Halloween on Parade

 

 

I headed over to see kids at the local school parade around in their costumes.  They were led by a contingent from the Cal Band.  Lots of younger sibs in arms and strollers.  Traffic stopped for two blocks on Solano Avenue, directed by motorcycle cops.

 

 

 Led by part of the Cal Band

 

 

 

  Marching up Solano Avenue

  



 


A  strawberry watches

 

More spectators, in a rolling crib

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Transformer and mom 

 

 

 

A teacher playing retired teacher, in bathrobe

 

 

 

 

Katy Perry and unidentified friend

 

 

 

"I'm a Poodle Skirt Girl"

 

 

 

Very animated

 

 

 

 

Mr. Tie-Dye

 

 

 

 Tonight's trick-or-treat territory 

 

 

 

Sugar, Sleep, and Stats

 

 I cheated on the sleep deprivation plan this morning and slept until 8:30. Felt good. There are limits, and I reached them yesterday. 

Today I have to have my wits about me because I'm overseeing the Food Pantry, due to the director still recovering from a heart attack and my friend Judy being away. Judy has all the Pantry details in her head, and she's not only gone but in Boston possibly with no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy. I might have to call her this afternoon.  Hope her phone works.

After Jerry collected the usual Starbuck's contributions to the Pantry this morning, and I lifted an iced donut for an energy bounce (who am I kidding? I'm a sugar addict). This is okay, per the director. I ate it in slices so that at any point, I could decide I'd had enough and could throw the rest away.

 

And blog stats:  I was baffled to find out that my most popular posts have to do with Snooki, Romney dyeing his hair, and a couple of artists who modeled men's clothing for the New York Times magazine months ago.  These are among the least interesting topics to me.

Finished the donut. 

Snapshots from the Week

   1.

It's back!  Our late lamented mailbox, removed on September 20,  bolted back in place as of yesterday.  Where did it go?  What is the US Postal Service up to?  And why?



                                               
                     
         2.

Prescribed sleep deprivation:  I'm beginning to get used to it, although the first hour I'm up, I'm zomboid. This morning when Jerry finally appeared (7:30 am), I had a plan to go out to breakfast, a reward for enduring three days of 5:30 am wake-ups.

Over breakfast he told me about an e-mail request he received:  Another scientist wants him to send a leg of a particular moth specimen; he's going to do DNA analysis on it.  This is standard practice now, removing one of the six legs of a museum specimen so its genes can be analyzed.

 

                               My camera couldn't see the legs, either.

                                                                                               
                                                                                            
                                                                           3.

Our basket overfloweth

We're getting reams of election mail, mostly about state propositions.   Our recycle basket is full. 

I've recycled my 2008 Obama  yard sign by wiring it to the railing of our deck.  Note the  cleverly recycled twist-ties from Berkeley Bowl supermarket. 

If Romney wins, I'm leaving it up permanently.

                                           

                                                                      4.

I've just about finished reading "Dearie," a biography of Julia Child by  Bob Spitz.  In spite of his annoying colloquialisms (a friend abandoned it because of them), I recommend this book.

 Julia was frisky!  A cut-up in school, very interested in sex, although she was a virgin until her thirties (product of the times).  I've read several books about her, including her own "My Life in France," which I loved, but it's more discrete than this book.  As far as I can tell, she was completely authentic and very fun to be around.  Always optimistic, too.  When doctors discovered she had breast cancer, she said, "I'm going to get a false titty...I'll be fine, dearie."                                                                            

 

 

                                                                         5.

 

 An art show that tempts me, even though the gallery is in North Beach and nowhere near BART:   Kim Frohsin at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco:

                               



 

#67: Summer of Love, 2012  from Portrait of Numbers: 2011-2012

Montage of drawings from The White Dahlia series, 2011

Years ago, I bought a couple of her prints/gouaches.

A Girl Reading, 1998

                                                                                              
                                                                   6.

This week, I said to hell with my bathroom scale and retired it to a bathroom cupboard, where it can hang out with my hot rollers and curling wand, unused since the 80's.   I'm not going to diet, so what's the point?   Am I alone in doing this?


                                                                             



                                                            7.

 

 

Partly constructed Sawtooth Star block

I started to make the first Sawtooth Star block for a quilt I have in mind.  After half an hour, I had to abandon my studio--the off-gassing from fabric bothered me.  

I'm getting allergy shots twice a week, which five years ago calmed my immune system enough so that other allergens/sensitivities became much less pronounced.

                                                                        8.

Backyard fall color:

A native grapevine in our backyard, backlit by the setting sun

Cemeteries: Do I Have To?

Yesterday I went to graveside services for a close friend of a friend, more in a support role, really, which is how funerals are sometimes.

I'd forgotten how sanitized it all is.  The deferential funeral director who knows the drill and moves everything along.   Everyone else, humbled by the momentousness--after all, someone has died--gratefully ushered through it all.   The hearse appears, people line up, you drive to the grave site, which is draped in astroturf so you can't see the dirt.

The last graveside event I went to--not exactly a service--was eight years ago.  My sister-in-law, Delilah, died.  T here was no undertaker because she had a home burial.  Jerry's brother  Peter had dug the grave over a period of weeks.

When Peter called to ask us to come, he wanted us to run a couple of errands:  We were to pick up a cardboard coffin from the hospice in the small  town near where they lived in  Humboldt County and then go to the grocery store and buy butter and beer.

We did as we were told.  Then we drove out to Peter's and wrestled the knocked-down coffin out of the car.  Peter and Jerry set it up, and Peter measured it to make sure it would fit in the grave.  His daughter arrived from Oregon, and the two of them settled Delilah in the coffin.  Then Peter tied it with a rope and slid it down a plank from a second-storey bedroom window to the ground, where we received it.  The four of us carried Delilah in her coffin, her head resting on her beloved and ancient jean jacket,  to the grave.

Which turned out to be too small.  The coffin wouldn't fit.  Peter sprinted back to his workshop for a shovel and dug out some more dirt.  Finally, the grave was big enough, and the three of them painstakingly lowered the coffin into it while I guided it.   The coffin got hung up on one corner, and I had to push on it with my foot to make it fit. 

It took a lot of dirt to fill the hole.    We shoveled like mad.  The sun was slipping lower in the sky. Two dogs frolicked nearby. Finally, when the grave was full and I was just about to initiate a little service, starting with the words to "Now the Day Is Over," the dogs began yelping.  They'd been stung by swarm of wasps. We threw down our shovels and ran for the house. I got stung on the midriff. 



Delilah's grave, partly covered by heart-shaped rocks

 

 

 

I was traumatized by this experience.  I had never buried anyone personally, and I hope never to again.

I began to wonder, yesterday,  standing in the damp manicured grass, if there was something between the sanitized mortuary burial and the hands-on, horrifyingly real burial of Delilah.  Maybe not.

I resolved to be cremated.  For sure.

Underslept

Yesterday was a revelation.  If you get up at 5:20 am,  you have so much more  time.

I felt energized and just about fatigue-free.   It was a miracle!  I did a ton,  including cleaning out my car AND the refrigerator.  Two supermarkets.  Etc.  Long list. That sleep therapist was on to something!

Today, I am catatonic.  I can't think.  Noise makes me crazy.  I look haggard. And I have five more days of this.

All I can do is to check e-mail (same old notice from Netflix), Facebook (politics; tired of it) and Google News.  I just found an article there called "The Sex Life of Conjoined Twins."  I'm so thrashed, I'm not even interested.  If you are, it's in The Atlantic.

Attempt to rev up.  Didn't work.

The Crack of Dawn

This was the view from our deck at 7:10 am today, just after dawn.  The tiny light in the distance is a window in our neighbor's house.  At this point, I'd been up for an hour and 50 minutes.

That's right.  I got up at 5:20 am today, and I have to do this for a week.

This is the instruction of the sleep therapist.  I must decrease my "sleep window," to increase "sleep pressure."  In other words,  I will be so deprived of sleep that when I get into bed I will actually sleep.

For the first hour, I thought I might be dead.  I slumped in a chair and listened to NPR. 

Now I'm waiting for Donald Trump's announcement about Barack Obama that's supposed to be an election-changer.  Although Robert Simon of Politico says, "...Donald Trump couldn't be dumber if you cut his head off."

Throw Blanket Over Head and Pray

 

 

This is my current approach to the election.  Don't listen or read too much about it.   Pretend like you're on a plane during a storm, hang on to the armrests so you can help hold up the plane, and hope for the best.

A friend of mine told me that on a flight to England she sat near a woman  who threw a blanket over her head at take-off and didn't emerge until the plane had landed safely at Heathrow.  Good idea.

(If you must read, check out the editorial in today's  New York Times about the impact of a Romney win on women, especially on their reproductive rights.  Then replace blanket over head and pray.)

Hupmobiles, Kaisers, and Other Family Cars

Sorting through the stash of family photos I inherited when my parents died,  I came across lots of pictures of really old cars.

My parents' first car was Hupmobile.   It looks like something out of a gangster movie. It had a running board. Here I am with my mother and the Hupmobile, in front of my grandparents' house in Oakland in 1952:

Note running board (no machine guns)

 


A close-up of the hood ornament on this baby:



What is it?

A look online:  Hupmobiles were named after Robert Hupp, who founded the company in 1908; production was suspended in 1939.  I think my parents bought theirs in the early 1950's.

After a few years,  my dad got rid of the Hupmobile (he was in charge of car acquisition, and for years my mother didn't drive), and bought a Kaiser.  I ran this past Jerry.  A Kaiser?  "Oh, they were losers," he said.  "People made jokes about them."

Turns out they were produced by Kaiser Industries from 1945 until 1953, when Kaiser could no longer compete with GM, Ford, and Chrysler.  Among the model names: Carolina, Traveler, Dragon, and Manhattan.

Here we in Santa Cruz,  c. 1955, with our Kaiser, which was sort of a dried-blood color:

My mother, my sister, and I with our Kaiser

 

 

 

Not a very good shot of the car, but here's what a similar model looked like:

 



With bench seats:

No seat belts, but my sister and I survived to adulthood

A few more years,  and my dad traded in the Kaiser for a brand-new 1959 Ford.

My sister and me with bikes, two-toned car, and tract house, c. 1960

This tank cruised on for ages.  My sister drove it to high school, and it didn't bite the dust until the early 1970's when she and her friend Margaret were broad-sided by a teenage boy who ran a stop sign.  They were unharmed

I'm amazed at how many photos there are of the family standing next to the car of the moment.  That ended with the Ford.  After that, there are no people-and-car shots, although my parents had several other cars over the decades.

The last car, which my sister and I sold when our dad died, was a Volvo station wagon.  All white.  No photos.

Snapshots from the Week

                                                                            1.

Still battling insomnia,  I've signed up for six sessions with a sleep therapist.  I'm afraid he's young enough to be my son, but he's very pleasant and knows a lot.  As of this week, I have reading assignments, and I have to keep a log of my sleep each night.

The therapist's office is near Diesel Books and Bittersweet on College Avenue in north Oakland.  I never come home without a new book or some chocolate (each of which can lead to insomnia).

                                                                         2.

 

On Tuesday, my friend Valerie and I took her sister-in-law and my friend Ellen to the Lake Chalet restaurant on Lake Merritt in Oakland  for her birthday.  Delicious food, eaten indoors or out.  Here's a picture of Ellen blowing out a candle on her tiny cheesecake.

 

                                                                              3.

A not-so-good photo of a dish that's become a go-to around here:  Pesto Roma Tomato Boboli.  People have told me about simple pizzas you can make with Boboli crust, but only my friend Lin had dictated the recipe.  Hurray! I use artichoke pesto instead of basil and sprinkle some sliced black olives on top:

Buy a prepared Boboli crust (I use whole wheat)
Spread pesto sauce over it
Cut up Roma tomatoes and lay on top (I use 2)
Sprinkle a package of shredded mozzarella cheese (I use half a package and add cheddar, too)

Cook according to directions on Boboli package.

                                                                               4.

                                                            
A harrowing but addictive read: "Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots."  The portrayal of a woman growing up in a strictly religious sect of orthodox Judiasm who finally breaks free.  I recommend it but not for bedtime reading.

                                                                                   5.

Taking a break from British television crime shows, we watched and enjoyed these two documentaries this week:

"How to Live Forever," an investigation of how people live to be 100.  Funny, sad, and occasionally hilarious, such as when filmmaker Mark Wexler interviews a Japanese man who stars in "elder porn" movies, very popular in Japan.  This film ultimately validated my contention that there's no point in seeking immortality and why make an ass of yourself trying?

"All in This Tea"  follows a West Marin tea specialist, David Lee Hoffman, who treks around China seeking "handcrafted" teas, which seems to mean organic and made by small farmers.  He sells his  tea at Peet's and online at Phoenix teas.  He's indefatigible and something of a crank who's made a pest of himself to his neighbors in Lagunitas (this I found out during  follow-up reading online).

                                  

                                                                              6.

I'm still pretty tense about the election and didn't watch the second debate. I  found this Immigration Kit at Bittersweet in north Oakland, if worse comes to worst:                                                                     

 

 

 

                          A selection of chocolates,  a Canadian Immigration Form. While supplies last.

 

 

Also featured: The Obama blend of coffee.  Note the countries contributing beans.

 

 

 



 

7.

 

 

 

Quilt by Jessica Ogden (about $630; made in India)

 

 At first glance, I thought there was a screen in the background, but it's a quilt.  The photo is from The New York Times Magazine, which featured a page of photos of Tina Seidenfaden Busck's gallery in Copenhagen.  Gave me ideas.

 

 

 

Religious Education and Me

Yesterday I read an article in the latest New Yorker about the Book of Common Prayer, now 350 years old.

I call myself a lapsed Episcopalian, but the quotations from the Book of Common prayer were so familiar to me from my childhood that  I found I could finish off phrases automatically. 

"We have erred and strayed form they ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts..."   Even if I don't subscribe to the beliefs, the writing is beautiful, the product of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533-1556.  He did a nice job.

At a reception following my confirmation in the Episcopal Church, 1963. My friend Ann, also newly confirmed, is about to cut the cake.

 

 

I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church when I was 13, and I went to months of Saturday classes beforehand  to learn about Christianity, but I know almost  nothing about it.  I've never understood what the Holy Ghost is, and until yesterday, I didn't have the slightest grasp of the difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, beyond the existence of the Pope.  According to the New Yorker article,  the Book of Common Prayer was written at the time King Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church.  It is a Protestant document, written in English to be accessible to the layperson.

How could I live to be this age and not know this?  Or more about the religion I was raised in or about Roman Catholicism, one of the great religions, with millions of followers, the iconography of which appears in thousands of great paintings, some of which I've studied?  My ignorance speaks to laziness, I hope not to disrespect.

I logged on to Wikipedia.

Here's what I've learned so far: (I know I have Catholic readers, and I welcome corrections because I don't have all that much faith in Wikipedia.)

Roman Catholics venerate saints, especially the Virgin Mary, and believe saints can pray for them directly to God. Hence feast days, prayer cards, and processions to shrines.   Protestants believe people can achieve grace through faith alone, not by earning it,   Roman Catholics have a "magisterium" (which means "teaching") which lays out beliefs that aren't in the Holy Scripture, tradition codified by bishops and the Pope.  Whereas Protestants view Holy Communion as a metaphorical enactment of the Last Supper, Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the "real presence" of the body and blood of Christ.

This morning I badgered Jerry into helping me unearth my trunk down in the basement, and I dug out my own Book of Common Prayer, given to me by my godmother when I was 10. It's a dignified document, lyrical, emotional, humbling, profound.  I may not believe it, but I need to know about it.






My own copy of the Book of Common Prayer

In Praise of Post-Menopausal Women

A friend of mine has a theory that all post-menopausal women should, in evolutionary terms, be dead. We can't reproduce, so what's the point,  is her point. (She's in her sixties herself.)

Maybe so--in theory, per Darwin (who had a beloved aging wife)--but I find myself cheering every time a new volunteer in her post-menopausal years shows up at the Berkeley Food Pantry. 

Because I know she'll show up.

She'll be stalwart, reliable, good-humored, and experienced.  She'll have fewer demands on her time and more focus than a woman who is younger and has children.  Or a younger woman who is unemployed and helping out at the Pantry until she finds a job. Or both.  She won't have midterms, finals, or Spring Break.

We've had some stellar volunteers who were younger: unemployed people and students, but one day they have to leave to go back to school or to a new job.  A sad day when they go.

My friend Judy and I , both in our sixties, have shown up at the Pantry on Mondays for nearly four years. Each of us travels occasionally, so there are a few gaps, but by and large, we're there.  And every time a sister-post-menopausal woman shows up as a new volunteer, we cheer. We don't care what Mother Nature has in mind, we want her.

At the pantry, from left to right:  Pat, who just got a job; Judy; and Maria, who's gone back to high school

A new volunteer who fits the bill, Barbara, showed up at the Pantry a few weeks ago.  I plan to make her a name tag and ask her if she can replace dear Pat and help me at the client check-in table.