Princess Always Learning

A Phone Call

2010-04-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

I have been following the adventures of a reluctant activist, my college friend Janice. When her wife Lisa was dying in a Miami hospital in 2007, the hospital denied Janice and Janice and Lisa's children visitation because the hospital said they weren't Lisa's next of kin. Janice and the kids filed a suit against the hospital, which was recently dismissed because there's no law requiring respect for families in Florida, and Janice has since found herself behind podiums at LGBT events all over the country, speaking about equal rights.

Yesterday I was looking around www.npr.org and found this story:

April 15, 2010

President Obama is ordering hospitals to extend visitation rights to whomever a patient designates, including same-sex partners, tying the requirement to federal funding for Medicare and Medicaid.

"Gay and lesbian Americans are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they have spent decades of their lives -- unable to be there for the person they love," Obama said in a presidential memorandum.

The new visitation policy will apply to more than just same-sex partners. Under the order, patients can designate anyone -- a friend or a distant relative -- to be a surrogate decision-maker.

Hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding will be required to comply.

Gay and lesbian groups have been fighting for years to get hospital visitation rights, which vary by state.

"One person in a hospital can make a huge difference," said Dr. Jason Schneider, former president of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. "So I think this directive gives weight to the importance of recognizing the variety and the breadth of how people define families."

I emailed Janice and asked if she had heard about this - assuming that she had, but just in case she hadn't. This order, if it had existed three years ago, would have covered Janice and her family. This is the email I received back from Janice: "Oh yes dear. The president called me from air force one as he was issuing the memo."

I must admit that there is no part of that sentence that I do not find totally glamorous. But the really great news is that now the law is on the side of all kinds of families.

A Request or a Suggestion?

2010-04-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

A Beer And A Bump

2010-04-01T21:25:00.001-07:00

From Vesuvio's in North Beach, San Francisco

Regulation 21

2010-03-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

From the "Institution Rules & Regulations
US Penitentiary Alacatraz"

Muscle Memory

2010-03-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

I had my first workout with Marlon on Thursday, my first with him since late 2004 or maybe 2005. I walked in feeling very confident, knowing what I needed and having asked for it. I was clear about my goals, and Marlon is very goal-oriented, for himself and for his clients. I was already warmed up when I arrived, since I'd walked on the elliptical for 30 minutes back at my "home gym." Marlon was finishing up with his previous client so he said I should use the foam roller, a torture device by lying on which you can "massage" your own muscles.

I laid the side of my right leg on it and rolled and it hurt. I expected that and grit my teeth for a few rolls back and forth, then did the left side, which hurt even more. I expected that too - the left side is the damaged side from the wreck. I rolled that only a couple times. Then I did my usual stretches to kill the next few minutes until Marlon got to me.

Marlon placed the roller against my buttocks and had me lean back onto it to roll up and down my back. I rolled up (toward my shoulders) and then down, and Marlon said, "You look excited about working out." I said, "I feel scared" and burst into tears. Marlon sat in front of me, looked me in the eyes, and instead of saying "Everything is going to be okay," he said, "I'm scared too. It's been a long time since we worked together, and you've had this really traumatic thing happen to your body." Indeed, how I felt was that this burst of emotion was about the car wreck, unleashed first by the pressure on my IT band (the muscle that runs over the hip and down the outside of the leg), then on my low back, the parts of my body most impacted, in both senses of the word, by the car accident.

I thought about whether my outburst was due to outside reasons, like being tired, or being frustrated that my body isn't as strong now as it has been in the past. But I really think that it is because the body holds emotions of which we are not aware, and holds onto memory in a physical way. We say "muscle memory" to describe the unconscious way that once we've learned something, we just know how to do it without thinking about it - like swimming, or balancing on a bicycle, or the footwork in a dance step. I think that my left leg and low back hold the memory of the accident and fear about getting injured, and the pressure brought all that to the forefront suddenly and overwhelmingly.

Separate from that, the tears made me realize that when I see someone doing something stupid in a car, like cutting through lanes or merging aggressively or thoughtlessly, I do not immediately feel annoyance. My first feeling is fear and my first thought is, "You do not have my permission to hurt me." I often assume that they will merge into me, or that they can't or won't see the car I'm driving. It is why I am a much more cautious driver than I used to be: I do not believe that drivers are always conscious that their cars cannot be in the same place as my car.

Anyway, Marlon and I got through it. He reassured me that he would not let me hurt myself, and would teach me how not to hurt myself when we are not together. He knows me well enough to know that I have a tendency to run with what he teaches me with a little too much, how to put it?, enthusiasm.

Starting Again

2010-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have gone back to the personal trainer I worked with after the car wreck. There is a long backstory behind this, but it's not very interesting. Suffice to say that between not dancing and not going to the gym, my mind has been pretty disconnected from my body. I haven't been going to the gym not because I didn't want to, but because the last two times I did I threw my back out to some degree or another, even with low weights. My body knew I needed to get back to my trainer, but my mind didn't make the time to do it. A couple weeks ago I contacted him and asked if he would take me back. He, of course, said, "Yes, baby. When?"

What made me really examine the state my body is in was a massage I got at the chiropractor's office. I'd attended a two-hour lunch meeting and sat at a table with my arms folded. My shoulder was sore afterwards, but when it continued to hurt the next day I decided to actually get it massaged. My shoulder hurt during most of the holidays, and I figured it was stress exacerbated by the way I hold books, and I read a lot of books in November, December, and January. I started working on holding books in a different way, and then spent many hours watching the Olympics rather than reading. And then my shoulder was right back where it was after a two hour meeting!

I got a 30-minute deep tissue massage and I must admit that it really hurt at times. I could hear the muscle "crackle" at the MT was pushing it around with her elbow, could feel the huge mass wrapped around the shoulder blade. When I left, I felt really, really sad. I had spent so much time ignoring what I needed! Telling myself that I was paying attention now didn't make me feel much better - even though that's what I always say to people when they remark that they wished they'd known or done something earlier. I called Marlon a few days later.

We met on Monday for an assessment appointment - which consisted of me telling Marlon why I was there, and then doing many squats with my arms over my head. I told him that I am done throwing my back out, and I can't seem to complete workouts without doing it. The assessment told him that the muscles that support my back are weak and that most of the muscles in my body are really tight, and that we could work on all of that. My attitude about training has always been "Bring it on"; I recognize that there's a macho thing at work in my head, but it gets the job done. It's really different for me having someone who acts like they really want me to succeed at things I think I'm not good at.

Tuesday night I came up with my own list of goals. Here they are in order of importance:

Strengthen core and glute muscles
-core strength
- support my back
- improve one-legged balance

Lift up to 40 pounds
- increase muscle strength in arms, chest, and upper back
- increase leg strength

Super-long term goals
- not throw my back out anymore
- grace and strength in dancing
- strong bones when elderly

I really like Marlon, and I think it's always good to have a friend or two who isn't much like me. We make each other laugh a lot, which makes it easier to work with him. And like I said, the macho thing helps with my attitude. I feel like I walked in to his gym with confidence, and making this list makes me feel even more confident: I have clear goals, which makes me feel more confident about reaching them.

For The YaYas

2010-03-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Dancing Now

2010-02-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

Dancing Then

2010-02-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

Seven Years On

2010-02-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

From the night of my bachelorette party.

Self Care

2010-02-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Before I first started working at Harry's Mother, my first social-work job, one of the questions in the interview was, "How do you take care of yourself?" I'd never been asked that before, and I was young and hadn't really thought about how the environment and the people around me could affect my emotional state. So I pulled my answer out of the air: "Spend time with friends and talk; eat; read books; and get enough sleep." My prospective boss didn't correct my answer - in fact, she probably wanted me to think about it ahead of time, rather than there being a right answer, and this is what I've been using as my standard prescription for self-care, when asked.

Over the last couple of days I have been having experiences that have made me aware that I don't do good self care when I'm in the moment. I am getting better about just removing myself from the situation where people around me are irritating me at work, whether it's their fault or mine. I find work to do in the back room if it's a client, or I walk out the door and either walk up the street or hang out in the back lot if it's a volunteer.

What I don't do well is think about how I can make a bad situation better for myself if I can't remove myself, or, which happens more often, I forget that I can. This usually happens when I feel like I am in charge. I usually forget that I can often turn things over to someone else. Last night I didn't think I would be able to effectively facilitate the group, and it never occurred to me to call another facilitator and ask if she was available to come and do it instead. Though this is probably because my experience is that I'm the only one who says "yes" to last minute substitutions, which in itself is something for me to think about.

Maybe now that I recognize this I will be able to catch myself in it, though honestly I doubt it, mostly because I think I've realized this before - it feels very familiar.

I have definitely been having "Always Learning" experiences this week. Sigh.

The Truth

2010-02-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

Life in general is puzzling all the freaking time.
We just learn a poker face.

- Shobi-wan

Defined By How We Treat Others

2010-02-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

Here is an exchange of emails between me and my former high school homeroom teacher, who also taught PE. I wound up sending the email by snail mail via the Wallenberg Community Foundation.

This post is also in honor of any teachers who read this. You never know what your students are learning from you.

Hi Mr. N,

About two months ago I met another Wallenberg grad. I don't know when she graduated and she could be anywhere from 15 to 5 years younger than I (but probably around ten, though really, it's hard to tell). I don't remember her name, either, at this point.

I was telling this story about you that I sometimes tell, in which I mentioned "you by your nickname At the end of the story she asked if I'd gone to Wallenberg, and it turned out that she figured that out because I had used your nickname. My impression is that she had had you for class (as opposed to homeroom). So I've been thinking about that story and I thought perhaps I should ask you about this.

When I was in 10th grade, during the "family life" unit in PE, you brought in a panel of people from an LGB organization. I think there were three or four people, there to talk about being gay or bisexual. I think they answered questions. I don't exactly remember.

In retrospect, I think this was a pretty bold thing for you to have done. Were there even "opt out" forms in those days? Was there a lot of blowback from parents? Did you ever bring in a panel like that again?

What kills me though is to think that you had gone to all of this effort to bring these people in, and they had gone to all of the effort to come in and speak to a bunch of teenagers who may or may not have been interested, and I didn't "get it." Five years later I figured out that I wasn't straight, and it shocks me to this day that I didn't start thinking about it that afternoon. Of course, it was a different time, I may have been particularly clueless, and blah blah blah.

Though I wasn't ready or able to hear their message (other than that of tolerance, which was an easy sell for me), I wanted to thank you for bringing in that panel all those years ago.

Thanks.

Samatakah

Here is his reply, which he signed with his first name. I was not in the class he describes below; I had PE during first period that year.


Thanks so very much for the very touching note you sent.  How nice to be remembered.  You have no idea how much notes like yours are appreciated.  You don't get much feedback in teaching and it's nice to know that someone remembers you from time to time. 

I DO remember that class very vividly.  It was part of the Family Life curriculum and the group I brought in was from a district approved speakers bureau.  We HAD sent out permission slips and everyone, or their parents had the option to "opt out."  No one did. 

What I do remember was that of all the topics we covered in that six-week unit, it was the only one in which parents opted to come to.  I don't know if you were in the class that exploded, but, as I recall, it happened during the last class of the day.  

Once the speakers were finished, there was a question and answer period (you have a good memory!).  I'll never forget, G__ C__ asked the million-dollar question: How do gays "do it"?  The answer that was given was a "no holds barred" type of answer, and from then on, no question was off limits. 

Finally, at the end of the class, one of the parents (who shall remain nameless) asked me and [another teacher] why these people were here and what was the purpose of all this explicit discussion.  I meekly tried to explain that the speakers were part of an approved group of presenters and that everyone, including the principal, the parents, and the students knew for weeks exactly who these speakers were and why they were there.  Then, much to my sheer relief, S__ A__ jumped up and started screaming at the parents that we, the students, had every right to hear what these folks were saying.  That it was parents like them that were trying to hide things from us.  With that, the place exploded in support of S__, led, I think, by L__ P__.  There was chaos for what seemed like forever, but the bell finally rang and everyone left. 

Well, I was called into the [principal's] office and he said the district office had called.  He asked me what had taken place.  I told him everything from start to finish.  All he asked me was if I had provided permission slips.  When I told him I had, he said he's take care of everything - and he did.  But I'll tell you, for several weeks I was very cautious about answering the phone and opening my mail  I thought for sure I was going to be called downtown for some sort of reprimand (or worse).  But the more I thought about it, I was more and more convinced I had done the right thing. 

The whole purpose was to try to get across to kids that there were/are alternative life-styles out there and that no one should be ashamed of who they are or what sexual preferences they may have.  I wanted them to know that there are many others out there just like them and that they are not "odd."  It makes me so happy to know that for someone like you, this class may have helped you discover yourself and who you are.  We are not defined by our sexual preference, our work, or who we happened to be with.  I believe we are defined by how we treat others. 

So, thanks for the kind words.

Usable Art

2010-01-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

Though Phil passed away a long time ago, I have found it so difficult to purchase mugs that look like the ones he made I haven't bought any. I have looked at mugs, bowls, and plates, admired them, picked them up to rub my fingers on the cool glazes, and then put them down and walked away.

Phil specifically made this mug for me one night after we'd been in the original Starbucks in Pike Place during our sophomore year. This was before lidded mugs were ubiquitous, if even invented, and I had admired a mug with a wide bottom and a narrow mouth. I imagined that I would be able to walk to class with a full cup of tea (it was also before I started drinking coffee).

Phil didn't like the way this green-brown-blue mug had come out, but I asked if I could have it and he said yes. For a long time this was my go-to mug in the morning if I wasn't going anywhere, while the long-necked one was what I took to class. It was much easier to clean than the other one, too. Then lidded mugs appeared on the scene, I got out of school and was driving to work, and the long-necked mug lived at home.

Yesterday morning I went to the Farmers' Market and there was a new vendor. He apparently comes to the Hayward FM once a month to sell his ceramics. He comes with pieces, but he also takes orders for specific pieces and colors.

Maybe because Marko and his family are in town this weekend (and I saw them later yesterday) I really felt like I would jump in and buy something. The potter, Scott, was very talkative and he and I talked for awhile about firing, glazes, and selling his usable art. Some people arrived to pick up pieces they had ordered. While they were talking, as I have in the past, I looked at mugs, bowls, plates, and casserole dishes, and picked them up to rub my fingers on the cool glazes. I found myself having a strong emotional reaction to even considering buying something that looked similar to the things Phil used to make.

Eventually I did.

The Dynamic Duo and the Demi-Dynamic Duo

2010-01-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

No's best friend and business partner Paulo turned forty this week. No and Paulo are five months apart, as are their sons.

Everyone believes that Zaye and Little C will be friends since their dads are friends. No and Paulo have been friends since eighth grade, when Paulo started at the school No was attending. And even though Paulo and I went to the same high school, sometimes I forget that Paulo didn't go to high school with No and their crowd from middle school, many of whom they are still friends with.

At the party someone remarked that maybe Little C and Zaye would celebrate their 40th birthdays together too. Someone else remarked that when the boys are 40, No and Paulo will be 80. No almost physically jumped back at the thought.

This Is A Song

2010-01-17T19:10:00.000-08:00

When No and I were young, among the books Mom read to us was Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown (the author of the much more famous Goodnight Moon). The story focuses on the little fur child, who spends the day hanging out in the wild wood where the family lives, meeting creatures that fly and swim and an even smaller little fur person. At the end of the book, the little fur parents sing a going-to-bed song to the little fur child.

This is my favorite illustration, all by Garth Williams, in the book, though there are many that I really like. I can imagine the little fur father singing in a big voice as if he is singing in a chorus, while the little fur mother sings more quietly to help put her child to sleep.

In truth, though, I probably like this one best because when we got to the end of the book, Mom would sing us the song. At the end, the last line of which is"This is a song," she added her own lyrics to teach us some baby music theory: "with whole notes and half notes and quarter notes and eighth notes." At some point we asked her to write in her lyrics because a babysitter didn't sing the last part when we taught her the tune.

When JayBear came into my life, I gave him a copy and taught the tune to Miz Jinkins, including the last, apocryphal, verse. He so associates the song with bedtime that I don't get to sing it when we're together because it makes him think it's time to go to sleep, and he doesn't want to go to bed when Zirpu and I are over to play.

Some years ago I found the copy of Little Fur Family that Mom used to read to No and me. Last Wednesday evening after work I was going to meet No, KT, Zaye, and Mom, and I remembered I'd wanted to give to the little book to Zaye when Mom was present. I snatched it out of the bookshelf just before I left that morning.

No smiled and Mom exclaimed, "Is this THE book?!" as she opened it to the last page. KT giggled. As usual, Zaye looked all around at the lights and the people in the restaurant. I'm really glad I saved the book for him, without even knowing who or when he was going to be, all that time ago...

New Van

2010-01-09T20:40:00.001-08:00

Two years ago I asked the Food Bank Director for a new food bank building for my birthday, and it arrived - a few weeks late, but better late than never.

The food bank received a grant to purchase a new pick-up/delivery van, so this year I asked for a new van for Christmas. I got one! The Jedi Master went online, looked all over the state, and quickly found one not too far away - a new 2008 Dodge Sprinter that had been sitting on the lot since the economy fell apart 15 months ago and no one has been buying new equipment. Facing Jedi mind tricks, the salesman agreed to sell the van at a used price.

I got to drive it yesterday. I have driven a few large vehicles at my various jobs, mostly passenger vans, and this is the biggest thing I've driven. I did drive a 14-passenger van for a couple days about 15 years ago, which is as big as you can go without a commercial or bus driver's license. Anyway, the Sprinter is easy to drive - heavy, but easy. And with electric mirror adjusters, easier to see out of than the old van is (though still not visibility in the back, of course).

The FBD is very excited that even he, at six feet tall, can stand up in the back. I am too!

Thanks to Bink

2009-12-31T10:15:00.000-08:00

During my sophomore year in college I usually carried a steno notebook around with me. This was surely because of the influence of the writing classes I was taking, in which we were encouraged over and over to "write what you know" and the nature of the acting training we were getting in the theater department. I wrote down random thoughts and my friends did too. Sometimes people would draw pictures in it (but not me, usually, as I was - and am - more comfortable with words).

Before the era of the coffeehouse, there was really only one place to go in Tacoma if you were under 21, and that was Denny's. My friends and I spent a lot of time there, sometimes with our books and notes, but usually eating fries and cake and drinking sodas and talking and teasing each other. In that period when I was bringing along my little notebook, Bink and I went up there one night. I was wearing a blue denim skirt with buttons up the front that I really liked, and somehow we wound up talking about it.

The Family

2009-12-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Shel was my father's best friend and he had a speedboat when we kids were small. I had forgotten until he sent me these pictures from 1972. Then I remembered the whole thing, zipping around on San Francisco Bay, the wind too strong on my face.

The Family Additions

2009-12-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

No and KT are sending this photo of Zaye as their greetings card this year. A friend of KT's is a photographer and took a set of photos for the family. This is one (though a not very good copy since I scanned it off of the card).

The card says it's from "The K Family - No, KT, and Zaye. " My eye keeps coming to that part of the card. For years the K Family was me, Mom, and No. To see something referring to the family not including me or Mom looks really really strange to me. I remarked on this to No, and he got it, but KT totally didn't.

Now, my sister-in-law is one of the most generous spirits anyone could ever meet. She said, "Of course you're part of the K family! You're Auntie!" No and I laughed and I tried to explain that the K family was me, Mom, and Noah for so many years, that to see someone else listed as the family looks odd. I didn't want to say the word "interlopers" but that's what I was thinking, even at the same time thinking of course they are the K family too. KT still didn't understand - she seemed to think I was saying that I felt excluded because she and Zaye were listed with No.

Finally No told KT that she and Zaye are newcomers and it seems really strange to have newcomers calling themselves "the K family." I said, "Yeah, how can people who weren't around in the 70's be 'The K Family'?" Finally KT understood, and she laughed with us.

Review

2009-12-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

Well, my friends, I did what I wanted to in November with the blog: Tell stories from my (or other people's) life. I had aimed to do it every day, but you know, I work in a food bank and life intervened. The choice was to write three or four posts on the weekend, when I actually had time and brain cells to do it, and then post them dated as if I'd written them each day. Not only did I not have the brain cells to write three or four stories, but I ran out of stories. I'm realizing that most of the good, long stories I have left are not ones I wish to post on the internet, embarrassing myself or, more importantly, embarrassing others.

Maybe I've relaxed my standards or just gotten lazy. Maybe I am more realistic about what I can and wish to accomplish in a day. Maybe I am more tuned into what my body needs and wants. Maybe I'm getting over feeling guilt for small things. This year I don't feel badly about not completing National Blog Posting Month, which I have done the last two years. I read Boegle's post on why she didn't finish NaBloPoMo and it resonated: Like her, I've been so engaged in others that I haven't been connected to the blog. And frankly, those of you who know me in real life know that I will always choose connecting to people over pretty much anything else. If I am not, that is a signal to me that something is wrong.

I was going to ditch Princess Always Learning at the end of the year, but Zirpu asked me why I would do that. I can go back to the random stuff I'm experiencing or thinking about, which is how a lot of people use their blogs or LJs. I thought that I would just close up shop since I am out of stories I wish to post, but I think I won't.

Attittude of Gratitude

2009-11-27T14:13:00.001-08:00

This past Tuesday marked my third year of involvement with the Alameda Food Bank. My first volunteering gig was helping to hand out turkeys on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in the old trailer. Shortly after I arrived a Board member arrived with his son to assist - and it turned out that I knew this Board member from my previous life in financial aid!

So it is three years later and the food bank has been booming. We're serving half again as many clients as we were three years ago. Now a supervisor, I have recruited and trained (or, frankly, had other train) hundreds of volunteers, some of whom have come and gone, some of whom have come and are still working with me. I have managed the food bank through my colleague's parental leave; I have "shopped" at the Alameda County Community Food Bank; and picked up gleanings from the farmers' market, Trader Joe's, and Safeway. I have helped redesign the way we give out turkeys. I have attended Board meetings, and I have driven the forklift. I have counseled completed many, many intakes, and counseled families on local services. I've done a little college financial aid counseling. I have become good friends with my colleague and his family, and so has Zirpu.

I've been thinking about what was going on for me when I started at the food bank. I was really, really depressed, and didn't consciously know it. I had thought I was on the career track for life, figuring out what my next steps would be in the state association. When I left my last financial aid job, though it was my choice, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I had lost my identity as a professional, work I was proud of. Suddenly I was not doing it anymore, and was unable to pick up where I left off and look for a new gig immediately.

When people ask me how I got involved in the Alameda Food Bank, when I tell the story I always include that the AFB saved my life. Thinking about how miserable I was when I started, I especially realize how happy I am now. I recognize the sadness and the happiness in other people who have become volunteers. We do a lot more than give away food; we are all recipients of something at the food bank.

** If you're interested, please assist your local food bank by going to Feeding America, formerly America's Second Harvest, to find out how to help people in your community.

A Visit From The Past

2009-11-25T07:04:00.000-08:00

Jujubi gave me my first matryoshka (nesting) doll as a birthday gift. I have ten sets, all but one with at least five dolls, including one that is the size of a seed. Most of them have a lot of detail and glitter and gold flake, but one of them does not. She is not a spectacular, fancy doll, like the others that stand over the fireplace. There are just three dolls total in this matryoshka.

I bought her while we were in Alaska, because of the label on the bottom.

Freshman Falling Out

2009-11-22T12:22:00.000-08:00

In the fall of my freshman year at college, I was assigned a roommate by the university's Residential Life Office. The books I'd read that took place at boarding schools or colleges had always shown that roommates were friends, and of course I was hopeful (actually, anxious) that my roomie and I would be friends as well. On paper, we matched pretty well. I had chosen a college far away from home which no one else I knew had heard of, let alone attended.

Things did not start out very well. I n retrospect, I think I bore a lot of responsibility for this. Because I was anxious I was more arrogant than usual. I remember specifically showing off that I was from a big city, saying that Tacoma was a small town (which it wasn't). This could not have impressed my roommate, who was from a bona fide small town in eastern Washington.

Our room was split in half, closet-bureau-desk-bed in a row on each side. Other people in our dorm freed up space by bunking their beds, but we didn't even consider it. Over her bed, she had a very current Wang Chung poster; over mine, there was a tattered American flag with 48 stars, with a chain hanging across it.

She had a job as a lifeguard and was out in the afternoons and evenings when I was home studying. I was out in the evenings and late nights goofing around with Denver D, Phil, Mrs. P, Bink, Jujubi, Spudwhip, and Tripp when she was at home. I only remember one conversation between my roommate and me, when I asked her was a "suite" was. I had been listening to Suite Judy Blue Eyes and she was enrolled in a music theory class. She told me, and that was the end of that conversation.

The big showdown happened toward the end of the semester. Phil and I had been hanging out at the Ceramics Building, and as usual I returned to the dorm after midnight. A bad feature of the doors in my dorm was that if the doors were locked from the inside they could not be unlocked from the outside with a key. I knocked on the door, first quietly and with relatively long pauses between knocks, and then louder and more constant. There was no response from inside, and I knew my roommate was home because if she hadn't been, if the door had been locked from the outside, I would have been able to get in.

Ultimately I went back outside, to the phone by the front doors that people used to call residents. I dialed our phone number and the phone rang and rang. I was really angry that my roommate was treating me this way, at the same time that I was puzzled about why she hated me so much. It also seemed to me that by not immediately letting me in, she was choosing to be kept awake by listening to me pounding on the door and calling. Eventually she answered the phone and I asked her politely to unlock the door because I was unable to get in to our room.

I moved out at the semester break.

Double Ten

2009-11-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

On October 10, 2001, I was driving home on highway 13. I was almost at my exit so I stayed in the right lane. A white van was merging on the right, and I slowed down a little to give the driver space to speed up and merge over at the end of the solid white line. The van merged into my lane across the solid white lane, and I simultaneously turned the wheel, hit the brakes, and hit the horn.

Before I knew it (literally!) my car was against the center wall separating northbound traffic from southbound. My first reaction was to get out of the car, but as soon as I unbuckled my seatbelt I realized that I was on a part of the highway that doesn't have a shoulder on the left. I put the seatbelt back on and eventually got over to the right shoulder.

I got out and tried to wave down some help. Wouldn't you know it but my cell phone was dead and the batteries in my car flashlight were dying. Half a dozen cars went past, and finally one pulled over. I asked him to give me a ride to my house, since I couldn't call anyone and the only number I could remember in the moment was my mom's and she was out of town.

The guy who gave me a ride home lived on a cul de sac called Virgo Street a couple blocks from my house, so at least I didn't have to give him directions. When I got home I called Triple A and then I called Zirpu, who agreed to come up and hang out with me overnight. The tow truck driver arrived shortly after Zirpu, and the three of us went back down to the highway to get the car. In the seemingly short time since I'd left it, CHP had stickered the window with their cryptic code.

While I was signing the paperwork for the tow truck, I complained that Double Ten is supposed to be an auspicious and lucky day. The driver remarked, slowly, "Maybe it was."

The Tracy Exchange

2009-11-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

Mick Squirrely flies airplanes, small private aircraft with two or four seats. When we were dating, a few times we went to a private airport and picked out a plane. One time we went up and Mick just flew us around and over San Jose and the east bay region; I didn't recognize anything we flew over but it was fun. We weren't that high in the air so I could see people's backyards, and whether they had a swimming pool or a swingset or not. Showing me how slow a plane could go and not drop out of the sky, Mick brought the speed down to 40 mph, at which point I got nervous and told him to go faster.

This was way before I was afraid of flying.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve 2000 Mick and I were hanging out at his parents' house when his mother realized that she had forgotten to mail a gift to the child of one of Mick's cousins, who lived in Tracy. She became pretty agitated about not getting the gift to the little girl, and looked to Mick to solve the problem. I was not enthusiastic about driving out to Tracy and back on Christmas Eve, which I figured would take at least three hours.

Mick looked at me and suggested we fly out there. When going over the hills that line the eastern side of the bay area it got bumpy. Only one set of headphones worked in that plane so I looked out the window while the engine roared. We landed at the airport in Tracy, which was deserted and dark, except for the runway lights. No one was flying or getting ready for takeoff when we got there, which was good because there were no air traffic controllers either.

We jumped down from the plane and started walking toward what would be called a terminal in a larger airport. The gate to the airport was locked, and Mick's cousin's car was parked next to the ten-foot fence. We watched as his cousin climbed over the fence and walked toward us. The cousin took the proffered gift bag and climbed back over the fence while we returned to the plane. I don't remember anyone speaking, though we must have exchanged a "Merry Christmas," and I'm sure Mick introduced me. We flew back to San Jose, and I felt like we were spies in a Cold War movie who had met our contact to pass on the microfilm.

Word Games

2009-11-17T21:42:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid and on car trips with other kids, like to Tahoe or to swim lessons in Redwood City, we played a bunch of word games. We never played Twenty Questions or I Spy. I'm not sure I even know how to play I Spy - unless it is as obvious as it sounds. I loved word games. Since I read so much, I often felt I had an advantage (and later was a Trivial Pursuit ringer).

One of the games we played, which I think we made up, was a game in which the group would pick a category and take turns. Each person had to start their word with the last letter of the previous word. The most boring category was states, because once you got on the A states, you were stuck in the A's until someone came up with Arkansas - and then the only places to go were South Carolina and South Dakota, which took you back to the A's.

My favorite one was Concentration. I could have played this game all the way up to Tahoe, if my friends hadn't gotten bored. You probably know this game: You smack your lap with your hands first, then clap your hands together, then snap the fingers on your right hand, and then on your left hand.

Con-cen-tra-tion
Concentration, aggravation
Keep the rhythm
Keep the rhythm of the game

We also looked for out-of-state license plates, which we hardly ever saw until we got up to Tahoe. We figured this was because we lived in such a large state so the borders were far away. We were actually kind of proud of the size of our state, and even as young as we were knew that while California wasn't as large as Texas and Alaska, our state had more residents, and therefore more representatives in Congress, than any other state.

But my favorite was Concentration.

The Gift of a Day

2009-11-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

A and S got married in the summer of 1995. They were going to have a small ceremony on a historic apple orchard run by A's employer, the Oregon Historical Society, and several of their friends, including Shobi-wan and I (who were no longer living together by then), helped with the food and other wedding details.

My wedding gift to them was to host the rehearsal dinner. A lot of the guests were coming from out of town, so I think there were 20 people invited to the dinner. My housemate and her dog were away for the summer, and in the meantime I was taking care (read: watering) the garden of peas and poppies, grass, and trees. The front yard would make a great party area.

I scheduled the day to almost the last minute, since it was going to be a very busy one. There was a staff meeting scheduled at my job at Coffee People. Staff meetings were scheduled before opening and after close, so I attended the AM staff meeting, which was at 5:30. While I would usually feel at least annoyed about having to be somewhere that early in the morning, it happened that being out and about at that time of day was going to give me a nice, long day to get everything done.

My plan was to go to the Canned Food Outlet after the staff meeting, which ended about 20 minutes before the canned food store opened. I sat at a table and drank an additional latte, thinking that this was going to be my last opportunity to sit and relax until late in the day. I hit the store and returned home by 730, turning on the sprinkler so the grass would be dry by the time of the party that afternoon. I washed dishes and cleaned the house, and then turned the sprinkler off and put it away.

I had already prepared Romanian Marinated Mushrooms from the Sundays At Moosewood cookbook, which was going to be both the vegetable and the dressing for a spinach salad. I made three lasagnes, one white and vegetarian, one vegetarian red, and one red with meat. The Florentine lasagne was from a recipe of Phil's mom's, who was moving toward a vegetarian diet, and the red ones were Jujubi's recipe doubled and split in half, with ground beef added to one of the halves.

It was only after I had made the third lasagne that I realized that I hadn't thought about baking them. I couldn't fit three lasagnes in the oven! And yet I didn't want to bake them in two batches, since it would take so long that the one baked first would be cold by the time the other two came out of the oven. This was a big hiccup in my otherwise perfectly-planned day. I barely knew my neighbors, but I was familiar with the little boy who lived next door, and his mother baked the white lasagne for me. She even brought it back to the house when it was done.

A, S, and Shobi-wan (who was the best woman) arrived about 90 minutes before the party was supposed to start. As soon as they arrived, I drove out to the airport to pick up my mom, as she was attending the wedding as well. Upon returning I took a quick shower and changed clothes, and while I set the banquet table Shobi-wan and the maid of honor laid out picnic blankets on the grass.

I had never hosted a dinner party by myself before, and that the timing worked out so perfectly, from the dried grass to the hot lasagne, made me particularly proud of myself.

The First Movie I Was In

2009-11-15T18:51:00.001-08:00

When I was a senior in high school, a friend of mine was taking a filmmaking class at SF State. He asked me and another friend if we would be in the movie he had to make for a class project, and of course we said yes. He promised to show us the film when it was finished and graded by the instructor at the university.

It took us only one day to shoot the movie, on 16mm film. It was a silent film about a young woman, played by me, dreaming - or not dreaming - about being in the '60's. I pulled my mom's Marimekko blue and white dress out of the closet, and our other friend showed up in what he usually wore, blue jeans and a denim jacket. I imagine other people were in the movie too, but I had such a crush on the other guy in the movie with me that I don't remember.

The filmmaker set up lights in my bedroom while I put on some pajamas. We had reset my clock to show 10pm and put a 49ers calendar on the wall next to the clock. Then I got into bed and pretended to sleep while the filmmaker pointed the camera at me.

After that part of the film was shot, we went to the big room downstairs and this time I changed into the blue dress and tied a bandanna around my head while the lights were set up again. My other friend rolled oregano (really) into Zig-Zag papers and we put the Rolling Stones on the record player. Then we sat on the floor and "smoked" the oregano joints while the filmmaker filmed us talking - which was, for lack of any need for a script, about all the clues to Paul's death.

We went back up to my room, I put my pajamas back on and got back into bed. The filmmaker filmed me waking up and smacking the alarm clock, and then quickly checking the 49ers calendar to see if it reflected the present, 1985, which it did. I mimed relief by rubbing my eyes and jumped out of bed. The filmmaker shot a close-up of the bandanna on the pillow.

We never did see that movie.

Faith Fishbowl

2009-11-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

In September of 2001 I was working at Saint Mary's College, a small residential college. Zirpu called me on the morning of the 11th to tell me to turn on the TV; I watched images on the only station I could receive at the house and listened to NPR simultaneously. I continued to listen to the radio during my bucolic drive through county parks to get to work. I specifically remember Bob Edwards saying there had been a plane crash in Pennsylvania that, it was believed, had nothing to do with the World Trade Center planes.

Of course, once at the university, there was not a lot of work going on, for anyone. People hung out in each other's offices, talking, listening to online news broadcasts, trying to check CNN's website, which was crashing all day, for news updates. Everyone made and received "How are you? I'm just checking in" calls. Very few calls came in regarding financial aid, and I couldn't really concentrate on processing loans that day. I spent a lot of time looking out the window and listening to NPR online.

The college, which is Catholic and at that time had a lot of practicing Catholics in the student body, scrambled to put something together for the students to take comfort in. Directors of departments had been instructed to allow staff to attend, if any staff member wished to do so. Mass was held in the chapel, followed by a less-formal gathering in the courtyard in front. I attended part of this second event, which included the recitation of the Kaddish and of the Hail Mary.

After awhile I went back to my office to continue looking out the window. The field across from my office was green even in September - the college's intramural rugby teams played there - and the sky was blue, without any clouds. I felt like the faith of the youth in the courtyard had created a dome over the college, which is in a natural bowl, and that their god was looking over us all - even those of us who didn't believe.

The Ultimate Cookie

2009-11-12T21:06:00.001-08:00

The summer before my senior year in high school, I worked at a cookie store on Haight Street that was in a former bank (and that is now a clothing store). This was in the '80s when Mrs. Field's were everywhere, the snack food of the times. It was late summer when I started, and I expected to have a pretty light senior year - not to mention that we got out of school around 2:30 anyway, and said so in the interview. I was hired despite the fact that the manager, as she told me, didn't usually hire teenagers because we were unreliable.

I worked a couple days a week as a baker in the back of the shop with two other people. The dough came in tubs and we scooped it out with ice cream dishers onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. After baking and cooling, we wrapped most of the cookies in paper and boxes to be delivered elsewhere. The back room was the "wholesale operation."

There was a "retail operation" in the front of the shop, and the cookies to be sold in-house were slightly larger than those packed for delivery. I worked behind the counter on Sunday evenings, playing the Dr. Demento Show on the radio and goofing around with my coworkers. There were two of them, both of whom I thought were at least ten years older than I (but I was only 16 that summer), and one was older than the other.

Hanging out with them was confusing. Sometimes it felt like they were both "kind of" flirting with me and that they were in competition for my attention. I wasn't used to this sort of attention being paid to me and I didn't really know what to think about it. I was flattered, but I wasn't attracted to either of them - and the fact that both of them were way off limits (since I was 16) did not make them more attractive either. It was exciting, though.

When school started the guys started making plans to be my senior prom date. First one, then the other, both in full hearing of each other, would talk about going out to dinner, renting a limo, and all that prom stuff. Eventually they agreed they would both escort me to the prom, and that the African-American guy would wear a white tuxedo and the white guy would wear a black one. It was totally silly, and yet it was fun to imagine people's reactions to my a) showing up with two dates who b) no one knew.

I quit about a month into the fall semester. I had found myself in three AP classes, and wasn't really interested in working at the cookie store anymore. When I gave my notice, the manager said that she had never really expected anything else, and that she had been planning to fire me anyway. I never even went into that cookie store again after that.

I went to the prom with a friend who had graduated the year before. He wore a black tuxedo.

From A Meatloaf-Deprived Childhood

2009-11-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

Mom didn't make meatloaf very often - thank goodness. I ate pretty much everything when I was a kid, and No did too. But the meatloaf was thick and tough and pretty boring, as far as flavor went, and even though I didn't like ketchup very much when I was a kid, I often poured a lot of the stuff on my slice. I realized later that Mom made meatloaf the way she made hamburgers, which would make sense: Mom makes the best hamburgers of anyone. But take an enormous burger and put it in a casserole dish, and allow it to bake in its own grease, and it's not a very good hamburger anymore.

I thought Mom made the worst meatloaf in the world until I had Denver D's mom's meatloaf. Phil and I were dropping Denver D off in Denver on our way to Colorado Springs, having driven from Tacoma. His folks had already eaten, but we were offered some leftovers to make the last 90 minutes of our two-day drive. Phil had had food poisoning the whole trip, so he got chicken broth, and Denver D and I got meatloaf.

His mom's meatloaf was like a piece of plywood in consistency and color. It was the kind of food that you have to drink some water after very bite to get it to slide down your throat. I remembered the ketchup trick from my childhood, and went to the fridge to get some. They had no ketchup! They did have some barbecue sauce, and I poured it all over my slice of meatloaf. I never remember the brand, but I always recognize the bottle in the grocery store, and am loyal to it because it made that meatloaf edible.

I did not eat anyone's meatloaf for years after that. When I was working at the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center in Berkeley, a place for homeless women with children to hang out during the day when the overnight shelters were closed, it happened that there were clients who were fantastic cooks. Each morning a few clients would volunteer to cook lunch for everyone, and I would hang out in the kitchen sometimes and watch. I told a couple of them that I came from a meatloaf-deprived background; while I knew from books that meatloaf could be good, my mom and my mother-out-law made terrible meatloaf and I hadn't had anyone who could teach me by positive example how to make it.

They laughed and bid me watch while they made a couple big meatloaves with ground beef, oatmeal, eggs, sauteed onions and peppers, grated cheese, ketchup, and seasonings. They formed the meat into loaves and placed them on cookie trays - not casseroles, much to my surprise: You cook bread in loaf pans, so I figured you had to cook meatloaf in loaf pans too. It was explained to me that this way the grease runs off and doesn't poach the meat, so you get a nice crust. At some point one of them pulled the trays out and, using a spoon, painted the loaves with ketchup.

Needless to say, this was the only meatloaf I had ever had that I liked. Eventually I got around to making my own, following their example exactly. I collected meatloaf recipes for awhile, but I've gotten enough practice that I make it different ways depending on what vegetables are in the fridge, if and how much cheese we have, and usually with ground turkey and pork sausage.

The Family Falls Out

2009-11-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

I met Zirpu in July of 2001, and the following June we went to Houston for his grandmother's 95th birthday. His grandmother lived with his mother and stepfather, and his dad, stepmother, sister and her boyfriend (now husband), and brother, sister in law, and nephew were all going to be there for the party. I knew that this was THE MEET, but I wasn't particularly nervous about meeting his family. I think he might have been more nervous, in fact.

When Zirpu introduced me to Nana, he spoke very loudly and in his full-on Texas accent, which he doesn't use most of the time, into her hearing aid. He told to me later that with her hearing being what it was, he wanted to use the voice Nana was used to hearing, but by then he'd been back in his accent all afternoon and evening, whoever he was speaking to.

We were all sitting at the table and Nana was having a hard time understanding what was going on. Her hearing aid wasn't working properly, and we could all hear it whistling feedback. Sissy's husband wears hearing aids and he was joking with Nana that the whistles were messages from the aliens that only he and she could receive. Nana continued to complain that she either couldn't hear anything or could only hear the whistles.

Suddenly, she cried, "These batteries are deader than HECK!" The whole family laughed and laughed. Zirpu had tears in his eyes; his mother almost laughed herself out of her chair. People were banging the table with their hands, holding their sides, laughing and laughing. Nana was giggling merrily with everyone else.I thought it was funny too, but I thought the family's reaction was kind of extreme.

Once he caught his breath, Zirpu explained into my ear that his grandmother had been married to a preacher and was a very proper lady. None of them had ever heard her use a such a strong word as "heck" before.

Our First Apartment

2009-11-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

Zirpu and I decided to move to Hayward when we moved in together. Hayward was the midpoint of where each of us was working at the time; other than noting its location on my way to his place in Mountain View, I didn't know anything about Hayward.

We found a big yellow apartment complex tucked in on a side street near the Alameda County Courthouse. The two-bedroom apartment was on the third floor, with a tiny dining room and a little balcony, but an enormous master bedroom with a walk-in closet and two-sink bathroom. The complex had a swimming pool and hot tub. It was very close to train tracks, which we didn't realize were quite as "live" as they turned out to be when we moved in: Trains went by four times a day, at two AM, ten AM, two PM and ten PM.

HR and JR came down with Aitch while we were still getting settled. This is one of my favorite pictures of Aitch:
This is not a picture of two boxes. This is a picture of a little boy in a boat on the sea.**

**If you don't understand, read Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

One Reason People Dislike Mimes

2009-11-09T07:13:00.000-08:00

In the spring of our freshman year, Spudwhip and I went through a little phase of being mimes. One afternoon after classes, we put on our mime get-up and wandered around campus, goofing with people. Then we decided to go out into the real world - read: off-campus - and goof with people out there. Our plan, actually, was to go to the bank in downtown Tacoma where our friend worked as a teller and mess with him. Denver D must have agreed to drive us, since he had a vehicle and we didn't.

Just before we walked into the bank, we ran into a staff person we knew from the university, who kindly put up with our antics (while Denver D took pictures. Inside the bank, we did not immediately see our friend. His bank had a fiberglass barrier between the tellers and the customers, which I had not seen before.

Needless to say we did not get to fool with him very much, and only partly because of the fiberglass barrier. Of course, since we couldn't speak, there wasn't much we could do in the bank anyway. Because everyone else we knew worked on campus, we didn't realize that he had a "real job" and had to "really work." We also underestimated how busy the bank would be - in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, we didn't think there would be any customers in the bank. We made our exit after only a few minutes.

Over dinner that evening, our friend told us that we had made everyone very nervous. Because we were in whiteface, some of the staff, including the security guard, thought our intention was to hold up the bank. He said he couldn't interact with us very much because he was working, but also because he wanted us to leave so his coworkers could relax. He didn't say so, but we probably also really embarrassed him.

The next time we put on whiteface, a few days later, we'd been asked to act as clowns at an auction to benefit the university's Alumni Fund. After dinner when the auction started and we were free to leave, Spudwhip swept up a bottle of wine from the table and we played at serving wine as we moved toward the back exit.

We drank the wine that night. With all of the things I have forgotten, I still remember that it was a Covey Run Chardonnay, my first Washington State wine.

First Impression

2009-11-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

I first met Motochick through HR, who met her when she was in graduate school in Massachusetts. Motochick was living in LA at the time, but was considering moving to the Bay Area and had come up for HR's birthday.

My first impression, which persisted through several meetings, was that Motochick was very tall and very sophisticated about things about which I could only imagine. I have never been attracted to the "bad boys" but was attracted not only to Motochick herself but what I thought she represented. She rides a motorcycle and I thought she was a total badass. I flirted shyly with her, and she kindly flirted back. HR thought it was funny that I was attracted to Motochick, not because of her, but because of me. I made it obvious that I was kind of crushed out on her, but when I would say things like "She is way out of my league" HR would agree, grinning.

One afternoon I was at Park Place, the nickname for the house HR and her family live in, while Motochick was getting ready to go back to Los Angeles. As it happened, I was going to be in LA in a couple weeks for a meeting, and mentioned that to Motochick. Motochick said, "Maybe we can get together for a drink." In the moment before my eyes darted to HR, I imagined Motochick picking me up on her motorcycle. Motochick saw my brief hesitation and said, laughing, "I won't hurt you!"

HR said, "Yes you will!"

Apple Tree Story

2009-11-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

When we purchased this house, there were numerous palm trees and three fruit trees growing in the back yard: a small lime tree, an orange tree, and an apple tree. While the apple tree grew a fair number of small apples, we rarely got any. The top of the tree, where the apples were, was over the roofline, difficult to reach with a ladder, and dangerous to reach from the roof. The branches did not appear able to hold our weight should we try to climb for the apples.

The people who live across the street from us are the original owners of their house, having moved in when the neighborhood was being built in 1952. They tell stories about who lived in which house, about walking up the hill with their children to play in the mud pit that was being built into the local state college campus.

I mentioned the fruit trees to them, and the man said that a furniture store had been giving away apple trees as part of a Washington's Birthday sales promotion. He had gone up there and brought a tree back to the house, but wound up giving it to the youngest son in what is now our house, who was eight or so at the time. I think this son is five or ten years older than Zirpu and I, so doing the math quickly I think this tree is about forty years old.

There was a long branch leaning over the fence and hanging the neighbors' yard next door. A few months ago Zirpu had some arborists come to remove some trees and to trim the apple and orange trees, which were too big to harvest. I have learned it is healthy for fruit trees to get picked, and we really did need it to be shorter for us to pick the apples.

The arborists started to trim the tree and learned that the big branch hanging over next door was almost dead. They did a much more severe trimming than I thought they would, because the rot in that branch went all the way into the trunk. We won't get apples from it this year since the trimming was done too late this spring, but the tree seems happy now. It certainly looks better. Next year we'll be able to reach any apples it produces.

Someone Else's Loma Prieta Story

2009-11-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

To follow up on yesterday, here is a story Rye told me when I got home for the winter break.

A few days after the earthquake, Rye was on a bus going downtown. The bus wasn't crowded, but was full, and some teenagers got on the bus, making the usual noise teenagers make. Rye, who wears a hearing aid, turned it down so he could continue to ride the bus in peace. Someone else on the bus told the young people to quiet down. They refused and started arguing with the person who had asked them to be quieter.

Rye said that pretty soon everyone on the back of the bus was yelling at each other, some telling others to be quiet, others complaining that no one had the right to tell these kids what to do. Rye quickly decided that he didn't want to be around all that poisonous yelling, and got off the bus, watching it drive away with people still yelling inside.

A couple blocks later he caught up with the bus. It was pulled over to the curb, not at a stop, with an SFPD car parked behind it. The people inside were still yelling, waving their arms, and pointing at everyone else.

Rye figured that while the original argument may have been over noise, the real issue was that people were still upset by the earthquake.

Vegetable Curry

2009-11-05T18:24:00.001-08:00

I didn't learn how to cook until after I got out of college. I had few kitchen skills, and still don't know how to chop an onion properly. I remember consulting my Joy of Cooking to learn how long to boil an egg to hardness. Upon graduation, the things I could make were Blackbottom Cupcakes, Aunt Syl's Enchilada Sauce, poached eggs, and potato-and-cauliflower curry, also called aloo gobi.

I never look at it, but this is what it looks like:

I learned how to make aloo gobi from Jindi when I was in tenth or eleventh grade. My mother had asked Jindi to teach her how to make an Indian dish. Jindi is a vegetarian and this vegetable curry is a pretty simple dish. Mom had invited me and a friend to come to the cooking lesson also, and since we really liked Indian food we went along.

Truth be told, I don't remember too much about the lesson itself. I remember cutting up the onions and the potatoes, and that my mom and my friend would both ask "How much was that?" when Jindi would put the seasonings into the pot. Jindi said, "You don't have to write it down" when we asked for the recipe, and I didn't, for about five years. When I did write it down, it was really for other people, or in case I forgot how to make aloo gobi.

Because I never make it exactly the same way each time, any way I make it is fine. Jindi was right: Aloo gobi is home food. You don't have to write those recipes down.

Dining Not In Paradise

2009-11-04T07:24:00.000-08:00

Years ago, Denver D and I were wandering around the U District in Seattle, killing time before meeting someone somewhere else. After wandering long enough, we decided to have dinner. Denver D lived in Seattle and when he pointed out two Vietnamese restaurants we chose the smaller one. They were only a couple of doors apart and he said he'd heard they were about the same in quality, though he'd only been in the larger one.

The restaurant was really small, and it was not only hot but as muggy inside as it was outside. There were a few fans bolted to the ceiling, pointed at the tables, moving the air around your head but not providing any comfort in particular. We sat at a small table in back, under one of the fans. The table had salt, pepper, and a sticky bottle sriacha chile-garlic sauce sitting on it. We reviewed the menu and ordered.

Denver D had taught English in Taiwan for about a year after we got out of college. While waiting for our meal, he remarked that this restaurant convincingly recreated the experience of eating in Asia: a small, almost-clean setting, with tables close together and muggy air.

When the food came, the grilled whatever-it-was I had ordered (I no longer remember) had been garnished with a sprinkling of peanuts. I can't eat peanuts at all, not even a garnish, and when we finally got the waiter to come back, I explained that I couldn't eat this food with peanuts all over it because it would trigger my very bad allergy. He took the plate away and returned two minutes later - a surprisingly short time to prepare a whole new plate.

In the semi-darkness I looked closely at the plate and saw that there were still little pieces of peanut on the food. It was clear that the waiter had taken the plate back to the kitchen and shaken the peanuts off the food. I told Denver D that the waiter had not responded to the problem, and so we talked about what to do next.

That was resolved for us by Denver D noticing a baby cockroach on the table. He said that the cockroach made the recreation complete, only with smaller cockroaches. I pointed out that we were not eating dinner in Taiwan. We left.

Mouse-Fox Doll

2009-11-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

My father has one sister who married young, and her children are much older than No and I. In fact, I think the youngest of those cousins is around 14 years older than I am. The family lived outside Chicago, my uncle taking the train into the city to work at the Chicago Stock Exchange.

One of my cousins had a doll that I loved. To me, it seemed to be part mouse, part fox, with a long pointy nose and ears. When we visited my aunt and uncle, I carried the doll around and have it sit with me while watching television or playing games with my brother. It was a strange creature and unlike any other stuffed animal I had or had seen.

Years later I showed this photo to my new, and close, friend Sam-O, and he said that he had had a similar doll when he was little. His mother had made it from a pattern in a magazine. Because of the state our friendship was in, we were both awestruck by the coincidence.

Planning to Commit

2009-11-02T07:21:00.000-08:00

In May of 2002, Zirpu and I had been dating for about eight months. He was living in a 400sf apartment that was too small for all of his stuff (namely, big furniture, a Bowflex, and an exercise bike, plus many books and a couple of computers) on the west side of the San Mateo Bridge. I was living in an Oakland house with a 14-bit modem and which was located in an area without much cell phone service.

One afternoon I broached a very scary topic: Our moving in together. Zirpu had concerns about living together that didn't have anything to do with me, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to live with anyone. At the same time, we wanted to be together all the time, and dating involved a lot of driving for both of us, with me spending whole weekends down on the peninsula. Mostly I remember that I worked really hard to just listen to what Zirpu had to say and then think of my response, rather than listen and think at the same time.

At the end of that conversation we agreed that we would talk about it again in January 2003 and see if we both wanted to live together, and perhaps start sharing living space a few months after that. Whew! We were done with that conversation, but we both knew where the other stood: "Yes, right now it seems that living together would be good, but I'm not ready right now."

We all know what happens to plans. In September we were engaged and moving into an apartment halfway between my job and his.

You can't resist it
When it happens to you

Fifteen Seconds

2009-11-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

The twentieth anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake passed a couple weeks ago. That was the quake that knocked down Watsonville and parts of Santa Cruz, broke part of the Bay Bridge, collapsed a 1.25 mile section of highway, caused a big fire in the Marina district, and postponed the third game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's.

I was in Tacoma, at college, hanging around the house with some folks, including a friend of mine who had just arrived by from San Francisco for a visit when I received a call from a guy I was seeing. He had been watching TV, waiting for the game to start, when he (and everyone else) lost the video feed and learned that an earthquake had just hit the Bay Area. He didn't have a phone and had jumped in his car to go to a friend's to let me know.

At the time, a friend of ours had (unofficially) moved in to live with his girlfriend, one of my housemates. While none of us "real" residents of the house had a TV, this fellow had one in storage in the basement and we brought it upstairs and propped it on the coffee table. I remember that it was both small and yellow.

I tried to reach Mom and couldn't get through, so I called my aunt in Massachusetts to see if she had heard from Mom (this was our back-up plan for emergencies). While I was on the phone with Aunt Alice, Mom called and said that she was all right and the house was all right. She had just sat down in a meeting with two people at work when the earthquake struck, and after the they ducked under the doorway or the desk, everyone had gone straight home. No was at college in Southern California and she had already spoken to him.

My friend who had just arrived got in touch with his family, who lived outside SF, a few hours later. In the hours while we watched the news, I kept thinking of more people to wonder about how they were doing. A friend of my mother's lived in the Marina (still does), though I didn't know where exactly she lived so any of those apartment buildings that had just fallen on their faces could have been hers. Eventually I learned that this person wasn't allowed back in her apartment for three days, when the SFFD let her in for fifteen minutes to get some things; she stayed with a friend until her home was cleared by the engineers. Most of one family was at their warehouse south of Market Street; the buildings on both sides lost their front walls, but their building was fine, and at home they lost only one teacup when it fell out of the cupboard.

It was bad enough being glued to the television. I'd heard Mom use that expression when she would describe where she and Dad were when JFK was shot. It was really strange to be so far away when the earthquake happened - particularly for my friend, who had left SF the previous day. We felt like we should have been there, participating.

Are you prepared?

Short Shots

2009-10-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

National Blog Posting Month is approaching, starting Sunday**. The point of NaBloPoMo is to post something every day, and my plan is to write at least a short short story each day in November. I hope also to snag a photo album or two from Mom's so there will be pictures too, as this blog has been too text-heavy recently.

For kicks, here's a photo from the entrance of the Disney store in one of the malls around here.

**This Sunday is also Fall Back, so change your clocks and check your fire alarms and the food in your emergency kits.

Hard to Believe

2009-10-17T17:10:00.001-07:00

And yet, not so hard. Sometimes I still feel like this girl.

Jumping-flying down this hill at Baker Beach was so much fun. I've just landed from a long swoop down the hill, as demonstrated in this great picture of No:

A Friend To Mountains

2009-10-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

I grew up next to the ocean. With my family and other people in the neighborhood, I spent whole days, as well as just evenings, on Baker Beach, just inside the mouth of the Golden Gate. I played in the 55F degree water as only children can do while adults stroll along the foamy edge of the waves. At Ocean Beach, where we were only allowed to go as far in as our ankles, my friends and I would peer at the Farallones and imagine we were seeing Japan. During spring break of my freshman year of college, Jujubi, Hawaii, and I went to Seaside in Oregon and I flew a stunt kite on the beach most of the time we were there, the sound of the waves and the buffeting wind soothing my depressed and confused adolescent heart.

I consider myself a friend to mountains. I am not a mountain climber, or even much of a hiker. Like John Muir with a flower, I want to sit beside a mountain (or perhaps "on a mountain" is more like it) for a minute, or a day, and hear what it has to tell. I see layers of rock, smell the powdery scent of rocks after rain, and feel my skin catch on a thousand small fissures when I run my palm across the ground. I took enough geology in college to imagine upthrust and erosion, volcanic eruption and re-eruption, while in front of me and around me the mountains sit in peace.

I have lived near mountains. The house I grew up in is a couple miles from the summit of Twin Peaks, looking toward Mount Diablo, not even a mile high but visible from all over the bay area. The house I lived in in college had two small windows, one in the stairway and one in the upstairs bathroom, which faced Mount Rainier. The first place I lived by myself had Mount Saint Helen's out the kitchen window and Mount Hood out the back door. I truly wish I had photos of these mountains to post here, but I am missing about nine years' worth of photos and don't have any to scan in. Please go to www.google.com/images so I don't inadvertently break any copyright laws.

(photo by Mark Dix)

Mom's Cooking

2009-09-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

I had a mom who worked "outside the home" while I was growing up. She didn't have much choice, being a single parent, but she worked three days a week until I was ten or so and four days a week until I was in eighth grade, at which point she went full-time.

When we were younger, Jindi was at the house when we got home if Mom wasn't there, or the Stay At Home Dad (who was in junior high then) and Dimpi (his sister) took us on the bus back to their house. When I was in the Upper Form at CSH, I wore my house key on an orange yarn hair ribbon under my uniform, and ate graham crackers with milk while watching The Brady Bunch in the afternoon.

No and I always called Mom when we got home. Sometimes she asked us to put the potatoes in the little oven and turn it on, since they took so long to bake. Mom would come home and turn on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and put together the meat and vegetable parts of dinner. We had a lot of three-part dinners, often a potato (baked or boiled, or very occasionally frozen french fries), a piece of chicken or beef, and a vegetable. We often had broccoli, but in the spring had asparagus or artichokes. Mom would garnish our 60's modern plastic dinner plates with a piece of parsley, which we never had to eat (thank goodness, I don't like parsley to this day!). For dessert, which we ate at least half an hour later, we usually had fruit cocktail or ice cream.

Mom made one casserole, which she called Irish-Hungarian Goulash. From my friends who grew up in the Midwest, I understand versions of this are called Hot Dish, though one friend told me that if it doesn't include cream of mushroom soup it isn't Hot Dish. We hardly ever had this casserole, probably because Mom wasn't the make-on-Sunday type and she got home from work after 5pm. Of course, I love it, and consider it comfort food. Maybe you do too.

Mom's Irish-Hungarian Goulash

1 pound ground beef
1 onion, chopped up
1 can stewed tomatoes
oregano, basil, and salt
cooked elbow macaroni
grated cheese for the top

Brown beef with onion until cooked through. Add the can of stewed tomatoes and the herbs and stir. Combine in deep casserole pan with macaroni. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake at 350F until heated through. Serve with broccoli to happy children.

I am thinking about all this because recently I have been eating the way I ate when I was a kid. KT had a baby two weeks ago, and Mom and I have been spending a lot of time at my brother's house. Mom has been cooking for the new parents, and a lot of it is tried and true classics from back in the day. They're also relatively fast meals so Mom can hang out with the new parents and the grandchild. It's been fabulous.

Quizzical Fitness

2009-09-07T16:06:00.001-07:00

Arnold Schwarzenegger came on the scene about the same time that I started 7th grade. With his support,The President's Council on Physical Fitness mandated a new program in schools, which had the requisite Physical Fitness Test. It was something that you could fail, but would never result in your being flunked out of PE.

Every day we dressed down for PE, wearing our uniform shorts and shirts and changing into sneakers from our saddle shoes and Oxfords. From what I remember, the Test was a battery of events we had to complete, and it consisted of what seemed like days of different events: The 50-yard dash, the 1000-yard (or some distance) run/walk, the long jump, and timed push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. There was a chart showing how many of what you should be able to complete for your age and size, which made it very clear to all who was failing and who wasn't.

I knew that I would fail the test. I didn't have what it took to meet any of the benchmarks, and I told myself that I didn't care to. I liked the long jump, which we did on the sidewalk outside the art building, because I was more successful at that than I was at any of the other events. I don't remember even trying to run the run/walk, which at my school was six revolutions around the lower playground. I knew I would never come close to the speeds of any of the bullies, so with a "screw you" attitude, I started out walking and kept walking. I had the slowest time of anyone in the class, of course.

At the time, I hated the PE teacher. This may have been simply because she was the PE teacher, and in retrospect I'm sure she was frustrated by my attitude. But she allowed team captains to pick their teams, allowed girls to say nasty things to other girls at bat or when serving, and allowed the playing of Dodgeball. These are all things that the Famous Irishman, an elementary school PE teacher, has told me he doesn't allow in his classes, and that these days are generally frowned upon among PE teachers he knows.

Years later when I signed up at the gym after the car wreck, I felt pretty intimidated by all the people there. I knew it was something I wanted to do, in fact, felt like I needed to do, if I was going to have the strength to dance at the level I wanted to dance. For the first four years at the gym I never spoke to anyone who wasn't staff, other than to ask if someone was done with a particular piece of equipment. I kept my eyes to myself, never looking directly at anyone else working out. I figured if I didn't watch anyone, no one would watch me - which is to say no one would judge me, my shape, or the weights I was lifting or pushing.

The Famous Irishman has said that bad memories of PE classes can turn people off to physical activity for the rest of their lives. I approached each workout, particularly those I did on my own and not with the trainer, with that ostrich attitude because I had body memory of those awful middle school PE classes. On the other hand, though I am still slow and would still fail the Phsyical Fitness Test as it was administered in middle school, sometimes I smile at how far I've come.

Learning How To Use Minimal Literalism

2009-08-29T14:39:00.001-07:00

**Saipan Writer asks if I have quit blogging. The last two months have gotten away from me, and I think I had decided to stop paying attention to the blog. But she asked, so I'm going to see if I can take this to the end of this year.**

When I was in fifth grade, my class moved into a huge classroom in the basement of the building. This was the first year that my grade, which had been in two classrooms, was combined into one for homeroom and then split into two for classes. This wasn't such a big deal to me; not only was it only my second year at CSH, I was already so alienated from my classmates that where I was in the class made no difference to me.

My desk was halfway back, next to a support column. I found the wall next to me rather comforting, and sometimes leaned against it instead of the back of my chair. The desks were the kinds with lids, in which you stored your stuff. At that time I had just started keeping a journal, and I would slyly pull it out of my desk and lie it inside the workbook or other notebook in which we were supposed to be working. Or I would just write in it while the teacher lectured.

One day one of my teachers busted me for not paying attention in class. She came to my desk and asked for the journal. I gave it to her, because I had to, and she explained she would give it back to me the next day. Then she sent me to the Principal's office on the second floor.

Because the school was in a former mansion, the first floor was marble, with a wide curving stairway with a wide balustrade. It was almost like those you see in old movies, only bigger. This floor was guarded by a elderly nun whose job was to sit at a desk and yell at girls who ran or shouted in the main hall. I had come up from the basement and had just started up the main stairs to the second floor when I ran into the Principal.

I don't remember where I told her I was going during class time. I sure didn't tell her that I'd been sent to see her because I was writing in my journal instead of paying attention in class. We chatted and then I continued up the stairs and she continued down them.

After I walked to the third floor I went back to my classroom in the basement. The teacher asked if I had seen the principal. I said yes. The teacher sent me back to my desk.

The next day, the teacher returned my journal to me. I wondered if she'd read it and, if so, if she would say anything to me about it. There was a lot of "I hate this school" and "I hate So-n-So and So-n-So is such a b----" in it. She did not say anything to me about the journal, but she said that she'd spoken to the Principal and while it was very clever of me to say "yes" when she'd asked if I had seen the Principal, the teacher and I both knew that wasn't what she meant.

Then she sent me back to the Principal's office, telling me that I had to come back with a note saying she had seen me and talked with me about my behavior.

My First Dyke March

2009-06-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

June 2001:

Pride was approaching and I thought I should participate. Shobi-wan and I had participated in the Pride Parade in Portland, and I had marched in the Portland and Seattle Pride Parades in the flag corps of the Rose City Gay Freedom Band (a story to be told later), but San Francisco is a lot bigger, a lot crazier, and a lot more formal than the Portland parade was when Shobi-wan and I went.

The Dyke March is traditionally anti-establishment, eschewing corporate sponsorship and march permit applications, but always follows the same route the evening before the Pride Parade. I thought it would be good to go a women's event, and who knows, maybe I would actually talk to someone. I had just recently started attending the Bi Women's Group and hadn't made real friends there yet, so I had to go alone. Which I told myself would be okay; there would be 50,000 people there and I could blend into some group.

I stood on a small rise in the center of the park, looking over thousands of women of all ages, colors, shapes, in costume or without clothing, on blankets drinking and snacking, making out, sunbathing, dancing, cheering, and greeting others with "Happy Pride!" I watched everything with some trepidation, wishing I knew some people so I could join the eating, drinking, dancing, cheering, and maybe even the making out.

A woman came up on the rise next to me, shading her hand while she was looking for her friends (this is so much easier now that texting is a common feature on cell phones!). She told me she was from Minnesota, and I said I was from here. She asked me, "How many times have you been to the Dyke March?" and I replied, "This is my first time."

"Your first time? What kind of a Dyke are you?" she teased.

"About half of one," I smiled.

I Know, A Lot of People Are Doing This

2009-06-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

But are they doing this?

Or this?

And Earth Is Ablaze / And Ocean Aglow

2009-06-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Someone I know in the wedding business told a story about a bride who had finally realized that she was getting too wound up about every uncontrollable detail of the wedding: The weather, a baby crying during the ceremony, what if the limo got a flat tire? As the wedding approached, someone else involved in the wedding plans received an email from this bride asking if the wedding site's event planner could please arrange for a pod of Orcas and dolphins to swim by at the end of the ceremony? It took a minute, but that this request was a joke did dawn on everyone.

Bink and Mr. Bink got married about six months before Zirpu and I did, in a beautiful back yard on an island in Washington State. It was a large wedding party, with seven attendants on each side - my impression was that Mr. Bink was attended by his former crew teammates, while Bink was attended by women who had been or would be part of her life for many years.

Bink had asked me to read something during the ceremony, but I didn't have a copy of the William Jay Smith poem until Zirpu and I arrived. We had taken a ferry to the island and booked a room in an inn "downtown"; during the afternoon before the wedding I sat on the balcony overlooking the Sound and quick-memorized the words. This is a technique I use that only holds the words in my head for a few hours, but it would allow me to look up and out at the gathered folks while reading.

"Now touch the air softly,
Step gently, One, two. . .
I'll love you till roses are robin's-egg blue;
I'll love you till gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender's red."

Though it was late September, the day was as warm as midsummer, a lot warmer than any of us off-islanders had expected. Bink had jokingly said that she hoped a rainbow would appear over the wedding, but it was a clear day with only a few white clouds in the sky. Immediately after the ceremony, the minister asked all of us guests to remain seated as the photographer wanted to get some photos of the wedding party standing on the deck behind us (so they would be facing the water as well). We all watched as the newlyweds and their friends walked up the aisle to the deck and while the photographer got everyone placed.

I heard a mutter and then another, and looked out toward the water. The timing couldn't have been better: Not only was it after the ceremony, but it was at the moment when the newlyweds were facing the water. Not a rainbow, as Bink had joked about, but a pod of Orcas was swimming through the nearby channel.

The Anchor of My Collection

2009-06-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

As graduation from college approached, my housemates and I started going through our stuff, throwing things out, packing clothes, rolling up posters, deciding whether this paper or that was worthy of storing in our parents' homes as we started to live our lives away from the cocoon of undergrad. Our House was a mess as we pulled things from cupboards and drawers and threw them into boxes between studying for finals and attending end-of-year events.

One of those events was the Senior Art Show. Phil had majored in Art and he had three pieces in the show: A silkscreen of three cattle skulls; a painting of a general store somewhere in Colorado; and a ceramic curving sculpture with a face at the top. I had watched Phil experiment with the curve, seeing how sharp he could make a curve in flat clay without its breaking while being fired. We had spent late nights in the Ceramics Building, talking, while he threw pots and built sculptures and I reveled in the scent of clean mud. As a result, I felt a friendly possession toward this piece, and at the show jokingly asked Phil if I could have it. He said I could have it for $1500, and showed me the sticker on the description tag.

The deadline for moving out of Our House got closer and closer and each of us had to decide what we were going to keep and what we weren't. I saved most of my papers - I'd majored in writing, so the largest output of my undergraduate education was on typewritten and dot-matrixed sheets. Phil, however, had focused on ceramics and had a large number of fragile pieces that he did not wish to ship. He belatedly realized that he should have been taking pieces home with him at the end of each academic year. His cousin agreed to allow him to pack her station wagon with his art and take it back with her to Colorado. Phil shipped all of his clothes and some of the drawings and paintings, and planned the packing of his car with geometric precision. After several tries, Phil couldn't figure out how to fit the large and oddly-shaped black and silver sculpture into the car.

I wasn't moving back to San Francisco, so I offered to hold this piece for him. He didn't know if he would be staying in Colorado or moving to Seattle after his post-graduation European trip, but we both knew that if he decided on the former we could still get this piece to Colorado when we weren't so pressed for time. I took the sculpture to the place I would be staying until Shobi-wan and I got an apartment, and Phil continued to pack his car.

I have since carefully wrapped this sculpture in a quilt and moved it nine times, across a couple of state lines. About a year after Phil died and while his brother was in graduate school in New York, I realized that I had indeed taken possession of the sculpture without paying Phil a cent. A few years after that I sent a photo of the sculpture to Marko with a letter saying that I consider this piece a long-term loan from him, and as soon as he wants it, it will go back to him. Marko called me when he got the letter, exclaiming that he had wondered what had happened to this piece.

I have it, and every time I look at it, I think of those nights watching Phil build it, the smell of clean mud, and the $1500 I never paid him for the anchor of my art collection.

Why Spock Is My Hero

2009-05-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

No and I watched Star Trek just about every night, looking for the rarely-shown episodes and our favorite episodes. My favorite character was Spock: He was the smartest person on the ship, observed everything and carefully drew correct conclusions, and loyal to friends (and to the Federation). Most interesting to me, he didn't have feelings. As I got older I saw that Spock did have feelings, but successfully repressed them except when drunk or in the midst of hormone-related upset, or, much later, in a movie.

When I was a kid I wanted to be like Spock. I also was (and am still) an observer, weighing risks and benefits before making decisions. I imagined myself to be a pretty smart person. I think I'm pretty loyal - maybe not as loyal as No, but loyal. However, the thing I envied most in Spock was his ability to control his feelings: He was never sad, rarely angry, and never had hurt feelings. He was always secure in the decisions he made. He knew he was right.

I especially felt this when I was in grammar school. Many of the kids were cruel, so I thought that if I could be the smartest one in the class, I would know I was better than they were, regardless of what the mean kids thought of me. If they knew what a good friend I could be, the kids who were neither my bullies nor my friends would be my friends and I wouldn't be alone in the class. If I could control my feelings, nothing anyone said or did to me would upset me, make me cry, or write "F---HEADS!!!" repeatedly in my binder in big, blocky, letters.

When I was in twelfth grade I had to take a speech class. One of the assignments was that each of us had to make a speech about someone who was our hero. I wrote and spoke about Spock: I admired his knowledge and logic, his ability to know what to do in every moment, and how he never allowed personal feelings to get in the way of making a decision or executing a decision. Spock was a good friend to Kirk, despite the difference in their characters, and to McCoy, despite the impression of disdain that McCoy constantly had for Spock, and I liked that about him too. I described how I'd taught myself to lift one eyebrow in that classic puzzled Spock look.

After I'd given my speech, Mr. S. told the class that we were supposed to talk about real people, because fictional people can't be heroes.

A Trip To Laugh About

2009-05-07T10:13:00.001-07:00

My right arm was injured (not broken) three weeks ago which has impacted my ability to write and type. I apologize for the extra-long delay, kind reader.

In the spring of 1991, one of Shobi-wan's former housemates was getting married in a lodge somewhere outside Portland, and we were invited. It was spring break (Shobi-wan was a student) so we decided that we would attend the wedding and go camping for a couple nights afterward, first in Tillamook and then in Cannon Beach. As you might imagine, our packing was rather schizophrenic - nice clothes for the wedding, tent and sleeping bags for the camping. Everything was piled up in the kitchen, and we made many trips up and down the stairs to pack The Tub, my first Honda Civic (a station wagon, still my favorite car).

Just before crossing the bridge from Vancouver, WA, to Portland, OR, I asked Shobi-wan to grab me a handful of Hershey's Kisses for sustenance for the rest of the trip to the wedding site. She twisted around in her seat and reached back for the blue cooler (which I still have), but not feeling it with her hand, she turned fully around and said, "Did you put the cooler in the back?" I said, "It should be up against the seats," meaning right behind the front seats. She said, "It's not here."

In that moment, I realized I also hadn't put the shoes I was going to wear with my dress at the wedding. I guess I somehow knew that the shoes had been sitting on top of the cooler, which I could visualize still sitting on the floor in the kitchen. We were in the perfect place for this realization, as we were at the end of the bridge, from which there is an exit to the Jantzen Beach Mall, set up as close to the border between sales tax-less Oregon and sales tax-full Washington as possible. So I zipped off the exit, parked the car, and Shobi-wan and I dashed into a Payless Shoes. We had about an hour to get from Jantzen Beach to the wedding site and to change our clothes, and we didn't know where we were going (and I always tried to allow 30 minutes for getting lost, particularly on the fringes of Portland, in those days). I bought the second pair of flats I tried on, for $12.

The first night of our camping trip we spent next to the Tillamook River. We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and that night the rain poured down. When we got to Cannon Beach, the feet of our sleeping bags were damp and the tent was soaked through, having been rolled up wet. We also learned that the Tillamook River had flooded that day. We piled all the stuff in the front seats and slept in the back of the car. Shobi-wan is adorably small, and we were able to lie down stretched out lengthwise, only cramped a little side-to-side.

We had great fun on this trip, laughing even when we made tea in a pot that hadn't been cleaned very well from the previous night's canned chili. Unlike some adventures I had when I was young, this one was funny while it was happening as well as being funny years later.

Paying Taxes

2009-04-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

My first political thought had to do with taxes. I remember suddenly realizing that if people wanted something in their town, they would pay for it with "taxes." The image in my head was of a village that wanted a statue over a fountain, and the people would each have to pay some amount to pay for the statue. Much later I realized that fire departments, roads, and schools were paid for by taxes, and that no one wanted to pay into the kitty and wanted to keep their money themselves.

I did my taxes by hand on binder paper with a pencil until 2002, even though for years I always had at least two if not three or four W2s. It was simple math in those days, with the standard deductions, and I found it kind of fun to do. Later in my financial aid life I learned how to read tax returns doing income verifications, and until I had to figure the value of a business that was kind of fun too. I even trained other people on it!

When I've had to write a check to the IRS, I've often been tempted to write in the memo line what I want my money to pay for. "Head Start," I've imagined writing several years in a row, or five years ago, "Armor for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan." I've imagined drawing a circle/slash through "ADM." The check to the State Franchise Board would say "Education" and "Libraries."

I wonder what wouldn't get funded if people could say where they wanted their taxes to go. My first guess is legislators' salaries. What would you pay for?

Final Shake-Up

2009-04-03T21:21:00.001-07:00

At CSH, starting in sixth grade we had midterms and finals. In other schools midterms fell mid-term, but at CSH, "midterms" was what we called final exams for fall semester. They were held toward the end of January, four days of two exams each day. The teachers spent the week before exams going over everything they'd taught us the previous semester (which we'd forgotten, of course, over Christmas vacation), and on the following Monday we reported to homeroom to get split up into our first period and second period exams, which lasted 90 minutes. At noon we were let go, to return home to study for the next day's exams.

My science exam was in our homeroom, in the SE corner of the top floor of the grammar school. Since the building was at the top of the Webster Street hill, the classroom in the opposite NE corner, had a fabulous view, seemingly miles above Vallejo Street below. Our classroom had a much less interesting view of Hamlin School for Girls down the street. Tables had been arranged separate from each other, rather than in the rows they usually were. Some of the tables were large enough for three, most for two, several for one. As a low-status student, I got a desk to myself by the door.

About halfway through our science midterm, the building started to shake. It shook for a few moments, and while I did not remember the teacher saying anything, to me it seemed that all at once, all of us two dozen people in the classroom simultaneously dropped under our desks. Once the shaking stopped, it seemed to me that the building was swaying, which to my mind made sense as we were inside the top corner of the building at the top of a steep, high hill. I reassured myself that this building had survived the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 (which I subsequently learned wasn't true). The room was silent except for the sound of the pipes in the restroom next door rattling.

After a few minutes, Ms. R. stood up from behind her desk and said, "Return to your seats, girls." We all did, picking up our pencils and getting back to the test. For the minutes I was under my desk, I was certain that the girls who had tablemates had quickly exchanged as many exam answers as they could.

Led Astray By The Nose

2009-03-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

My best guy friend the first half of high school was a guy who lived down the street from me. We walked to school (uphill both ways!) together in the mornings, were in homeroom together, and since we attended a small high school were in a lot of classes together. We wrote each other notes instead of taking notes during class. He was the first boy I made out with, and the first boy I was jealous over. We laughed a lot together - he was very silly, translating "viejo" (which actually means "old") with the name of our Spanish teacher during a vocabulary test. In Biology we learned about a one-celled organism whose English name is "Nasty Nose." Since my friend and I spent a lot of time making up goofy names for each other, I dubbed him Didinium Nasutum.

At the school we attended, homeroom was a 17-minute period between first and second periods. This meant that absence calls from the office were made at 850. Didinium convinced me to cut class with him one spring day. He'd done it before; of course it had never occurred to me to not go to school. We planned that since his mom was home during the day, I would meet him on the corner like usual and then we would walk back to my house and hang out and watch TV, maybe go to the park.

The plan fell apart when I lost my nerve. I did meet him at the corner, and we did go back to my house in time to pick up the phone when the attendance office called. Didinium called himself in as sick, and when the phone rang I answered and told the lady yes, I was my mother, and that I was home with a 24 hour bug. I always had considered myself a good liar, but I knew that she didn't believe me. If nothing else, I didn't sound nearly as much like my mother as Didinium sounded like his dad.

I absolutely lost my nerve. Remember, I grew up in a neighborhood where education was such a high value that there was no question about whether each of us would attend college; the question was whether the college would be Berkeley. I knew the next call would be to my mom at the office, and I would be so busted I couldn't imagine what would happen. My bro No was the rebellious one (and even he attended school every single day). I told Didinium I couldn't go through with it, I had to go to school. I guess I decided that watching Hogan's Heroes and The Monkees wasn't worth getting grounded forever. I don't remember if I called the school back and said I was coming in after all, but I arrived at the beginning of the next class.

I didn't cut a class again until I was in my fourth semester of college when Phil and Jujubi talked me into going to the Antique Sandwich Shop for a late lunch, also on a spring day, instead of my Japanese history class.

Ice Cream for Aunt Alice

2009-02-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

Every summer for the last fifteen years or so, my mother and her younger sister, Grandma Hip, rent a cottage in or near Charlestown, RI, near a beach. My mom's (and now my aunt's) good friend Bethie completes the trio that hang out at the cottage, spending mornings and evenings at the beach, "going on a toot" as they call a drive around the area, sharing the crossword in the Providence Journal, buying corn, tomatoes, and pies at the farm stands all around, stopping for ice cream along the way.

All kinds of people come down to the cottage during the three weeks they're ensconced there. My cousins come and go in waves, some overnight, some just for the day, and Grandpa Hip and his youngest (the youngest of all of us cousins) spend their days off down there. Grandma Hip's brother-in-law and his wife and their children and grandchildren usually get a place nearby. My mom's older brother, UD, used to go for days at a time starting political discussions just to get a rise out of everyone. My Aunt Alice would go as well, though she was the only one who never went to the beach. Everyone in the family really enjoys the water, and synchronized swimming, which Mom and Grandma Hip did in high school, has become one of our favorite water pasttimes, buffeted by the waves. But Aunt Alice rarely even came to the beach. She probably enjoyed being the cottage by herself.

I was there in 2002, and one night Grandma Hip, Bethie, Mom, aunt Alice, and I went to a big Italian restaurant for dinner. I introduced Grandma Hip to the Appletini that night, and we had a long leisurely meal with cocktails and appetizers. After the server had taken our empty dinner plates away, she came back to ask if we would like dessert. The rest of us ordered off the menu, but Aunt Alice demurred. The server asked, "Are you sure?" Mom said, "Maybe they have ice cream, Alice." The server said that they did indeed have ice cream, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and strawberry. Aunt Alice, a small woman, looked up at the server and said, "May I have a dish of vanilla ice cream please, with some hot fudge sauce if you have it?"

Aunt Alice passed away a couple weeks ago, and though it was expected and my mom was with her, it's been hard. The evening of the day we learned she'd passed away, No, KT, and I met at Fenton's Creamery. It seemed like to eat ice cream would be the best way to honor her memory, and it was.

Big Brown Eyes

2009-02-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

The summer after college I worked as a day camp counselor at the SF Jewish Community Center. I had about a dozen seven and eight year olds in my charge from 930am until 330pm every weekday, with a two-night overnight in the middle week of each session. I worked with a Junior Counselor and a Counselor in Training, whom I supervised/trained. I designed half-hour activity sessions, planned around activity level, travel time, and scheduling around other counselors' equipment desires ("If we can have the parachute in the 10am "thirty", we go to swimming and then you can have it at 1030"). I also taught swimming. I wrote reports on each camper each week, and performance reviews for the JC and CIT at the end of each session. I was also the Hokey Pokey Queen and could lead the whole camp in it for hours: "Put your right thumb in, put your right thumb out..."

I was seventeen and "earned" $100 a week for my efforts. I had almost no idea what I was doing.

My JC was a 15 year old going into her junior year. The Moon was the very savvy daughter of artists who tolerated no bullshit. She had huge brown eyes that would look deeply into your heart if you weren't telling the truth, or, more specifically, the whole truth. Besides working together, we hung out during our precious away-from-camp hours. When The Moon spent the night at my house that summer, she insisted on sleeping in the bed and not on the floor in a sleeping bag, and it became a "Who's more stubborn?" thing. We both wound up sleeping in my bed, which at the time I thought was the weirdest thing.

When I came home for winter break my first year at college, The Moon had won tickets on the radio to a Buddy Guy "early" show at The Fillmore for New Year's Eve and she invited me to go with her. I didn't know who Buddy Guy was, but I liked the blues in a general sort of way, I'd never been to The Fillmore, and it sounded much better than watching TV at home.

I really enjoyed the music. We wound attending both the 9pm and the 11pm shows because partway through the show we had tickets for, there was some problem with the electricity onstage and Buddy Guy couldn't play. It was worked out with the venue that everyone at the early show could stay for the late show. What I remember the most from that night happened in the lobby while they were trying to fix the electricity. The Moon and I were looking around and a man started talking to me. I had just turned 18 three months before, and The Moon was probably 16. Of course he was older than we were (we were probably among the youngest people at the show), and when he asked how old I was, I said, "Almost nineteen." My judgment to respond this way was, of course, due to the fact that I was still basically 17.

The Moon turned her big eyes on me, blinked once, and said, "You just turned 18."

I don't remember being mad at her for doing this. I remember thinking, and still think now, that The Moon was saving me from my own poor judgment. Even though I haven't seen The Moon since that time, whenever I tell a half-truth or lie by omission, especially when I doubt my judgment about why I'm doing so, I always think of The Moon's big brown eyes.

My Long Association with Geeks and Nerds

2009-02-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

Fortunately, almost everyone at my high school was a geek or nerd.

The guy on my right was in the club because he was my friend. I was in the club because of a crush on the guy on my left.

How I Know He's The Right One

2009-02-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

Zirpu: I knew I would never tell my mom about the time I almost got arrested [as a teenager].

Samatakah: You almost got arrested?!

Zirpu: We were playing D&D...

I totally would have dug him in high school. Totally.

Long Time No See

2009-02-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

I had planned to start writing more stories about my growing up and being (or becoming) an adult. I hadn't planned to write nothing for four weeks, but life absolutely got in the way.

The last three weeks have been absolutely crammed full of unpleasant family and personal events, which ultimately wound up with me totally melting down on Thursday with JR, even though by then all events had resolved into happy endings in the natural progression of things. I think I just had been moving through with my head down and when it was over flipped out in retrospect.

I did something different this time, which was ask for help. And I got it! It's not surprising that I got it, so I recommend asking for needed help when it's needed and not after after the fact. Friendship is a two-way street, they say, and I really needed quite a few people to come down that street and pick me up. Which they did. Yay for them!

Anyway, hopefully back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Hope

2009-01-20T07:05:00.000-08:00

Now I've been happy lately,
thinking about the good things
to come
And I believe it could be
something good has begun.

       - Cat Stevens

The View From The Mountaintop

2009-01-19T21:14:00.001-08:00

I read about this on SFGate's politics blog and want to spread it around.

In 1964, Dr. King told BBC News that he expected a "Negro President" in less than forty years.

Of Thee I Sing!

2009-01-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

The first song I learned about America was This Land Is Your Land. I was in a hippie classroom, and the other songs we sang during "rug time" were Old MacDonald, Farmer In The Dell, Yellow Submarine, and Love Potion Number Nine. Of course we all sang Elbow Room from Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings in front of the TV.

I learned America The Beautiful once I started attending CSH. I guess I knew the tune, but during Mass I would read the words in the hymn books tucked into pockets on the pews, and "America The Beautiful" was on the last page. When I grew up, I learned from a friend who worked in the Colorado State Parks that the lyrics were written by a lesbian after she had ridden a wagon up to the summit of Pike's Peak and she had looked over the plain below.

When I was hanging around with ComedySportz, like every other athletic event, the evening always started with the singing of the National Anthem. I don't like this song as much as I like "America The Beautiful" or "My Country 'Tis Of Thee," but I heard on NPR during the Olympics last year that most national anthems include lyrics referring to battle (the French one famously so). What "The Start Spangled Banner" does have as an advantage is its challenge to sing well. When I went to East Bay Harmony for the first time, I sang it to determine that I should sing with the altos.

I'll be singing some song on Tuesday, and after Tuesday. There's a lot to be done and the ideal will never match the reality, but I, like the ant with the rubber tree plant, have hope.

Wow

2009-01-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Take a look at the January 18 Candorville.

Thurgood Marshall is leading the swearing-in, and the bible is being held by Martin Luther King, Jr. I recognize Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell, Lyndon Johnson, Harriet Tubman, Condileeza Rice, Abraham Lincoln, the three Freedom Riders killed in Mississippi, Louis Armstrong, and others whose images I recognize but don't know to which name they belong. It's kind of like looking at the cover of Sgt. Pepper's.

Wise Words

2009-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

None of the people in this photo is Dances Under The Moon, but we are all wearing hats

YaYa Dances Under The Moon sent out this email the other day, so I'm sending it out to you as well.

Well it's official, I am now a true old lady. What? you might say.
Well the other morning I got up, took my shower, then proceeded to slather
Jean Nate' lotion all over my body. That was bad enough, then I realized I
liked it. So I may never let my snow white hair grow out, but underneath it
all it's true I have arrived. Well I am the senior of all of us. So remember
I demand respect! I also have realized although I am old, I am not dead!!! I
have decided that I have much to do in the next 50 years. It starts in 2009.
I will have my list completed when we meet in March. I will look forward to
seeing your list also.

I will tell you one on my list. I have decided to wear hats more. Hats are good.
They keep the heat in, they are good for bad hair days, and they give you
different personalities, I mean a good mood change thing. God knows I need some
mood changes sometimes. All in all what I have realized is that I am damn happy,
and I plan on staying that way. Hope all the yayas have a fantastic 2009.
Love you all.
Dances under the moon

I get up, I walk, I fall down, Meanwhile I keep dancing.

You're never too far, wherever you are

2009-01-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

The first movie I ever stood in much a line to see was Star Wars. We went to see it the first time at the Coronet, which was the movie theater in town. It was a huge theater with over a thousand seats and showed first-run, exclusive films. Apparently George Lucas was a big fan of the Coronet and selected it to premier Star Wars in San Francisco - and it played there for seven months. Tickets to the show were $3 for adults, and one could pay an additional fifty cents to sit in the balcony, where smoking was allowed. My mom says that a friend of her remarked, "If I'm gonna spend three bucks on a movie, I might as well pay the extra fifty cents so I can smoke during it!"

Grush took a bunch of us neighborhood kids to see Star Wars again at the North Point near Ghirardelli Square. That was pretty far afield for us, as we only went to that part of town when there were out-of-towners visiting as part of the "tour guide." We were standing in line when a guy with a guitar and two guys with a camera and recording equipment came down the line asking people to sing the "Reach out and touch someone" jingle from AT&T (as it was known in those days, and is again). They got to us and we were soooooo ready we were jumping up and down, "We know it! We know it!"

And we sang:

Reeeeach out
Reach out and touch someone
Reach out
Reach out and just say hi
Da da da de dum
Da dum de de dum to
Reeeeeach out
Reach out and touch someone!

He told us they would not be able to use us in a commercial since we didn't know all the words. I don't think we even knew it had other words until we got to where they were supposed to go. Needless to say we all very disappointed that we had missed being "discovered" outside the movie theater. The next one of us who saw the ad paid very close attention and taught us all the whole song, just in case a guitar and a camera appeared the next time we went to see Star Wars.

True 'Nuff

2009-01-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Check out the January 4 Bizarro comic about pirates that strike fear into people's hearts.

The SDS Show

2008-12-29T07:24:00.000-08:00

Growing up, "warm fuzzies" meant two things: "Warm fuzzies" were what you got or what you gave or what you felt (or all three) when someone did something nice, like gave you a hug, or helped pick you up when you fell, or rubbed your back when you were sad. "Warm fuzzies" were also what we called one-piece footed pajamas, which all of us kids in the neighborhood had even though we only wore them in the winter and in July when it was cold enough.

My mom's friend Grush has a granddaughter almost exactly my age with whom I share a name. She lived in Utah but would often be in San Francisco for what I remember as weeks at a time in the summer. One morning after a sleepover, she, DeeKay, and I, while sitting in our pajamas, decided to put on a show. We'd noticed that we were each wearing one of the primary colors - I know I was in yellow, but I don't remember which of them was in blue and which in red. We picked a song that was very popular among us kids that year and choreographed our steps. We had color-coordinated hula hoops instead of canes to dance with, though I don't remember why we had three hula hoops at the house; not only were there only two of us living there, but none of the dozen-plus kids in the beighborhood, except maybe Tam, could hula hoop for longer than half a minute.

I'm a little nut of brown
Lying on the cold cold ground
Everybody steps on me
That is why I'm a cracked you see

I'm a nut (cluck, cluck)
I'm a nut (cluck, cluck)
I'm a nut, I'm a nut, I'm a nut (cluck, cluck)

So, Long Time No See!

2008-12-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't been away. I haven't been sick. I have been busy at work, but not so busy I had to stay away from the blog for two weeks. I've just lost interest.

It's not you, honey, it's me.

I've also been wanting to write somewhere else than here. It's time to change our relationship - I think it would be best for me to use other media. In fact, old media: Paper. I have an old journal waiting for me to come back. I've already touched base there, in fact.

I've been slacking in the story-telling, and that's what I originally wanted to do here. I haven't told a story since mid-November. I didn't really want this blog to turn into "what I did today" posts.

I'm not going to take the blog down, I'm just going to use it differently. Instead of setting myself writing goals that are attached to quantity, I'm going to work on quality. Of course I reserve the right to remark on what's going on around me. With a blog, I can be a columnist.

Anyway, anyone dropping by might see longer periods between posts. but I mean for it to be that way.

May all your wishes for 2009 come true!

Warning

2008-12-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

A Poem For The YaYas
(with a nod to Jenny Joseph)

When I am an old woman, I shall wear lavender pajamas
with a red robe that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my 401(k) on vodka and hair color
and ingredients for blackbottom cupcakes, and say we've no money for gasoline.
I shall sit down on the BART train floor when I am tired
and drink lots of coffee in tiny cups at Trader Joe's and press kids' bellybuttons
and skip along the sidewalks
and make up for the sobriety (!) of my youth.
I shall go out in the rain without gel in my hair
and pick the french fries off other people's plates
and teach children to curse.

You can wear terrible wigs and grow more obnoxious
and drink three bottles of champagne at a go or only banana bread for a week
and hoard Christmas ornaments and things in boxes.

But now we must have jobs or partners that keep us solvent
and insist on equal pay for equal work and celebrate Obama
and set a good example for the children.
We must meet friends on retreats and read our favorite blogs.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to drink champagne.

Christmas In San Francisco

2008-12-14T20:35:00.000-08:00

Today was Cookiethon! over at Park Place. This is a day in December on which HR and some others have a cookie-baking frenzy and bake a boatload of a bunch of different cookies.

I do not make cookies, but I have mad skillz when it comes to eating cookies. Hardly anything is too rich for me and the only thing that keeps me from eating butter and sugar on bread every day is being a grown-up. I had to leave the house for a little bit when the peanut butter cookies came out of the oven, only because the scent was so overpowering I couldn't breathe.

When I mentioned I had never heard the song "Christmas in San Francisco", Nutmeg and I went on an online search for it. We could only find the lyrics and Nutmeg said the song is so bad she couldn't sing it for me. Then she got the idea to ask KOIT, the local easy-listening radio station, and ask them to play it. KOIT is famous (or infamous) for playing Christmas music from sometime in November through Christmas. She wrote an email asking that they play this song for her friend who'd been raised in the city and had never heard it. Just as Zirpu and I were getting ready to leave, the song actually came on. In these multi-cultural times, I think it's okay to use a Yiddish word to describe a Christmas song, and that word is schmaltzy.

All of my favorite Park Place people showed up, including Gaia and Byronium who had just arrived the night before from two weeks in India, and Pumpkin, whom, I believe, I conjured by wearing socks that don't match (as he often does). A couple of very young girls had a grand time decorating the spritz cookies (sugar cookies from the cookie press). Nutmeg insisted we watch Steven Colbert's Christmas Special and we listened to carols on the iPod/CD player. JR brought home a 7' tree on his bicycle. HR, Cutie G, Byronium and others made cookies. The rest of us ate them and drank coffee and eggnog. It was raining and cold (well, not New Hampshire cold) all day.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Yesterday's Future

2008-12-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have a nicely bound "anything book" that I filled with high school crap like book covers, report cards, school IDs, and prom memorabilia. In the notebook is an assignment I did in tenth grade for my Honors English class. The teacher wrote the questions and I interviewed a family friend.

For extra credit I pretended to interview myself in 2024 (at which point I would be 56). Reading the extra credit part of the assignment was so painful that it took me four tries to get through it. When I was 15, I was planning that by the time I was 56 I would:

Have attended UC Santa Cruz and Boston University;
Be fluent in Spanish, German, and Japanese;
Have published at least four novels and at least three books of nonfiction;
Own my own restaurant, through three closures and one almost-bankruptcy;
Married;
Adopted three boys;
Still be friends with the friends I had in tenth grade;
Occasionally write columns for the San Francisco Chronicle;
Have been on Time's bestseller list at least twice; and
Be taking one course at a time in things like film making.

I wonder when I thought I would sleep. Sometimes I look back and think I must have been a really annoying person when I was teenager.

Shacking Up

2008-12-11T18:26:00.000-08:00

While I've been resting up from the strain of posting every day, I have been reading a lot. I thought Daughter of the Saints would be more concerned with the life of growing up in a polygamous family, but it turned out to be a lot more about schisms within the offshoots from the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

The thing that I wonder is why in the world the US government even cares about polygamy. I think the problem with it isn't polygamy itself, it's the marrying of young teenage girls to men several times their ages; the exclusion of teenage boys who are thrown out of the community for the smallest infractions so that they can't attach themselves to, or be attached to by, girls their own age. Certainly polygamy as it's practiced by groups like the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints is wrong. To me, polygamy is a feminist issue. The girls and women in these LDS offshoots are treated unequally in so many ways, not the least of which is that the men hold the power and the whole point of having many wives is to have many children.

Thinking about polygamy ties right back into conversations I've been having with friends about Proposition 8. One pointed out that the problem is a semantic one around association of the word marriage with a church-based ritual and religious beliefs, and sent me a column by conservative Douglas Kmiec about breaking "marriage" from the state-issued license. This makes sense to me, though people love traditions and I don't think we'll wind up with everyone getting civil unions recognized everywhere and some people getting "married" in their places of worship and/or by clergy.

The law should protect the rights of 13 year old girls who don't want to marry (and should protect teens who do want to marry from making hasty choices). The law should protect gays and lesbians from having their relationships ignored no matter what state they are living in or visiting. Beyond that, why does the state/federal government even care about what consenting adults call their relationship?

Relieved

2008-12-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

I've been very relieved to not have to post every day.

I don't remember its being that hard last year - but then again, last year I was used to daily posting.

Sky Smile

2008-11-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

Driving 580 coming home from Novato this evening, the sunset was in three wide bands of blue, orange, and foggy purple. There was a slim crescent moon and soon two bright stars, one off each end of the crescent. It looked like a benevolent face smiling down on the Bay.

I did not try to take a photo. I know the limits of my skills as a photographer - especially while riding in a car - and the limits of the photo abilities of a cell phone. Imagine this.

UPDATE 12/3/08:
Here is a photo of the moon and planets over Hong Kong that almost matches what I saw.

Thanksgiving Traditions

2008-11-29T21:26:00.000-08:00

We don't have any. Other than a couple dozen, or more, people at my mom's house, and particular dishes, that is. A friend of the family's brought her yams with pecans and mandarin oranges for years, and the last two years she has brought them to the house and left for another Thanksgiving dinner. She even brings the yams in the same dish every year. Another friend, when she's not in LA with her daughter and he son-in-law's family, always brings Brussels sprouts in some form.

A volunteer at the food bank told me that in her family, everyone writes what they are thankful for on slips of paper which are then baked into crescent rolls. When the rolls come to the table, each person takes one and reads the slip, and then everyone guesses who wrote which one.

I really like this idea but I don't think I could institute it at Mom's. Our Thanksgivings now require two or three tables, and hardly anyone eats rolls. With three kinds of stuffing, we don't exactly need them.

A Post for Nov. 28

2008-11-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

KT's mom arrived for Thanksgiving with some kind of stomach bug which happily took up residence in KT and No. It's our favorite holiday and No had to miss it - when you have a stomach bug, you don't really want to be around food, but more importantly, and considerately, they didn't want to bring the bug to the unsuspecting crowds at Chez Mom.

I was exposed to the bug also since Kt, No, KT's folks and I had dinner together Tuesday evening, but I thought I'd dodged it. I don't get stomach trouble often and when I do it's just usually lots of burping. It hit me late last night - as the last folks were leaving, actually - and kept me up all night. I thought I'd have lots of time to leisurely write a post today but since I haven't eaten since yesterday and have been either sleepy or sleeping, the brain's not firing up.

But I am committed to posting every day. Now that you've come to the end I guess I can mention that my committing to write every day doesn't mean you have to read every day...

Food Bank Bailout

2008-11-27T13:16:00.000-08:00

To see this editorial cartoon by Signe Wilkinson, go here. This is what it looks like at my food bank.

If you want to find a food bank in your community, do an internet search for "food bank" and the name of your city, county, state, or region. If you're in the US, you can go to the website for Feeding America, formerly America's Second Harvest.

It's the weekend

2008-11-26T19:29:00.000-08:00

It's a nice long one too and that's great because I'm really tired.

Yesterday was a great day, but very long: I arrived at work at 9am and left at 730pm. In the meantime I was involved with our big turkey giveaway, at which we gave turkeys to 378 families. The line was a block long, but we got everyone a turkey, stuffing, and gravy in just over two hours with help from the Alameda Fire Department and staff at Wind River Software.

Did I take a break then? No, I went back to the trailer and signed up or recertified a bunch of families. I walked over to the coffeehouse and got the most spectacular drink I've gotten in years: I ordered a regular hot chocolate but because I'm well-known in the neighborhood as a food bank do-gooder, the folks in the store gave me an enormous HC with caramel sauce and a big fluff of whipped cream with chocolate shavings and more caramel sauce on it. It was so rich it carried me through for the rest of the day.

... Which included serving 50 people at the regular pantry program in the evening. We normally serve 25, but all of the volunteers, without saying anything to me, were determined to stay until everyone who walked in by 630pm got served. No, KT, and KT's folks showed up, doubling my staff, and we couldn't have done it without them. They packed bags, helped clients make selections, accepted and logged donations, and generally freed me up to do new client intakes and general taking-care-of-people. We were serving an hour after we closed.

This time of year is stressful and busy and all of that. I've been getting paid in hugs and smiles, which is a great bonus.

Turkey Says Eat Beef

2008-11-25T23:00:00.001-08:00

Or Gardenburgers

Turkey Says Eat Pork

2008-11-24T21:57:00.001-08:00

Lying with the big dogs...

2008-11-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago Zirpu and I dogsat our neighbors' Rhodesian ridgeback mutt Thanksgiving week. We brought him to Mom's because we couldn't leave him home for that many hours, and Mom and Zirpu introduced her dog, Pi, to Rocky outside.

Pi had a bed that Rocky loved. He laid on it most of the afternoon, despite Pi's protests.

Get Ready!

2008-11-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

This evening driving home from an economy-stimulating adventure, Zirpu and I passed the church about half a mile from here. There's a small marquee next to the church on which they announce Halloween parties, special services, short Biblical verses, and the like. Tonight's sign says:

Judgment Day Meeting
November 23
845 and 10am

Temper, Temper

2008-11-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

We served 62 people at the food bank today. Being the week before Thanksgiving, and the last Friday of the month (we're closed next Friday) I wasn't surprised. I resisted closing the sign-in list until well after 3pm, but when I realized that the list went to 70, 45 of them had been checked in and 30 of them had been served by 3:30, I decided I had to go with the commitment made to the volunteers. They didn't even start leaving until 4:30. It was a long day; I didn't even take a lunch.

There seems to be a direct correlation between how much English a new client speaks and how many people come into the food bank to drop off donations, get something signed, interview to be a volunteer, and how many times the phone rings. If that person doesn't speak English or Spanish, add 5% (it occurs to me that none of the non-English speakers today spoke Spanish, either). On top of that, two little girls got in a fight - the littler one threw a plastic stool, which broke apart - and a baby was crying most of a solid hour and a half.

All the volunteers, including a brand-new one (who fortunately has worked at another food bank), were very pleasant to all of these clients today. It was hot and loud inside the trailer, and all of us kept our tempers. I'm especially interested to note that I kept my temper today, since circumstances pointed to other times when I've lost it: The food bank director was at the food bank less than an hour today; I didn't get a break; I didn't eat very well; the phone was off the hook for an hour so there were 12 messages to take and return; there were a lot of things going on all day that I had to manage.

This evening I was talking with Miz Jinkins about none of us losing our tempers today, and she said that she thought that "losing your temper" should mean that it went away, and "keeping your temper" means staying mad. I think the words "control of" are implied in the phrase to the extent that we leave them out altogether: "I'm keeping [control of] my temper" or "I'm losing [control of] my temper." Still, I like the visuals of "loosing" rather than "losing" - "I'm loosing my frustration." That is what it feels like to me - I loose my temper, it's out and bounces away.

Fortunately today I didn't lose or loose my temper. I think I may be mellowing out, because I know that a lot of the same conditions that have really tested me in the past don't get to me the same way that they used to. I do not consider myself a mellow person by any means. But I may be mellowing. How does that happen?

It's The Se-e-eason for Loooviiiiiing,,,

2008-11-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please to put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you

A man came into the food bank earlier this week with his red-cheeked toddler, who, big-eyed with sleepiness, looked more like a Precious Moments figurine than a real girl. He was running errands and had come in to drop off a donation check, which was pretty significant. He said that he was having a good year, and he knew other people were having a bad year, so this year he is upping the amount he's donated in the past.

Mom asked me what I want for Christmas this year, and there really isn't anything. I'm thinking about talking to the family (Mom, No, KT, and Zirpu) about considering giving my pet charities money instead of things to me for Christmas. I know what I think is important, and I don't want or need music, books, or clothes (other than the Holy Grail of garments, jeans that fit perfectly). I've been fortunate this year: I'm not only employed, I'm doing what I want to do; I'm educated; I'm healthy; I'm safe; I have food in the pantry. Rather than receive a gift, I'll give my gift proxy to someone else. Laughter with my family is gift enough for me anytime.

Next Blog

2008-11-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I'm just not ready to go do something else, I click "next blog" at the top of the page of whatever blog (including mine) I'm currently looking at.

Most of the time I get a blog that isn't in English. I understand that people are blogging all over the world and all of the time. However, since Google/Blogger is in Mountain View, and the Blogs Of Note all seem to be written in English, it seems strange that I usually get sent to blogs written in Portuguese, which to me looks like Spanish spelled incorrectly. Perhaps it's just an English skewing since the Blogger staff probably speak English most of the time so that's what they "note."

Straighter Hair and Greener Grass

2008-11-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

When I was in grade school, it seemed like a lot of the Asian girls wore their hair in a straight pigtail on the tops of their heads (see picture in yesterday's post). Maybe it wasn't a lot, but it was definitely more than one. Maybe they didn't always wear their hair that way, but things stick in my mind and as the event fades into the past, I remember less of it... like the details.

Part of why I remember this is because I was envious of those girls' hair. I wore mine in a long braid down my back. I had cloth-wrapped bands twisted at both ends of the braid, and often an orange or red yarn ribbon tied at the end. Sometimes I wore the kind of hairties that had white plastic marbles attached to them. My hair was always in a braid - I remember that it seemed to naturally part into three sections every morning (probably because I slept with the braid).

I really wanted straight black hair. I could have worn pigtails sticking straight out to the sides or even on top. I could have worn one long ponytail in the back, or medium length, or short, and/or I could have had bangs. I had none of those things. I had blondy-brown thick curly hair that could only be worn in that long braid. When I was ten I got a radical change to my hairstyle - cut to neck-length and with bangs, and wore it that way for about three years, but if I'd had any sense of what it looked like I would have hated that too. When my hair was at its longest since I've become an adult, I didn't braid it but I always wore it in a ponytail. I had to wash it every morning to keep it from becoming too tangled to brush, and the thick part under the hairtie was always still damp when I went to bed.

I still want straight black hair. Sometimes people ask me if this is my natural curl (and I find myself thinking, "isn't it obviously natural?") so I respond in the affirmative, and they tell me how lucky I am to have curly hair. But I always think of how much easier it is to curl hair than it is to straighten it, so it has always felt to me as if the straighthaired have more style flexibility. The grass is greener on the other side of the fence and all that.

Haircut Needed

2008-11-17T22:51:00.001-08:00

I don't know what to do with my hair. I don't want to shave it off again (it's going to be cold in January at the warehouse). I don't want to wear it in the style I wore most of the time between 13 and 38. I don't want to crop it close in back with curls on top, though I know that would be a perfectly decent look. I'm having trouble committing to hair gel.

I only wear it in a pigtail on top of my head to give Zirpu a chuckle. I never wear it out of the house this way. I don't consider myself that vain, but....

Dark Fantasies

2008-11-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

November 10, 2008

Kaiser started harassing me to get a mammogram at the beginning of the summer. For some reason my birthday had defaulted to 1/1/68 so as soon as I joined I was late to get it done. When the birthday thing was finally straightened out, they left me alone for about six weeks, and then they started again. I made the appointment for the second Thursday of October, and I tried to approach the day with a "rite of passage" attitude.

I was given the most elaborate hospital gown I've ever seen, a cloth one that wrapped all the way around like a monk's cassock, held closed by the second sleeve. Despite the elaborate garb, I wound up not feeling like I'd experienced a rite of passage, but feeling just that virtuous "preventative care" feeling I get after leaving the dentist. They sent me on my way with the promise of a postcard with the results.

[Note for those of you who wonder what it's like: It didn't hurt. I've had men squeeze my breasts harder. For the record, though, the radiology tech said that it's different for everyone, depending on breast size and time in your cycle, as well as - though she didn't say this - pain tolerance levels].

The postcard came, dated October 15:
I did not wait seven days to be contacted. I called after four days to make the return visit, which was scheduled for Nov. 6. I barely spoke to anyone about the return visit, because I was trying not to think about it. That was easier than it would have been otherwise, because of the Presidential campaigns and the Prop. 8 campaigns winding up to fever pitch (and the no on 8 campaign winding up at all). Everyone I knew was absorbed in politics talk, as was I.

When I thought about the return visit to Mammography, I found myself thinking, against my will and against my superstitions, about what I was going to say about what was happening. Telling Zirpu, who's already got a lot going on. Imagining telling my brother and my mother, who already lost someone to cancer. How much and when I would tell the volunteers at work. Whether the Bi Women's Group was even going to apply to my life during this. Telling myself I would "beat this thing," imagining the faces and names of women I know who have. Then I would quickly veer away, and force myself to think about something else.

I was really annoyed with myself for indulging in these dark fantasies. I knew that these were the first mammograms I've had and that Kaiser, having nothing to compare these pictures to, was being as cautious as they've been with Zirpu's heart. So I would repeat all this to myself when I was imagining the bad stuff.

I went back to Kaiser, and this time bypassed the fancy gown. I told the woman who offered it to me that I would decline it to save resources, though the real reason why I did was because Shmeen told me I could. "You don't have to look like a patient just because it makes them feel better, " she said, "Besides, it's stupid. You wear it for five minutes and then they put it in the wash. Stupid!"

The first thing I asked the radiology tech was if I would know anything before I left that day because I did not want to get bad results off a postcard. She said a doctor would look at the x-rays right away and meet with me within about ten minutes. She took the pictures and I went to wait for results. In those eight minutes I coached myself to not freak out if the doc told me they wanted to take a biopsy. I reminded myself to go into crisis management mode to take care of business, get the appointment made for as soon as possible, and freak out later.

The rad tech came out and told me the pictures showed nothing, and everything is fine. She noted that I have dense breast tissue, which once she mentioned it I realized I'd heard that before during breast exams at an annual physical or two. She said I should tell the rad techs at future mammograms so they could compensate for that when posing my breasts for the mammogram machine.

"Everything is fine." Great words to hear. That's why I start this story with those words.

A Late Post

2008-11-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't been to bed yet, for me it's still Saturday and the 15th, though the clock indicates it is 12:40 am on Sunday the 16th. So a short post and I will write more thoughtfully tomorrow.

1. Four places that I go to over and over:

The food bank, the Hayward Public Library, Mom's, home

2. Four people that e-mail me regularly:

Shobi-wan, Mom, the Tea Lady, Zoyie

3. Four of my favorite places to eat:

Pakwan, Alice's (La Patisserie & Le Paradis in Hayward), Buon Apetito, Mom's

4. Four places that I would rather be now:

The Cabin (Rocky Mountains), Playa Fiesta (Puerto Vallarta), Lake Pinecrest, somewhere quiet

Four TV shows that I watch (but none regularly - I go in spates):

Battlestar Galactica (grrr!), Dinner Impossible, Chef Jeff Project (which ends this Sunday), The Daily Show

In Review

2008-11-14T19:54:00.001-08:00

The FBD asked me to write a self-evaluation for a performance review, which I did on the BART train last night while going into SF for dinner with Motochick. When I was a student I never waited until the last minute to do my homework... but I haven't been a student for a long time. This afternoon I learned that my self-evaluation is going up the chain; I thought it was just going to the FBD. Fortunately I wrote rather formally anyway.

The self evaluation sheet is the least complex review form I have ever seen. At Saint Mary's College we had the kind of performance review sheets on which you circled a number (1-5, 5 is low) and then we went to essay questions. This one was hard because there were no hints in the questions, which were two: "Strengths" and "Weaknesses." The "Weakensses" piece was difficult not so much because I'm perfect (which of course I am, ha ha!) but because really, the tasks that make up my job aren't that difficult. The difficult stuff is all about personality.

Strengths:

Welcoming attitude toward clients, volunteers, and donors

Evaluating potential volunteers for long-term positions at the AFB – improvement over the last year

Communicating needs to volunteers – improvement over the last year. Also communicating gratitude to volunteers for their time and work

Counseling clients on range of issues beyond “just needing the AFB.” I try hard to destigmatize needing the AFB.

Similar understanding of the AFB mission as the FBD and how that mission is expressed during day-to-day operations. Willingness to do many things (for example, go to ACCFB [to pick up wholesale produce] on way to work) to forward that mission at all times.

Weaknesses:

Managing frustration – improvement over the last year, but could always be better
(for example: Last spring when a lot of volunteers didn't show up one week, I was really angry and I believe everyone knew it. When a similar thing happened in September, I was frustrated but I didn't lose my temper).

Understanding how the metrics [inventory and client data for each month] are put together and how to read them, which I am working hard to improve.

(b) 1 I am becoming more comfortable with making “executive decisions” about food inventory and volunteers as time goes on. I wait much less often for the FBD's availability/opinion than I used to.

Vowels

2008-11-13T21:47:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday night, I was listening to Robert Siegel and Nichelle Norris try to keep us all up to date, or rather up to minute, with all the news coming in from everywhere back east. Because there's always some blank time between polls closing, whoever hosts all those news shows has to keep talking - especially on public radio, where they can't break to commercials or dazzle us with special visual effects like holograms to fill in the time.

The discussion was, of course, about the ethnic background of who was at that time still only "likely" to be our next President. Robert Siegel remarked that Obama would be the first president whose name ended with a vowel, unless you counted Kennedy. Nichelle Norris darted in with "And if you count 'Y' as a vowel."

I'm reading Middlesex, which was published in 2002, and while discussing Dukakis' run for the White House in 1998, Eugenides writes in the voice of the narrator, the grandchild of Greek immigrants:

..."Dukakis." A name with more than two vowels in it running for President! The last time that had happened was Eisenhower (who looked good on a tank). Generally speaking, Americans like their presidents to have no more than two vowels. Truman. Johnson. Nixon. Clinton. If they have more than two vowels (Reagan), they can have no more than two syllables. Even better is one syllable and one vowel: Bush. Had to do that one twice.

(I thought of some three syllable presidents. We've had four since 1901, two of whom were named Roosevelt).

Just above the part I've quoted, Eugenides writes, "Maybe the time had come when anyone - or at least not the same old someones - could be President."

Seems like the time has come now. Obama's not even an incumbent vice president after a successful eight years, which is what I was expecting it would have to be for a person of color to be elected president.

One of those moments

2008-11-12T23:36:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you make a new friend, through some social activity like a party or a club, or through a mutual friend. You know this friend for awhile, and you think you know them "well enough" and then one night you're listening to them talk and you realize they weren't what you thought they were.

Sometimes the realization is about something great, like you see their passion for something, or they get educated about something and can hold discussions of depth on that subject. I've had this experience recently. A not-very-new friend suddenly seems much more complex than I had assumed - and I know this is because I'm seeing something in her that may have been there all along, but I didn't have the opportunity to see it until now.

Advice From Zirpu

2008-11-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Zirpu is very annoyed about something right now. Since that's not an unusual state for him to be in, I won't bother telling you what he's annoyed about.

He just said that he was told once, "When someone is really annoying you, pretend they are really enlightened and they are trying to teach you a lesson."

The Missy Mommies

2008-11-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up, all the kids in the neighborhood spent almost as much time in each other's homes as we did in our own. I've listed before the different attractions different houses offered. We had a lot of sleepovers at each other's houses too, sometimes on school nights. I remember late-summer nights of sleeping out in the W's yard, and one in particular when Eri and I swung on the swings for hours as the sun went down and the sky turned to purple and black.

Sometimes one or another of us would be overcome with wanting to be at home. I only remember this happening at J Jump Joyful's or DeeKay's house, probably because I don't remember my mom loving anyone as much as she loved me, except - maybe - No. We'd go to bed, and whoever's mom would come in to say good night and turn off the lights. Somehow, one of us would tell the mom she was sad, or wanted to be at home. The mom would sit on the bed and rub the kid's back, speaking in a quiet voice about having "the missy mommies" and how that was okay, you would see your mom in the morning but now it was time for sleep and in the morning we would have breakfast and you would go home and Mom would be there for you just like always...

The lulling voice and the back rub would relax you so much that you could snuggle into your pillow and hear the other kids' breathing and when the mom got up and left the door a little ajar so the hall light would make a slice on the floor and you knew that this was an okay place to sleep.

Something Not On Politics

2008-11-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

I have come late to biscuits and gravy. This is mostly because I did not grow up in a biscuits kind of household, but I didn't grow up in a gravy kind of household either. I usually saw gravy at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I didn't know "sausage gravy" was something people still ate (though it had many appearances in the books I read).

Shobi-wan is probably one of a rare breed, the native Wyoming vegetarian (she told me that for the first ten years after she stopped eating meat, her relatives would always offer her chicken instead). While we were living together, Gardenburger opened up in southeast Portland and Morningstar Farms products became available at the grocery store. You know the saying, "My girlfriend/boyfriend is a vegetarian, so I am too."

Shobi-wan introduced me to biscuits and gravy with vegetarian sausage-tasting patties and homemade biscuits. However, recently Zirpu and I were at Costco and he enthusiastically purchased three boxes of Morningstar "sausage" patties and I was reminded of those biscuits and gravy Shobi-wan used to make.

I asked her and her response, had it been verbal rather than by email, probably would have been accompanied by a not-very-but-slightly exasperated sigh. She said any white gravy will work. I didn't know what white gravy was, but checked out my trusty Joy of Cooking, to me the place I go to learn/review American basics. I can make an Indian feast but I've had to look up how long to roast pork, make any kind of gravy, and how to part out a chicken.

Fortunately we have a jar of bacon grease in the fridge so I used 1:1 bacon grease and flour, plus a little extra flour (either it wasn't ever going to thicken or I lost patience), and a cup of milk. The veggie sausages got heated in the microwave and broken up, and I served it over canned biscuits. I think there's a part of me that believes you either have to be in the South, from the South, or grown up rural - that part of America that is "real"** - to make good biscuits.

I like these better than the B&G I've been getting at our breakfast place. The gravy was thinner and less greasy so I didn't feel like I'd eaten a jar of paste after. And almost vegetarian!

** Oops. Sorry. Well, not really.

Exhausted and Angry

2008-11-08T21:25:00.001-08:00

Anger is exhausting. I've been trying to figure out how to talk about a conversation I had with an acquaintance on Tuesday, and I've been stuck about what to even say about it. Oddly enough, I know this guy much better now than I used to, or would otherwise, if we hadn't gotten to a point where we said that "we can respect each other even though we have differing opinions"... which is really another way to say "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

I had a long talk with KT last night and another one with YaYa Words of Thunder this afternoon. I'm feeling less wound up - at least for now - and now that I'm feeling less wound up, I've been thinking that I need to put the anger behind me. It's only hurting me. I will be behaving differently, but I need to let go of the anger so that I can do my job, enjoy hanging out with friends, and sleep at night. I have to figure out how to talk to people about this election without losing my temper.

Unlike some of my friends, I thought 8 was going to pass. And I figured if it didn't, the supporters of man/woman "traditional" marriage would be back in two or four years anyway, just as the Oregon Citizens Alliance came back in 1994 after being smacked (lightly) in the 1992 election. All I can do is talk about what I think the Constitution stands for, which is freedom to speak, freedom to assemble, and freedom to worship or not. But until I can get rid of the anger, I can't talk about the Constitution in a rational manner.

Tomorrow I'll be with friends, one of whom has promised me a soak in the hot tub and many drinks. Hopefully those three - the friends, the hot tub, and the liquor - will help me expel the anger so I can start over next week feeling happy my guy is going to be the President in January.