Three-and-a-half times older than my car...

By noon today, I'd taken my car in to be worked on, come home, mapped out dinners for two weeks because we can't stand to go to Berkeley Bowl more often than that (and I don't trust Jerry to come up with low-carb dishes), gone to BB, come home and unloaded six bags of whatever, and picked up my car for $300.

Generally, good

That's six drives across Berkeley.  The later in the day it got, the more hellish, because our route across town almost always involves driving past Berkeley High or the University,  and if it's lunchtime, forget it.  Students pour across the street, and you sit in your car and get agitated.  Jerry and I are bad co-drivers; we egg each other on.

"TURN RIGHT ON RED, you idiot! Don't you know the rules of the road?"

Yesterday I came up with the Golden Hemorrhoid Award for slowest, most distracted driver (at the time, a silver Chrysler).   We awarded it several times this morning.

The man at the garage told me that my 1995 Camry station wagon is in very good shape, considering its age and mileage (132,000).    Also that I could sell it for a surprising amount of money because "it's a simple four-cylinder car without four-wheel drive and all that."  I.e., it was the cheapest model I could find at the time.

Yesterday, my doctor told me just about the same thing re my body (not the selling part). I'm pretty healthy, all things considered, but will I please take Vitamin D?  Only it wasn't a suggestion.  Dr. T. orders.

I tried to tell her how I'd just read that calcium and Vitamin D don't really build bone, but she waved that off and told me if I didn't take Vitamin did, I'd have rickets.  Forget the calcium.  Also, she thinks I should feel empowered by coping with my insomnia by not taking meds.

 I don't, but I was afraid to tell her.

Now my car's back in the garage, and I'm not taking it out again for the rest of the day day.  I might feel empowered if I go out for a walk and leave it right where it is.  

                                                 Home again: The Blue Porpoise

Tuesday Hash

NFS at estate sale

I just wrote "Berkeley Bowel" on my calendar for tomorrow, instead of "Berkeley Bowl." The living room, where I am sitting,  is a strewn-newspaper zone.  Jerry has started his own personal collect of folded-up paper towels on the coffee table (you never know when you need a napkin).

The plumber's arriving in less than an hour, and I'm still in my jammies.

The dishwasher's broken down (never buy a Bosch!), and the kitchen's full of  dirty dishes.  Once a day, we wash and dry them--and complain.  Like this is a Major Life Problem.

We made another recipe from the South Beach Diet Cookbook that was a dud:  Chicken Capri.  Chewy chicken, tasteless crushed tomatoes, a slice of mozzarella.  Almost as bad as Lawn Soup. (But most of the recipes from that book are good.)

High point of the weekend:  The Ortman house on Thousand Oaks Boulevard is for sale, and realtor Ann Plant let us in to see it, though it's listed by the Grubb Co.

Wow!  I can see why the Ortmans stayed there for decades (they ran a neighborhood ice cream parlor on Solano Avenue, now a plain old Starbuck's).  There isn't a single dreary room in the house!  The light is wonderful throughout.   Four bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths.  We slobbered over it.  I wanted to move.
(Especially since it's very clean and the dishwasher probably works.)

Or maybe I just need this item from an estate sale we went to last weekend:

Head massager?

                                                   (The red wall-to-wall was for sale, too.)

Slob

I've become one.

I was sitting in the allergist's waiting room the other day, counting down the minutes until I could get my shot site checked and I could GO,  when I realized I was the worst-dressed person in the room.  If I'd closed my eyes and reached into my closet and made random choices, it couldn't be worse.

The ensemble:

Tired red fleece Land's End jacket, worn daily for months.

Baggy lightweight jeans with a teeny hole in the bum that I convince myself no one will notice.  My sister told me not to buy these in 2008.  Didn't listen.

Nondescript black t-shirt

And the worst:  A pair of ancient, well-worn sneakers that I've hiked in for years, with white socks with a hole in one heel.  These shoes look truly shot-to-hell. (Heel hole was not visible.)

The whole get-up is comfortable, which is why I grabbed it to wear to the pool that morning and then just went ahead and wore it all day.  I do this all the time.

I tried to talk myself out of out.  After all, I live in Berkeley.   If you're too dressed up, people think you're a real estate lady.  Who cares what I look like?

Didn't work. 

Yesterday when I went back to the allergist for another shot,  I put on newer, tighter jeans; a top that actually coordinated with a scarf;  a long black Eileen Fisher sweatshirt; and sleek new shoes with no dirt or scuffs.

Note "Original Freedom"

I felt better.  But as soon as I got home, I took off the jeans and put on an ancient pair of Gramicci drawstring-waist pants, slid my feet into clogs,  and took a sigh of relief.  Hell with it.

Speckled with lint, but who cares?

Two Approaches to the Chocolate Bar

 

I bought two bars yesterday.   As of this morning:

 Mine

                                                                                Jerry's

Weird Soup and Other Snapshots

We had this soup for dinner on Valentine's Day. 

We've been calling it "Lawn Soup," because the chopped watercress looks like what's left after you mow the lawn. Or "Garden Detritus Soup," which is what it tastes like.  Chicken broth, mushrooms,  watercress, cellophane noodles (what are these?  we substituted rice noodles) and a few other odds and ends.   From the South Beach Diet Cookbook. 

Jerry made omelets to go along with it, and they were excellent. 

                                                                             2.

The kitchen faucet is leaking so badly that it quickly fills up a pan under the sink, so Jerry turns off the water for long periods.  I've surprised myself by becoming sort of meditative as I dealt with all this, especially while cooking such high-need-for-sanitizing items like chicken (note the Soft Scrub).   It's been like camping, with bowls of soapy water, rinse water, soak water.

Indoor camping

 The plumber came yesterday, is coming back tomorrow.  He wears a light on his head like a miner.


                                                                             3.

Just finished this novel, and I thought the writing was wonderful.  Samples I admired:

On older  female wedding guests, toting cameras, "..like tourists on an emotional safari, eager to bag a bride."

On a self-important singer at the wedding: "Almost everything Tom said came off as pompous."

On a central character, who's a lesbian: "Alice...supposed that the application of time--even in great quantities--would not be up to the  job of getting over Maude."

I hadn't heard of Carol Anshaw, but now I'm going to look for her other books.   She is both a writer and a painter and teaches writing at the Art Institute of Chicago.   This book's  a New York Times "Notable Book."  Highly recommend.

A book I just started and love:  "Londoners," by Craig Taylor.  He interviewed hundreds of people from all parts of London, and he lets each speak.  I'm learning a lot about parts of London I've never known enough about to visit (or had time).  

                                                                             

                                                                          4.                                                                                   

 Jerry-the-Aging-Jock and I really enjoyed, "On a Clear Day," a movie about a 55-year old man who decides to swim the English Channel.  He lives in Scotland and starts his training by swimming laps in the local pool, moving on to freezing cold local lakes and bays.  Jerry had to put on his down vest to be able to watch it.







                                                                                     5.

On the topic of water:  Pals have questioned our decision to take another cruise (to Alaska, in July) after the debacle of that giant ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico.  And the Costa Concordia, which  ran aground in Italy, and the Carnival Splendor,  was stranded in 2010.   Ditto the Costa Allegra in 2012.

What these ships all have in common is that they're owned by Carnival (Costa Cruise Lines is a subsidiary). They're known as a discount cruise line and perhaps their maintenance is along those lines?  I'm preferring to think that.

We don't do Carnival because the emphasis is on heavy drinking, art sales, and water slides.

"Spiraling awesomeness," as Carnival describes it

I read in a review on Cruise Critic that one passenger watched a raw turkey being carved at a Carnival ship buffet.

Don't do salmonella either (see above).

                                                                                 6.

 A week ago, Jerry and I took a walk at the Berkeley Marina and came across this garden for the locals ("on-boarders," as they're known; we have a few as clients at the Berkeley Food Pantry).  They have a potluck once a month  A grant from the city helped with construction.

                                                                                   7.

  
I delivered 111.5 pounds of food to the Berkeley Food Pantry today, as part of the Neighborhood Food Project.  Thanks to everyone who contributed: Anne, Val, Suzanne, Claudia, Dee, Karen, and Ann. 

What a stationwagon is good for

                                                                                 8.



                                                                          Spring?  

Valentine's Day: Year 36

We had our Valentine's Day celebration at breakfast today: an exchange of cards (Jerry's was the funniest) and gifts (chocolates for him, flowers for me).  Then I leapt up and was out the door to the pool,  Jerry went upstairs to fiddle with moths, and it was just another day.

With a sweet touch.

The pink foil-wrapped hearts were from my friend Anne.  I gobbled them after swimming, with a cup of hot tea.

 

 

We have no special plans for dinner.  In fact, I have no idea what we're going to do.  We've got a fridge full of food and no inclination to cook it.  And no reservation anywhere.

A full fridge thanks to yesterday's trip to Berkeley Bowl

Late this afternoon, I dashed into Andronico's for a few forgotten items.  The flower department was burgeoning.  I watched one man pick up roses and then irises and let them drip while he made up his mind.

Massed azaleas

My favorite of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik's overheard remarks on the topic of romance:

"Well, we were seeing each other until I inadvertently slept with another man."  (Woman to woman, overheard at Royal Exchange)

Love it.

Pox on the Pope? But Not on His People

Yesterday I read an op-ed in the New York Times about Pope Benedict XVI that was so astoundingly blunt that I interrupted Jerry's breakfast read of Sports Illustrated to make him listen to it. (I'm struggling with learning "links" but you can find it in the NYT list of most-e-mailed articles.)

The playwright John Patrick Shanley took the pope and the Roman Catholic Church to task unrelentingly, in a "no-good-can-come-of it" kind of way, as in  "the church is doomed due its intransigent intolerance."

I've never been a Catholic, and I disagree strongly with the Church's stand on homosexuality, birth control, abortion, celibacy, and a men-only priesthood. I'm baffled by the fact that infertile Catholics are not allowed to use IVF.  Nevertheless, I don't like to see the entire Church, which is, after all, people, dissed.

Ancient and out of touch?

I think there are many rank-and-file American Catholics who find spiritual sustenance in their church, who abhor the cover-up of pedophilia, who give money and time to catholic charities and hospitals.  Many disagree with the Church's teachings on social issues and have found ways to circumvent them in their own lives.

I used to be baffled by this "hypocrisy," but now, after months of reading blogs by young Catholic women, I'm more tolerant.

And then there are the Concello girls.

When we were growing up, my sister and I were best friends with the three of them, who lived over the fence from us.  They belonged to St. Martin's Catholic Church, and they had lots of mysterious things they had to do: catechism, confession, diping their fingers in holy water, not eating meat on Fridays.   I remember thinking, whoa,  complicated!

I haven't seen any of the Concellos in years, and I hope to God they didn't campaign against Proposition 8 or go harass people outside Planned Parenthood.  But I respect their attachment to a religion they were born into, that may have enriched their lives in a very personal way that circumvents a pack of men in Rome who are woefully out of touch, intolerant, and unkind. 

Backyard birthday party with the Concello girls, c. 1959.  Front row, left to right: me, Valerie and Vicky Concello, my sister with her hand being held up by Michele Concello.  Best friends through elementary school.

 
 

The evolving quilt...

I've been working on the quilt I'm going to offer to any blog reader who likes it enough to make a donation to the Berkeley Food Pantry.  I found a quilt pattern I liked it--the Sawtooth Star--and I liked the example pictured in a book.

I counted the number of fabrics the quilters who wrote the book used in their version: Eight.  I tried that.  Didn't work.  Bored me.  Did another version: too busy, hurt my eyes.  Here's a version from a few weeks ago:

Perfectly nice, but it didn't do it for me.  No point in going to the  trouble of sewing a quilt that doesn't SEND you. (In fact, I did sew together some of those stars, only to take them apart so I could include other fabrics.)

Here's the latest version:  

Very much in process, but at least it doesn't bore me

 

 

Fab Gizmo

I found this on Amazon last month, and I was so happy:

Omega International Travel Adaptor, $15.99

 It's a plug adaptor that works in almost any country you can name.  I bought one in England a few years ago, loved it, and then left it behind  in a hotel room. Tragedy!  No luck finding online until last month.


You twist the wring with the arrow so it's pointing to the plug system you want and out pops the right configuration of prongs at the other end.  It's a miracle!

 And then plug in at the other end:

 This works for so many countries on so many continents, that you need a magnifying glass to read them all:

Oh, I'm in love with this thing!  Jerry thinks I'm nuts.  But he won't when we're traveling and he wants to recharge his camera while I'm using my computer and my (240V) heating pad.  I bought two!

It doesn't convert 110V (American) to 220V (European), and you can burn out a 110V appliance, by using a plug adaptor to plug it into a 220V outlet.  But most cameras, computers, and phones automatically convert the voltage.

This is what Jerry came home to last night:

A luggage convention.   I'd just unpacked a suitcase from Amazon--a 22" expandable that is HALF the weight of my old one.  To hell with that!   I was assessing our overall luggage capability (pretty good at this point).

Gearing up!

Just a Wee Rant

I wanna be Maggie Smith!   No, no!   I wanna be dressed  by her stylist  in "Quartet"! 

I want to look elegant, even if I am OLD.

Yesterday I went to see "Quartet," which was just the ticket for a cold, cloudy afternoon:  charming and moving, even if it does teeter on the edge of making-silly-about-old-people-because-the-alternative-is-so-depressing.  The  music is glorious.

Maggie Smith plays a retired opera singer, and she is so beautiful, so elegant, with her long sweaters,  beautifully tailored loose pants,  striking necklaces,  and ladylike shoes.  (I looked her up on Wikipedia; she's 78.)  One of the other actresses, also elderly, reveals her crepey cleavage and her midriff rolls, but she's so charming and ditsy and adorable, that it seems fine.

I wouldn't choose it, but it's fine:

The stills I found from the movie don't do Maggie Smith's wardrobe justice.  She's not dowdy!   You need to go see it.

So,  is elegant and tailored still acceptable? Or is it all lumped under "dowdy?"  Does everything need to be skintight to be fashionable?  Can you buy elegant clothes for a reasonable amount of money?  Not super conservative--like Orvitz and I've had a go with them--but well-cut, flattering, with some pizazz?  And Spandex-free?

Do you have to wear Spanx all the time to camouflage midriff rolls?  Spanx are tight!  They're uncomfortable!  They mash your boobs!

I wonder.

Last month, a New York Times article about a new website for older women shopping for clothes gave me hope.  The 28-year-old who started Halsbrook.com says older women want to be "chic but not intimidating."  Her mother had some input.

But as examples of "mature women," the Times cited Michelle Obama and Madonna.  Need I say more?  I mean older than that and with imperfectly toned arms.  C'mon!

When I checked out Halsbrook, I found no clothes for under $300 and many for over $1,000.  And they're short.  And many are sleeveless.

Vitamin Shirts, Cotton Canvas Jacket, $315

Les Copains, Stretch Shirt Dress, $425.00

Peter Som, Vine Print Crepe de Chine Dress

, $2,145.00

Eileen Fisher clothes come to mind as an alternative, but they're expensive.  And sometimes I'd like a little more structure than what they have to offer.

Still looking.

Quilts Left Behind

  

Cat or dog?

This morning I was ironing a label on a quilt that I'm donating to a project of the East Bay Heritage Quilters to make quilts for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

 

The quilt I'm contributing is one I made for my Aunt Phyllis in 2002, when she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  I thought I was making a quilt with cats on it--cats were her passion.  Alas, it turned out the animals on the print were dogs, not cats, and she was never that crazy about it.  After she died in 2004, the quilt came back to me.

Re-named "Doggies"

While I was ironing,  I thought about the other quilts I've made for people who were sick.  One was for my sister-in-law, Delilah, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and didn't have long to live.  I found out right  before Christmas, and I was beside myself.  She was just a fewer years younger than I was, and I really liked her. 

The only thing I could think of to do was to make her a quilt.   In a week, I made one from flannel prints, cut free-form, kind of wild, which is what I knew she'd like.  I shipped it to her via FedEx and tracked the package every step of the way.

Delilah's quilt, 2003

When she died several months later,  Jerry's brother gave the quilt back to me. I haven't been able to give it away.  It's so much Delilah.  The last time I saw her,  she was lying under it.

Then in 2011, my long-time friend Rob, whom I'd known since junior high, was quite ill with a cancer similar to Delilah's.   I'd been to his spacious, very modern home in the West Hollywood hills, so I made a quilt with to go with the black-and-blue-and-white decor:

The colors aren't well represented  here, but you get the idea

 I gave this quilt to Rob while we were having lunch one afternoon in Walnut Creek.  He seemed bowled over. He told me a story about one of his grandmothers, who held quilting bees at her house in order to be social, but after everyone left, she'd pull out all their stitches and re-do them.

I don't know where Rob's quilt is now--in LA, perhaps, with his partner, Emanuel.

Gone, anyway.

Snapshots from the Week

I run around town in Mom jeans, a pair of sneakers, and occasionally a fanny pack--all major, major fashion faux pas--but vanity kicked in when I saw photos of myself with big brown age spots on my face.  I wanted them GONE.

I feel brave letting you see this

So yesterday I went to a very nice dermatologist who burned them away ($125, no insurance coverage),  and now I have puffy pink/purple spots all over my face.

Then I slunk around San Francisco wearing a sun visor set very low on my head (can't use sunscreen).   I caught sight of myself in the big windows of the Museum of Modern Art and thought, why is that woman wearing a sun visor in February?

Two weeks until I see positive results.

                                                                               2.

 I was in the city to see the Jay DeFeo and Jasper Johns shows at SFMOMA.  The postcard for the shows has been on my fridge for months, but I just discovered they're closing on Sunday.

I didn't know much about DeFeo, except that Squeak Carnwath, a favorite painter of mine, admired her.  And that she worked for eight years on a painting called "The Rose," which weighed over 1,000 pounds when she was finished it.

The Rose, 1958-1966, oil with wood and mica

Turns out DeFeo went to UC Berkeley,  taught at the SF Art Institute and then at Mills College, all the while making art out of a wide range of materials.  Some other pieces in the show:

Untitled, 1953,  re-purposed wood wrapped in torn fabric and coated with plaster.  Either an "unflyable kite," or homage to the floor plan of European cathedrals, which she much admired. Not a cross, per se.

Untitled, 1973, gelatin print and mixed media

She also did drawings, paintings, and collages of  things "she'd collected and held dear," including a dental bridge, cup handles, camera tripod,  and golf bag.  Her drawing, painting, and collage overlap.

Photo of Jay DeFeo working on The Rose

I wandered around the Jasper Johns show, thinking, oh, hell, I've seen his work for years, what's new?  There are some new paintings (he's 81 and still working), but I was taken with the numbers and letters and flags I learned about in art history and found them still fresh and compelling.

Light Bulb II, 1958.  Sculp-metal

Highway, 1959, oil on canvas.  Apparently, his impression of driving at night.

Flags, 1967-68.  Color lithograph

These two shows were organized by the Whitney Museum of Art and open in New York later this month.

And in the atrium of the museum, this stupendous piece by Gu Wenda:

                                                                                3.

After that, I marched up Market Street, trying to stay out of the sun.  My destination was the Vera Bradley store in San Francisco Centre.  

Not Fifth Avenue, but close

For years, I've traveled with the smaller toiletries kit below, jamming it so full it turns into a ball, which is hard to pack.  Everything that doesn't fit into it I cram into various Ziploc bags that I can never lay my hands on easily.

Finally, I said, to hell with this, I'm getting a big, new, CAPACIOUS toiletries kit, and a pretty one, not the REI-variety, which Jerry favors.   I researched online and found one made by Vera Bradley.   So yesterday, as a treat after inflicting purple spots all over my face, I went to buy one.

The mother ship and the rowboat?

Then I found the item below, which is a "jewelry folio."  I had a flash:  maybe I could fit all the chargers and USB wires for camera, MP3 player, computer, and phone into this thing.

Folded up

I took a chance and bought it.  At home, I filled the plastic pockets with cords and chargers, and it worked! No more tangle of stuff in Ziploc bags that slide around in my luggage!



Jewelry folio turns tech-tote

                                                                                4.

Sometimes I read memoirs, because they tend to lull me to sleep quicker than fiction does.  I just finished two that make me want to send notes to the writers, saying,  "the story is not what you think it is." 

To Stephanie Madoff Mack, one of Bernard Madoff's daughters-in-law, I wanted to say: "Yes, your father-in-law was very bad, no question about it, but, honestly, he's not to blame for everything in your life...and by the way, you're still awfully privileged."

And to Leslie Maitland, a former New York Times investigative reporter who wrote about her mother's family's escape from Germany, I'd say, "This story is not about your mother's teenage sweetheart whom she left behind in France and reconciled with 50+ years later, but how Hitler chipped away at the rights of Jews in Germany through the 1930's and your family's brave and incremental escape from Germany, through France, then Cuba, finally landing in the U.S."

Someone sold Maitland on the romantic angle as most marketable, I think, but the back story of her family was much more compelling to me.  She's done a lot of research on the social history of the times.


                                                                                      5.

Dept. of Audio update:  Yesterday Audible.com sent an e-mail saying that,  "After further review, 'Excellent Women by Barbara Pym' is currently unavailable in a digital audio download format for the US region."

The "US region."  That would be a country.

I may cancel.  Readers sent numerous suggestions for downloading free podcasts from the BBC and NPR, including "This American Life," which I love, and that may do it for me.

Love Ira (even if he's blurry).  And did you hear the one about his crazy dog?