Hang On and Help Out

At least they're color-coordinated

Not to rain on anyone's New Year's parade, but honestly, hasn't it been a wretched year?  Or is it just the year?  If we're honest, isn't aging, which occurs every year,  a bitch?

I say this as a person who was diagnosed last week with something called atrial fibrillation, which I never paid much attention to as an illness when I was young and well, although I did notice that there were lots of ads on the evening news for blood thinners that had something to do with AFib.

Now I know.  Palpitations that I thought were an occasional bother, turned out to be caused by an electrical storm in my heart.  And the storm can cause blood to pool, which can cause clots, which can cause strokes. Oh, boy. 

All this I found out when a cardiologist called me on Christmas Eve (I knew it wasn't going to be good news).  He'd analyzed output from a monitor I wore for two weeks, and on the very last day I wore the monitor I had an episode of AFib.

Not to whine, but this was the same week I found out I'm allergic to a glaucoma med, plus I had  to have yet another bone scan to monitor my osteoporosis.

I told the cardiologist this when I met with him on Tuesday.

"All these things going wrong!" I said.

"Well, it's better than the alternative," he said, cheerfully.   He looked about 40 and very fit.

"What causes atrial fibrillation?"

"In your case, aging," he said.  "Now let's talk about blood thinners."  He got very involved in the merits of various meds they advertise on the evening news, which must have a geriatric audience.

Wait until you're 66, I thought.  Just wait.  You get chipped away at.

Yesterday, sitting around a table with my quilt mini-group for our annual Christmas party, I surveyed my friends and catalogued what these 60+ year-olds have gone through:  breast cancer (2), knee replacements (3), lung cancer (2), and now AFib (1).  And these are active, healthy, middle-class people who take care of themselves.   I see clients at the Berkeley Food Pantry who are my age, according to their driver's licenses, who use canes or who have come straight from the hospital after heart attacks.   Poverty seems to accelerate physical decline, which is entirely unacceptable.

We older peeps have gotten wiser with age, and many of us have more money than we did at 25, but there's illness and even tragedy around every bend, if you have your headlights on.   The AARP shows us slender, happy couples in sweats jogging around their retirement community, and God knows happy times are still possible, but let's get real.  At least one of those people is taking blood thinners to avoid stroke.  These decades are booby-trapped.

Anne Lamott says we're here to see each other through,  and I agree.  All we do is hang on and help out.

Anyway, happy New Year.  There are still rewards to be had.  I think.

And the Quilt Winner Is...

 

 At the Berkeley Food Pantry yesterday

 ...Anne Rowe, who bid $175 and then upped it to $200 in effect bidding against herself because she had in mind that that would be her limit.  Very Anne.

She's also a Pantry volunteer herself and coordinates Pantry food donations at her church, First Congregational Church of Berkeley.  She and I met in a water exercise class years ago, and we still do pool exercise every Tuesday and Thursday at the Richmond Plunge (on Tuesdays I drive us and our friend Val in my ancient Camry, and on Thursdays we ride in style in Val's Mercedes).

Gorgeous Weekend, Quilt Inspirations, Last Chance to Bid

Quilt update:  Highest bid is $175.  The auction ends at noon tomorrow, Tuesday, December 6. 

 * * *

Does anyone else feel beleaguered, cranky, and defiant during the month of December?  I do,  and I always have.   I want January 2 to happen right NOW.

I'd been feeling burdened by all that needs doing around the house, inside and out, and on Friday I resolved to by God get a bunch of things done over the weekend,  including bossing Jerry around about some yard jobs. 


But then Saturday morning arrived clear and sunny, and I said to hell with it.  Off we went to West Marin.  Despite the weather, there weren't many people on the road to the coast, and the drive was easy coming and going.  Yay! 

I had two bags of clothes to drop off at the  West Marin Thrift Shop in Pt. Reyes Station,  and while I was doing that, Jerry discovered larvae of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly on a passion vine that grows on a fence just outside the shop.  I found him rummaging around in the back of the car looking for a plastic bag for his captives and their foodplant, delighted in a way only a true eccentric can be.

Me:  That's such a common species [even I know that].   Do you need any more of them ? 

Jerry:  Yes!  What was it doing there in December?  [Providing distraction for people escaping the holidays?]

It morphs into a bright orange butterfly with handsome silvery spots on the underside of its wings.

Then we hiked at Abbott's Lagoon under clear skies and brilliant sun, followed by a stop in town for Magnum ice cream bars in Pt. Reyes Station. On the way home,  I found myself thinking about some kerchiefs I bought in Inverness several years ago and how I could cut them up and use them in a quilt.

Inverness, one of my very favorite places

On Sunday, I still felt rebellious, so we played hooky again and drove out to Mt. Diablo and hiked in Mitchell Canyon.  Hardly anyone on the trail and, again, perfect weather!  Hurray for weekend outings in December!And I found another inspiration for a quilt, this time in the colors of fallen leaves of a native California grape:

All the subtle colors in each leaf

Now it's Monday, and I have a zillion things to do that didn't get done.   Oh, well.

Hope you had time to revel in the weather and maybe play a little hooky.   

The Family Living Quarters in the Obama White House, Oh Boy!

Quilt update:  The highest bid stands at $175.  Deadline to bid is 12 noon on Tuesday, December 6.  Any more bids?  It's a highly deserving cause, and you will have a happier Christmas if you make an offer, I promise.

* * * * *

I rushed over to Barnes & Noble the very day that the latest Architectural Digest was published, because I wanted to see photos of the Obama White House residence--upstairs, where the president lives and the public never goes.

As long-time readers know, I have this odd little hobby of collecting White House guidebooks (I have them from Kennedy to Obama), and I like to see how each family decorates the same old rooms.  This is NOT a political post, but I will say that the worst decorator, in my opinion, was Hillary Clinton's:  Kaki Hockersmith.  What she did the Blue Room should be outlawed.

A few years ago, I found some earlier photos showing how some rooms had evolved from Bush to Obama,  but clearly Michelle Obama and her designer, Michael Smith, have done more work since then.

I wish I had a better camera, but in the meantime, here are the latest photos, starting with the Yellow Oval Room.

The Yellow Oval Room (above and below)

The same room as conceived by Jackie Kennedy during the 1961 renovation:

President Obama's Study:

The same room during the Kennedy Administration, when it was known as the Treaty Room:

 The big table, which was used in the Cabinet Room before 1902, is now used as a desk by President Obama (top)

The upstairs dining room, where the family eats dinner every night:

The upstairs dining room (above and below)

Art by Robert Mangold (1960's)

The same room in 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy turned a bedroom into a much-needed upstairs dining room.  The wallpaper depicts "Scenes of the American Revolution," and dates to 1834.  Is it in storage somewhere?

The Obama version of the Old Family Dining Room, which is on the State Floor and used for official luncheons and dinners:

 This must be the first time a Rauschenberg painting has appeared in the White House (left)

The Family Sitting Room:

The Family Sitting Room (above and below)

Painting by Sean Scully

The President and First Lady's Bedroom:

And the same room during the Reagan Administration, in Eighties Peach:

Nancy Reagan loved the hand-painted bird wallpaper.  President Clinton apparently spent one night in this room and said the paper had to go.

And finally, the President and his daughters in his study:

I'm wondering how Trump's Versailles-in-the-Sky will translate to the White House? 

A Quilt, Anyone?

First bid:  $100--11/28

Second bid: $150
Third bid:  $175--11/30

Yep, here's another quilt to be auctioned off to benefit the Berkeley Food Pantry.  It's a traditional pattern with a modern twist (no pun).  Blog readers have donated $1200 to the Pantry in the previous four auctions.  Thank you!  The Pantry feeds more than 2000 clients a month, and I see how needy and  appreciative they are when I volunteer there every Monday. 

This quilt is 36" x 50", so it will work as a wall hanging or as a lap quilt that covers you from waist to toes when you're sitting. 

 The back, showing the pattern of circles and squares

The fabrics are 100% cotton and pre-washed.  Angie Woolman did her magic with a machine-quilted pattern of alternating circles and squares.  The black fabric has a slight sateen finish, and the binding is black-and-white stripe.

The background gray-green is more green than this photo shows; it's the same pale green shown on the back of the quilt.

The winner will write a check directly to the Berkeley Food Pantry and get the tax deduction.  If you don't live in the East Bay, I can mail the quilt to you if you pay the postage.  It's compact when folded and weighs 15 ounces.

Bidding starts at $50.  If you're interested, leave a bid in the comment box, e-mail me, or post a bid on Facebook.  If there's competition, I'll post updates on the blog and on Facebook.Past winners may bid if they like.

Winner to be announced at noon on Tuesday, December 6

Good luck!

Freeing Up Cash for Hand Cream

Still plugging away

Four years ago, I had a maddening time trying to cancel a recurring donation to the Obama campaign.  I finally managed it online, but it took persistence.

This morning,  I went to the Clinton website to cancel a recurring donation, and again I couldn't figure out how to stop the flow of money.  ("Flow" is a misnomer--it was $25 a month.)  They would acknowledge that I had an account, but then tell me I'd made no donations.  Finally, I called the credit card company and stopped the payments that way.

I felt a little guilty, but I did it.  I mean, Hillary lost, and my money isn't going to make her or me feel any better.  Also, I did some math in bed last night and realized that the cost of the monthly donation would just about buy a tube of a new hand cream I've discovered that's really given me a lift.

Here it is:

 True to its promise, it "fortifie[s] les ongles"

Clarins  Hand and Nail Treatment Cream, which I bought on impulse at Boots when we were in England because I'd forgotten to bring some.  I liked the feel of the cream when I squeezed from the the tester, and any way I was on vacation, so I was entitled to be extravagant.  Also, I forgot to convert pounds to dollars.

I tried it, and, readers, I recommend it HIGHLY.   This stuff works!  My nails have greatly improved--glossy and stronger, and the dreaded ridges are much less evident.  My hands are smooth.   There's a reason the online reviews are so glowing.

You can find this stuff at Sephora  or  Nordstrom.  Do not blanch at the price!  You have put in your years with Neutrogena or Jergens, and it's your time to splurge.  Besides, you use very little of it.  When you look at your hands, you'll feel younger.  

Okay, maybe it's not that transformative (youth), but you'll enjoy it.  I recommended it to my friend Lin over the weekend when I was in San Jose, and she went directly to Sephora and bought it.  This after a lunch where we lamented Hillary's loss and tried and failed to understand how any woman could vote for that other person.

Onward.

Retreating to the Gentle Pursuits of Elitism

"We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear...Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers..."--Garrison Keillor, The Washington Post, November 9, 2016 

Since the election I've been feeling pretty guilty about being an elitist, which seems to include people who live on one of the coasts and have a college degree, although I know people in New Mexico and Montana who qualify, so the coast thing is not rigid. I also know very thoughtful, intelligent people who do not have a college degree and voted for Hillary.  Let's not lose our minds with generalities, pundits.

The narrative has been that we coastal-living, college-educated people who've been quietly going about our own lives, giving money to environmental causes, visiting museums, and reading books have been negligent for not picking up on the dilemmas of working-class Americans, who got even on Tuesday by electing That Near-Madman with Orange Skin and Surreal Hair.  It's all our fault.

I bought this for two days, beating myself up, wondering how I could have overlooked and underestimated this demographic; in fact, more than overlooked them,  actually felt disdain for them.   The tape in my head went like this:  Why don't they think more critically?  Can't they see the appalling contradictions and cruelty of what Trump says? Is their empathy on permanent vacation? Don't they have any respect for facts? 

Now I say to hell with guilt.  This morning  I read this piece by Garrison Keillor, published in yesterday's Washington Post, and I thought, fine.  I will retreat to quilting and gardening and listening to Mozart and reading Barbara Pym, all of which nourish my soul.  I'm not abandoning the working class, but I am saving my sanity and living my life according to my values. 

To that end, I'm not going to fly to the Rust Belt and listen to these people's stories, although I will read about them if they don't whine.  If they show up at the Berkeley Food Pantry, I'll listen and try to be kind and hand them off to a volunteer like my dear friend Anne, who went to Stanford and loves opera and manages a food donation program at her (very liberal) church that supplies a hell of a lot of poor people with cereal and canned tuna, which she lugs to the Pantry weekly.  She is not unaware, nor unkind, and she hails from the Midwest.

We'll go on doing our bit, and if in the meantime we're saving our sanity by collecting commemorative tea towels, making collages, watching PBS,  or even quilting, that's okay.

Still working on the election therapy quilt

I'm sorry working class people have felt left out, but as Keillor says, "resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity."

There I go again, being an elitist.  But I dunno, maybe I'm right?

Good luck to all of them.  I mean that sincerely, even if I don't understand them.

And thanks, Garrison, for the validating "us" and to my stepdaughter, Julia, for bringing this article to my attention.

"...by 'us,' I mean librarians, children's authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch."---Garrison Keillor

Stay Calm and Expect the Best

Fragment of  anti-Trump therapy quilt 

Tomorrow's The Day, and everyone I know is stressed and disbelieving and even tearful about the outcome of the election.

What if Trump wins? 

Jerry and I talked about it.  Canada's out for him (too cold) and Mexico is out for me (ongoing fear of Montezuma's Revenge).  Real political stalwarts here.

I started a quilt last night as therapy, and I'm trying not to listen to NPR while I work.  This morning I fished out a short article I clipped from the newspaper years ago, and this, plus deep breathing, has calmed me a bit.  Thank you, Mayo Clinic.


1.  Turn it off:  Stop listening, watching, or reading.  "Stop the ever-present stream of information flowing into our lives."  Is this possible for any length of time?

2.  Turn it around:  Do something positive to make the world better such as volunteering. (I'm going to the Berkeley Food Pantry this afternoon; I don't know if this makes the world better, but it certainly re-focuses my attention.)

3.  Go outside:  Experience nature.

4.  Exercise:  It helps relieve stress.

5. Be positive:  Remember that good news does happen.

I tell myself, "Expect the best," the take-away line from an anti-anxiety program I listened to on audiotape decades ago.  It's kept many planes in the air for me.  


I'm thinking that if Hillary wins the election I'll give away the quilt to someone else who supported her (do the colors work for you?).  If  she loses, I'm going to wrap myself in it and suck my thumb.

Trip Photo: Adventures in England and France

Flowers at Monk's House, Virginia Woolf's country home

What's more tedious than looking at someone's trip photos?  (Not much)  After our last trip, I posted photos of things I thought were particularly English.

This time: various.  These are from our recent two-week trip to Normandy and England.  If you're game, here it goes...

 Field Farm B&B, Surrey, a working sheep farm where we stayed the first night.

From our bedroom window

The breakfast room.  Note the ketchup and HP sauce.

A visit to Monk's House, Rodmell, on the way to the Channel ferry

Leonard and Virginia Woolf's country house viewed from the back garden

In the living room

Floor lamp

Bust of Virginia Woolf in the dining room

Virginia Woolf's bedroom

The grounds

A lawnmower?

Leaving Newhaven for Dieppe, France, on a cloudy day.

The cathedral in the town of Bayeux, our base for exploring D-Day memorials and museums.

Abba songs played by a brass band. 

Around town in Bayeux

 At the British Cemetery for WWII dead in Bayeux

 

Jerry at the D-Day museum in Arromanches

At the American Cemetery and Memorial, near Colleville-sur-mer

Les Braves, a sculpture at Omaha Beach by Anilore Banon, signifying The Wings of Hope; Rise, Freedom!; and  The Wings of Fraternity

At Pointe du Hoc, where  U.S. Army Rangers scaled 90-foot cliffs on D-Day

Mannequins of GIs at the Le Roosevelt Cafe at Utah Beach, near the village of St. Marie-du-Mont

Landing craft at  the Utah Beach Museum

Our last evening in Bayeux

Twilight view of the Bayeux Cathedral from our room 

The white cliffs as we came into Newhaven on the Channel ferry

The Richard Onslow Pub/B&B in Cranleigh, Surrey, our base in England

With three of my six English cousins:  Clement (second from left), Sally (second from right), and Marion (right).

 

Tea on the Terrace at Leith Hill Place, a National Trust property in Surrey

Leith Hill Tower, Surrey

What you don't see on Masterpiece Theater:  A toilet/lavatory/WC at Upton House, a stately home near Banbury

A doorway in Brailes, my mother's family's ancestral village in the Cotswolds

The Crypt Cafe, St. Martin-in-the-Fields,  London.  We stayed at the nearby Amba Charing Cross Hotel.

With my cousin Sue in London.  I'd made a quilt to give her (see below).

A highly anticipated visit to Liberty, my first since 2008

The fabric department is called "Haberdashery."  (Why?)

Jerry dozing while I shopped.

Succulents for sale in the Liberty flower shop

On board the London Eye, the huge Ferris-wheel that affords 30 minutes of spectacular views.

Houses of Parliament from the London Eye

We floated by London City Hall on our trip up the Thames to Greenwich

At Heathrow Airport: a photo of a plane flying over San Francisco Bay in 1956.  With a magnifying glass, you can see the Bay Bridge.

* * * * *

Just before we left, I threw together this simple quilt for my cousin Sue:

Fabrics include Liberty fabric from our first trip to London, Barbara Brachman copies of William Morris prints, and two fabrics bought in Paris in 2008.   Quilted by Angie Woolman.