Not Greeted with Flowers and Smiles

Katharine Hepburn with signs she posted outside her country house in Connecticut.  Ambivalent?  Not in her case; she definitely wanted no intruders.

This image has been going through my mind a lot lately.  I'm thinking that all of Europe, except maybe Germany, would like to post these signs right now,  unaccompanied by a smiling face and a bouquet of flowers.

I've spent a week reading every news article I could find about the current migrant/refugee situation in Europe.  I had a high-horse phase of thinking European countries are inhumane, self-protective, and grossly negligent.  I've been appalled by comments left on the New York Times website by people who reduce the migrants to troublesome hordes of--what?  They are human beings, after all.

This morning, I threw up my hands.   Maybe the migrants/refugees (important distinction) are being short-sighted, too.  They get to Europe and don't want to stay in a poor country, but they want one that will provide the best benefits and opportunities.  Out of danger, they are no longer refugees but  economic migrants?  Too choosy?  Per the New York Times,  many people  in the current influx are wealthier than those who migrated earlier; some are even supporters of Assad's regime.  They quite naturally want to regain their socioeconomic standing as soon as possible. 

Then there's the President of Hungary--what about THAT dude?  A "Christian Europe" to be protected from the Muslim hordes?  And what about all this talk of trains and camps?  Scary, scary, scary.

Jerry and I were supposed to be in Europe in August, returning home yesterday.  We would have flown from Stockholm to Paris on the day a terrorist tried to attack a Paris-bound train. We would have taken a Eurostar train from Paris to London a few days before three Eurostar trains were halted for four hours in the Chunnel, with no air-conditioning or lights, because of migrants on the tracks and on the roof of the trains.  This could get personal very quickly if you're in Europe.  Who am I to judge?

A complicated, tragic situation is all I can come up with. 

* * * * *

And so to quilting (if only I could turn off NPR!).

Here's my current project, which I'm rushing to finish so that I can sew the blocks together while we're in Inverness for two weeks.  Not finished yet, but here's a preview.

 Naturally, there have  been changes since I took this photo

Here's the picture I worked from, which I thought looked like a quick, easy, throw-it-together-from-scraps project (from Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!!):

Not exactly what I ended up with

I can't seem to let go of the idea of sewing together random strips--la, la, la!--whacking them into squares, and coming up with a scrappy genius of a quilt (right!).

I did try, sewing the strips, cutting them into blocks:   A mess.  Then I unpicked many of the blocks; rearranged many, many 2" x 5" strips; and re-did the design.  A pain in the neck and very time-consuming.  I never learn.

Onward. 

Entertained and Educated by Anna Deavere Smith

Several years ago I noticed a police car parked outside Berkeley High School.  I thought, "What the hell?  Is there a riot or something?"

Daily at Berkeley High

Soon afterward, I saw one parked at Albany High School and another at El Cerrito High, and it slowly dawned on me that it's now routine in many American high schools to have a cop on campus during school hours.  But why?

Anna Deavere Smith, that remarkable actress/social commentator, whom I LOVE (have seen"Twilight Los Angeles, 1992," and "Let Me Down Easy" several times), has a work in progress at Berkeley Repertory Theater called, "Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education,"  in which she explores what's going on with cops in schools.

Not good.  

It goes like this:  a kid acts up in high school (or middle school or even elementary school).   This could involve truancy, swearing at a teacher, scuffling with another student, excessive noise, loitering, or the catch-all  "disruptive behavior and willful defiance."  The kid is no longer sent to see the equivalent of Mr. Cunningham or Miss Williams, the Dean of Boys and Dean of Girls, respectively, when I was in high school, for a stern talking-to and perhaps a phone call to the parents.

Mr. Cunningham and Miss Williams, Del Mar High School, 1966
No encounter with them was good news, starting with skirt- and hair-lengths

In many schools, Mr. Cunningham/Miss Williams have been  replaced by police or armed "school resource officers"  who enforce zero-tolerance policies meant to keep schools free of violent crime (think Columbine).  Given that climate, the kid might be suspended, expelled, endure an involuntary transfer to another school, or be ticketed for a misdemeanor.  Some kids are arrested at school.  Many end up in court.


Of all the times I've seen Anna Deavere Smith perform, this is the work that brought me to tears.
African American children are now three times more likely to be suspended or expelled. Students with disabilities and LGBTQ kids are also suspended at higher rates.  Ditto Latino children and other children of color.

Acting out has become criminalized.  What are school administrators thinking?

Well.  There's no evidence that school safety has improved, even though many of these kids are shunted off to disciplinary alternative schools, to court,  to juvenile hall,  down the pipeline to jail for so many of them.

In  Act 1, Ms. Smith explores the school-to-prison pipeline that ends hope and opportunity for so many of these kids.  She interviewed educators, students, ex-students, prisoners, and politicians in Northern California, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and she's woven those interviews into a heart-wrenching, damning exploration of how society has so often failed poor children of color.

Act 2 consists of audience groups meeting to discuss these issues.  My friend Suzanne and I were tempted to weenie-out and leave early (public speaking!), but we stuck with it.  My group was facilitated by an ultra-sensitive,  heavily tattooed young woman named "SK." 

We were given pads of paper, pens, Whole Foods animal cookies, and asked to express ourselves on two topics:  What we'd like the situation in schools to look like in ten years, and what we could do personally to help.  I said nothing, but I scribbled like mad.

Question 1:   First of all, no police on campus as a matter of course.  Schools  would become full-service facilities focussed on helping children and their families in a multitude of way, including mental health services, medical screening, food, and even clothing.  Society would recognize the limits of what teachers can do (oh, please!) and provide counselors and social workers and school nurses who would be assigned to children and their families.  Schools would become an all-purpose resource for the school community.

Question 2: Then SK asked what we could do personally to help, and all I could think of was getting out of my comfort zone and exposing myself to communities and cultures other than my own.   

Did I know about the school-to-prison pipeline before this performance?  No.  My volunteer work at the food pantry has helped me to see some of the  issues that face poor people who are not Caucasian or middle class.  It's been enlightening, chastening, and sad, but I could do more, and I hope I do.

Coming up:  There's hope!  Some school districts have come up with innovative solutions to combat this tendency to criminalize adolescent behavior, Oakland Unified  School District among them.

  

The Michael Brown Decision: Sad, Mad, and Who's Bad?

This morning I searched The New York Times for clarification/commiseration about the Michael Brown case in St. Louis and the grand jury's decision announced last night that the policeman who killed Brown would be indicted for nothing.                               

The Times didn't seem to have an opinion, perhaps because the decision was announced so late, so at 7:45, I called my friend Elisabeth, who comes from St. Louis and who has been obsessed with this case for months (and rightfully so).  She said she felt very sad, and that she, too, had searched The Times for reaction.  Both of us long for an in-depth New Yorker piece with solid information and analysis.  Both of us felt sad, outraged, and just shy of hopeless about race in America.

In the meantime, I'll give you my reaction, because it helps me to write it down:

Here's what I think:

1. We've got a lot of work to do, we Americans.  Ideally, we'd drop everything and have every reputable therapist and sociologist leading groups of people of all races talking, talking, talking.  And some groups of Caucasians only, so we can air our racist assumptions, however subtle and shameful.

2. Gun control is part of the issue.

3. Caucasians know very little about how African Americans experience life in our society.  Very little.  I think this because of my work at the Berkeley Food Pantry, where about half of the clients are African American.  I have polite, but way-less-than-authentic interchanges with many of them.  The chasm between races is wide and deep.

4. There are people of goodwill out there who want to make it better.

Stingy or Setting Boundaries? One of Those Days at the Food Pantry

I'm back from the Berkeley Food Pantry, where I volunteer on Mondays, and I'm mad at myself and mad at a client.

I'm mad at the client, who helped out because we were understaffed today, because he spent a fair amount of time "shopping" in the pantry, seeing what he could take, including an apron I bought for one of today's absent volunteers.  The director asked if he wanted to wear it.  No.  He just wanted to have it, maybe to present it to his mother.  As far as he was concerned, it was there for the taking.

He almost made off with one of these aprons, which I bought for volunteers and take home with me every week, because otherwise they'd walk (@ $20/each.  Am I setting boundaries or being stingy?

Near the end of the day, he picked up the two bags of groceries he was entitled to and left, but while I was helping other clients, he came back in.  I found him shopping in the back room, where the food's kept.  Anything would do.  He just wanted more.

I've seen this happen sometimes with other client-volunteers--not all of them by any means, but some.  I know intellectually that this stems from deprivation, a terrible feeling of lack.

But it still irritates me.

And I'm mad at myself for being irritated.  Surely if I can understand intellectually why a person who's short on food--and probably so much else--is on the look-out for free stuff, I can rise about my irritation?

I do rise above it and usually look the other way, but at times I call a halt, as I did today because the director had had to leave early and couldn't police him.

"You already got some of that in your bag," I said to him.  "You have some."

He dropped whatever he had in his hand and scooted out the door. 

Quilting with an Open Heart: Deanna's Show Within a Show

Deanna Davis, out-going president of the East Bay Heritage Quilters, had a show-within-a-show at last weekend's "Voices in Cloth."  She was recently diagnosed with a serious illness, and this look back at her work was a wonderful way for her to see old friends and old friends to celebrate her years of quilting.

Deanna, center

Deanna quilts with the most open heart I know.  There's a personal story behind most of her quilts, a response to experiences (the disastrous Oakland Hills fire of 1991, quitting smoking around the same time), and she doesn't shy away from experimenting with techniques and pushing the envelope in design, format, and media.

I'll stop commenting and let you take a look!  It was hard to get good photos because there was bright sun behind her quilts, but I did my best with my rebellious little Nikon.

Can We All Get Along

 

 

Global Warming

 

 



Release

Song of Friendship

 

 

 

Collections I, a response to the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which came within two miles of Deanna's home.

 



Collections II, "which celebrates the strength and memories used to grow and rise beyond the loss of collections [in the fire]"

New Years 1991, when Deanna resolved to quit smoking after 30 years

Detail of New Years 1991:  The top lifts up to reveal messages about her struggle to quit



Detail of New Years 1991

Detail of New Years 1991



Another detail of New Years 1991

Secrets

Wild Africa Elephants

 

 

Woman Dreaming, a quilt I remember seeing at the Oakland Museum in the late '90's as part of a Smithsonian traveling exhibit, "Women of Taste: A Collaboration Celebrating Quilt Artists and Chefs."  Deanna partnered with chef Frances Wilson, whom she depicts here.

 

 

 

Figure Study #2

Scenic Byways #2

Michael's Hat

Figure Study #3

Adrenalin  (with Deanna's daughter Kathryn in the corner--sorry, Kathryn!)

Deanna's family was at the show on Saturday: 

 

Deanna with her son, John, and her daughter, Kathryn

 



...and with her other daughter, Donna

(I ran into Deanna's husband, Bob, a few times but never had the presence of mind to get out my camera, alas.)

For years, Deanna has run the guild's Children's Quilt Project, which supplies quilts to needy and sick children through various nonprofit agencies and hospitals.   Guild members donate fabric, piece quilts, sew on bindings--everything needed to produce 1200 quilts annually.  Deanna's designed a zillion quilt kits that guild members pick up and sew together, and she's coordinated every aspect of distribution.  Nobody has a bigger heart!

The Kind of News that Stops You Cold

A friend posted a notice on Facebook yesterday that made me drop everything and call her (no sacrifice because if I spend on more day readying this quilt for the quilter, I'm going to leave the damned thing at the bottom of the driveway with a "Free" sign).

Here's the gist of what she posted:  Close friends of hers--whom I know--have learned that their four-year-old grandson has been diagnosed with a rare cancer.  He is in the hospital in Oakland getting chemotherapy.  His mother has moved into his room there.  His father has taken off work.

There's a website where you can give money (this young family has health insurance but a very high deductible), which I did right away.   I told my friend to offer our fold-out bed to the grandparents in case they need a place to sleep, because they live 40 miles from the hospital.

Several times since I learned about this, I've felt close to weeping, always for the grandparents, who are wonderful people and pillars of their West Marin community.  When I told Jerry, he immediately felt empathy for the parents.

"Devastating," he said.  "The thing you most worry about when you're a parent."  He looked stunned.  He's a parent, and his mind (heart) goes straight to that, even though his children are in their fifties.

I went to bed with this on my mind, and I woke up thinking about them.  Haunting.

Throwing some light

Morning candle

First thing each morning these days,  I light a candle on the kitchen windowsill, before I heat the tea water or glance at the paper.

It's a orange-and-cranberry candle I found at Berkeley Bowl.  I let it burn for an hour, until the house is warmed up by our hard-working furnace and then I blow it out.  Sometimes I light it again while I'm cooking dinner.

I find myself doing this every winter.  I think I'm celebrating a) being alive and b) being sheltered and snug in a warm and comfortable house. It has NOTHING to do with Christmas (even though I've tacked up a row of paper robins over the windowsill, so cheery that sometimes I stare at it and wonder if I've lost my mind.)

* * * * *

This time of year, I'm always a bit obsessed with homeless people and sometimes float the idea to Jerry that we should be sharing our house with people on the street.  This doesn't go over well, and I'm not serious because there'd be about a thousand problem associated with.  But we've had a week of really cold weather, and what do those people do?  Not all go into shelters.

Lots of people don't have what I do, and it bugs the hell out of me.  I'm not comfortable with it.

Sometimes I wish I could fall back on the I-worked-hard-and-earned-this argument that would make me feel better about having so much.  But it's shot through with holes.

I did work hard when I was employed.  But I was also born Caucasian to parents who paid for me to go to college.  I happened into  marriage with a man who made a regular salary doing something he loves to do.     I have a very modest inheritance from my parents as a cushion.

It is totally unfair, and it bugs me, but I still love being snug in my house.

Evening candle

That Poor Bee and the Woman Who Dithered



Rylan, to whom empathy comes naturally 

Rylan,  a three-year old  I know, got his first bee sting last week and cried because the bee died.   (I asked Jerry about that, and he said only social bees like honeybees sting and it kills them because it rips out their ovipositor/stinger, "like ripping its guts out," fyi.)

Later that week, when  I felt lousy and had to cancel a visit with a friend, she wrote:

"A busy social schedule is such a mixed blessing?  It's great to be with people I enjoy, yet it does take energy, which I feel I have to ration for fear of running out of steam and staring blankly at someone I'm trying to converse with...Is chronic fatigue like this only doubled or tripled?  Don't really have a sense of what you have to cope with."

But she does have a sense, and a pretty accurate one.  That's exactly what it's like!  I was so relieved, and I felt understood.   She accepted her own disappointment and consoled my misfortune.

Is that what empathy is?  Whatever, I was really grateful. 

Heroes to me:  Rylan-the-three-year-old and Lin (several decades older).

* * *

 



Around 3:50 on Monday at the Food Pantry, a thin woman in her forties appeared, a familiar face.  I mention "thin," because there's something insubstantial about her,  unfocused, dithering.  I saw my co-volunteer, Barbara, react subtly when she recognized this woman. 

Oh, no!  I thought.  Not her, and not right at closing time.

She was undecided about whether she wanted to pick up her holiday bag as well as her regular monthly bags.   She called a friend on her cell phone to see if she could pick her up.  I waited while she talked.

Another last-minute client appeared, and  I had to ask her to step aside.  The clock ticked toward 4 pm, when the Pantry closes and when the volunteers are eager to leave.

Barbara brought out the woman's bags.  Still the woman talked on the phone near the check-in table. Finally, I moved the bags just outside the door (hint).  I announced that we were closing. 

The woman hung up her phone and wandered toward the table with boxes of donated bread from Semifreddi's.  She picked up a loaf, put it back, picked up another.  She was looking for a loaf of ciabatta.  My impatience was growing.  Other volunteers were sweeping, taking out garbage, closing the louvered windows.  I announced again that we were closing.  Barbara was trying to help her find what she wanted.

Finally, the woman went outside, loaf in hand, after 4 pm.

"Ack!" I said, after she left.  "She's always a pain."

"Definitely," said Barbara (who is an exceptionally kind person).

When I went out to the parking lot afterward, I saw the woman slowly walk off with her two bags, a slight, bent figure.  She's an unemployed teacher, lists herself as homeless, is probably couch-surfing with friends.  No doubt she's lonely and probably depressed.  For all I know, she tries to drag out her time at the Pantry because she gets to be around other people.

I saw her put down her bags at a bus stop.  For the first time since she'd walked in the door, I felt sorry for her.  Long day at the Pantry = empathy shut-down.  Not good.

 

* * *

 

Yesterday, my friend Laura posted a link to a blog post that felt relevant to all this.  A man was  constantly calling up "if onlys"--things he could have done to prevent a devastating personal tragedy. 

 

A grief counselor said to him, "You don't want to admit that you don't have control, so you look for the error you made.  You didn't have control.  None of us have control.  Everything is not in our hands."

Which is scary to hear.  But I think a lot of us look for the error other people made that landed them in trouble.  It's scary to think people have no control over bad things that happen to them.  The man in the blog post was blaming himself.  But I think lots of us blame other people, too, which is a giant cork on the well of empathy that I think most of us are born with.

 

People have blamed me for being sick.  I began to think the dithering woman wouldn't be in her predicament if she just wouldn't dither.  Lots of conservatives blame poor people for being poor.   I guess doing that relieves some anxiety and distress, some sense of personal vulnerability.  It's harder to be empathic. 

 

But it's wonderful to be treated with empathy--such acceptance and compassion.  What a gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Oh, Food Pantry Clients!

In case you think I'm such a nice person, working at the Food Pantry and all:  No, I'm not.  Sometimes clients make me cranky.

Most of the time I cover this with a smile, plus a lot of nodding and agreeing and quite a bit of wrinkled-brow sympathy.  But sometimes they drive me crazy.

Oh, clients, please:

1. Don't be querulous!  I know your life is hard, or you wouldn't be in line for food, but everyone in front of you has a hard life, and so does everyone behind you. 

2.  Keep in mind that we hardly ever have pet food.  Please don't ask.  For some reason, this irritates me, even though I know intellectually that your pet is important to you, a comfort.  Okay, I'm talking myself out of this irritation.

3.  Please do ask about baby food and formula.  We sometimes have this, and we love babies.

4.   Don't say you are "blessed."  It's confuses me.  Standing in line at a food pantry does not seem like a blessing.   (Also, it makes me feel ungrateful, which is probably true.)

5.   Don't ask if there's any meat today.  There hasn't been any in weeks, bordering on months.  It's not our fault.  It's the USDA's.

6.   Bring your children with you.  They are charming and distracting and a change of pace.

7.   Come when you need to, but tell the truth about how many people are in your family and where you live.  If you live outside of Berkeley or Albany, figure out the Pantry nearest your house.  We will help you with this.

Okay, that's it.  Most clients are easy and grateful.  I love the ones who are spunky, with a sense of humor, too, and there are plenty of them.

Freshly washed trays waiting to be taken back to Starbuck's for more donations

Shutting Down Food

One weekend during the federal shutdown, Jerry and I went to Pt. Reyes National Seashore and found ourselves locked out of parking lots.  A piss-off, but I resisted writing, "Blame the Republicans" on the signs. 

A bump in the road for middle-class people who want to take a walk.  But how about this:

Poor people who don't have enough to eat moved closer to the precipice during the shutdown.  I wonder if most people are aware of this?  I would be if I didn't do my once-a-week volunteer gig at the Berkeley Food Pantry.

First,  the USDA halted shipments to Food Banks all over the country three weeks ago.  That includes the Alameda County Community Food Bank, which provides food to the Berkeley Food Pantry.  USDA food fills one of the two bags we give out to people.

Pantry shelves get low

During the first half of October, the Pantry gave out food that had been delivered in September,  so fine.  But if the shutdown had gone on another week, the Pantry probably wouldn't have gotten the October delivery from the Food Bank.  Clients would have gotten half the food they've come to count on.  Even now, it's likely the make-up shipments will be delayed.

Or how about this?  Another client, a brand-new mother, was told that the Women Infants Children (WIC) benefit would end in November if the shutdown continued. This USDA program provides supplemental basic food for needy women and their young children.   This is a woman so impoverished that she couldn't get a breast pump for a week after giving birth and her baby wasn't getting enough milk.  We provided formula that someone had donated.  That's a pretty shaky lifeline.

Or this?  FEMA provides half the Pantry's funding, and that money was hung up by the shutdown.  This, plus skyrocketing client numbers, have seriously imperiled the annual Thanksgiving bag giveaway.

We have clients so hungry when they arrive at the Pantry that they ask for food they can eat immediately.  Starbuck's donates sandwiches, and I have seen people gobble those down in the parking lot on the way to the bus stop.

I've talked to conservatives about this, and they seem disbelieving.  They feel that people exploit services like the Pantry, and there are probably some who do.  But most do not.  A newborn does not. People so hungry they beg for a sandwich do not.

And all these people teetered on the edge during the shutdown.

Washington could not be more out of touch. 


 The new mother was able to get a breast pump through WIC eventually.

I'm just finishing another quilt to be auctioned here to benefit the Pantry.  It's be a lap or baby quilt--a holiday gift for someone, perhaps?

Teach Your Children Well

Last night our new neighbors, the renters next door,  invited us over for a drink, along with some other neighbors who've helped them out.

This couple, Mark and Lisa,  moved a houseful of furniture from a four-story Victorian in San Francisco and somehow fit it artfully into a smaller house--pictures on the walls, books unpacked--so that it looks as though they've lived there for years.

Their three kids started at Berkeley schools last week.   The younger two somehow got into the school closest to us, Thousand Oaks Elementary (often kids from this neighborhood are bussed across town).  They like it, but it's very different from the Catholic private school they went to in San Francisco. 

The fifth-grader came home and reported that everyone in the class had to describe their family, based on interviews each kid did with parents.  Then her teacher, known as Teacher Bob, talked about his family, which consists of his husband (also some pets, I think).

The mother looked delighted as she told us this.  Her daughter was a bit wide-eyed, she said, but accepting.  The third-grader has a teacher with multiple tattoos.  The son, an eighth grader, continues to pop in with spiders to show Jerry.

Snapshots from the Week

Yesterday I went to San Francisco for a haircut, and who was standing at the desk paying her bill but Nancy Pelosi.   She was wearing bright-blue heels with a gray-blue pantsuit, and she had a Secret Service agent with her.   My hairdresser says she is a very pleasant person who is on her cell phone at all times.

Loved the bright blue shoes. 



                                                                        2.

I'm bogged down on the quilt I'm working on, so I stopped by Britex after my haircut to check out fabric possibilities.  Nothing grabbed me, but I recommend their shopping bags, especially in these days of bring-one-or-pay-for-another.

I carried an old one around with me all day with my lunch  (dried fruit, almonds, carrot sticks, and half a peanut butter sandwich--what would Nancy P. say?).  Later,  I added small things I bought,  like overpriced hair conditioner and pink goop cover the bags under my eyes.

These bags are sturdy, with cloth handles, but you have to buy a certain amount to get one of these nice ones.  Being a fabric-o-holic helps.

And with a snappy red interior

                                                                      3.

It's hard to describe how charming this movie is: "Romantics Anonymous."

Cover of the French-release DVD

Years ago, my friend Debbie said it was hard for "two shys to get together."  This is about two endearingly neurotic shys who happen to be chocolatiers trying to connect.  Jerry really liked it, too.  You watch it with a smile on your face.


                                                                          4.

                                                                             

In April, we're going to Texas for a week. I've been checking out airfares, and the idea of flying Economy with no leg room, no crammed overhead bins, and my elbows tucked to my sides for 3-1/2 hours is very off-putting.

 Jerry can rise above the discomfort and hassle,  but I get bogged down and very cranky.  Not a good start for a trip.

One of my favorite New Yorker covers sums it up:

                                                                                5.

This week was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and I had a thought after reading several blogs written by young Catholic mothers who deplore that decision.

I wonder if underlying all the philosophical, religious, and moral arguments for and against abortion, it's a very personal fear of loss.  I include myself in this. 

It's loss of potential motherhood (infertile couples who want children to adopt), loss of their own children (as mothers look at their babies and try to imagine a world without them), loss of control over their lives (pro-choice advocates who don't want anyone else to control their fertility).  I've read profiles of male leaders in the pro-life movement who, it turns out, where almost aborted by their single or troubled mothers; for them, it's near-loss of their existence.

I wish everyone could be reassured:  No one's going to take away adoption or a beloved child.  No one--I hope--is going to take away a woman's right to control her fertility.   I don't know what to say to the nearly-aborted, and maybe that's part of the problem.  Choice would seem to allay so many of these fears, but that's not an acceptable idea to many.

Nobody's neutral on this topic

                                                                                6.

A buck-up on these winter days when the garden's full of weeds but not blooms:

A pot of miniature daffodils on the kitchen window sill.  I've nursed them along for two weeks.  Those, plus the ritual of lighting a very lightly scented candle each night while we're cooking dinner, have been very soothing.  I'm turning woo-woo.

Moocher-hating

I'm as delighted as the next Democrat that Romney's made what seems to be a very bad mistake in describing 47% of Americans as dependent on government and believing that they're victims.  I hope this cooks his goose. 

But some people's reactions to what he said have been a revelation to me.  Boy, they hate moochers!  And they truly believe there's a huge number of moochers among us, people who have "a tendency to repeatedly ask help of others, especially if they are making little effort to help themselves," as the dictionary defines it.

That's what I took away from reading blog posts and comments this mornings.  Lots of people feel taken to the cleaners in a very personal way. And it makes them mad as hell.

One blog-commenter detailed the laziness of people in her neighborhood, how some work for awhile, tire of it,  go back on government support, and wear designer labels.  She extrapolated that this is happening on a huge scale.  Therefore, Romney is right.

This reminds me of a co-worker of mine many years ago.  Every morning on the way to work, she'd pass a group of people  leisurely drinking coffee outside Peet's.

"Why do they get to do that?" she complained.  "Why aren't they working?"

I remember being confused.  How did she know what they did with their lives?  Maybe they worked at home and didn't have set hours.  Maybe they had trust funds.  Maybe they worked the nightshift.   Who knew?  It was all I could do to keep up with typing on an IBM Selectric and using multiple colors of correction fluid.  The people at Peets----whatever.

I'm still puzzled by why this angered her.  Her perception--because she really didn't know--was that people were getting away with something at her expense.  And the blog comments I read online today: how do those people know so much about other people's lives?   And does it say something about their own?

Generous Man Earns Pie

 

The husband of a friend of mine travels for work, and for years he's been collecting hotel toiletries for an agency close to my heart, the Women's Daytime Drop-in Center, which serves homeless and low-income women and children.

He regularly hauls home tiny bars of soap, bottles of shampoo and conditioner, shower caps, and other freebies back to California, where his wife, Karen, organizes them beautifully and gives them to me to be donated to the Center.

But Alan set a record with his most recent haul from a hotel on the East Coast.   He mentioned to the hotel maid why he was taking the toiletries, and when he came back from his daily meeting found this waiting for him.  His story obviously had struck a chord:

 

 

 

The next day there were more.  His suitcase was going to be full of toiletries:

 

 



 

 

 

Even unzipped and expanded, it couldn't hold everything.  Alan had to carry his boots home separately--but not a bar of soap was sacrificed!

 

Today, he dropped off 11 pounds of toiletries from that one hotel, plus 3 pounds from other trips.  And for his trouble and generosity, he got a treat: peach pie. (Jerry whined a bit at seeing a pie leave the house intact, but I told him the next time he flys home with 11 pounds of toiletries, he'll get a pie, too.)

 

 

 

Schlepped home in a suitcase; ready for delivery for homeless women and children