Why Only Gay Couples Should Be Featured in the "Vows" section of the New York Times

Also, older couples.

Can someone help me with this? 

I'm profoundly irritated by the wedding section--"Vows"--of the New York Times.  Every. Single. Sunday.  

I read Philip Galanes's always-enjoyable column, and then  I think, oh, no, the next pages are all about WEDDINGS.  I know what to expect: acres of print devoted to heterosexual college graduates who've tied the knot in event spaces, churches, and gardens. Chatty anecdotes about how they met.

Don't care.  Beyond don't care--I'm exasperated and bored.  Doing the expected thing--is it that hard?  Many of these untried relationships will end in divorce--why pretend any differently? But The Times seems to--the writers play along, recounting it all without a hint of tongue-in-cheek (or are they chortling cynically in the back room?).

The gay couples, on the other hand, have struggled against discrimination, and the older couples know that life can dish up failure but forge ahead anyway in the risky business of getting married.  Reading their stories bucks me up.  Their accomplishments have something to teach us.

Here's a blog post I wrote in June 2012.  Still holds. 



WEDDINGS TO READ ABOUT
June 17, 2012

Today's New York Times has six pages of wedding announcements, June brides and all that.  Most couples are heterosexual and in their 20's or early 30's.  Their faces look unlined and confident.   I think, "yeah, yeah, and good luck to you.  Let's talk in 30 years and see what's happened." 

What interests me--and the only announcements I actually read--are couples who are a) gay and/or  b) in their fifties or beyond,  people who've had some trials and tribulations and are still willing to step off a cliff and hope for the best.  Getting married is easy when you're 25, straight, and doing the expected thing. (Or 27, in my case.)   When you're over 50 and a little worse for the wear, or when presidential candidates are debating your right to marry--that's the story I want to read.

Today's featured couple,  Nancy Coffey and Timothy Nagler, ages 66 and 65 , would seem fall into my sphere of interest, except that she's clearly had lots of cosmetic surgery, so much so that I thought she was 35, and he's lost 50 pounds to please her.  (She said when she met him "he looked like he was pregnant, literally, and he was wearing a pink linen shirt.  He was a sight to behold."  Oh, Nancy!)  So good luck to them, but I hope they can accept the physical realities of being in their sixties.

No, give me come-back weddings; weddings where the bride and groom have imperfect bodies but big, glowing smiles; weddings where the perfectly toned body of the bride isn't draped in Valentino.  And definitely weddings where the Times has to say which bride or which groom in the photo.  Way to go!

Surviving (Passing!) the Written Driver's License Test

Driving is fun, but you gotta pass the written test after 70, not so fun.

Jerry's birthday was last Saturday, the deadline for him to renew his driver's license, and being a champion procrastinator at all things non-entomological, he waited until the last minute to make an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The only available appointment in the entire Bay Area turned out to be in San Jose on his birthday. It was that or waiting a minimum of three hours in lines at the local DMV. 

Worst of all, he had to take the written driver test because he's over 70.  This had him mildly freaked out. In fact, I don't think I've met anyone who isn't mildly freaked out about taking that test.

So we went to San Jose--I went with him out of pity for someone who had to spend his birthday at the DMV.  He passed the test with no errors, but the whole business was a hassle.  Here are some things he learned along the way, and I'm putting them down here to help other poor souls and myself, because in five years, it's test time for me, too.

1.  Make an appointment online as soon as you get a renewal notice from the DMV.    The appointment slots fill up fast.

2.  Golden nugget of information: It turns out that some DMV offices are open on Saturdays for appointments only.  No lines, no fuss.  It's a dream, whether or not you have to take the written test.   Here's the link:  https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/fo/fo_sat_offices/          

3.  Without an appointment you're toast:  When I renewed my license in April at the DMV, I met a woman who'd spent three hours in line before she even got to the test-taking. 

4. You can read the driver handbook online:  http://apps.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/dl600.pdf    Jerry got a hard copy at the DMV and pored over it, because
you can't depend on 50+ years of driving to know what you need to know: there's a bunch of numbers to memorize (what percent blood alcohol is illegal, how many feet ahead to signal a turn, all that). 

5.  Take the free sample tests at the back of the driver handbook and on the DMV website:  http://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/interactive/tdrive/exam  .  Jerry thought taking these tests was the biggest help; many of the questions on his test were ones he'd seen on practice tests. 

6.  He also practiced on free tests found here:   http://freedmvpracticetests.com/ca-california/drivers-license/ca-drivers-license-practice-test/take


7.  You'll be asked to take a test with 18 questions, three of which you can opt out of (or miss).  As you take the test, a red flag indicates an incorrect answer (nerve-wracking!).  Also, you'll have to take the test on a computer terminal--no more paper tests.

8.  The DMV does not accept credit cards.  You have to pay the $33 in cash or by check.  I don't know if you can use a debit card.

Afterward, have a treat!  We went directly to a bakery and ate pastries with hot coffee. When we looked out the window, we saw all kinds of people not adhering to the minutiae of the Vehicle Code.  Which we went right back to doing.

Roaming the Almond Grove Neighborhood

I love to spot a house with colors that sing.  Sometimes house colors make me think of colors I could use in a quilt,  plus I love looking at historic architecture.

On Saturday, Lin and I wandered around the Almond Grove neighborhood of Los Gatos, a historic district of about 40 acres.  Most of the houses weren't painted particularly imaginative colors, but I was seduced by all the well-kept Victorians with spanking white, intricate trim.  There are Craftsman and Mission- style houses mixed in.

I love that the roses and the front door don't match.

An Almond Grove theme:  Lots of white gingerbread, a picket fence, and roses

The rose-piled entrance

Loved the paint job and the detail.

Note the intricate and pristine gingerbread

Ditto

 

A jumbled garden and a zany paint job that reminded me of West Berkeley.

 

Awnings and a wraparound porch

Restful.  I was beginning to feel better about my own (beige)  house.

A pending sale on this one.  The asking price was $3.3 million.

Anyone else think this is over-the-top?  Veering off into adorable?  Time for lunch.

I was immediately attracted to how pristine and well-kept the houses were,  but what would be like to conform to those standards?  All the time on the phone with gardeners, painters, and wood-carvers.  Too much for me.  But it's pleasant to visit.

Life in a Drought

Every time I turn on the tap, I'm aware of water going down the drain if I don't have some kind of plastic receptacle to catch it.  For those who don't live in California, this is what living in a drought feels like:  Guilt.

Therefore,  I'm constantly running up and down the stairs and out to the garden with these:

 It takes a full quarter of cold water to get warm water in my bathroom sink.  In the morning, I skip it.

 At least two trips a day to the garden with kitchen water

Is everyone else doing this?  One friend is letting her potted plants die because she's tired of schlepping water.  Someone else I met has a system of catching gray water by using hoses to carry it to a barrel outside the house. 

Jerry's answer to the drought is to shower only once a week at home and the rest of the time at the gym.  That apparently gets him off the hook from catching water in the shower or bathroom sink.  Intermittently, he frets about the state of the succulent garden, and then ignores it and goes back to work.  To be fair, I flush, he doesn't.

I've been wondering about the effect of soapy water on plants, so this morning  I researched the problem online and here's what I found out:

1. The safest use for household "gray water" is to flush toilets.  This is because gray water can contain "food residue and other organic matter" that can attract  rodents or cause illness, and it shouldn't be used it on the edible parts of plants.  Soap is also an issue (see below).

2.  In an "emergency" (we're in one!),  you can use gray water on plants, but there's gray water and then there's gray water.

Clean water collected while you're waiting for hot water can be used safely on plants, no problem.

Gray water with soap is another story.  Plants can be damaged if there's chlorine bleach or boron in the water.  I'm getting around this by not using water that might have traces of Soft Scrub with Bleach.  The washing machine is out of the picture for now, although phosphates in detergent are okay.

3.  Water softeners are another issue.  See link below for more information.

4.  Using wash water on potted plants  isn't a good idea, because they have restricted root zones and get more of a dose of whatever soap/bleach/boron there might be.

Corrections and other tips welcome!

Here's a patch of baby tears I've been nursing along with warm-up water and whatever's left over from cooking vegetables.  Fortunately, this is right outside the kitchen door.

The roots are never supposed to dry out, according to the nursery man. Wunnerful.

No lawn, but look at the rest of it.  We do have drip irrigation, but it's been dialed back.

 There's more information here: http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/fertilization_Householdwastewater.pdf
and here: http://www.graywatergardening.com/Graywater_for_Gardens.html

Stylish Lunch in a Former Kindergarten Room

For a long time, I've known that one of my pool pals, Kate, lived in a converted school in Oakland, more specifically, in what had been the kindergarten room.

This has always sounded intriguing, and a few weeks ago in an untamed moment (oh, how we cut up in the pool, we who range in age from 65 to 87!), I suggested she invite the rest of us to a potluck lunch at her place.

Margaret, Joy, and Anne readying the food

She agreed, assured that she wouldn't have to cook one damned thing, because cooking is not something she likes to do. (Nor mine; I took a bakery cake.)
 
Reader, if you want to get a fantasy going about living in a sophisticated loft-like space, you need to visit Kate.  Her condominium reflects her whims and taste and imagination in a way that's refreshing and seductive. 

The huge main room is full of light,  although my iPhone photos don't show it.

The main room, formerly a classroom, opens on to a terrace

Beautiful light

Looking the length of the room toward the kitchen, with a glimpse of one of two loft areas. Note the hanging woven shade on the left.

Behind shade:  the bedroom

Looking the other direction, toward the fireplace, with a long scroll that shows off the height of the ceilings.The pendant lights are original (1927), and the former blackboards and bulletin boards are painted over and outlined in white.

 

 The fireplace with its collection of blue-and-white pots

Art leaning up against the former blackboards

 

Mirror-lined stairway to the loft

Catwalk (?) in the loft

\

 View down to the great room

Kate's lived here for 18 years, in a spot that feels so apart from urban life, and yet it's only a few blocks to the 580 freeway and Pill Hill.

Door to the terrace

It's all about pots and a huge oak tree overhead

The exterior of those windows

And the lunch:

 Anne, Margaret, Val, and Kate

Kate, Joy, and Betty

 

Rose in a snifter

I was so taken with this place that I suggested Kate rent it out for weekends--starting with each of us, of course.