You idot!

A fit a pique this morning over trying to pay a bill online:  After a  lengthy attempt at signing up for online access to my  bill, including two phone calls because the sign-up wasn't working, I managed to tell the computer to pay the bill out of my checking account.  Never had such a problem before.  Great sense of accomplishment.

That was five days ago.  Today I found out the bank didn't accept the account number.  The bill had not been paid.  I had to write an actual check and mail it to Phoenix.  It will probably arrive late, and I'll have to pay interest. 

Needless time-wasting!  Dopes at the bank!  Maddening!   Idots!

Yes, idots.  My sister-in-law once parked too close to someone's driveway and whoever it was left a note on her windshield berating her and finishing up with, "you idot!"   She took this home and showed Jerry's brother.  Both were bemused. 

I have to be careful about adamancy.   Because if you get too worked up, you can lose command of the spelling region of your brain and you look like an idot yourself.  Sputtering is not helpful, either.  I did that on the phone two weeks ago with a United Airlines reservationist.  Counterproductive.

I'm taking deep breaths.

Memorial Day

Jerry and I went to Pleasant Hill yesterday and walked along one of my favorite trails.  Houses back onto it, and you can look over or through fences and see chickens, hammocks, fountains, trampolines, grills, sun umbrellas, outdoor furniture, children's toys, play houses, and even a mini-vineyard.  Tall trees, dappled light, perfect weather, an excellent walk.  Afterward, we bought frozen yogurt at a joint in Lafayette.

When I was a kid,  my family would drive from San Jose to Oakland every Memorial Day to leave flowers at the grave of my dad's mother, who died before I was born.  This meant visiting my grandfather and his second wife, Eddie (see recent post), which was a bit of a sticky wicket.

Eddie was not all that enthusiastic about her predecessor, so she and Grandpa did not join the excursion to Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.  But my family and my Aunt Phyllis went, the trunk of the car filled with buckets of  home-grown flowers, some brought with us from San Jose in what my mother called "the didie pail," a white enameled bucket into she'd used to soak diapers in. The Italian family who lived next door to my grandfather would pass roses over the fence in buckets.  Possibly my grandfather sneaked in some flowers from his own garden.

When we got to the cemetery, we'd go through the usual trimming of grass away from the stone, filling the vases with water, and arranging the flowers.  And then my aunt would stand up and said, "Bye-bye, Mama."   I'd think, "Her mother's under there?"  Then we'd all go off and eat one of Eddie's weird lunches. 

Memorial Day, 1968:  My sister, my Aunt Phyllis, my dad, and my mother, the last time I can remember all of us going together.  I went off to college the following fall.

 

A Few Too Many Steps

I'm major Barbara Pym fan--those who know me have probably endured my trying to get them to read her books.

She was a British novelist, sometimes called a "modern Jane Austen," who wrote wry, domestically-detailed novels about mid-century life in England, usually involving the Anglican Church.  I love them!  Lots of single ladies, vicars, eccentrics, descriptions of food, with a quiet sadness underlying it all, captured by a woman who was nothing if not clear-eyed.

Barbara Pym in her last home, in Oxfordshire, late 1970's

When we were in England in 2009, I insisted on a detour on the way to Heathrow Airport so that I could visit  her grave in the village of Finstock, in Oxfordshire, where she retired.  My cousin and her husband drove us there.  Jerry found her gravestone in the churchyard. 

At Barbara Pym's grave, Oxfordshire, 2009

Yesterday, trolling around online, I found that there's a Barbara Pym society, Green Leaves,  that has documented every place she lived and went to church,which became  the settings for most of her novels.  I looked at the addresses and realized you'd have to traipse all over London via tube and bus and your own two feet to visit them all.  Would I do this?  No.  I love her, but I'd rather visit her world in her novels.  Cross that off the bucket list.

Chicago Views

Lurie Garden, Millennium Park

Cloud Gate, Anish Kapoor, Millennium Park

Standing underneath Cloud Gate, looking up

The Robie House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, on a Chicago Architecture Foundation tour

Is this the year?  A sign at Wrigley Field

By late in the week, tents set up in Millennium Park for events planned by Michelle Obama for the NATO Summit

The City of Chicago Flag

Blackbird, Mark Handforth, the shape of a wire coathanger, at the  Museum of Contemporary Art

At Wrigley Park for a tour

One More Pitfall of Flying

Since I got home from Chicago, I've been looking into the how/why of my United Airlines Economy Plus seat apparently being sold out from under me.  I was reassigned to a seat in the middle of the last row of the plane.  I couldn't believe my eyes, looking at the diagram of the plane.  I hyperventilated, and reached for the phone.

It turns out that airlines don't have to guarantee you a specific seat, even if you choose it when you pay for it!  Oh, yes! Your ticket entitles you only to some seat on the plane.  They can reassign you at will.   So even the comfort of knowing which seat you'll have: it's gone.

If you buy tickets other than directly from the airline, it's more likely you won't get to sit with your family/partner/friend.  Apparently, families who buy from discount websites are finding their children aren't seated with them, even pre-school children.  But this can happen if you deal directly with the airline, too.

A travel agent I know told me that airlines will bump passengers if an elite status flyer with that airline wants your seat.  She's seen that happen most frequently with United Airlines, and she thinks that's what happened to me.  Economy Plus was full, and someone with a higher status prevailed and snagged my seat.  She assured me that someone at the airline made the change manually; it was not a computer error. Diabolical!

But I was vulnerable to this manuever because I cleverly bought aisle and  window seats for Jerry and me, hoping the middle seat would be empty and we'd have more room.  Bad idea.  The airline viewed me as a solo traveler, my travel agent friend said, and solo passengers are more likely to have their seats reassigned.  All the flights I've taken recently were jam-packed, so there's no point in trying this anyway.

What to do?  Advice from online travel gurus is to check your seat assignment regularly online, every week or so,  before you fly. If I hadn't checked my seat assignment two hours before printing my boarding pass, I wouldn't have seen that the seat I bought three months earlier was gone, and I wouldn't have been able to wrangle with United reservationist to get it "reinstated." Which took an hour.   Oh, boy.

We Remember

So,  Campbell Brown a former NBC and then CNN reporter, blasted Obama yesterday in the New York Times about being condescending to women, bestowing "fake praise," and being "maddeningly off-point."

Down in the eleventh paragraph, she reveals that her husband is an advisor to Mitt Romney, but that's beside the  point.

She also says, "The struggling women in my life all laughed when I asked them if contraception or abortion rights would be a major factor in their decision about this election.  For them and for most other women, the economy overwhelms everything else."

I read up on Ms. Brown.  She was born in 1968, the year I graduated from high school.   She grew up in a world where contraception was freely available, and by the time she might have wanted an abortion, it was legal.  As Anna Quindlen said recently on NPR, young women take for granted their right to contraception and "there's no going back."

But there might be going back.  Look at the current majority on the Supreme Court. Look at the possibility that so many women younger than Baby Boomers might vote for a candidate who is pro-business and socially conservative, because they think he'll help them find jobs.

Jobs are essential, I agree. But I keep wondering if see younger women see the connection between financial well-being and reproductive choice.  And are they aware of the perilous holes developing in a safety net that's supposed to help impoverished mothers?  The kinds of programs a socially conservative, pro-business candidate will cut?

I'm shaking my head. And I hope every last Baby Boomer woman votes in the next election. We remember.

See It Before You Leave It

I'm always glad I went on a trip.  Past tense. Leafing through my trip journals and blogs in the comforting familiarity of my own home is wonderful. Going through the actual process of the trip isn't always wonderful, and I have to take medication at night to pull it off.  See photo at left.

Last fall, when my dear friend Rob was dying and I went to LA to say good-by,  he told me that one of the reasons he could almost accept the end of his life was that he could no longer travel.  What was the point of living, he said, if he were confined to his bedroom and couldn't even take a car ride?   Five months earlier, he'd taken his last trip, to Europe to meet up with his partner.  To do this, he paid full-fare Business Class and took a machine with him that fed him a special liquid diet through a port in his side.

On our recent trip to Chicago, I found myself thinking often of Rob and saying to him, "Look, I'm traveling!  I'm out seeing the world!"  I like to think he would have approved, maybe even applauded, even though it was only Chicago and I didn't have to take a special machine with me in order to eat.  His bravery far outstrips mine.

But for a long time I wouldn't travel because I was too scared.   Now I go,  but  I try to control for every possible variable by planning way ahead,   researching like mad, and sometimes paying more.   It doesn't always work.

Last year, Italian air traffic controllers went on strike and left us stranded in Verona for 10 hours.  On the same trip, our favorite hotel in New York City gave us a terrible room.  On the trip to Chicago, United Airlines sold my seat and reassigned me to one in the last row, middle seat.  There's only so much you can do.

Despite all that, I feel as though I have to step up, to see it before I leave it.   Next trip: Glacier National Park in August.

Doesn't This Look Inviting?

This was the state of my studio last night, our first day back from Chicago.  On the center shelf of the bookcase, you can see the brown cardboard covers of diaries/scrapbooks from past trips.  The Chicago scrapbook is not ready to join the group.  It needs annotating and organizing.

Note the ingenious idea of using the ironing board as supplementary desk space to park maps/brochures/guidebook/tickets and other detritus I couldn't seem to leave behind in Chicago.  Instead, I packed it up and shipped it in my suitcase, which cost $25 to check:

Detritus packed up and flown home

One task I'm going to get to today:  I tore out pages from the Frommer's guidebook so I wouldn't have to lug the book around town.  Now I'm going to tape all those pages back in.  Oh, yes!  Anyone ready for a trip to Chicago?  I've got a guidebook, a scrapbook, a personal journal, and a travel blog.  As soon as my desk is cleared off, I'm going to put my head down and take a rest.

Chasing the Moon

This is not what we saw.

But we did rush up to Inspiration Point in the Berkeley hills on Saturday evening.  I thought we'd be the only ones with such an ingenious idea: go see the biggest moon of 2012, the Supermoon!

But no.  Already the parking lot was full and cars were circling and lined up and down the side of the road.  It was a festival of Berkeley quirkiness and diversity, including us, a bemused entomologist and his bossy wife who insisted we Go Look.

A blurry phone photo of the scene

There were old men in berets and Birkenstocks, raggedy urchins who probably go to $25,000/year private schools, lots of gray-bobbed ladies, people with cameras on tripods, and tipsy people with champagne flutes.  Also, strollers, babies, blankets on the ground, and a seven-year-old boy wearing a cape who asked, wide-eyed, if we might see some owls.  I mean, if you're going to see a huge moon, why not some owls?

Tremendously long lenses

We all gazed expectantly just to the left of Mt. Diablo in the distance, which  Jerry questioned.  How did anyone know exactly where the moon would rise?  After 25 minutes of standing around, someone in the crowd cried, "There it is," and sure enough, to the right of Mt. Diablo, behind some trees, bright orange orb was slowly rising.  The I-mean-business photographers swung into action. It was 8:34 pm.


Because we didn't see the moon rise at the horizon,  it wasn't all that  impressive.  But it was fun. As one onlooker said, "Isn't it wonderful?  It brings everyone out."

Then we drove down the other side of the hills, glimpsing the moon through the trees as we went, and back along the freeway and over the hill back to the west side of the Berkeley hills. The moon, at that point, was nothing beyond its usual magic.

The moon rising above the trees

Just So You Know

Because I didn't. 

If you're ever poor enough to qualify for Medi-Cal health insurance, you'd better hope you never get a toothache.  Because if you do, your options are a) to ignore it, or b) to go to a county hospital, get antibiotics for the infection, and make an appointment to go back to have the tooth pulled.  That's it. Forget fillings, root canals, and crowns.  Not covered.

This came up because a friend who's a social worker has a client with an abscess in her mouth.  She's in pain.  You or I would call our dentist immediately, or perhaps even show up at his/her office at 8 am as one friend of mine did in such a circumstance.  But no.

This lady has two options:  She can take two busses to the county hospital ER and get antibiotics and an extraction because it's deemed a "medical necessity."

Or she can take her chances at a lottery for dental care that's held infrequently on Tuesday nights at 6 pm at a Berkeley church.  This program is run by the Suitcase Clinic, a stellar program administered entirely by volunteer UC Berkeley students. The first ten clients to sign up are entered into a lottery; only two or three are chosen at random for that night's dental services, offered by volunteer dentists, at the Berkeley Free Clinic.   If you're not chosen,  it's two busses to the county hospital and an extraction. 

When I heard this, I got so worked up, I was ready to call my dentist on Monday morning and plead for pro bono care. Or negotiate for a reduced fee, which I would cover. For all I know, he already provides free care through the Berkeley Free Clinic.

There are a couple of other options, according to my friend.  The Native Health Clinic and the Asian Health Clinic charge only about $70 for a filling, but that's out of the questions for Welfare-to-Work mothers getting $200 month and food stamps.  Dental schools also charge for their services.


I get a view into the meagre, obstacle-filled world of the poor when I volunteer at the Berkeley Food Pantry.  I see their desperation when I tell them that they've come too often that month,  and we can give them only very little food.  We all know that eating is not an option, and the volunteers in the back room scrounge around to give clients something to keep them going.  But dental care isn't an option, either.   Am I missing something? (Fortunately, due to good luck and dental care, not teeth.) 

The Bastard

Yes, that would be the scale.  A scale like they have in the doctor's office.  A scale that does not lie. 

I bought it years ago, thinking a good cold splash of reality each morning would keep me on track.  Not.  Instead, I had to keep sliding the top weight farther and farther to the right.  I began to hate that scale and moved it to Jerry's bathroom. I replaced it with a digital scale called "Thinner" (in this case named by the manufacturer) that was reliably a half-pound lighter.  Glory be.

The scientist keeps track of his weight

Jerry took up with The Bastard and cheerfully records his weight on a chart taped to the cupboard door in his bathroom.  This is because he never gains weight and because The Bastard likes men better.

Eventually, "Thinner" gave up the ghost, and I replaced her with another "Thinner," but this one's a bitch.   She registers my weight a pound and a half higher than The Bastard does. 

Now, each morning I slink into Jerry's bathroom and have a reluctant confrontation with The Bastard, but the minute Thinner gets her act together, I'm back in my bathroom like a shot. 

But no chart.

DIY Travel

E-mail this morning from a friend who's planning various trips for the summer: "Being one's own travel agent is not a lot of fun,  and takes forever!...Bah, humbug!"

Girl, I hear you!  Yesterday I spent hours trying to figure out a complicated trip we're planning to take a year from now.  I listened to 25 minutes of "Rhapsody in Blue,"  the United Airlines theme song.   I spoke to people in Houston and Bangladesh.  I consulted  Kayak countless times to see what airline went where.  By the end of the day,  I was nowhere close to nailing it all down.  I  drank three glasses of wine before dinner.

Why don't I use a travel agent?  Because they don't come cheap ($100/ticket to get me an upgrade), and because they've got lots of picky clients to deal.  I have only myself, and I can tell you that self is a pain in the butt. 

That self wants upgraded seats using miles and not just any upgraded seat, but one away from the galley and the bathrooms and not facing backward  ( and confirmed upgrades, which means booking eleven months ahead).That self wants a cruise cabin near the center of the ship, but not near the elevators and doesn't want to pay for a premium cabin.  And that self is hellbent on reading airline reviews, choosing a seat on the advice of SeatGuru, and reading TripAdvisor hotel reviews to glean any fact that might indicate traffic noise, thin walls, claustrophobic rooms, and snooty service.

That self is a client I'd prefer not to deal with, but I'm stuck.

Here's a tip I picked up from a friend at the pool:  When you call an airline, put your phone on speakerphone and set the phone down beside you while you wait.  This is very helpful as long as you remember not to leave the room without taking the phone with you.  I started to do this and almost missed the helpful lady in Houston.  At which point, I would have thrown the computer, the phone, and myself out the window.

Side-Stepping into Grandmotherhood

For Baby Addison

I just became a step-greatgrandmother.   One of Jerry's grandsons became a father last week (I would include a photo of the baby, Addison, except that it seems to be beyond my skill set).

I draw the line at step-great-grandmotherhood--I mean, c'mon--but this baby is very cute and deserves an addition to her Birth Trousseau.  Yesterday while I was in Nordstrom  returning a bunch of clothes, I peeked into the baby department.  I was seduced, of course, and bought a little outfit,  although it took me a long time because, believe it or not, the baby clothes in Nordstrom are organized not by size but by designer. The sales associate approved my choice, saying it was "awesome."

My sister and me with Eddie, who called us "the kiddies."

I had a step-grandmother, a character named Eddie, whom my grandfather married just before I was born.  In the family, she was viewed as a Piece of Work and also as very fat. Looking at photos today, I don't think she was particularly fat, just a plumpish old lady who didn't particularly like kids and who had a string of eccentricities.

She loved birds and had one called "Pretty Boy," which she let fly around the house when we visited at Christmas and other holidays.  Sometimes Pretty Boy left his "calling card,"  as she put it, but no matter. They often beak-kissed.

Eddie and Grandpa talking to Pretty Boy, on top of his cage

Eddie also had an odd idea of what to buy for Christmas gifts (she preferred cash for herself). It was not unknown for my mother and aunt to unwrap multiple boxes of Kleenex wrapped in kitchen foil. She also favored the kinds of things advertised in infomercials, contraptions you didn't know what to do with, and then they broke. My parents and my aunt put up with her, but talked about her behind her back. My grandfather seemed enamored and even went along with Pretty Boy.


My sister and I would check out as often as possible during these visits. We'd investigate the spare room, where Eddie kept her stash of pulp magazines. Crime, crime, and more crime!  Perfect reading for children!  One article was titled,  "He Cut Out Her Heart and Stomped On It."  The "her" was a babysitter, which was nerve-racking.  We had a lot of babysitters.


I plan to be a benign step-greatgrandmother (or whatever the hell I am).   Addison is welcome to visit us, and maybe we'll go  to Texas to see her.  I hope she doesn't think I'm a piece of work,  just a lady who buys overpriced confections in the children's department and who will definitely not call her a "kiddie."

Blogging: Who Cares?

After  I wrote yesterday's post about our upcoming trip to Chicago, I thought, "Oh, really, who cares?" 

So, this morning I was surprised to get an e-mail from a reader who said, "... I love your pre & post trip analyzing. I admire the fact that you have had the forethought to document & catalog your trips...I love the uniform blank books you have accumulated & embellished."    My sister's college roommate sent several tips about what to see in Chicago.  Thank you!  Who knew that post would resonate with or interest anyone?   Not me.

I have a friend who wrote a column for the "Pt. Reyes Light" for years, and how she managed to a) come up with topics and b) keep it up confounds me to this day.  I don't know if she suffered from "Who Cares," but she's a reader and maybe she'll let me know.  Sometimes it takes a substantial caffeine-hit for me to approach the computer and write a post, because, really, nobody has to read it.

On the other hand, it's fun to write posts, and besides I get to hear such nuggets as the reader who dyes her hair and eyebrows while wearing a designated stained chenille robe.  You never know.