machine. Her presence where I'd expected to be alone was a pleasant contrast to the emptiness of the theater.

I hadn't realized before this how much the mere presence of random strangers comforts me as I make my way in the world.

A Morning With The Tax Man

2010-03-11T22:21:00.000-08:00

The dream is a fairly typical one. It's the day of the final exam. You haven't read the book. You haven't been coming to class. You're totally unprepared. "That," I told Al, my accountant, "is how I feel today." I laid 5 or 6 files of loosely organized papers on his desk and waited for him to take charge.

It's been hard for me to wrap my mind around a year's worth of Matt's record keeping. By the time we went to see Al in years past, Matt was able to give him, in a highly organized way, all the information necessary to prepare our taxes. I spent the five days prior to this morning's appointment trying to replicate what Matt did. Mostly I procrastinated, was enormously distracted, and felt mind numbing fatigue which I tried alleviate with handfuls of cold cereal and other carbs. Ultimately, I accepted my limitations and hoped that Al would do so as well. Next year, it will be different I assured him. I'll have my own system. I'll continue with some of the things Matt has been doing, but will streamline it in a way that is more comfortable for me.

These annual meeting that Matt and I had with Al have always been 30% tax prep and 70% chat as old friends. For us today, the percentages were similar. Al was very patient with me during the first part of our time together as he sorted through the papers that I gave him. Only once did he say, "Matt would have had this on a chart for me." And then we chatted. I was surprised how freely our conversation flowed, how much I enjoyed it, and how much I learned about this 79 year old man that I didn't know before today.

People are really quite fascinating once you hear their stories. Mostly, we're busy bobbing around in our own lives, passing others by as passers-by and seeing people in their relationship to ourselves. Sometimes, though, we get to listen to their stories and hear the music of their lives. We hear something new, something unexpected, and it changes us, even if only a little.

OMG! It's Harrod Blank!

2010-03-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

I saw a film about Harrod Blank at a documentary film fest yesterday. It was the only film that I saw there. I was drawn to it by a promo that said that Harrod Blank was a Big Name in the art car world. Also that he was a pretty eccentric guy. Check out the link above.

I first learned about art cars in 2001, the first time that I went to Burning Man. Art cars there are frequently also mobile bars and party places. Some are jaw-dropping amazing. There will be an Art Car Fest in the bay area from Sept. 25 - 27. I plan to attend on at least one of these days.

I came away from the film thinking that I'd like to jazz up my Prius a bit, maybe paint some flowers or birds on it, maybe add some shiny things as well. I'm just not willing to trade anonymity for flamboyance on a permanent basis. For now, I'll keep playing with glass and saving jar lids for some future creative use. And the door beads that I got at Goodwill last week, they're going to go on a wall in the pink room.

I Have Wings. I Can Fly.

2010-03-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

Another trip to the Goodwill's store of last resort (before the stuff gets sent to the dump) and I emerged with a glorious treasure, the butterfly wings to the left. At $3, they were pricey - considering that ALL the other things that I bought, pictured at the bottom in the only clickable picture on this post, came to $7. This is not the first time that I have purchased butterfly wings. The ones that Big George has been wearing since his first trip to the playa in 2003 are pretty well trashed. So, for that matter, is Big George (though he will hopefully be Burning Man bound in 2011.) As to the multi-mega-mighty awesome wings that I got today, I'm looking forward to sporting them at some of the music festivals that I'll be attending this summer.

Why Lost May Lose Me

2010-02-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

Given the choice of moving forward in my current read, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and watching the newest episode of Lost, I chose Pillars. This decision was made easier for me because the network has been preceding each new episode of Lost with the episode from the previous week. If I catch up next week, I'll continue with the show; if not, it will lose me. As to this week's Project Runway and American Idol. I put Pillars away long enough to watch both of them.

The Pillars of the Earth is more action driven and its characters are less well developed than the type of book that I usually enjoy. At this point, on page 743 of the 983 page book, I am thoroughly immersed in it and ready to move on to the sequel. The setting is England in the early 1100's, a time in which two factions were at war for a disputed monarchical succession. The point of intersection for the many sub-plots involves the building of a grand cathedral on the grounds of a once neglected monastery. Love, jealousy, violence, corruption, depravity, naked ambition, and godly reverence abound. So far, I've needed to skip only two pages because of the way in which they dealt with "bear baiting," one of the many ways that humans have found to amuse themselves at the expense of other animals. (Not the greatest way to end this post, but I'm done.)

TV Shows

2010-02-03T17:57:00.000-08:00

In the aftermath of The Recent Event, I find that my television viewing habits have changed. This is not surprising. Matt's health challenges kept him pretty much anchored to the family room couch where I would also sit in order to be with him. The television was usually on and Matt would be watching it or nodding off, sometimes with earphones and sometimes not. When we watched a show together, I'd usually also be doing something else, crossword puzzles for example or ripping out recipes from Sunset magazine.

Since The Recent Event, I've found myself completely uninterested in the make-believe lives of the pretend people whose adventures we used to follow. Dr. House will have to be his brilliant arrogant self without me. Allison Dubois will go on dreaming, Patrick Jane will be insightful, and The Good Wife will be good (or not) and I won't care. But . . .

I have discovered Project Runway. The title alone, and with it the potential for my wonderful hubby's kind ridicule, kept me from discovering this particular guilty pleasure until a week or so ago. I've become a huge fan.

Late bloomer that I am, I have finally joined the hordes who follow the complicated lives of the airplane crash survivors and the Others in the TV series, "Lost." I watched a two hour plot summary last week and saw the two hour first episode of this (its last) season last night. I've just printed out pages showing the main and supporting characters from Lostpedia and the first eleven pages about the show from Wikipedia. I don't want to be lost - sorry I can't help myself -while trying to figure out what's going on. I'm not a huge fan at this point, but seeing the show has become a cultural imperative for me.

I haven't entirely given up on shows that Matt and I used to watch. I'll continue to watch Criminal Minds, a delightful gem about serial killers and the FBI profilers who catch them. I'll also watch Flash Forward and The Vee (sp.?) when they are back on the air. (Flash Forward is truly compelling.)

And I'll enjoy the silence of a blank TV screen and the time that it frees up to do other things.

The Lessons of Plants and Flowers

2010-01-26T17:38:00.001-08:00

This plant, a gift from Ben and Wendy, was practically outgrowing its pot at one time. Its branches were tall and abundant. One day, it's abundant branches were bone dry and its leaves were brown. Matt and I had a dispute. He was adamant that the plant was dead. I disagreed. "Let's give it a chance," I said. "I think it will grow back again." I cut the branches down to stumps and put aluminum foil on the ends to preserve whatever moisture they'd retained. One day there was a miracle. I looked at the plant and saw that a new tall branch had grown overnight. No, not a miracle, but a joke. Matt had taken a branch that he had trimmed from a backyard bush and put it in the pot. We laughed together at this, Matt repeating his verdict that the plant was dead. Life proved him wrong. Thankfully he lived to see the new growth and I got a chance to say, "Ha ha, I told you so."

The plant to the left may eventually reach the ceiling. Such is the way of a healthy plant. I've attached a string from the ceiling to the supporting pole so that it can do this. Eventually I'll cut the plant down, shear off its proud growth, so that I can entrust it to Rachael's care when I take a multi-week vacation. Such is the life of a plant and the whims of a human. The plant to the right was a Christmas gift from Rachael. Small yellow roses bloomed from it and perhaps will bloom again when the season is right.

I found myself thinking about the message of flowers when I received them in sympathy for The Recent Event. Flowers seem to be the all-purpose messenger. They speak of love and forgiveness, of get-well-soon and condolence. I balked at this when I saw that the flowers I was given were starting to die. It would seem to me that I've had enough of Death without having to witness it in the friggin flowers. But flowers always, no matter what the occasion, teach us about the whole process of life. Some flowers die before others. Leaves can last much longer. Eventually death will seek every thing and every body. In the meantime, there is beauty and there is joy, not diminished by its eventual passing, but exalted in It's moment for the moment we share and the next one if it is granted to us.

My Very Best Friend Ever and Forever

2010-01-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

My Avatar

2010-01-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

When I gave Zwinky permission to enter my computer, I thought that it would create a cartoon version of myself using a photograph that I would download to the program. Instead my choice of options was only what was available. Voluptuous (as Lorraine would say) was not available. Nor was gray hair. My choice was between cutesy and hot. I chose hot. I have to admit that she's growing on me even though she's not what I had in mind.

A Curmudgeonly Comment About the Friggin Ball

2010-01-01T14:30:00.001-08:00

I may have written about this before, about how we get used New Years' Eves here in Northern California. As if there is no New Year's Eve celebration in San Francisco where fireworks blaze in front of the ferry building. Or in Southern California, the home of Hollywood. Well finally Matt and I settled for Las Vegas because it is at least in the same time zone as us. Within minutes they announced, "and now we go live to New York" which was, of course, a rebroadcast of what was live three hours earlier. And so we settled again, since all the world is apparently focused on the friggin ball falling in friggin New York. Why not Greenwich, England, the official time-keeper of the world? Or further to the west where the crooked date line is drawn?

And they were excited, the crowds. At least according to Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest and probably Anderson Cooper and the boringly outrageous chick on the stage with him. Yes indeed, the crowds went wild with anticipation as the moments drew near. Their collective nerves quivered as the ball descended. And then there was an orgasmic cheer. The New Year had begun. Matt and I yawned and showed our age. Having been through 63 New Year's Eves, we know that nothing changes. The most narcissistic species on this and possibly any planet has arbitrarily decided that a particular moment in time begins a Whole New Year. And time goes on, one tick at a time. The Cosmos doesn't even bother to shrug.

And yet, just a bit, no more than that, I would give up some of my hard earned wisdom for the youthful exuberance that had me tossing into the air in front of the princess's castle at Disneyland a pack of cigarettes that I'd resolved to quit smoking on a New Year's Eve so very long ago.

If A Tree Falls in the Forest

2009-12-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well of course not, I would answer, qualifying the answer by including birds and other hearing critters among the absentees. The falling tree would create the vibrations that we and such critters would interpret as sound if we were there, I would add, while putting aside such matters as the transmission of these vibrations across great (or small) distances to other sentient beings who might or might not be hearing the sound
Soooooooooo if a tree falls in the backyard of a sentient being and said sentient being ignores it, what happens? It returns to the dirt that birthed it, I would say and I offer the photo at the left as proof. I would remiss if I failed to point out the caribiner and chain attached to the tree trunk about two thirds of the way up. This was not an unloved tree, though we did not hear it falling. It held up one end of one of our two (much loved hammocks).

All this is prelude to The Presentation of The Moss. I like my back yard look of winter. Instead of the white coldness of snow, I get the sometimes moist greenness of moss. It reminds me of a summer visit to Amsterdam

in my 20's; the moss remains my second most vivid memory of the
city. And so, more pictures of moss, all of them clickable because they are so cool. The last one shows the remaining

hammock which will soon be stored in deference to winter's fierceness, Northern California style.

On a totally other subject, Thursday will begin my 5th week of on-track eating. I have been writing about this in my newest blog, Onwards: 11/11/09 to 11/11/11. I had not planned to provide a link to this blog until I'd reached 185 pounds, the weight at which I started Onwards, Getting Rid of the Regain on September 29, 2005. My current weight is considerably higher, but I feel confident that the only thing that now stands between me and my size tens is time. I invite you to join me as I narrow the distance from here to there.

Wisdom From A Friend

2009-12-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

My friend, Lesley Wolfetwain, wrote this when reflecting upon the Solstice. It resonates with me and expresses my wishes for my friends and family and for all of us human inhabitants of this planet.

Tomorrow morning the sun rises at its lowest point. The day after, it begins to rise, to promise spring and summer. For our ancestors, a time to rejoice. We have forgotten that joy; that the cycle of the seasons means the crops will grow again and there will be life for another year.

So I wish you all the joy of that knowledge of life. Of those things that make life beautiful; the love of friends and family, the laughter of stories and tales from our personal histories, the memory of those gone on from this world, and the dreams and hopes for tomorrow. Remember also the glory of Earth herself, the amazing physical structure of the land and water and the myriad of life that lives with us on this small planet in the dark of space. We are so blessed with this world, this special place that somehow gave humankind the chance to be what we are. That we can live and love and treasure that life.

Tonight go out into the night, look to the sky but also feel the earth in your hands. Whatever your faith, send a thank-you to the universe for what you have.

And know I love all of you very much.

Joyful Creation

2009-12-17T15:47:00.001-08:00

I had originally entitled this post "Liberation (from The Cosmos) Finally!!!" Then I preloaded the pictures that I intended to use with it and came away with unexpected feelings. I will start this post as I'd initially thought I would, with the whoa-is-me weariness of a project that grew and grew until it absorbed too much of my time and threatened to smother me. In true narcissistic fashion, I have installed the pictures that include me or my project at full power so that the detail is available with a click of your mouse, while reducing all the others.

These pictures show the pain that I am willing to endure for Art (spoken with a tongue-in-cheek pretentiousness). They also demonstrate a certain idiotic perseverance. I could have reduced the extent of the scratches on my hands and arms with the judicious and arms with the judicious use of masking tape. Though the amount of time that I spent working on The Cosmos since my last post exceeded 50 or 60 hours, I couldn't be bothered with spending less than an hour to make it safer.

One of the most satisfying parts of my project was the involvement of The Public. As I wrote in my December 3rd post, all objects except for the glass "stars" were made mostly by kidlets, but also by some adults, at the Sculpture Jammer week-end on October 3rd and 4th. I felt a strong commitment to include everything that they made in the finished Cosmos. Securing them to the window screen that I used to create "the fabric of The Cosmos," to use the title of Brian Greene's wonderful book on the subject, took eons of time. The attachment had to be strong enough to withstand my rugged handling as well as whatever nature will throw at it in its outdoor setting. Many pieces were complicated creations and had to be virtually sewn on to the screening. I spent about 3 1/2 hours trying to secure in a prominent position an "alien" that a woman spent at least 40 minutes making. The final position is indeed prominent, but the alien is irrevocably deformed. Were I ever to do a project like this again (which is to say "Were I ever to totally lose my mind"), I would know that the intended back should be secured first and the pieces in the front should go in last. There is a very good reason that I didn't plan to do this, yet the intended back (which is slightly smaller) ended up being the actual front. (Have I lost you all yet??) If I'd have known that this would happen, I would have had to spend significantly less time on the alien and the alien would not have gotten deformed. The (clickable) picture above and to the left is the intended front, while the (clickable) one to the right of it is what ended up being the front.

Another satisfying part of this experience is that my involvement was with the Sculpture Jammers, a group of other creative people who committed themselves to the larger project. What we intended to do was create a meditation space honoring "the elements." My idea in creating The Cosmos was not just to create the material aspect of stars and the like, but to also give a sense of unseen forces like gravitational and electromagnetic fields and the space-time continuum. The (clickable) picture is of Susandra, who helped me create the container (I'm sorry that I can't think of a better word) for The Cosmos. Susandra is a sculptress who works with welding metals; her knowledge and experience saved me numerous missteps. Other sculptures in the meditation space honor the sun, the moon, fire, and wind. The pictures are of these other pieces and of some of the artists who worked on them.

The meditation space came about through the brainstorming and work of the group as a whole. After I loaded these pictures, I began to think of the experience of the people who would come upon our creation with no expectations of seeing expectations of seeing anything there. I smiled as I imagined this. Before this, I was satisfied but disappointed with what I and what we had created. I saw many flaws in The Cosmos. The meditation space looked ordinary to me, a result most probably of working the nitty gritty of it over the course of many months. When I imagined how this would look to passersby or people just out for some fun in the park where the project is now installed, I saw it with new eyes. And I smiled and felt joy.

Bottom of the Barrel Thrift Shops

2009-12-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

The pix this time are clickable, partly because I wanted viewers to be able to see the detail, partly because I'm feeling too lazy to reduce them.

I scored large on Thursday's excursion to the downest and dirtiest of the thrift shops. My friend, Linda, and I first set our sights on The Dump, literally. My prizes there, for 25 cents, were the stuffed mouse and the webbed something at the top left of the photo, not such a bargain when the cost of gas to get to this out-of-the-way disposal site is added in. My much larger prize was all of the other stuff on the table, some of it under other stuff, which I got at the bottom of the barrel Goodwill, the place where stuff that hasn't been sold at the regular Goodwill stores goes. My prizes included toys for Maddie and stuff that I'll use to make other stuff. Also some very nice placemats and a strainer (unseen). The purchase price for the whole pile was $4.

Did I mention the stones and glass? They, like the stuffed animals, are on the placemats that I found there. Linda had told me that the sales clerks often make a flat fee offer rather than pricing items individually so, when I saw the stones and glass, I just threw them into the box that I was using. I find it absolutely invigorating to discover these marvelous virtually free treasures. Perhaps it is the pirate in me that so enjoys these finds. I am a pirate and also a recycler.

After Linda and I parted, I scored this book at one of the nicer thrift shops. At $1.25, it certainly is a bargain. Compared to my $4 piracy though, it's outrageously over-priced. I purchased the hat on Wednesday at a rather pricey thrift/consignment shop. At $12, it cost more than twice as much as all these other purchases. The people who bring their stuff for this shop to sell get 40% of the proceeds and the shop gets 60%. I'll keep it in mind for the times when I need to get rid of clothes that have gotten too big for me. I've been on low cal track for a week and a half and am feeling resolutely optimistic. The biggest score of all, unbeatable I imagine, is the freebie that Rachael found for me at Deborah's semi-annual clothing exchange. The shawl/jacket (pictured at the beginning of this post) has a certain flair to it. It's not something I'd buy in a regular store at a regular price, but I like it a lot.

After thrift shopping on Thursday, I made a brief stop at Macy's. I bought the sleep socks and regular socks that were on my list and a warm sweater that was not. The socks were on sale with an additional $15 off for using my Macy's card. The sweater was 50% off with an additional 20% off for using my Macy's card. I did well, but was without the thrill of piracy. Aye, it's good to be a pirate.

Conversation With My (Wonderful) Hubby

2009-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

It is now 1:05 p.m. I had planned to start working on The Cosmos at 10 a.m. I've been at the computer doing necessary stuff for the last couple of hours, but before then I was camped out on the family room couch, also known as "The Trap." Here is the conversation with my hubby as I finally got up to do something productive.

Me: I've just wasted the entire morning.

Matt: No you didn't

Me: I have so much to do and I've been just sitting here doing the crossword puzzle and playing sudoku.

Matt: Did you enjoy yourself?

Me: Yes

Matt: Then you didn't waste your time.

Gotta love love love him!!!

The Empty Universe (and Power Tools)

2009-12-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

If I ever get the idea to create the universe again, would someone please tell me that it has already been done?

The pictures are of :

the (so far) empty universe

the material objects of the cosmos against gravitational and electromagnetic fields, the space/time continuum, and other stuff that I don't understand

Stars, constellations, and forces that I don't understand

Studly me with a power drill that I actually used and a sawsall that I used the day before.

All objects except for the glass "stars" were made mostly by kidlets, but also by some adults, at the Sculpture Jammer week-end on October 3rd and 4th.

Freezing

2009-12-03T02:07:00.000-08:00

Only a fool would be sitting at the computer in a freezing room at 2:05 a.m. reading posts about snow. Back from a night at the San Francisco opera at shortly after midnight, I sat in the family room eating cereal and doing sudoku. Now I am freezing and still writing this. Tomorrow I will be sane again. Or not. Brrrrrrrrrr.

2009-11-30T16:45:00.001-08:00

Worked with Sculpture Jammers group today for about 4 hours today doing stuff I've not done before like bending rebar around a tree trunk, using tools I've never used before like something called a sawall (even though I'd first wisely decided not to try for fear of severing my fingers or toes), became brave and superman-macho-feeling after successfully using said sawall tool. Am too tired to type coherently. Would probably be better to delete this. Too tired to check for typos + grammar. Probably too tired to delete. And yet. And yet. I still must try to finish creating The Cosmos so that it can maybe be installed tomorrow. Photos will eventually follow.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

May our lives be filled with more joy than sorrow
May our hearts be open to receiving both
May we maintain an attitude of thanks giving
Always

Prime Ingredients

2009-11-20T13:10:00.001-08:00

Prime ingredients for a lazy morning (which is how I like all mornings to be):
*coffee and fruit bread or a muffin
*the local newspaper (and especially the crossword puzzle)
*a cuddle blanket and, of course,

***Mousie***

Michael Jackson is Alive

2009-11-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson is alive, at least at a number of local theaters where I live. Compelled by its four star rating, I went alone to a 3:35 p.m. showing of "This is It." I was the first to enter the screening room in which it was shown. Another woman, also alone, entered shortly after, first sitting in front of me then switching to a seat behind and two seats to the left. In our pre-film chat, she said that she felt badly for the performers and crew who had these sought after jobs snatched away from them with MJ's death. Of course the MJ Industry continues, but without them. MJ, dead, makes more in a single week than most of us have made in our lifetimes.

Some of the performers were interviewed at their auditions. Many had tears in their eyes, grateful just for the opportunity to perform with MJ watching. I can only imagine the exultation of the eleven dancers who made the cut. Enlarging this for just a moment, I think of times when people feel particularly blessed by good fortune and how one doesn't really know how things will turn out. Certainly the teacher who was chosen for the ill-fated Challenger mission must have been awed by the journey that awaited her. How did those who also competed but remained earth-bound feel when they saw the Challenger engulfed in flames? We are beholden to the uncertainties of our existences. A small plane crashed into homes in a very nearby tract when I lived in Southern California. It ended up in the playground of my children's school. A resident in one of the homes was killed. Who could have imagined dying in a plane crash in one's own living room?

As to "This is It," I found it entertaining, worthwhile, magical. thought provoking and sad. Its pace was slow at the beginning, but with each moment, became increasingly compelling. I've never been a huge MJ fan, but have enjoyed his performances when I've seen/heard them. For all the obvious reasons, I've viewed MJ as a tragic figure. This film shows how hard he worked. I left with a sense of melancholy. All the intense effort of so many many people came to (almost) nothing with the death of this very talented, strong and fragile man. When the film was over, I avoided turning back to chat with the woman with whom I'd talked earlier. I wanted to be enveloped in my own silence.

A Day Without A Photo

2009-11-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

(The photo is of Ben and Rachael on May 22, 2004)

Yesterday was one of the best days for me in a very very long time, maybe even years. This is not because of a poverty of good days, but a testament to how really great yesterday was.

For the first time in a very very long time, Matt, Ben, Rachael and I were home together, just the four of us, the nuclear family sans a spouse, a granddaughter and a boyfriend. This was an unexpected treat, the result of Rachael's earlier decision to come up for a few days and Ben's asking her if she was planning to make the trip some time soon.

Rachael arrived on Thursday and I was able to have some very special time with this very amazing young woman; Ben joined us yesterday at around 3:30 p.m.. While it was still light, the two of them wrestled a heavy desk that we no longer use from our over-crowded storage room into Ben's SUV. They worked together in flawless harmony as they did this, then positioned an old TV stand next to the desk. With these new acquisitions, garage sales, Craig's List and hand-me-downs from Ben, Rachael's new home has gradually been getting furnished.

Ben's update tour followed: my glass studio which has taken over the garage, the empty kitty litter containers that I have been saving to use to build marvelous superstructures with Maddie when she is older, an insect corpse for when she is even older (if her interests take such a turn), an amazing collage created by a young visually handicapped and schizophrenic woman, the photo of which is at full power so that you can see its intricacies by clicking on it.

And then it was on to the family room and Ben and Rachael reminiscing about the very recent (and first) conversation between Ben and James, Rachael's boyfriend, about finding joy in the small delights of lavender scented body soap and eucalyptus oil in the shower. We laughed about the non-masculine tenor of this conversation and how neither men could be found lacking in this quality. Ben mentioned seeing Paris Hilton sweep through a Vegas night spot; we talked about the joys of anonymity. Rachael showed us her design for turning her four bedroom house into one with three bedrooms, one of which would be a master suite which is currently lacking, and why this would be a fabulous idea in terms of its resale value. This led to the dreary subject of mortgage defaults and unemployment and the still sucky state of the U.S. economy. And on and on the conversation wandered. At leaving time, I told Ben how much I appreciated his taking this time away from his family to be with us. And so he left and then this morning, at 5:45 a.m, so did Rachael, headed for an early morning meet up with some friends to go surf kayaking.

Today, in the precious silence of their absence, the joy of their visit lingers. This morning I was startled by the realization that it was a day without photographs. And startled again when I realized that this was good. There is a freedom to sometimes living beyond the reach of the lens.

A Sampling of Books

2009-11-02T12:28:00.000-08:00

These are some books I've recently enjoyed to varying degrees. I'm challenging myself to keep my comments brief.

My favorites: In sync with the theme of the book, I've pretty much forgotten the plot line of Stefan Merrill Blocks's The Story of Forgetting. Even so, it is a compelling, powerful, extremely well written book, easily worthy of a second read.

Benjamin Wallace's The Billionaire's Vinegar: Fun fun fun. And a true story. A glimpse into an extravagant, dare I say decadent, world in which a bottle of wine is sold for $156,000 and may not even be "the real thing."

I'd read anything by these two authors: In the last few pages of another wonderful book, The Senator's Wife, Sue Miller creates a scene of incredible poignancy. I didn't expect it, yet realized that the entire novel was building to this point.

I thoroughly enjoy Garrison Kellor's writing style. Love Me is a totally fun book. It has a plot, but I'd love it even if it didn't.

A trio of books about Ireland: Frank Delaney's Ireland is essentially a series of short stories told by an iterate storyteller. I began to cry for Ireland and better understand its recent history.

Leon Uris' Redemption has lingered on my shelf for years. At 867 pages, its story would be strengthened by some well placed nips and tucks. Even so, there are scenes that are burned into my memory and the book is well worth the sometimes weary ride. Again, I cry for Ireland (and shake a fist at imperial England - not the common man making his way as best as he can, but the power hungry decision makers who made a misery of the lives of those they conquered).

Of this trio, I most enjoyed Robin Maxwell's The Wild Irish. Based on true events occurring from the 1590's through the earliest years of the 1600's, this is a story of two amazingly strong women, Elizabeth I and the pirate, Grace O'Malley. More than the other two books, this gave me an understanding of why the Irish were so vulnerable to mighty England.

Not all that great:
I should have remembered that Chris Bohjalian is not one of my well liked authors. With The Double Bind, he not totally unexpectedly disappointed me. The heralded surprise ending was of the type where the protagonist wakes up and the whole story turns out to be a dream. More importantly, this author has writing tics that drive me crazy, repeatedly referring to the main character as "the social worker," for instance; misusing (twice) the word "irony." Even so, the book kept my attention. I must remember not to buy another book by this author unless I'm desperate to read something and nothing else even semi worthwhile is available.

A question I am asking myself: Why is it that I've written the most about the book that I like the least? Hmmmmmmmmm.

HIRPLY

2009-11-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

Had my To-Do list.

Ignored it.

Read instead.

Played with glass.

Lay on the hammock.

Yup, I'm smiling.

An Apology

2009-10-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of writing a note of apology to Marj, a woman in her late 80's who I much admire, for being unsocial - rude??? - to her at the doctor's office yesterday.

I was with Matt who'd had worrying lab results for his weekly blood counts the day before and was there to see his GP about an incapacitating increase in his back pain. Marj was waiting to see the doc that she and I share and smiled broadly when she saw us approaching. "I thought it was you," she said. I answered with a few pleasantries as I settled into my chair and then, "I hope you don't mind, but I'm feeling like being quiet right now. I tend not to like to talk in the morning." Those weren't the exact words, but it was something like that. I smiled as I said it and she continued smiling as broadly as before. I was afraid that she hadn't understood, restated some of what I'd said, then retreated into my private world. I'd had difficulty sleeping the night before and could easily have dozed off in the chair if it had been slightly more comfortable. When Marj was called into the doc's office, I looked up to say "so long," but she'd already turned and was following the nurse with what seemed to be a troubled expression on her face. Later, Matt told me that she'd said "good bye" to me and that I'd ignored her. I suppose that was when my head was down and I was in my own private world.

Marg is the founder of Wildlife Fawn Rescue. She is one of my super heroines. It grieves me to think that I might have caused her to be sad, even momentarily.

I've got the stationary and the scrawled draft of the note of apology on the desk to my side. I'll write it, then walk to the post office. The exercise will do me good.

Daisy and the Burning Man

2009-10-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

A response to Kathy's comment about my comment on her blog and to all cat lovers.

Bragging Rights

2009-10-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

Rachael Krugman is my truly awesome daughter. She got FIRST PLACE in a surf kayaking competition in Davenport, California, this past week-end. Rachael is the third kayaker and appears 3 or 4 times in this practice session the day before the competition. She is wearing a white helmet and an aqua blue paddling jacket.

Friggin Friggin Priorities

2009-10-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I can not believe how long the friggin paperwork that I am doing is taking!!!

I will read the posts of my on-line friends ASAP.

I will do the week+ long of unwashed (but properly rinsed) dishes tomorrow at the latest.

I will do the friggin laundry before we run out of clothes (or buy new ones on-line 'cause I can't go out until I finish the friggin friggin paperwork; I'll use next day delivery.)

I will post eventually.

I will play with my glass before the month is over (hopefully).

I will attend the San Francisco Opera's performance of The Daughter of the Regiment with Juan Diego Florez no matter what unless hell freezes over or my hubby's health demands that I stay home. Here's Why!

I will go thrift store shopping with Linda on Tuesday and to the Sculpture Jam meeting and pot luck on Wednesday as long as the friggin friggin paperwork and the dishes are done.

For Rebecca

2009-10-15T15:47:00.001-07:00

Millions of Americans Waste Entire Fucking Afternoon

Balloon Boy to America: Punk'd!

COLORADO (The Borowitz Report) - Moments after a little boy who was believed to be in his parents' homemade helium balloon was found safe and sound, millions of Americans came to the realization that they had flushed the entire fucking afternoon down the fucking toilet.

"I watched the entire drama unfold and then it turned out that no drama had unfolded," said Carol Foyler, 32, of Missoula, Montana. "I can't tell you how pissed I am at that fucking kid."

At their Colorado home, the parents of six-year-old Falcon Heene said that they were relieved that their son was all right and that they were pushing forward with their plans to build a giant child-operated flame-throwing robot

As reported on WA Today (starting several paragraphs into the article):

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/balloon-boy-found-hiding-in-cardboard-box-20091016-gzsp.html?autostart=1

Falcon was the son of Richard and Mayumi Heene, and the family appeared on ABC's Wife Swap. Richard Heene was described by friends as a sort of "mad scientist", 7News said.He was a storm chaser and had a website called The Psyience Detectives, which "investigates the mysteries of science and psychic phenomenon". A profile written for Wife Swap mentioned the Heene family's interest in experimental aircraft.

"When the Heene family aren't chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm," it said.

In a 2007 profile in the Denver Post, Mr Heene said he took his sons on storm chasing missions. "I think I have odd kids. They start screaming with excitement," he said.

On at least one occasion the family had a close call when they found themselves in the midst of a tornado in Buckeye, the Post said.

Viewers in the US were glued to TVs showing live footage of the runaway balloon, and posted their thoughts on Twitter.The story occupied most of the top 10 popular topic spots on Twitter, under various "hash tag" names including "Denver", "Colorado", "Balloon Boy" and "SaveBalloonBoy".

CNN said the aircraft was experimental and was built by the boy's parents.

I didn't get caught up in this. I was too busy wasting time in other ways. It sure is a funny story, though. I plan to get back to posting tomorrow . . . or the next day. . . or the one after that. First though, I'll catch up with the blogs of my on-line friends.

Quickie Update

2009-10-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

Volunteering at the Handcar Regatta on September 27 has me questioning my mental clarity.

Sculpture Jam this past week-end was Amazing-Fabulous. Especially 'cause of the kidlets.

Yesterday, I had an interaction with a sophisticated lady at an adult education class that was reminiscent of junior high school. And not in a good way.

Opera is becoming an addiction. Dare I hope that it replace unhealthful eating?

More later. Plus catching up with my on-line friends including some who seem to have deserted me and some who may have abandoned blogging. (I need to make some more on-line friends.)

Right now, it is rush rush rush. (and I am definitely not talking about Limbaugh.)

Cheers to all.

Home Town(ness) - Chapter 2: TheThrilling Conclusion

2009-09-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

In the last chapter, I associated my most heartfelt feeling of home town(ness) with Gibraltar and Burning Man. I also wrote about two community events that seemed like the fertile grounds for an emergence of this feeling within the town (loosely defined) where I really live. We'll leave Gibraltar off the coast of Spain where it belongs for now, quickly revisit Burning Man, and then move on to the place where I make my home.

One of my Facebook friends, a Burner who I haven't seen or talked to since at least August of 2006, hosted an "orphan" party for Burners who wouldn't be making their way to the festival this August. I am sadly one of these poor unfortunates and had been feeling just a bit sorry for myself because of it. When I saw Curtis' invitation, I was elated. As it turned out, the only person at the party who I knew was Curtis. And yet, because of the Burner energy that I experienced there, the sense of acceptance and openness and belonging, I felt at home. More about that later.

In my August 20th post, I wrote hat I'd joined a group called the Sculpture Jammers in March. The week-end during which the community is involved in the creation of this year's project is less that a week and a half away. This year we are creating a "spirit house." There will be five or six "altars" within this spirit house. Through the ideas that I have contributed from its inception, I have become a part of this project and this wonderful group. One part of this larger project, a shrine (loosely defined) to The Cosmos, emerged solely from my creative process. It was My Project. And then Susandra joined me, shared the work with me, showed me easier ways of doing things. And the project was joyfully no longer just mine. The photo at the top of this paragraph is of the maquette I created before Susandra became my co-creator. You can click on the picture for greater detail. The one at the bottom is the current state of the project. Eventually I hope to post photos of The Cosmos when it is finished as well as the spirit house when it is installed at the park where it will be displayed for two years.

The other community event that I mentioned in my August 20th post was The Great Handcar Regatta. This will be happening on Sunday and I will be volunteering at the booze booth. It will be my awesome responsibility, along with some other brave souls, to check the IDs of people who want to purchase wine and to pour it for them. And here we approach The Thrilling Conclusion. Will I feel a sense of home town(ness) at this festival? I think the possibilities are highly favorable, first because I'd gotten the sense last year that it was a context in which I could feel at home, and second and much more importantly I have found the sense of home town(ness),

of belonging,

within myself. It's taken me 60+ friggin years to arrive at this place. I am comfortable with myself and, largely thanks to Burning Man, but also positively reinforced within my community, I have finally developed the minimal social skills to relate with my fellow human beings. There is a caveat to this: I need to be in an accepting environment. A friend of mine, a new friend as are virtually all of my friends, told me about someone she knew who went to live in a "retirement home," a group situation. The people there seemed to have settled into their solid little cliques. They had neither the need nor the desire to make new friends. She had become an involuntary loner. It is likely that I would not find home town(ness) there.

But maybe I would. I'm far more outgoing than I've ever been (and not obnoxiously so). Maybe I could make my way in such an environment. I hope I never am in the situation where that or an involuntary solitude are my only options.

Crazy Busy

2009-09-15T23:55:00.001-07:00

I haven't forsaken my blog or forgotten my on-line friends, if I still have any. I'm just crazy busy. I will return. May all who read this find the strength with which to face life's challenges and sufficient joy to make the whole thing seem worthwhile.

Home Town(ness)

2009-08-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

There is no place that I can identify as my home town, though I've had a sense of home town(ness) in two separate places in the last seven plus years. One of these is Gibraltar where I spent a few hours in the Spring of 2006. As the tour bus made its way along the upward curve of the winding road, I had the sense that this was where I belonged, that it was an ancestral home of sorts. I trace this feeling to a television commercial that was shown many years ago, I think for an insurance company. It used the "rock of Gibraltar" as a symbol of its own rock solid strength. Such is the power of advertising.

The other place where I have experienced the sense of being in my home town is in Black Rock City, the magnificent, transitory, and densely populated city that appears on the Black Rock Desert of Nevada for one week at the end of August every year. Burning Man, a festival that I first attended in 2001, is the context for the creation of this city. As I roved around gaped-jawed at the eye popping creations and the previously unimaginable friendliness of its citizens that first year, I kept hearing such phrases as "Welcome home" and "It's good to be home." Even as I departed from "the playa" at the end of the week filled with the joy and magic of the place, I couldn't relate to these sentiments. Home was the place where I lived the other 51 weeks of the year, I thought. In the sense that my little domicile is my home, I was right. I hadn't yet gotten the sense of home town(ness).

It was in the second year, and instantly upon my arrival, that I understood the experience of home(ness) that had seemed so foreign to me the year before. The population of Black Rock City reached 25,000 or 30,000 that year, yet wherever I went, I would almost inevitably run across friends from the previous year. We would laugh and hug each other with a joyous abandon that I'd experienced nowhere else. Strangers would greet me and I them with an ease that I'd never known in what Burners call "the default world." For a few minutes, we'd be as friends without masks. As I walked throughout the city, a voice within me silently and boldly shouted, "This is My Town." It was an experience I'd never felt before.

The songs of country music often refer to home towns. I listen to them (and sing along) with a sense of having missed out on that. None of the places where I've previously lived are home towns for me. None of them are places to which I could return with the expectation of finding anyone there who would remember me or I them. The title of one of Tom Wolf's books comes to mind: You Can't Go Home Again. Perhaps I am missing a mythic home town that has its roots in a less mobile past. Even so, in my second year at Burning Man and every year thereafter, I experienced home-town(ness).

I think that I may be finding a path to this experience in the town where I actually live. One of the things that has helped open the door to this is my rediscovery of the joy that I felt as a child when I was able to let my creativity run free. Burning Man played a big part in this by providing the impetus for me to make art (very loosely defined) that other people enjoyed. Big George in his rocket ship and M!MM with his/her straw hat are examples of this. Burning Man also taught me to talk comfortably with strangers. (Advanced age has allowed me to continue with this even as I encounter people who are not necessarily . . . ahem . . . kindred spirits.)

And so I finally come to a community event that I attended on Sunday, October 5, 2008. It was called Sculpture Jam and was put on by a small group of people, most of whom are artists. They have been hosting an annual community art project since 1998 and meet throughout the year working out its details and hearing related presentations from various local artists. The theme for 2008 was "Fish In Motion." An (approximately) 12 ft. by 12 ft. area was set aside in the plaza of a park where a farmers' market was also taking place. Within the Sculpture Jam area were several tables on which participants could make and/or decorate metal fish. These would become a part of a permanent display, although the fish were available for $5 or $10, depending on size, for people who wanted to keep their creations. From the moment that I saw the set up, and even though none of the organizers who I met had been to Black Rock City, I felt some of the sense of community that I experience at Burning Man. In March 2009, I was priviledged to join this group of creative people.

When I began this post, I was thinking that the town where I actually live might become My Town. A couple of week-ends before Sculpture Jam 2008, I attended a festival called The Great Handcar Regatta which was largely organized by Burners. This was the first year of the event and, with about 3,000 people in attendance, it was successful beyond all expectations. The festival will make its second appearance on September 27. I have offered my name as a potential volunteer. It's beginning to look like the place where I actually live may eventually become my home town.

With a few minor changes, I wrote but never published this post on October 10, 2008. Not realizing that it was so long, I intended to incorporate it in a current post about my newest project. It is now 11:25 a.m. and I have much on the agenda today. My next post will be a continuation of this one.

What A Rack!

2009-07-31T15:45:00.001-07:00

This handsome guy has been spending his mornings besides our bathroom window for the last several weeks. He was mildly curious and undisturbed when he saw me taking this picture of him. Click on it for awesome detail (including of our screen).

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y (finally) !!!

2009-07-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

It is fitting that my first real post in a very long time is once more about getting rid of the regain, the former subtitle of this blog which I began on September 27, 2005. At that time, I weighed 185 lbs. Four years and two months later, on November 25, 2009, I weighed considerably more. At that point, I got honest with myself.

I like to eat whatever I want to eat whenever I want to it it more than I want to fit into my snazzy size tens. My sporadic bursts of self discipline and railings against self indulgence were enfeebled by this truth. Admitting it has set me free. And, not unexpectedly, truth has had a paradoxical effect.

I made an agreement with myself on May 25th and, for the first time in a very long time, I've been able to keep it. I decided that I could eat whatever I wanted to eat whenever I wanted to eat with two caveats: (1) I would no longer eat ice cream. Within a few days, I expanded this to include sweet bakery goods, puddings, and the like. (2) I would avoid, but not entirely fore go, bread in its various forms. Beyond that, I would make good decisions about what I'd eat based on the circumstances.

From my low of 125.5 pounds in 2003 to my high of (ouch) 212.5 or 213.5 in May 2009, most of my 87 or 88 pound gain (ouch) was due to binging. In the beginning, after I'd eaten two or three apples, the raging impulse to continue the binge would come upon me. Usually the next step was cold cereal. After that, it didn't matter.

What I have changed by my new permissiveness is the context for a binge. I've blown it away. I can eat at one sitting as many apples as I can possibly handle without feeling the slightest bit of self reproach. Another bit of truth is that the two or three apples that began my early binges were not the cause of my almost 90 pound regain.

I had a little test of the power of this new approach. Last Saturday night, I got fall asleep drunk at the Fire Arts Festival, a fund raiser for The Crucible. I had paid to attend the soiree which included a gourmet dinner and an open bar among other perks. I ate without guilt all that was presented to me including the dessert. I partook of the champagne, wine, and absinthe, especially the absinthe, without restraint. A bit of a warning about absinthe: It is 45-75% alcohol; It is a mistake to drink it like wine. (With my car safely parked in the VIP parking lot, a cab safely returned me to my hotel.)

The next morning, headache free, I ate the two hard-boiled eggs and drank the V8 that I had brought with me. Craving salad and salty protein, I stopped at a Noah's Bagels on the way home and got a bagel with cream cheese, lox, onion, lettuce, and tomato. Later, at home, I continued to eat salty foods that were high in protein. My consumption of calories way exceeded my utilization of them for the day. Even so, I felt that the decisions that I made about what to eat were appropriate for the circumstances. What was critical was how I'd behave the next day.

And, on Monday (clash of cymbals, drum roll please) I smoothly returned to the eating patterns that I had established in the preceding eight weeks. Except that I didn't have the sense of returning to, but rather continuing, good decision making. And so it has continued and is likely to continue. At 201 lbs, I've gotten rid of 11.5 or 12.5 pounds since May 25th. At some point, I may not be able to continue to eat whatever I want to eat whenever I want to eat it and still get rid of the lbs, but that will be another discussion. At some point (soon), I will add regular exercise to the mix. That may or may not be another discussion. For now, I am feeling more centered and solid than I have in a very long time.

Facebook - An Invitation

2009-07-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

I've finally succumbed to Facebook. I've initially got on it a while ago to try to find old friends with whom I've lost contact. After that so far unsuccessful endeavor, I only used it to respond to friend requests from others. I accept as friends only those people who I actually know in the default world or through this blog. When I haven't recognised someone as such a friend, I've asked them how we know each other. A few days ago, with the addition of one more friend and conversations with my son and daughter, I realized my Facebook connections were reaching critical mass. I added to that mass by going to the home page of this particular friend and finding among her friends, many people who I also know. I invited them to be my Facebook friends as well.

I don't see Facebook as a tool that in any way replaces my (long neglected) blog, but I finally do see the value of it in easily keeping up with the goings on in the lives of people that I know to the extent that they choose to share them.

Soooo, if any of my on-line friends is on Facebook, feel free to friend me or let me know that you are on Facebook and I'll friend you. It seems like a good way to keep up the connection during those sometimes long periods that I'm just not into blogging or into reading the blogs of my on-line friends.

Checking In Again

2009-06-21T18:41:00.001-07:00

The default world is still keeping me pretty busy. Thanks to all of you who keep checking up on me. I hope all my blog buddies are doing well. I really want to see what you've been doing, but once I enter the blogosphere, I can't seem to leave until my neck is stiff and more hours than I have to spare have elapsed. I wish you all well and, as I wrote in my previous post, am glad that the talking and the listening, the wonderful world of sharing ourselves on-line, continues with or without my presence in it. Blessings to all.

Checking In (very quickly)

2009-04-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't fallen off the earth.
Nor am I tormented by self loathing or despair.
Life has not battered me.
Loved ones have not been lost.
I haven't run out of things to say
Adventures to share
Ideas to contemplate
Nor have I forgotten my on-line friends
(Hopefully I still have on-line friends).
It's just that there is so much I want to do
Never getting to do it all
Even as I push aside the things I must do
Until the clutter gives birth to clutter.
I will return.
I just don't know when.
And while I'm gone
The talking and listening continues
Without me.
And I'm so very glad that it does.

Never A Wasted Day

2009-03-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

As I drove home on Saturday from the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show in pouring rain and slow moving traffic, I tried to find the kernels of value in an otherwise disappointing day. A vision of mining for gold with a sieve in the cold waters of a river the location of which I no longer remember comes to mind. And then a related image, paying for the privilege of panning for gold as a child at Knotts Berry Farm. In all these instances, the prize was unequal to the cost of the experience. Yet, a gracious life requires one to look for the small scraps of joy amidst the trash.

The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show was a commercial display of things to buy and vendors to hire. Perhaps I was naive to expect that the 25 gardens the marketer promoted would actually be gardens. I spent the first few minutes being disappointed about where my hour and a half drive had taken me, then cruised around making the best of it. On my drive home, I searched for the nuggets of gold:

A few minutes chatting with a woman in her early 80's while I sat at a bench eating my barbecued beef sandwich. She was from Pennsylvania visiting her daughter for three months. She'd come out for the first time in nine years to attend her granddaughter's confirmation.She told me that her husband died a year ago and that she now felt homeless in the home that they'd occupied.

A conversation with a vendor who was selling silk backed glass items that she had created. She told me how she makes them, stopping short of revealing what she uses to adhere the silk to the glass. She said that she enjoys working with detail. I told her that I enjoy working with fragments in my glass art. Our conversation ended when customers came. Before going to them, she asked for a link to my glass site.

I came away from the show with an idea of what I'd like to do with a very small patch of land in our backyard. In that patch are the remains of a mostly unsuccessful attempt to grow vegetables. A hint: vegetables don't do particularly well in a mostly shady area, particularly if the ground is hard and the one gardener who's willing to take time with it moves on. It had been my daughter, Rachael's, project. If I follow through with the inspiration that I got from the show, it may become a meditation area of sorts with a statue or two or three and some of the glass stuff I've made and will make.

There were some vendors who sold art glass or incorporated it into their creations. The pictures of the items they were selling will inspire my own creativity.

I had the radio on as I was sorting through my day. At one point, Garth Brooks was singing "Friends in Low Places" just for me. With my car at a virtual stand-still and the rain pounding on my windshield, I turned the volume up and, for that moment, everything was in blissful harmony and I was at its center.

I grab on to these experiences and hold them tightly. And I smile.

Reflections on Things Created

2009-03-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

Within the span of eight days, I will have experienced three outings that are in some way related to art and creativity. While I very much enjoy hunkering down in my own little cave, there is something about these explorations that add dimension to my life.

This past Saturday, March 14th, I went with a friend to San Francisco's Legion of Honor to see an exhibit entitled "Artistic Luxury: Faberge, Tiffany, and Lalique." I was particularly interested in seeing the Faberge eggs about which I had learned in a Russian art history class. These eggs, which could take several years to make, were created for Czars Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia between 1885 and 1917. An individual egg could take Peter Faberge and his assistants several years to make. I was familiar with Tiffany as a contemporary source of jewelry that is probably well out of my price range, but unfamiliar with Lalique, who regarded himself as a sculptor as well as a jeweler.

When I go to museum exhibits, I often play at choosing one or several pieces that I imagine taking home. My friend and I enjoyed this little game, agreeing to a round of rock-paper-scissors when we both wanted the same piece. After a while, the sheer extravagance of the wealthy original possessors of these beautiful items began to annoy me. I began to contrast their possession laden lives with the lives of the ordinary and very poor people beneath them. A commentator on the auditory tour to which I was listening with headphones explained that for these very rich people even the mundance items that they used were expected to be works of art. One gentleman had dozens of cigarette cases, each made with precious metals and jewels. Choosing which one to use was a daily decision

As my friend and I stood judging these long dead people for their obscene avarice, we also had to chuckle at our own sense of moral superiority. These shallow rich folks were as much products of their own time and culture as we are. Though their shoes were far more comfortable than those on the lower rungs of the social ladder, we haven't had to walk in them. In fact the bejeweled aristocratic women looked pretty darn uncomfortable in their splendor. Beyond that and with few exceptions, we who live in the U.S.A. and other "modern" countries routinely enjoy a level of material abundance that even the very rich could not have imagined. Modern plumbing is the first thing that comes to mind. Mass produced automobiles and the freedom of movement that they provide comes second.

At another level, I think there really is something unappealing about too much of a good thing. It would be fun, I think, to own some of the beautiful pieces on display It would be even more fun to be able to purchase all of them while choosing to own only a few. If everything that one uses is a work of art, don't they all blur together and lose value by virtue of being part of an endless collection? What emerges here is private art, privately owned and used to flaunt one's wealth, available now to the masses to look at, but not to touch.

My second art related foray took place on Tuesday, March 17ith. I am the newest member of a local group called Sculpture Jammers. Each October the group produces a free week-end community art experience. They meet throughout the year to plan the activity and to enjoy art related outings and workshops. The Tuesday outing was to John Lewis Glass, a studio in Oakland, California. Their facility is warehouse massive. While there, I saw liquid glass, made from specially selected components, being poured from a second story furnace into a mold that was on the ground floor and directly under an opening from the furnace. The furnace burns 24/7/365. After the mold was filled, the production team carefully put a top on it, then slid the topped mold into an annealing oven. This mold was a negative
cast of a letter, approximately 5 feet high and three feet wide, that will be used in an architectural project in Texas. The studio
produces both functional and decorative items, though all items contain both elements to varying degrees.

The third outing that can be loosely considered to be art related will take place on Saturday or Sunday if the weather and my energy level cooperate. This is the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. The producer of this event plans to retire this year. Unless a new sponsor comes forth, this might be the last year that it takes place. I haven't previously attended this show and find myself compelled to do so by the sense of now-or-never.

It is 1:43 a.m. I had planned to write a bit more about the flower show and then brilliantly wrap this all up with some reflections about creativity and art in its various guises. This could have been a pretentious reach or an entertaining journey of the mind. Right now I'm too sleepy for either. I'll most likely have moved on to other things by the time I'm ready to post again sooo - with visions of Tom Sawyer and the partially painted fence - I invite you to offer your own reflections. As for me, it's pillow time.

What Kathy Said

2009-03-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Kathy said it all only better.

Here is my response:

Kathy, you are expressing so much of what I've been going through. I read stats that say that women who eat more healthfully and exercise more regularly than I do live, on the average, 14 years longer and yet, though I covet those extra years, I don't seem to change my unhealthful ways. Unlike you, I defeat myself with binges. Also I thoroughly enjoy working out on my elliptical (even as I choose not to in favor of other activities). Like you, but with a few extra years - I'll soon be friggin 63 - I want to enjoy my remaining years. Enjoying food is a part of this, though being a size ten again would be highly enjoyable too. Anyway, you've expressed it so well that my post for today will be a link to your blog followed by this comment.

I looked at your cake recipes before reading this post. At friggin 63, I want the freedom to make those cakes and have reasonably sized slices ever so often. I need to get a handle on the binging before I can do it though.

Beyond my comment to Kathy: I will not longer be writing about my progress in dealing with the various aspects of weight loss and exercise until I've managed to accumulate 3 solid weeks of success with either. I still intend to walk to Quebec and will note my progress (unless I wimp out and delete that section of my blog). I haven't given up with my move to a healthier lifestyle, but I need to shut up and get on with it.

More Fun With Dates

2009-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Awesome Dates:
Rebecca made the following comment to my last post:
"Arlene today is 3-6-9. Does that mean anything to you? I'm thinking it must!"
My response: 3-6-09 is 3M awesome. The last such date was 2-4-06 and before that 1-2-03. The next such date will be 4-8-12. The series continues up to 12-24-36.

Walking to Quebec:
With the excuse of a morning dental appointment, I took a break from my walk to Quebec yesterday. Unfortunately and inevitably this effected my food choices. I find that I'm able to eat sensibly and without a specific diet program when I'm being disciplined with exercise. Shock of all shocks, I discovered for the seven billionth time that the opposite is also true. Today is a new day. I'll be putting in an hour on the elliptical later in the day.

A Review of Books:
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Kaye Gibbons' writing. Her style is deceptively simple and compelling. In Charms for the Easy Life she writes in the voice of Margaret, the grand daughter of respected folk healer, Charlie Tate. Beginning with Charlie's marriage to a worthless husband in 1902 and spanning the years until just after World War II, her canvas is a large one and filled with a lot of interesting people. The setting is rural North Carolina and the various interconnected stories have a Southern feel to them. A most delightful book.

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama: I enjoyed this book, yet sometimes found myself noticing the quality of the writing instead of being pulled forward by the story. It's not that the writing is bad; it's just that it doesn't seem to have the natural flow to it that I find with the writers who's books I most enjoy. In fairness to Gail Tsukiyama, this is her first novel.

Women of the Silk focuses on Pei who, at the age of eight, is abandoned to the silk industry by her father. The year is 1919. The story spans the next 20 years of Pei's life as it is played out in the silk industry in a very small town in China. Through her story and the stories of the women she encounters. one gets a sense of what it meant to be a women in the China of those years as well as a hint of the changes that were forced upon them first with The Chinese Civil War and then with the Second Sino-Japanese War beginnning in 1937. While I probably wouldn't actively search for another book by this author, I'd choose to buy it if it showed up in my local used paperback book store or in Costco.

Eeek, it's 3:52 p.m. and I had planned to spend today working on glass. I always end up spending far more time writing my blog than I'df intended.

Square Root Day

2009-03-03T20:52:00.000-08:00

Those who have followed this blog for awhile know that I adore certain number combinations. Until I watched the Rachael Maddow show this evening, I was unaware that today is Square Root Day. 3/3/09 is also 3 X 3 = 9. The last Square Root Day was on 2/2/04; the next will be on 4/4/16. I am sooo excited. (It takes little to excite me.) With the next Square Root Day 1 day, 1 month, and 7 years from now, I affirm that on that date I will be alive, healthy, joyful, and at my goal weight. Also that my country, my world, and all worlds beyond will be in much better shape than now.

I am currently 10.2 miles closer to Quebec than I was in my last post. My first stop, Fairfield, California, is now 32.91 miles away. The Jelly Belly Candy Company has its corporate headquaters there. Perhaps I'll do a virtual tour of the place when I stop there.

I'm finding this virtual walk to an actual place to be very motivating. I think one of the reasons is that no matter how little time I spend on the elliptical, I'm accumulating the mileage of success. Once the mileage is earned it can't be taken away. I think it would be highly awesome if the same dynamics would apply to weight loss, that once the lbs. were gone, they remained gone. I haven't yet taken the few minutes needed to get comfortable with my pedometer. I'll probably do this before my next real world walk.

I'm Walking to Quebec

2009-03-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

It is approximately 2978.52 miles from my house to Chambly, Quebec, the home of The Fauna Foundation, one of the animal groups to which I donate. Caring for chimpanzees that have been rescued is one of their primary missions. I'd like to see their facility in person and also possibly volunteer there for a while. I'd also enjoy spending time in Quebec, maybe brushing up on my college French and putting it to some good use. So I've decided to spend the coming weeks and months and years, walking to Quebec (virtually). It's going to be a long walk. I'll have to plan out my journey and figure out where I'll want to stop along the way.

At this point, I haven't even gotten out of my own neighborhood, but I've started the journey and that's the important thing. I walked 1.4 miles on Thursday, 1.8 on Friday, and 2.5 today. These are the mileages indicated on my elliptical cross trainer after I've worked out on these days. I could accumulate mileage faster if I kept the resistence and the incline of my elliptical at the lowest levels, but that hardly seems fair. The real world has hills and varying elevations.

I'll also be counting the distance that I traverse in my daily life - once I take the minute or two that I need to spend figuring out how my new pedometer works. Knowing that I'll get to Quebec quicker by doing this should motivate me to do this. I'm such a terrible procrastinator. My hubby, Matt, got me an IPOD 2+ years ago and I still haven't uploaded (or downloaded, I can never figure out which) songs to it. The musical keyboard that I purchased about eight months ago is sitting on the desk in our guest room untouched.

Walking to Quebec is not an original idea. Well maybe the place is, but not the process.
A while back, I came across the blog of a woman walking somewhere else. Unfortunatley, I can't credit this particular woman, because I didn't bookmark her blog. If anyone reading this has that info., I appreciate getting the link.

A World of Choices

2009-02-26T13:11:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about Mariam and Laila, the two women who become virtual slaves to the man they marry in Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Both women were coerced into a cruel marriage after the lives they'd had before were oblitereated. In a society increasingly intolerant of the rights of women, this one choice could not be undone. They were their husband's undisputed property. Failure to absolutely meet his demands and unspoken desires could result in knocked out teeth and blackened eyes. Serving him well could have the same result.

I live a life with multiple options. I think right now I am in the glory days of choices. My kidlets have grown into competent adults. My husband and I have managed to secure a reasonably comfortable retirement. My health is good. The same cannot be said of my hubby's health. His options diminish to the extent that he's being tormented by gout or arthritus or some new infestion that his body is not adequately fighting. His leukemia diagnosis casts its shadow in all directions.

I think I've made pretty good choices throughout my life. When I haven't, life has dealt with me relatively kindly anyway. In slightly more than one month, I will turn friggin 63. You'd think by now I'd have mastered this business of making choices. And yet . . .

An e-mail and blogger friend of mine told me about an assignment for her writing class. The students were to write "I wish" on twenty lines of paper and then complete the sentence with a particular wish. Following that, they were to describe one thing that they could do that would help transform that wish into a reality. I've given this a lot of thought and plan to write about it in more detail at some point in my other blog. The only wish over which I have any control that I could think of is for me to get back the self discipline that I demonstrated when I successfully got rid of 65+ pounds. This was from approximately October 2001 through the following year and a half.

Instead of being self disciplined, my currrent guiding principal has been immediate self gratification. I'm troubled by that, yet so far not troubled enough to get off my butt. My elliptical cross trainer is 12 1/2 inches away from me as I write this. I measured the distance.

I glory in the multitude of my choices, yet I treat them carelessly. Even now, I find myself resisting the call to action. I want to work on updating my photo albums, a task I've resisted these past two days so that I could enjoy the taskless self indulgence of reading a good book.

It is 2:55 p.m. It is entirely possible for me to put in a half hour on the elliptical and still have time to work on the photo album. It is entirely possible for me to assume control over what I eat in the hours that remain of this day.

I'm going to take that first step now.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

2009-02-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

Well I finished it. In less than a day and a half. At the expense of sleep and other projects (though not without certain interruptions).

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is an exceptional book. The setting is Afghanistan from the years before the Soviet invasion through that of the U.S. following the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001. The story is of two women born into very different circumstances and about 20 years apart. They, as well as those with whom they interact, emerge as fully fleshed out human beings who live their lives within the larger context of time, place and culture, a context that informs, but never overwhelms, the compelling narrative. What Khaled Hosseini delivers in this book is what I seek when I pick up a novel. I highly highly recommend this book.

The Lure of Books and Unplanned Naps on Days Like This

2009-02-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

With my paperwork pile finally conquered, I've worked hard these last several days on maintaining this current state of up-to-dateness. No charge receipt has gone unfiled, no bill unpaid, no mail unopened.

With gray skies and pouring rain and my time thus cleared to work on projects, to finally put into albums those photos going back to 2002 or to play downstairs with my glass, I've chosen the luxury of picking up a new novel and falling asleep while reading it. The projects will wait. Softly drifting into an unplanned nap is oh-so-enticing.

Another of my authors has fallen off my must read list. December Wedding is the eighth book by Anita Shreve that I've read and possibly the last. Her competence is unfailing, yet I found myself bored with her characters and their problematic lives. Was it that in all cases new love was purchased at the price of marital fidelity? Perhaps this contributed to it. I lost much respect for Barbara Walters when she disclosed her affair with a black married man. It was decades ago and she said that people back then would have judged her harshly while today people were more understanding of such things. I had the sense that she was focusing more on his race than his marital status.

I think I've come to a point where I want more from a novel than even a competent author such as Anita Shreve chooses to deliver. I like a sense of history and of place and of culture, particularly those that differ from my own. One of these days I'll write about some of my favorite books. There are so many wonderful ones. I'll be reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns next. I found his first novel, The Kite Runner, to be compelling, but a bit too brutal for me. With this book, I'll discover if Hosseini will be added to my GLA.*

*GLA stands for Grocery List Authors, those authors who I like so much that I'd even read their grocery list (once). I'd previously referred to them as my laundry list authors, but have since realized that I don't know what a laundry list is. I believe Margaret Atwood used the term in a lecture I attended. She described herself as such an author for many people, saying that she could get away with this only once.

Too Cute Note to Post

2009-02-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

This made me smile.
It's 2 minutes 17 seconds long. The major cuteness starts at about 44 seconds.

Junk Mail and Disappointing Books

2009-02-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

A little rant here about junk mail. I spend about 90 minutes a week going through the various solicitations that are sent to my hubby and me. Because we donate to a number of animal groups, we receive an average of 5 requests a week from groups dealing with abused pigs, mistreated donkeys, starving horses and the like. I try to avoid looking at the pictures as I sort through them. CARE, an apparently excellent group dealing with humans in wretched circumstances, asks us for money at least once a month. We made a donation to the group once following the tsunami in Indonesia. We answered "no" when they sent a letter asking if we'd like them to contact us in the future.

I go through the junk mail ripping off and shredding information about our names and address. The most time consuming of my junk mail task is cutting by hand the numerous address labels that I am sent. I can't use the shredder or they will muck up my machine. I remember when I used to pay for labels. I'd gladly do so again if that would keep away the ones that are sent to me with donation requests.

My desk is finally clear of piled up mail and financial non-junk, some going back all the way to August. I may yet be able to get on with updating the photo albums. The last time I did this was in 2002.

Today, I'm experiencing sharp pains in my back.
I don't know what's up with that. Mostly I'll be reading today. I'll probably finish Isabel Allende's Ines of My Heart, a novel taking place in the early 16th century and dealing with the Spanish conquest of Peru and Chile. With the first book that I read by her, Daughter of Fortune, Allende had become one of my laundry list authors, a writer that I'd enjoyed so much that I would read anything she wrote including her laundry list (once). With Ines of My Heart, I have stripped her of that honor. For the depth of character and situation that had marked the first book, Allende has substituted sex and violence. I feel somewhat like a voyeur and I don't like the experience.

With regard to a book I'd mentioned in my December 31st post, Snow by Orhan Pamuk, it was a challenge to finish it. This is a Nobel Prize winner and well recommended by a variety of sources including Margaret Atwood who is firmly anchored in her laundry list status but has lost credibility for me as a recommender of books. Snow is extremely well written at the sentence and paragraph level, but doesn't come together as a coherent story. It tells the tale of a "by accident" coup that begins with a theatrical event. The "actors" start shooting at the audience, killing some of those in attendance. Later we learn that the leader of the coup didn't really want to lead it, but felt that he had to following some braggadocios remarks that he'd made earlier. The behavior of the characters make no sense within the context of either the story or the real world. My advice: Do not waste your time on this book.

Enough for now.

This Is Really Interesting

2009-02-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going to do this pretty much daily until I can easily and accurately complete it.

What is this? It's a fill in map of the Middle East. With my first attempt, I learned how truly ignorant I am. As I continued with it, I found myself understanding more about the relationships between these countries. Learning in this way becomes a game. The prize is knowledge and a context through which to understand events in this region of the world.

Just Checking In and What Is Your Word?

2009-02-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'm busy with a long deferred photo project. Before I continue with it, I should get current with too long deferred paperwork. I'd like to freeze time and the activities of the rest of the world while I complete both. I'd be most grateful to anyone who can do this for me. A bit of good news is that I've rediscovered sleep, courtesy of a house guest for whom I provided an extra blanket which I've since added to the ones I'd already been using. I hadn't felt cold before this, but apparently the extra warmth lets me ease into Sleepland. I attended my first Weight Watcher meeting of the new year on Thursday weighing more than I've ever weighed. I've been on track for the last three days.

Last Saturday, January 31st, I woke up at 4 a.m. so that I could participate in an "Epic Bird Tour" with a local environment group. We went to three bird refuges. My pictures did not turn out as well as I had hoped, but I'm sharing four of them anyway. The coolest moments were when thousands of geese flew above us.

Onwards now to my various projects.

Oooops, I just checked Cory's blog and came across this wonderful 5 question quiz. I can't believe how accurately it describes me.

What's Your Word?

Your Word is "Why"

You see life as complicated and intriguing. The only thing you know for sure is that you haven't figured it all out yet.
You question everything and believe very little. And whatever you believe is likely to change.

You are interested in theories, philosophies, and religions... even if you don't buy into any of them.
You are also fascinated by how things work. You'd like to understand as much in the world as possible.

An Old Sweatshirt and The Good China

2009-01-30T16:54:00.001-08:00

I find myself wondering when I will finally get rid of this sweatshirt. I bought it on a vacation with my children during the second year of the two between being married to their father and being married to my wonderful hubby Matt. The vacation, at Bruin Woods, a mountain retreat for alumnus of UCLA, was one of the highlights of my brief singlehood. Located in Big Bear, California, it is a luxurious family camp with activities for both kidlets and adults. On a teacher's salary, it was a splurge; the sweatshirt was priced accordingly. This was 22 years ago. At some point, I cut off the very ragged sleeves of the sweatshirt; at another, I tried to get rid of stains, then discovered that those dark areas weren't the slops and spills of careless eating, but places where the fabric had worn through. I suppose the day will come when this sweatshirt will become a rag, but for now I wear it around the house constantly.

I seem to be drawn magnet-like to those of my possessions which have seen their better days. Perhaps it is truer to say that these are the things to which I have the greatest connection. They feel the most like mine. I'm sure it started out with the idea of "saving the best for company." The occasions of hosting guests with The Good China have been very few and very far between. I usually prefer to use the decent everyday pieces over those with the silver rim that would be damaged by the dishwasher. With the addition of a young granddaughter at any big family dinners that I host from now on, who will guard The Good China from her surging inquisitiveness if I choose to use it?

The Good China consists of the silver rimmed ones that my children's father and I received from
my uncle as a wedding gift and a rose patterned set that I inherited from my mother.
Neither set has seen much wear. Currently they are stored in a cabinet with packages of dry dog food. It has occurred to me that these sets of good china will find their way to a thrift shop after I die. Or, if one of my children decides to keep them, they will either cycle them in for daily use or, like me and my mother, hardly use them at all. And, if the latter, will they be passed from generation to generation as valued heirlooms? Would those progeny who'll never know me be burdened by such an inheritance, especially if the memories of multiple ancestors were carried forth by such possessions? Or perhaps there would be the war of the plates, the hapless progeny fighting over the ancient soup bowls and coffee cups finally caught up in a frenzied battle. My imagination runs wild. My children have grown up in a disposable society. Ben and his wife got as wedding gifts more good dishes than they can use in a lifetime. The dishes I have are not of their style. Rachael finds too much enjoyment in living life to take on the mind-set of The Good China psyche. She'd toss the silver rimmed plates into the dishwasher and shrug when they got chipped.

As I've played out these various fantasies, I find myself saying, "Why not?" Perhaps it's time for me to start enjoying what I've guarded to the point of disuse these many years. I'll start freely using the rose patterned set from my mother. I'll use the silver rimmed set at big family dinners and shrug if they get chipped or broken. I'll wash them by hand, though. Seeing the silver rims erode after a couple of tours in the dishwasher would pulverize me with guilt. I'd feel like I was stealing from the future.

The Never Ending Flower Project is Finally Finished

2009-01-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed to discover that it's been over two weeks since my last post and yet I shouldn't be. I tend to spend either an inordinate amount of time composing posts and keeping up with the blogs of my on-line friends or an inordinate amount of time doing everything else in my life. It is not without good reason that my mother called me "Slow Motion." I have finally finished the flower photo project that I began when the first daffodils appeared in our garden last Spring. I hope to start catching up on some of my favorite blogs in the days ahead. The project that I just completed looks even more dazzling if you double click on the photo.

I've Been On Track For Seven Plus Years (and other mind games)

2009-01-11T20:36:00.000-08:00

I had a feeling yesterday as if I'd been on track with my eating for a very long time. In reality it was the second day in a row that I stayed within a very generous point allowance. I thought that I might be borrowing from the success of others, most notably Kathy who seems to have achieved a nice steady pace negotiating her own treacherous dietary terrain.That would be the reasoning that I used to finally extricate myself from the burden of having to write The Great American Novel, a task with which I had been burdened from childhood, largely by a father who couldn't forgive himself for not doing it himself. This was in part a result of his being friends with Jack Kerouak. How does one as self critical as my father and with his own literary aspirations look at his own highly edited scribblings with any degree of confidence after his pal has gone On The Road to literary fame? He piles his writings in closets and hopes for a daughter to achieve what he hasn't.

A bit of a digression there (but one I planned). After numbers of years with sporadic attempts to write The GAN, I realized that I didn't have to be a published author after all. Jane Smiley and Ann Tyler and Sue Miller and whole host of others had done it for me. The world simply didn't need a published work from me. Nor did I need to create it.

With this in mind, I began to think of my need to string together three weeks of disciplined eating in order to consider myself on track. And then I had a Eureka-Ah-Hah moment. Kathy had already done at least a week for me. (Thank you, Kathy) I could count this Thursday as the beginning of my second week. And it felt right to me.

I began my second on track week on Thursday, then hurriedly threw on my Weight Watcher dress, the one I always weigh in, for the much anticipated 6:30 p.m.First Weight Watcher Meeting of the New Year. Full of enthusiasm, I quickly waddled to the front door - only to find a note that the meeting was canceled. Canceled?? The first friggin meeting of the friggin New Year! I came home, in the very very cold, actually glad to be entering my nice warm house, glad to not have to listen to a boring lecture, certain that I would persevere because: I was at the start of my second successful week. My eating was on target on Friday and on Saturday. And then came Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning.

I could not fall asleep. Not at midnight, nor half past twelve, nor one a.m. Not even having first ingested a prescription sleeping pill. Finally, at about one thirty a.m., I rose from my bed and went into the kitchen to have some cereal, an off points action that I knew would help me get to sleep. Having eaten (an overly large) bowl of cereal, I pursued the logic of the situation and snagged a well buttered roll. I fell asleep promptly (at around 2:20 a.m.)

This morning, Sunday morning, a fresh start??? Or not?? I felt doomed by last night's gorging. Also, waking up at around 11:30 a.m. didn't feel like an auspicious beginning. And then a Wise Decision hit me like a bolt of lightening (or someone showering me with dozens of rolls of TP): I could have Brunch. A bagel with cream cheese and lox + an orange + milk came to 13 points. A half eaten chicken cattiatore restaurant dinner added at most another 13 points. I'll have some fruit after I've finished writing this. Today will end with me being on track.

I have a new paradigm: I'm reaching out and holding on tightly to that Arlene who, on 10-22-01 began a lifetime of appropriate eating habits that manifested itself in a whole new look 18 months later. There's been a bit of a break in the connection between us. This has resulted in an exterior that looks like a somewhat inflated model of that seen in October 2001. That's an unpleasant detail. I, the Arlene of January, 2009, am claiming a continuity with who I was a little less than six years ago. I don't need three weeks of self discipline to achieve this. As to the cereal eating woman of last night, she is separate from me. I will work with her, but not allow her to impact my daily behavior.

I really wish I could figure out how to get a good night's sleep, though. I've written about that before. Tonight I'm slamming down the antihistamines.

Finally, I don't do well with deprivation. The photos below are of some of the yummy things I'm able to eat and still get rid of the lbs.

I like root veggies. I cooked the ones pictured, except for the sweet potato which I decided not to add, with
enough water to cover them.
Once finished I added salt and harissa, my new favorite ingredient. If I hadn't discovered harissa, I probably would have used an Indian seasoning such as Patak's tikka sauce. This made a wonderful soup which I can have alone or to which I can add ingredients such as the spinach and chicken, apple, garlic sausage in the soup as shown above.

On my day of cooking, I also steamed a large bag of yummy broccoli. I like to munch on it alone or, as in the picture, use it to bulk up a main meal. This is brown rice with chicken (previously marinated and grilled) and roasted almonds.

I also made a thick lentil soup, ten servings which makes five meals for my hubby and me. I usually cook in bulk because, though I enjoy cooking, I don't enjoy it as a daily enterprise.

An Afternoon of Opera

2009-01-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

"Renee Fleming stars as the Egyptian courtesan, Thais, in search of spiritual sustenance. Thomas Hampson is the monk who falls from grace. Massenet's sensual opera is presented in a new production by John Cox."

Conductor: Jesus Lopez-Cobos
Production: John Cox
Starring: Renee Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Michael Schade

Note this link.

I am extremely fortunate to have a theater close to my home that has been broadcasting the Metropolitan Opera's current season in high definition. This is the third season of these broadcasts and the first season that I've been attending them. I've enjoyed four or five live operas in the past and seen a couple or three that I didn't particularly enjoy. These transmissions have been amazing. I'm finding that I enjoy these movie house presentations even more than the live productions that I've seen. Even when I've managed to snag the best seats in the house, I've never been able to see the subtleties of facial expressions that I've seen in these filmed performances. Behind the scenes action and interviews with the performers are included in these presentations. They add a sense of connection to the opera that I hadn't experienced before.

It's been interesting to me to see how popular these presentations have become. I think that technology and the efforts of opera's movers and shakers have made opera much more accessible both in terms of the cost of tickets and the ease of getting to a nearby theater. People have responded enthusiastically. Up until this past performance, the theater that I've gone to has been presenting the opera live on its premiere night with two rebroadcasts. This time around, and faced with virtually sold-out screenings, a third rebroadcast has been added. In the past, I've thought of opera as appealing to a primarily "high-brow" crowd. Now I see that it appeals to all sorts of people, though I have to note that there have been a disproportionate number of gray hairs, myself included, in the audience.

This Wednesday, I saw a rebroadcast of Thais by Massenet. This is the story of one person, a monk, who loses his soul in trying to save the soul of another person, the Egyptian prostitute/"kept"woman" Thais. The plot line is simple; the characters, who definitely change over the course of the opera, seem (to me) pretty much one dimensional. The appeal, besides the beautiful music, is in its stark choices, good vs. evil, and the decisions that we all experience though usually (and hopefully) in much less dramatic form. In Thais, the spirituality and the worldliness with which the characters wrestle is alien to me, yet not entirely. In the starkness of their struggle, I see the blurred faint muddle which is my own. Their lives touch and even pierce my own. And I am enriched.

Used New Year's Eves and The Rocky Horror Picture Show

2009-01-03T17:33:00.000-08:00

I am not a snob when it comes to the gently used discards from another person's life. Indeed, I have purchased some very cool items from my local thrift shops. However, I have a very visceral reaction to someone else's used New Year's Eve when midnight hits my own little town. Shortly before the Magic Hour on December 31st, Matt and I were frantically trying to find a TV station that was broadcasting from a site at least somewhere in our time zone. One station, broadcasting from Las Vegas, promoted the daring stunt that Robbie Knievel would be doing at the start of the New Year, but they kept flipping back to an earlier recording of the scene at Times Square when the ball dropped. I have nothing against Times Square, New York, or their beautiful dropping ball, but when I ring in the New Year, I want it to be New, not Used. With seconds left until midnight California time, we turned off the TV and decided that the New Year would begin precisely when we cheered it in, reminiscent perhaps of an earlier New Year's Eve when my son, then obsessed with watches, kept looking at his watch. With the TV announcer shouting Happy New Year, Ben waited until his watch said the time had arrived.

We had made plans this year to stay overnight in the Cavallopoint Lodge at Fort Baker in a bayfront room from which we would have been able to view the San Francisco fireworks. My being sick put the kabash on that. As it turned out, it may have been too foggy to see the fireworks anyway. Matt and I ended up eating take-out from a local grocery store and watching two History Channel programs, one about Envy and the other about Gluttony, my personal favorite of the 7 Deadly Sins. After that, we spent considerable time zapping through the many commercials of a movie that Matt had recorded before the election. This was my first introduction to the famed Rocky Horror Picture Show. What an awesomely fun movie! I want to make it a New Years Eve tradition. I want to go to a movie house showing with props and all. I'd really be interested in any comments from those of you who have seen it.

My dreary cough is still hanging on, but I'm well enough to play catch up with some of the chores I deferred during my sickness. I am also pleased to say that as of 6:02 p.m. Saturday, I have maintained the self discipline with food that I expect to maintain for the rest of my life (a bit of an affirmation here). Replaying some of the scenes in the History Channel's program on gluttony may help me with this.

A Verdict, Old Wives, and A Few Good Books

2008-12-31T14:15:00.000-08:00

A Verdict:
In my December 9th post, I was cheerfully optimistic that I could get back to my goal weight on my own. No need for outside help for me! Even so, my self confidence kept colliding with the heavy weight of my previous failed efforts. "I (might) need the discipline of a structured program to get myself moving (in the right direction)," I admitted. "I'll get a sense of which version is true in the weeks ahead." The jury is in and I'm going back to Weight Watchers. The numbers this morning were the same as three weeks ago. It seriously sucks rodents when a 5'4" woman considers herself lucky that the scale shows a weight of only 203.5 lbs.

Old Wives:
On December 20th, I was deriding old wives. I had decided to work on a Christmas project in the garage with the garage door open despite my sniffles and cough and the chill weather. The idea "that 'you can catch a cold from cold weather' is an 'old wive's tale,' "I wrote adding that they were "not the most knowledgeable of old wives at that." One dismisses the wisdom of old wives at one's own peril. My cold got worse after playing elf in the garage. Matt and I had to miss the family Christmas celebration because I was too sick to attend. Ditto New Year's Eve. For the first time in years, we had plans for the night. Instead we're staying home. Matt has tossed a few "I told you so's" in my direction. I shoulda listened when he told me to stay in our nice warm house.

A few book reviews:
Well, at least being sick has given me some reading time. Unfortunatley I've nodded off much of the time, but here are a few notes about the books that I've been reading:

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan tells the story of the great environmental, economic, and human tragedy that occurred in the Great Plains during the Great Depression. This is a history rather than a historical novel, yet the individuals whose struggles Egan's describes, become alive in his telling their stories. A compounding tragedy is that the land still bares the scars of man's abuse of it and that, even with this knowledge of prior devastation, we continue to ravage the earth. I heartily recommend this engrossing book.

Set in Cairo around the time of the first Gulf War, The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, tells the story of a highly varied cast of individuals who lives intersect through their connection to this building. The roof dwellers, the poorest of the residents, include a young, aspiring policeman who is drawn to the jihadists when his dreams are shattered. Other plot lines involve the gay editor of a French language newspaper, an aging playboy whose sister is trying to get him declared incompetent so that she can have his share of their inheritence, and a number of (redundancy alert) corrupt politicians . Though the plot lines of this book are strong and the characters are well defined, the thing that I found most compelling was the sense of claustophobic oppression that those in the underclass experience as their daily due. For a sense of this experience, I recommend this book.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is the story of 9 year old Liesel Meminger, and her foster family in Nazi Germany. The narrator is Death. I initially found this to be quite a distraction because Death seemed to have a child's voice. After the first hundred pages or so, I found that the unintentional humor and irony of the narrator, Death, softened the edges of a trully horrific era. The characters were multi-faceted and the events vividly portrayed. The ending surprised me. The book is a major page-turner. At times, I almost literally couldn't put it down.

My expecatations for The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch were way too high. I had seen Diane Sawyer's interview with the author and had bookmarked his lecture on my computer, but had never gotten around to watching it. I decided to read the book instead. A mistake. From the bits that I have seen of the video, the man himself is the inspiration. The book has much wisdom in it, but would have been more appropriate for a younger, more goal oriented me. I've given it as gifts to my daughter and my son + his wife. My daughter has already read and enjoyed it. I expect my son and his wife will enjoy it as well.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk is the book that I'll be reading next. I'm drawn to it because of the back cover description: "An exiled poet named Ka returns to Turkey and travels to the forlorn city of Kars. His ostensible purpose is to report on a wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves." Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. Margaret Atwood's recommmendation of the book on its front cover carries much weight with me. We shall see if this author joins the many whose works are "must reads" for me.

Santa Arlene Among Her Peers

2008-12-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been defined by busyness, the march of the Santas, my usual seasonal melancholy, and a cold with resulting lethargy followed by a self imposed forced march to productivity. This last of these had me hard at work in my garage today, an elf in her workshop, with the garage door open despite the chill weather so that I wouldn't miss the mailman to whom I wanted to directly give my Christmas cards (having finished with them after the posted pick up time at the closest mail box. I wondered about the effect of the cold weather on my sickness, decided that "you can catch a cold from cold weather" is an "old wive's tale" (and not the most knowledgeable of old wives at that), and turned the portable heater to its highest setting. I'm hoping that my sickness will pass in time for me to attend the family Christmas celebration that is the occassion that had me playing Santa's elf in the garage.

But it is not Santa's elf, but Santa himself, that is my primary identity. The pictures below were taken in San Francisco last Saturday. The lovely reindeer who appears in three of these pictures is my daughter, Rachael. The great fun for me is the joyful silliness of the whole thing, the merriment of playing with other Santas, and coming up to perfect strangers, asking them if they've been good or bad, having them actually answer, and giving them a Santa gift. Behind the personna of Santa, I gain a freedom to easily connect with my fellow human being and find most of them enjoy that unexpected connection. I also gift the cops and talk with them. The not-that-well- hidden presence of alcohol is their chief concern. Between two flasks of Jim Beam, numerous bar stops, and friendly sharings from my fellow Santas and other assorted characters of the season, I managed to maintain the optimum level of non-sobriety throughout, in love with the world and not barfing on it. The police were actually very cool in dealing with our raucous crowd, staying at the periphery, available in case things got enough out of hand to require their intervention. The surprises this year included a full on snow fight at one park, a bouncie house at another, and milk and cookies somewhere else. What a wonderful life it is being one of many Santas.

Eight Months From Now

2008-12-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

Instead of focusing on an "auspicious" start date when I would vigorously begin a weight loss program from which I'd never ever stray (except, occasionally in moderation), I've been looking ahead eight months and asking myself where I will be with my long lapse of self discipline. What comes to mind is an image of myself like this one, taken in Barcelona on May 25, 2006. I was in the low 160's then and headed back down, I thought, to the weight that I'd finally reached three years earlier, 127 pounds. Eighteen months before that I'd weighed 197 pounds.

I began my return to the land of big-size from that of size ten petite with a party week-end in Arizona shortly after getting a pound and a half below my goal weight. Throughout the entire time that I was getting rid of the 65 lbs., I'd never once cheated nor had the temptation to do so. Sticking with a healthful eating program had been easy for me. In Arizona, my food choices were pretty much limited to tortilla chips or potato chips. I had no access to transportation (which is mostly true; I'm painting this with broad brush strokes.) I took a vacation from healthful eating and vacationing became my lifestyle. When life presented its challenges, I went on vacation. I began this blog with the title "Onwards, Getting Rid of the Regain" on 9/29/05 at 185 pounds. The last time I weighed myself, the scale read 203.5 lbs., .5 pounds less than my most recent high. When my weight began its long climb upward, even to the point at which I first began this blog, I was pleased that I wasn't one of the many who would talk about regaining their weight "with a bonus." Now I can't even claim that success. I've struggled with my various regains from the beginning, the first five pounds and five pounds beyond that, then fifty pounds and more, much more. I've re-lost and regained mountains of fat. I'm glad that I've kept up the struggle. If I hadn't, I might be up a hundred pounds from where I am now. Or maybe not. Perhaps I would have avoided the binges that have been so much a part of my weight gain if I'd accepted the numbers somewhere along the line. In any case, I'm not willing to accept 203.5 lbs. And I'll deal with the downscale numbers when I reach them. And I will reach them.

I've realized that reading the blogs of my on-line friends inspires me whether they are succeeding in their struggles with weight or whether they are going through a difficult patch. In the first case, they provide a positive example. I want to show them (hi Annette) that I too can succeed. In the second case, they give me strength by validating for me how difficult it can be to get back on track once veering so far away from it. I want to be their positive example. I want to be one of the people who don't give up and ultimately succeed. My on-line friends who either don't share this challenge or write about it rarely are also sources of inspiration. They allow me to function in this loose community as a full human being. My current blob-like state along with the lack of self discipline which produced it only a partial defines me.

The last successful time around, when I went from 192 lbs. to 127 lbs., the image that helped me get there came from a dream. For a reason that I can no longer remember, the powerful symbol of this was a red triangle. Along each of its lines was a different word and the words were Fat, Stupid, and Undisciplined. This was the first impression that I believed my bulging self made on people who didn't know me. In my dream, the sun enveloped me in golden light and I knew that the time had come when I would succeed in getting rid of the weight. All I had to do was "stick with the program and the weight would take care of itself." It was it this point that I joined Weight Watchers.

I'm not up for a WW rejoin right now. I'm not up for counting points or even doing the current core program. This may change, but I'm not up for it now. But the image of eight months is a compelling one. I'm thinking of a swimming pool now. I'm thinking that I might be able to swim clear across the pool to the eight months side. On my own.

I want to end this post here. The end. But I wrote one more paragraph and have decided to include it. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I like the sound of my own words.

Or maybe not. Eight months might be the side of the pool. Holding on to it may keep me from going under, but I may need the discipline of a structured program to get myself moving to the other side. As a metaphor, this all falls apart; at my current weight, I'm my own flotation device. But I can't dive in just now. I'd hit my head against the cement sides of the pool.

I'll get a sense of which version is true in the weeks ahead.

Seeing My World Through Daisy's Eyes

2008-12-06T00:55:00.000-08:00

It is 12:54 a.m. I'm almost at the point where I'm likely to drift unimpeded into Sleepland once I snuggle into my pillow. Daisy, with her copper owl eyes, has been watching me type. At one point, she seemed fascinated by the magical appearance of the letters on the screen. I guess, not knowing the process, it is for her as if something suddenly popped into existence. I experience the opposite of this at times when things seem to pop out of existence. At these times, the concept of anti-matter as I understand it seems very real to me. Most recently my glasses, which so often disappear, really did disappear for a full day. I ended up driving to my glass class without wearing them. I had a major headache as the day wore on. My glasses did not turn up, though I did find them, and not by searching, but rather by analyzing Sherlock Holmes-like. The infamous family room couch, which is the scene of most of my food crimes, swallowed up my glasses and spit them out on the floor beneath. I'm struck as I write this that the word is "glasses" and that we refer to them as plural. We talk about a pair of glasses when referring to only the one item. The thing about my family room couch is that this one item is constructed as if it is three items with the space between each of the seats sometimes forming a chasm into which things fall at will. Underneath this couch, this too-heavy-to-move-by-oneself couch, are pencils and ice cream spoons and bits of food. It is really rather disgusting when you think about it, which I don't. Thankfully I was able to fish out my glasses with a ruler.

Daisy is no longer watching me. I will probably find her nestled in the blankets on the bed. She will find her comfortable spot curled within the arc of my left arm as I begin to drift off to sleep. When I turn to make my full committment to the land of dreams, she'll hop off and go to one of her night time places. In the morning, she'll come to investigate whether I'm ready to greet her and the new day. If I turn back to the pillows, she'll leave only to return a bit later. I wonder what she makes of the long uninterrupted slumbers of us human beings. I suppose cats don't wonder about such things. They accept their world as it is and they deal with it. Daisy was wary of me in the beginning of our relationship. In addition to accepting her world and dealing with it, she was and is open to seeing her world differently. I think I can learn something about life from Daisy.

Morning postscript: Daisy was not waiting for me in bed nor did she come in later last night. She did her morning check up on me. Cats, like humans, are not always predictable.

Self Discipline, Self Regard, Self Indulgence, and Sloth

2008-11-07T17:14:00.001-08:00

I'm either stuck right now or finding my way to some sanity in my relationship with food. I'm not up for counting points or record keeping of any type. Undeterred by lack of success with this in the past, I'm now trying to "just" make good decisions with regard to what I eat. This is easier to do when I'm alert and busy than when I'm tired and glued to the family room couch. I've returned to the strategy of keeping good-for-you foods that I enjoy eating on hand. These include ones that I can eat in any amount and ones with which I have to be far more careful. In the first category, I currently have steamed rutabagas, winter squash, and broccoli in the refrigerator along with fresh veggies and fruit. In the second category, I have yogurt and cheeses in the refrigerator and WW ice cream in the freezer. I also have candy on hand. W H A T ? ? ? It's occurred to me that sometimes when I want something sweet, I keep trying to satisfy this desire in ways that don't satisfy and then continue with a still unsatisfying binge. So I'm trying to short circuit the process with one or two little squares of Hershey's dark chocolate. At about 15 calories a square, I'm not doing myself any damage unless I start getting into insatiability. I have a vested interest in stopping myself at two squares. If I end up eating the whole chocolate bar, I'll have shown myself that I can't self moderate. We'll see how this goes.

As to getting the exercise that I need to be healthy and get rid of the lbs., I've been filled with that with which the road to hell has been paved, good intentions. I read the blogs of my on-line friends and resolve to get on my elliptical cross trainer. I have no excuse; it's right behind me as I type this and I enjoy working out on it. E N J O Y ! ! ! Really. Yet even now, as I type this at 5:42 p.m., I know that I'll end another day without any significant exercise. I'd thought of ending this post with promises to myself to do better. Naaaaaah. I'll know that I'm doing better if I find myself on the elliptical or on the park trails that are so close to where I live. My moment by moment decisions will tell the story of who I am in relationship to self discipline and self regard on the one hand and self indulgence and sloth on the other.

My New Space

2008-10-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

In her October 31st post, Kathy wrote about a change in her perspective after she moved her family room chair from one side of the room to the other. I began to comment about this, but decided instead to blog about a related experience.

I have gradually been moving my glass activities from the kitchen table to the garage. Initially this was a matter of doing some glass cutting on a card table which I would return to its home in the storage area under the stairs after I finished using it. Then I stopped putting the table away. The glass has been seducing me into playing with it ever since whenever I go into the garage. It starts out innocently enough with just a quick glance at the current state of my various on-going projects. Before I know it, an hour or more has smoothly passed by. A month ago, the glass warehouse where I've been attending a once a week workshop off and on for the last three or so years had a half price sale on their full sheets of glass. Let's just say I saved a fortune on glass. The corollary of this is that I'll have to live a very long time to use it all up. It's a life insurance policy of sorts. This glass is currently wrapped up in a heavy duty quilt around which are bungee cords secured to the wood framing in which it is secured. This has been making my use of glass a cumbersome ordeal. My plan has been to use one sheet at a time along with the many scraps of leftover glass that I accumulate. This week-end I decided that I didn't want my creativity to have to be constrained in this way. I began to consider getting shelves that could accommodate my glass and make it more accessible. My hubby, Matt, told me that he'd make them for me. Yesterday, I started thinking about getting a kiln. The building of the shelves and the purchase of the kiln is probably a couple of months away, but I'm finding myself very excited about the prospect of setting up these new things. Kathy wrote about the change in her perspective when she moved her chair. I'm experiencing the sense of a whole new world opening up to me as I make a new space for myself in the garage.

Just A Quickie Note (and For Laughingwolf)

2008-10-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't fallen off the planet and I haven't "given up" blogging. There are just so many options as to how I can spend my time and so (comparatively) few hours available to do the things that I want to do and have to do that I find that weeks pass before I even think about getting on line with this. I think about a number of my blogging friends at random times and wonder how they are doing. Since this usually happens when I'm in such places as the car or shower, I can't just click on an icon and find out. Right now I'm simultaneously doing laundry, making nuisance calls (ie. to charge card companies), and dealing with the ever growing paper pile on my desk. I'm tempted to check the blogs of some of my on-line friends now, but that would put me even further behind with my "To Do" list. Sooooooo, as I turn back to the (possibly eternal) PP (paper pile), I hope that all who read this enjoy extraordinarily satisfying lives in the days and weeks ahead. And for myself, I wish for one of these three things: greater efficiency in accomplishing life's "have to's" or the removal of my need for sleep or a whole bunch of more hours in my day.

For Laughingwolf:

This is the sweatshirt to which I referred in my comment to Laughingwolf's October 5th post entitled "sheep...? Electric Sheep." The picture is of a "Pythagorean Tree," which is the result of creating fractals from the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem: A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

Onwards.

Word Verification

2008-10-02T17:30:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else as challenged as I am with Word Verification. After the third try with some of them, I feel like I'm failing an IQ test.

The Sounds of Silence (NOT!!!)

2008-09-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

Matt and I returned home on Wednesday after 3 1/2 days of what was supposed to be a 7 day get-away at Lake Tahoe, California. We'd rented a house there with plans to spend most of the time reading our armloads of books. The picture at the right shows the kind of vacation that we expected:

This is what we found: The house that we rented is next door to this one, on the same side as the porta-potty. A plumber was there when we arrived on Saturday afternoon, but was gone after about a half an hour. Another contractor stopped by for about 20 minutes after that. He let us see inside the house which was pretty much down to the studs. He told us that he thought the dry wall installers would be coming on Monday. On Sunday, the owner came by to water the lawn. He told us that the workers would be doing some "minor" work outside on Monday and after that the insulation would be blown in. He said, "It shouldn't be too noisy."

No construction workers came on Monday or Tuesday. We got the dredger instead. It made a couple of noisy pass-bys on Monday and rooted around directly in front of our house for an hour and a half to two hours on Tuesday. Having settled in with a big food shop for the week, Matt and I decided to make the best of it.

Loud hammering began on Wednesday morning. When we called the rental office, the agent said that she'd return a prorated portion of the money that we'd paid if we wanted to leave early. On the way home, we revisited our criteria for future vacations. We like the feel of the place to the right. The old adage applies: There's no place like home.

Joi de Vive Pixelated

2008-09-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

On August 27, I began a blog in which I described the previous two or three weeks as abundantly joyful. I felt as if each molecule of air that I breathed had at its center a core of perfect goodness. I was a blessing to all whom I encountered and they, by their presence, blessed me. When I was alone, the infinite/eternal and I were One.

A few weeks have passed and reality's hard edges have poked a few holes in the fabric of my Joy. The photos below are of some of the threads out of which this fabric was (and still is) woven.

Adequate sleep: It binds together all the other threads. Without it, nothing can hold. After enough sleepless nights despite my regimen of four pre-bed antihistamines, I decided to toss the pills and stay awake until sleep came thudding by. At this point, I'm mostly getting the sleep I need and waking up with far more energy than I'd had previously.

My hubby, Matt: For a year or so, hubby Matt had a benign tumor on his parathyroid that was causing calcium to be leached from his bones. During this time, he experienced constant spontaneous bone fractures and frequent intolerable pain. The condition went undiagnosed because we all were pretty much focused on his Leukemia and its possible ramifications. Now, several operations later, Matt's been doing substantially better. He goes for daily walks using walking sticks or a cane, has washed the cars, and has done some light gardening. We've truly been given a second chance. In the unexpectedness of this, we relish the good times that we thought were lost to us.

Being able to make fun plans: For many many months, the only plans that Matt and I made were to consult with his various doctors and show up for his various operations. Now we buy tickets for plays and musical performances and vacations are once again on our schedule.

My daughter, Rachael: Rachael, and I had a two day/two night get-away, starting out in San Francisco a then heading to Half Moon Bay. She's wise, funny, and very observant.
She also "gets" me. I am always astounded that this amazing young woman is my daughter.

My son, Ben: Ben sets his goals high and works hard to accomplish them. I'm proud of him.

My granddaughter: Maddie is my first and currently only grandchild. She is a delight. I didn't "need" to be a grandmother for my life to be "complete," but I consider myself blessed that Life has given me this Gift.

The many avenues of creativity that are open to me: I often think that my truest self emerges when I'm alone, especially when I'm working on a project that involves some creativity.

For Maddie's birthday, I made a reversible multi-colored treasure bag into which I put five
smaller such bags filled with objects that are condusive to exploration and creative play. The bags with the tiny pink bear and the tinier white dog are reversible. The blue and beige striped one has a large front pocket. The white one, made with a sheer fabric, has twelve or thirteen compartments. Arriving at a creative idea and seeing that idea expand even as I work on it is a powerful experience for me.

The digital camera that Matt got for me has opened a whole new world.

At this point, my flower project is virtually finished. (I'll have to give it a more pleasing name.) I'm planning to have Tap Plastics finish off the project for me. I'm thinking that I'd like to have the multiple levels protected by plastic banding that goes around the project, possibly as part of the front surface. My mind is abuzz with other themes that I'll use to create future photo mandelas and abstracts. And that's exciting to me, the buzz of future projects whirling around in my head. And also the awesomeness of the technology that's allowing me this kind of play.

And then there are my glass projects. I don't like the way the pink candy dish turned out. I intend to smash it, put the broken pieces in the kiln to reflatten them, and utilize these pieces in a whole other project. I enjoy thinking about this.

Eventually I'll get around sewing the top and shorts that I was going to make for Burning Man 2006. The pattern is already cut out.

I have no idea how I'll use some of this "junk", but I know I'll have fun doing it

.A clear desk (finally): During my non-blogging weeks, I got caught up with my long ignored piles of paperwork. This included going over bank statements from March onwards. I firmly resolve, as I've resolved before, to keep up to date with this stuff.

Books: I have shelves of books that I'm looking forward to reading. Literacy is such a wonderful gift. Come to think of it, aren't we all blessed by our long ago ancestors developing language and a visual way to represent it?

Music and the potential for me to be a music maker: I recently purchased a musical keyboard and have tapped a few of the keys for about two minutes. I'm looking forward to learning how to play. My optometrist told me that I show the early signs of developing macular degeneration in 15 or 20 years. That will probably put the kabosh on the viusal projects I so much enjoy. With that possibility, I've decided to expand my musical skills beyond those of turning the CD player on and off.

The beauty of my world: Since moving to our current residence, I've never taken for granted the natural beauty that surrounds me.

My plants: I no longer seem to have a black thumb. My plants are thriving. They are a factor when I think about taking multi-week vacations.

Routine chores: As long as I'm not rushed to get them done, I enjoy the meditative peace and pace of doing them.

Daisy and Morris: My cats are and always have been a constant source of joy to me.

And so I come to the end of this post feeling truly blessed having reminded myself about the things that elicit my happiness. A final one, about which I didn't write, is reading the blogs of my on-line friends. (I hope I still have on-line friends.) I'll start doing that when I'm again at my computer.

Busy Big Bee Being Beaucoup Busy

2008-08-15T09:26:00.001-07:00

I'll catch up with blogging & reading blogs of on-line friends in a couple of weeks.
Until then, I wish everyone (including myself) success in reaching those elusive and also those easily accomplished goals. And, along the way, may life give all of us some reasons to smile.

It Really Is The Process

2008-08-10T02:29:00.000-07:00

I just had the entirely evil experience of spending a very long time on a post (which included 16 photos and a number of links) and with one unwise click of a key deleting the whole friggin thing. Paradoxically I was writing about the value of process over product. Right now, at 2:31 a.m., I'm too exhausted to care. I'm unlikely to have another session at the computer in the week ahead because of a delightfully busy week. In a strange sense, it really doesn't matter that what I wrote has snapped into non-existence. The process really does matter. I'm disappointed not to be able to publicly present what I put together, but the rush of life will be pulling me forward and bits of what I wrote will possibly come up again, polished for having been previously formulated and nurtured by their continuing presence somewhere in the convoluted reaches of my brain.

Even so, here are a few pictures from the Splash Dog competition at the fair. (I'm too tired right now to explain.)

Kim Rondespierre

2008-08-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Kim, a guy, another guy, me, a guy,
Diana at Burning Man 2006
---------------------------------------------------------
(From Sarah)

I am so sorry to have to send this. Kim passed away last Thurs/Friday in her home. A service in the bay area will be announced after her brother, friend Krissy and I have a chance to meet tomorrow. Kim was weak from her chemo treatments, but put on a very brave face. She was so grateful to those of you who sent her cards and phone calls. But she really was taken too soon.. I wish we would have had more time.

hugs
Sarah
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(From Walt)

Yeah, I saw something about this late last night. The whole thing happened so fast. On the one hand, you hate to think of a friend lingering in pain with no good end in sight. On the other hand.....well, the whole thing sucks. I'm glad she didn't suffer for a long time. That's no way for a person to go.

Kim had a great sense of humor, and I like to picture her on her little scooter, zipping around the streets of San Francisco with her wild hair flying out from under the helmet.

We sure never know how long we have, do we? Carpe diem.

walt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Matt (not hubby Matt)

As Walt said, the whole thing sucks, but I've seen the "lingering pain" kind of thing before, and given the lesser of two evils..........
At least Kim knew there were so many positive thoughts and vibes being sent her way.......

Always try to remember the fun and sweet moments we've shared with those who've left us, that is their legacy......

To all my SCARAB family.......Please stay healthy, and always know you are all loved by sooo many more than you know.

Matt (not hubby Matt)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(From me)

I talked to Kim for about 40 minutes 6 weeks or so ago after I'd heard about her cancer diagnosis. A week and a half ago, I sent her "comfort glass" and a handmade card. The Post Office was unable to deliver it and left a notice in her mailbox. She died on August 1st.

I'm astounded that Kim is gone. The last time that I saw her was at Burning Man 2006. Or maybe it was at Decompression in September of 2006. Ours was a friendship that showed itself only when the two of us were in the same place at the same time. Even so, it had color and texture and Kim occupied a place in my heart. My world is emptier with her loss.

Arlene

Food, Art, Joy, and Ants,

2008-07-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Food Sanity At Last???

Once again, Kathy has posted something that I feel the need to share. I suggest going to her blog to read the entire article. This is her prelude to it:

Many of us follow or have followed Weight Watcher Flex or Core Plans and have wondered
at some of the guidelines set forth by them. I have even known some
bloggers...ahem...who have wondered if some of the "rules" are arbitrary or even
self-serving in that they might promote certain WW products. But after reading the
following list, I'm ready to give them a pass on at least a couple of the guidelines. I subscribed to the Meatless Monday newsletter quite some time ago and have found it to be
a great source of current news on nutrition and a couple of new recipes each week. You can
go here to subscribe yourself: Meatless Monday

I have found myself making intelligent choices about what I eat in the last several days. Am I finally developing a sane attitude in my relationship with food? If so, I can think of nothing that has led to this. On Saturday, I went with a friend to The City to see the Chihuly exhibit at the
de Young museum. We lunched at the on-site restaurant. I had a grilled chicken sandwich and neither knifed off the guacamole on it nor counted points for the rest of the day. On Sunday, another points free day, Matt and I went to a new local restaurant that serves, according to their own description, "gourmet Indian and Nepalese Food." The naan was exceptional and I ate it freely. My entree was Kashmiri Pilau, a chicken dish from the Punjab which also included fresh spinach and an exceptional sauce that was seasoned with fenugreek, fennel, onions and garlic. I also ordered Basmati rice made with whole spices, garlic, cashew, almonds, raisins, and fried onions with coriander. This got mostly doggy bagged 'cause I was scarfing up on the naan instead. The progress report on my restaurant adventures is that neither of them led to later undisciplined eating. On Monday, Matt brought an extra bagel in case I wanted to eat it. That racked up my third point free and binge free day. I opted not to count points yesterday and my self discipline continued. I almost feel as if I've undergone hypnosis or had a surgical attitude transplant. I'm feeling as if I'm already at goal weight and, with an appropriate attitude and intelligent food decisions, I'm in the process of getting external reality to match mental image. I'll continue to go to Weight Watchers and will be looking at making food choices that are consistent with a modified Core plan.

The Arlene Collection:

I was going to post some of the photos I took of Dale Chihuly's fabulous glass work, but have already spent way way to much time at the computer. I would recommend going to his web site to see the spectacular pieces and compositions that he and his team have created. Since the de Young has not yet seen fit to offer me an exhibition, I am posting some pictures (best seen by clicking on them) of some glass fusing that I've done recently. Though they may look flat in the photos, all of them are bowls or plates. Glass fusing involves melting pieces of glass together in a kiln. It is a different form of glass art than glass blowing which is what Dale Chihuly does. In other words, Mr. Chihuly and I are not in competition.

An Exceptional Day:

I had one of those rare days yesterday when everything seems to go right and everyone seems to be going out of their way to be friendly. I don't know what constellations need to line up and what friendly spirits need to be holding what evil ones at bay for this to happen.

Among yesterday's errands was a Home Depot purchase of some plants. As I walked down the aisles with my coleus (coleuses?? coleii??) filled shopping cart, a passing woman glanced down at them and smiled. It was a private smile and, for a brief moment, I had the sense of it having weight. I experienced it gently dropping into my shopping cart. This made me happy and, as I write this, I find myself smiling.

Critters That Need Killing:

As anyone who has read this blog with any regularity knows, I am a critter lover. At this point, I even go out of my way (mostly) to put outdoors those foolish spiders who have chosen to make my home theirs. (Not your kind of spider, Spider, if you are reading this.)

Ants have fascinated me for a number of years. Fascination aside, they come as a gang ready to party. The only way to put my foot down on this, is to put my food down on them.

On Friday night, as I was making salad, I saw a dark object on the floor which, when I kicked it aside, dispersed into an ant scatter. The ants were too numerous to wipe out with some well-placed stomping and insecticide use seemed to be unwise given my current activity. I regretted causing the ants to scatter and considered how to get them to bunch up again. A small heap of sugar failed at this, but the honey that I followed it with had them coming from all corners to party. After which they drowned in the honey. After which (and after dinner) all hope of life for them was dashed with insecticide. After which, still fascinated by ants, I took these pictures (which are best seen by clicking on them to make it larger and therefore even more fascinating).