Unloading Stuff

I've had a burst of energy after being struck down  by a cold.  Yesterday I cleaned out my closet, got rid of a lot of clothes I never wear because they're too old, too small, too dreary (remember knit tops before stretch?).  Three handbags, several pairs of sandals and shoes, including a pair of sandals from Target so cheap I couldn't resist buying them but hell on the feet. A pair of jeans I wore for years until I caught sight of my rear end in them a few months ago: deeply unbecoming. God knows if they'd make anyone else look any better; they're outta here.

After that,  I got going on books.  I don't LIKE Anne Tyler!  Or a second earnest book about peach farming. Or any more Annie Dillard.  I don't need a copy of "Rebecca." At the same time,  I can't bring myself to get rid of any literature books from college, even though I haven't laid  a hand on any of them since 1972  except to pack and unpack them during moves.  I discarded three mostly unread books by Ruth Prewar Jhabvala: I don't care if she wrote wonderful scripts for Merchant/Ivory-- I don't like her fiction, so there.

I've got a lot of empty hangers and roomy bookshelves.  Feels good.

Kim Kardashian

I am hooked.  She is opportunistic, exploitative (shopped around for an NBA player to marry and took her second choice), vulgar, driven, and talentless, except at getting people riled. She wore three Vera Wang dresses at her wedding  and demanded that guests wear black or white.  She marched down the longest aisle in modern history, except maybe the one at St. Paul's Cathedral.  Her wedding cake was black and white.   Her husband is a baby-faced dope.  And now, some six weeks post-wedding, the marriage is on the rocks, and the couple has been video-taped having a fight in a car.  The groom has taken to not wearing his wedding ring.  Her ring is a 20-carat diamond, and she always wears it.

There is speculation that she got married as a publicity stunt and so she could make $17 million from having the wedding videotaped by E!.

Isn't this disgusting?  I'm riveted. 

Museum-itis

My cold is better today, and I was up to reading the Sunday NY Times over soup at lunch (that would be last Sunday's Times and soup I sent Jerry out to buy).  There's an article by art critic Edward Rothstein called "Extreme Museum: The Rigors of Contemplation," about his experience with "Museum Mind," which he describes as "when I couldn't really pay attention to da Vinci at the Louvre or Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum...the evidence can be seen in every museum as people rush through galleries, seeming to seek relief from something in hot pursuit."

God, do I know what he means!  The worst attack of Museum Mind I ever had was last May during my first visit to Florence.  We were in the Uffizi Gallery,  where  every last painting was iconic, something I'd seen in art history classes,  The Real Deal, thinking, "Oh, no!  Not another one!" Afterward,  I wrote in my trip journal, "I feel a bit guilty for not being enraptured.  Went to roof cafe and watched a small boy chase pigeons."

An antidote to Museum Mind can be museum gift shops, which, Rothstein says, "often function as decompression chambers," to prolonged submersion in art.   True for me.   When Museum Mind strikes, I begin to think of having to look at art as the price I pay for getting to the gift shop.  Very, very bad.

What to do?  Rothstein says Museum Mind can be controlled by careful rationing, limiting exposure to the most demanding and consuming forms of contemplation.  Exhibits that are not art--historical or natural history exhibits--are less demanding, he says, and I agree.

But I want to look at art!  Who gives permission to skip some masterpieces and concentrate on only one?  To call it a day when you're thinking more about the gift shop than what's in front of you on the wall?  This takes more discipline than I have.  Afflicted by Museum Mind,  I've rushed through the galleries get to the gift shop, where I buy postcards of masterpieces I strode by.  It's nuts, but I get a lot of pleasure from postcards of paintings I was too overwhelmed by to  look at on the wall and ended up pasting into my trip journal.  What the hell.

The Anti-Epiphany

Stuck at home with a cold, but guys are here doing deck repairs, sanding away, so forget rest.  The noise is deafening.  Just discovered a fine white dust coating the bedroom floor, possibly carcinogenic.   There is nothing good to be said, so I'm decided to become Fran Lebowitz.  Stay tuned.

Fashion

Claudia M. and I hightailed it out to Walnut Creek today to get me some clothes other than jeans and t-shirts, for dress-up occasions.  I'd watched a bunch of fashion make-over shows on cable while we were in Inverness, and I realized I didn't know a  thing about current fashion.  I'm worse than the lady priest they had on "What Not to Wear."

We went directly to Nordstrom and found the not-so-expensive department I like to go to, which has been moved to the opposite end of the store (replaced by Gucci and St. John).  The usual squad of sales associates tried to help me, and I finally gave in to an older saleslady who was a goldmine of information re current styles and what to wear with what.  Plus she didn't judge me.  No wool! I said. No sleeveless!  No ponchos!

She got us a dressing room and kept running in clothes, while Claudia advised on fit-and-flatter and hung up the rejects.  I bought two pairs of pants and a few tops.  The pants are stretchy and tight.  I had to go upstairs and buy special underwear so I wouldn't have a visible panty line.  I was totally out of it re underwear, also.  Now there are panties with no elastic around the leg; instead they have an adhesive that sticks to your thigh. Hard to describe.

Staggered home.  The stuff is all still in the bag.  But I feel as though I look a little more with-it, and some of this stretchy stuff is actually flattering.

And now to Jerry's fashion statement:  Here is the purse that he found at the West Marin Thrift and he's going to use as a camera case.   Hard to describe how delighted he is with it,  especially the "J."  He dispensed with the shoulder strap and matching checkbook cover.

Being Prepared

Yesterday there were two earthquakes in Berkeley, both on the Hayward Fault, which is two blocks from our house. After the first one, I tossed the TV remote in my hand across the living  room and ran out the front door. Breathed and went back into the house.  A second earthquake while we were eating dinner--a quick rumble--and we leapt into action.  Honestly, here's what we did:

1. Decided to move one of our cars to the street because our garage is under the  house, and if the house collapsed we'd have no cars.  Which car?  Jerry's because it's less liable to be stolen.

2. Dragged ancient earthquake supplies out of hall closet.

3. Emptied 4 gallons old water out of plastic containers and refilled them.  Worried that the plastic was so old that the  water would pick up carcinogens.

4. Checked earthquake kits for clothes for each of us.  Jerry would have been fully clothed, but I had no shoes and no pants.  Hastily rooted around in upstairs closet for pair of pants that would fit.

5.  Filed several months of paid bills in an accordion folder--fast, fast, fast--and put near front door so we'd have account numbers.

6. Pondered whether canned tuna and soup in kit were too old to eat.  Concluded they were and tossed after argument with Jerry re wastefulness.

6. Dashed back upstairs and grabbed four binders of investment statements.

7. Gathered up prescription drugs, paying particular attention to having enough Xanax.

8. Ran upstairs again to get binder of photos of quilts I've made.

Went to bed with a flashlight and a pair of slippers at the ready. Nothing happened.  Got up this morning to find a mess of stuff near the front door.  (Note: we are not taking the plant.)

 

Quilt Addendum

It arrived safely.  Carling sent an e-mail last night.  She says it's  the prettiest thing in their living room.

Here is a picture of Jerry lying under the quilt top several weeks ago, pretending to be 6'4" (Scott's height), so I could see if I'd made the quilt long enough.  Also wide enough for two.   He is a very-good-sport Quilt Husband, although he sometimes worries that I'm going to run out of storage space for fabric and fill up his shower.

The Quilt's in the Mail

I finished up the wedding quilt for Carling and Scott.  I packed it in blue tissue paper in a stray box from Costco, taped it up, addressed it to them in North Carolina, and took it to the post office.   Then I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  This is the third quilt I've mailed, and I'm never comfortable with it: my baby!

Carling chose the quilt pattern from photos of quilts I've made; there was no way to adapt it, so I duplicated the quilt.  Then  I threw in the bright back to please myself.  On the lower left corner of the back, there's a label: "For Carling and Scott, Sept. 4, 2011," and then an embroidered heart, and my name.

Done.

Eerie and Sad

Yesterday Jerry and I drove out to Briones Reservoir, in Contra Costa County,  for a late afternoon hike. When we got to the trailhead parking lot, there was an EBMUD ranger in his truck, engine running.   When Jerry got out of the car, the ranger asked if the silver Subaru we'd parked next to, a twin to our own, was our car.  No, said Jerry.

The ranger said the car had been there overnight, which isn't permitted, and that we should keep a look out for someone injured on the trail.  He was going to call the sheriff, and he was wondering if he should call out a search party.

Jerry and I started off on the trail, me selfishly hoping we did NOT find anyone injured we had to help.  We walked about half our usual distance. Back at the parking lot,  I looked through back windows of the stationwagon.  There were men's clothes on  coathangers, several plastic boxes of packaged food and jars of honey and dried fruit, a box of classical piano music and another of books.  Everything was very orderly.  Then I looked in the front windows and saw a sealed white envelope, face down, lying between the two seats.

We drove off and hiked another trail, and soon we could hear a helicopter, which seemed to be circling the reservoir.  I wondered if we'd read about the search in the newspaper.  We agreed  that the envelope was not a good sign.

Home from a Trip

Why is it the minute I walk through the door of my own house I feel in charge--and burdened?  Food to be put away, laundry to be done, mail to be sorted through?  How much of this do I choose to take on?   Can I lower my standards and let go of a lot of monitoring and planning?  Would everything fall apart if I did?  What if we moved to a rental house permanently?  Would life be easier?

So anyway, I'm offering a reward of several million dollars or at least some minor publicity if anyone can answer these questions.  Plus, you could probably get a book contract if you could write  it up and find an agent.  I have a feeling that a lot of women want answers.

Report from Town

It's raining again!  We're just back from town (that would be Pt. Reyes Station) where we had lunch at the Pine Cone restaurant, but at the little yellow table for two that no one wants because it's too small.  The woman in the booth behind me  was deafening and wheedling; her husband a low, bickering growl. Paid the check and then set off for the West Marin Thrift Store, where my friend Elisabeth finds elegant clothes, but I saw nothing approaching elegant, all  was tired and pile-y and stretched out.

Jerry,  however, found himself a small handbag,  black with a white "J" on it, a child's purse. He was  so delighted with this, the initial and all, that he bought it to use as a camera case. I said nothing, but it reminded me of the kindly vicar in one of Barbara Pym's novels who becomes enamoured of  small animal-shaped soaps, which everyone but himself finds very odd.

Then we proceeded up the main street of PRS, where the Station House restaurant has had a smart coat of paint, and the whole town looks a little less of-the-rancher and more of-the-tourist, but the discerning tourist.  A shop called Vita is so wonderful that I'd take anything in it (as a gift, pricey).

Cookies from the Bovine Bakery and now home to search for "Say Yes to the Dress" on cable. No matter what your size or shape, this bridal salon in NYC can shoehorn you into a strapless white dress with a boned bust that seems to have a life of its own.

R&R in PR

We're near the end of a ten-day visit to Pt. Reyes,  really to the nearby town of Inverness, and I'm feel refreshed.  I almost cancelled the trip because I couldn't face the hassle of packing up for it--we don't travel light--but sitting in a small cottage surrounded by oak and bay trees turned out to be a good idea. 

My friend Rob died ten days after I said good-by to him, and five days before we were scheduled to come here.  He's been  much on my mind.  At first I felt heavy with sadness, discouraged by the way life works out sometimes (hell, ALL the time; it ALWAYS ends in death).   Soon after we arrived in Inverness, rain started and went on for three days.  I wondered why we'd bothered to come.

Now the weather's cleared up, no rain, less fog.  We've taken some good hikes. I've visited with a couple of Inverness friends.  Jerry and I walked all the way out to the Pt.  Reyes Lighthouse (300+ steps), and we  also visited the historical Coast Guard Cemetery, both  firsts in 15 years of vacationing here.   I feel better. 

Still sad, though.