Please, No More Deaths of Rock Stars and Quilting on a Deadline

This is what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks:  Rushing to finish two quilt tops so that I can meet the Friday deadline for submitting entries to the Voices in Cloth quilt show in March.

Today I picked up photos of the quilts and sat out in front of CVS at Rose and Shattuck, sorting through the pictures, stapling them to entry forms, making sure I had all the papers in order, and then wandering down to the post office to slide the envelope through the slot.  That triumph called for a stop at the Cheeseboard to buy a Spicy Carrot Muffin, thick with raisins, to eat with a wedge of cheese and a cup of  hot tea.  Bliss.

I still have to make backs for each quilt, cut bindings, and hand it all off to Angie Woolman to be quilted.  But the paperwork is DONE!  (Yes, I could have entered online, but I tried to, lost everything I wrote, and assumed my usual techo-peasant stance: paper is more reliable.)

* * * * *

Way too many people in their sixties--notably rock stars, but also others--have been dying. Awful!  My God, what are we supposed to do with this information?  Seize the moment? (How?)  Drink ourselves silly?  Say what we need to say to certain people?  Make another trip to Europe to see every last bucket-list locale?  In my own case,  get the hokey calico wallpaper off the walls of my studio (came with the house in 1984)?

Recently, I came across a  "List of Possible Things to Do in Retirement, Before Death, With Rest of Life" (taken from an AARP book).  I must have done this about 1994:

1. Books to read: "Middlemarch"--have not done.  Shameful for an English major.

Highly recommend

2. Letter I want to write: to Sandra Albertson (author of  the best book on death and dying that I've ever found: "Endings and Beginnings: A Young Family's Experience with Death and Renewal")--yes, and she sent a gracious response.  I've given away several copies of this book.

3. Foods to try: Go to Green's restaurant in San Francisco--done!  Also, try caviar--yes.  (Found both to be overrated.)

4. Things to learn to do: 

      To weave--no, and I've lost the urge.

      To overcome my fear of driving over bridges--yes, but it was damned scary.

5. Activities to try: 

      Boating--no, ditto re lost urge

      Having a facial--yes and liked it.   

      Rafting the Colorado River--no and don't plan to since I heard you have to poop in a box.

This day trip on the Colorado River in 1993 whetted my appetite for a longer one--until I found out about the poop box.

 6. Trips to take:  London, Paris, and New York--yes to all; several times to New York and London. 

2008

7. Three gifts for myself:  a CD player, a new sewing machine, and more classical CD's--yes to all, and they've enriched my life.

8. The one physical change I want to make in my appearance:  Learn to stand up straight--yes! I'm in the process of learning with the help of a physical therapist.  A long road.

This list made me feel so much better, some 20 years after I wrote it, that I think I might to update it.  Anyone know of a large-print edition of "Middlemarch"?

* * * * *

Voices in Cloth quilt show will be held March 19-20 at the Craneway Pavillion in Pt. Richmond.  For more information,  try this link

What Would You Do With Only Six Months to Live?

Or  5, 20, or 30 years? 

I think about this a lot. 

By the time you're in your sixties, you know your time is limited.   My dear sister-in-law Delilah died at 51.  My lifelong friend Rob died at 60.

I watched them, and I tried to learn.  But I was still left the problem of what the hell to do with this information on a daily basis?   Another day slips by, used up by making phone calls about bills, changing the sheets on the bed, grocery shopping,  researching cooktops.

Nora Ephron wrote after she'd been diagnosed with cancer but before the rest of the world knew:

"The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result.  I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven't.  I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?"  (I Remember Nothing, 2010,  p. 129)

It's a burden, all this questioning and evaluating.  It nags at me.


A week ago I found this in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I grabbed this page  and pored over it.  It's a list of 50 things to do if you've been told you're going to die (which we all have been, one way or another, some more specifically than others).   It  was put together by Hospice by the Bay, with some content provided by the Singapore Hospice Council, and the list starts out like this:

1. First things first, remember you're not dead yet.  [I find this empowering, even though it's perfectly obvious.]

Here are my favorites:

5.   Laugh
8.   Find joy in the mundane. Sit by the window and pay attention to the song of birds.
11. Gobble up food samples in grocery stores.  [I'm always in too much of a hurry.]
16. Talk openly about your illness...Don't shut out other people.  Don't isolate yourself.
24.  Seek out and attend to what is divine, holy or sacred to you. [To me, this means thinking about my strongest values and honoring them by acting on them, which always makes me feel better.]
30.  Share your grief. Witnessing grief gives others permission to grieve.
31.  Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details. [my favorite favorite]
39.  Forgive yourself.
46.  Fall asleep under the stars. [Camping is good if you can manage it.]
50. Take a clean sheet of paper and write down another 50 things to do.

You can find the entire list at www.LivingBeforeLeaving.org

What did Nora Ephron do?

"I aim low.  My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. (Followed by a Lactaid).  My idea of a perfect night is a good play and dinner at Orso.  The other day I found a bakery that bakes my favorite childhood cake, and it was everything I remembers; it made my week.  The other night we were coming up the FDR Drive and Manhattan was doing its fabulous, magical, twinkling thing, and all I could think about was how lucky I've been to spend my adult life in New York City."  (I Remember Nothing, p. 129).

My sister-in-law painted watercolors.  Rob cooked.

Utah: Boo! Yay!

All week I've been avidly reading updates on the battle for gay marriage in Utah. 

Boo, the Supreme Court stayed (put a stay on?) gay marriage there until an appeal is heard!

Yay, Eric Holder says gay marriages in Utah will be recognized by the federal government! 

Yesterday, I resolved not to go to Utah ever again unless gay marriage becomes legal there (haven't been since 1996, but no matter).   An economic boycott is something they'd understand.  Pull out conventions, cancel ski trips.  This is a human rights issue.

Then it occurred to me that Jerry is slated to go to Utah next July for the annual meeting of a professional society.  I'd even been thinking of going with him to Park City.   

I wish the society would move its meeting, and I'm THIS CLOSE to suggesting that Jerry host the meeting in Berkeley instead, which would be a complete pain in the neck.  We (and it is a two-person undertaking) did it in 1987, and I'm still recovering.  A marathon.

I've e-mailed a gay man I know who's a member of that society, and I'll be interested to hear what he has to say.

In the meantime--and this is bad of me--I'm reflecting on the vanilla lifestyle of Mormons and how the gay people I know would be so bored by it that they'd never venture anywhere near those families.  They have nothing to worry about (not that they ever did in the first place).

Very Thankful for: Community

It's Thanksgiving morning, and Jerry's strategizing about what time is best to go line up to collect a fancy cake for my sister's birthday. 

Not early--he already missed that boat--but late, he thinks, because the bakery workers "won't be chatting" and the line will go faster.

I've got a mountain of green beans to prepare.

But here's a thankful thought:

I'm so grateful for the communities I'm part of.

Thanks for the pool community, especially Anne, Val, and Ellen.  In the past year, we've helped pack up Ellen, so she could move to assisted living in New Hampshire.  We miss her.

Thanks for the quilting community, especially the No Problems mini-group. This includes Mabry, Ann, Rebecca, Claudia A., Marion, Angie, Sue, Deanna, Peg, Agnes, and Karen.  It was a golden day when I was invited to join 11 years ago.  These are ladies who will never let you down, about quilting or anything else.

 

Thanks for  my block community.  There are 24 houses, and we recognize and "know" each other in a comforting way, but I'm especially grateful for Laura, Leah, Annika, and Reina.  This year Jerry and I flew to Boston for Leah's college graduation, and we're having Thanksgiving dinner with them today.

And thanks for the Berkeley Food Pantry community, particularly Barbara and Anne.  My friend and co-volunteer Judy (back row, left) moved to Boston this year, but we're still in touch..

I realize as I write this that there's cross-over between these communities: pool/Pantry, quilt group/Pantry, and, come to think of it, blog readers/Pantry.   (Hmm, I may be a little over-enthusiastic about recruiting Pantry supporters.)

Communities anchor me.  I feel very lucky.
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Post-its, Tabs, and Yellow Pads

 

This morning I scanned several young-mom blogs while I lolled in a chair trying to recover from a cold .

To my amazement, not only do some already have their Christmas trees at the curb, but many have gotten out fresh notebooks,  post-its, and blank calendars, and they're busy organizing their lives for the next year.  Which often involves color-coded tabs: "kids," "house," "school," "projects," "holidays."

I felt like I was gazing at them through a telescope.  I'm a long, long way away.

I used tabs, there'd only be two: Life (with lots of subcategories) and Death (no categories, just there as a reminder).

Yesterday I spent a few hours with my friend Ellen, who for health reasons is planning to move to the East Coast from a house she's lived in for 35 years. The young-moms would probably do their thing with tabs and notebooks.  We're operating with colored Post-its, a felt-tip pen, and whatever yellow pad I can grab before I head out the door.

A pink post-it means that Ellen's keeping whatever it is.  When we've finished with a cupboard, we slap a green post-it on the door, which means "All Goes,"--to the dump, a sale, whatever--it's outta here.  Purple is for items to go to her brother and his wife, and blue means gifts for friends.

I ran out of steam around 3:30, with a cold coming on and a hacking cough. I'm not allowed back in bed during the day unless I'm extremely sick, per sleep therapist, so now I'm sitting in my chair in the living room dozing and croaking orders at Jerry. 

And thinking.  I might add one more tab: YOLO, which I learned from NPR this morning means "You Only Live Once." Is it a subcategory of a Bucket List?   At this point, I can only think of tap-dancing lessons and going to Russia.  There may be more, though.



 

 

Eating My Vegetables--Or Not

I've been doing too much  eating-my-veggies lately. Not real vegetables, but gotta-do tasks: doctor's appointments, errand-running, filling the fridge. The best thing about them is crossing them off my to-do list. Then I feel righteous, but it isn't fun.

A few weeks ago, I moved my computer, printer,  phone, and  to-do list into a small alcove off the dining room.  That's where I'm doing all my computer-related work now: trip logistics, bill paying, ordering online, returning phone calls.  All that stuff that feels like tasks.  Duties.

My new work alcove off the dining room

After I got the phone, TV, and computer out of my studio, it felt sort of irrelevant.  I wasn't spending much time there.

But gradually, that room has become a haven.  My only tools are quilting equipment (straight edge, roller blade, scissors, cutting table) and crayons/paint/pastels/drawing pencils/rubber stamps.  I've got lots of fabric, photographs, and trip memorabilia to play around with.  I putter.  I love going in there.

And instead of feeling the constant pull toward the computer and phone and Things That Need to Be Done, I feel peaceful and pretty much open to whatever might happen.

 

 

 

Why didn't I do this sooner?

Backlog

As of today, I'm 25 issues behind of The New Yorker and 52 of The New York Times Magazine.

When a new magazine arrives, I scan it greedily, particularly the snippets in "Talk of the Town," and the personal essays in "Lives."  Ditto, the pieces on Callista Gingrich and her hair and Calvin Trillin and what he eats.  

But then it all breaks down.  I hit a wall with the serious articles that require concentration and time, and the magazine goes on a growing stack.

This now adds up to 8 inches of printed matter I need to get to.

This came to my attention recently when my friend Judy mentioned that she was only three issues behind of The New Yorker and was going straight home to catch up.  Does she read the articles on Afghanistan, I'd like to know?  Or the European debt crisis (or any debt crisis, for that matter)?  How about the machinations of studio heads in Hollywood?  If she does, she's better informed than I'll ever be.

I have the magazines stacked next to my chair in the living room, and I've started looking at them.  I've gotten as far as tearing out movie reviews from The New Yorker so I'll know what to rent from Netflix.  Mostly I just feel guilty.

Is this a common problem?


'

A New Kind of Morning

I'm wondering if the way to a zen-like state isn't to get up so early your eyes are stuck shut,  pull on a swimsuit, drive five minutes to a pool, and get into it.  Churn up and down the lanes for an hour, not necessarily swimming but bicycling, marching, running.  Get out and feel the day has started over again (this because you'd glanced at your e-mail pre-pool, big mistake).

That was my morning today, and now I'm tempted to torture myself with the alarm clock every morning so I can get up early, exercise in a relatively unpopulated pool,  and induce that sense of calm.  I'm beginning to understand exercise addiction, although not to the level of our multi-tasking daughter-in-law, who runs twelve miles with no break and listens to talk radio while she does it. 

My usual morning routine is to get up later, read the newspaper over breakfast, repair to my studio, and read e-mail while waking up with caffeine.  Then NPR, more news.  How much noise and distraction I introduce into my life!  But today I have no idea what's going on in Syria, or with the election or the European debt crisis.  Really feels good.

Also: Thanks to everyone who responded to yesterday's post! One recipe has already arrived, and I'm on track to set up my first recipe-gathering visit. I'm hoping for 3 ingredients/3 steps, but I'll take anything close. 

Sorta Sad

New rule: Laptop must live on chest of drawers in hall, not in studio.  Ditto smartphone.  Otherwise, nothing else AT ALL gets done. And have to stand to work on computer, no chair.

Time for The New York Times

Yesterday, at loose ends, I escaped my house, not quite sure where I was going, and headed south.  I stopped Grocery Outlet, a cheesy store I don't like but which has very good prices. I bought seven boxes of Cheerios and seven jars of peanut butter and dropped them off at the Berkeley Food Pantry.

 Then I headed out Highway 13 to Montclair Village in the Oakland hills and bought a Starbuck's hot chocolate and the New York Times.  I read the  Times closely.  I found all kinds of news I don't see in the SF Chronicle and resolved to order a daily subscription, after years of resisting. 

I mentioned this today in e-mail to Chris Yee, a pal from high school.  He replied:

"Funny that you should mention the NYT. I've subscribed for years, along with the Chronicle and the Daily Review.  About 3 months ago, somebody began stealing our papers, sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes all three.  I began to get truly crazy and got up sometimes at 5AM to get the papers because if they weren't gotten before 6 AM they would be gone. (Robin [his wife], of course, pointed out that this showed I had no real problems, if I was spending energy on something like this.)  Finally we got the deliverers to throw the newspapers directly on the porch and for the last month or so, no problem."

I just got this e-mail, and I was inexplicably cheered.   I, too, would get up to try to catch the thief (or better, have Jerry do it).   I , too,  am going to order the daily NY Times.  Newspaper-reading is going to take up more of my day,  but I seem to have the time.

Taking to the Skies Again (and again)

 Kew Gardens,  London,  2008

Since 2006, when I overcame a post-9/11 aversion to flying,  we've been to Washington, D.C.,  New York City, Texas, Boston,  Arkansas,  London, Paris, Rome, Venice, the Cinque Terre (Italy), Monaco, Mississippi, Seattle, Quebec, the Hudson River Valley, Montreal, and Corfu. Oh, and Memphis, which has the National Civil Rights Museum, a must-see that should be on that list  floating around on the internet of "100 Things to See Before You Die."


It's all been memorable, and to  my mind, a firm slap on the face of mortality.  As in,  "Ha , ha, I managed to do that before the Big Eraser came down."

Travel takes money and, for us, a re-ordering of priorities. We have two bathrooms that need remodeling, a dated kitchen, and I drive a 16-year old car. Don't care.    By the time I was in my late fifties and Jerry was in his seventies, I thought, it's now or never.  I worry about every flight, but I go. 

What's next?  Chicago in May and Glacier National Park in August.  And May 2013 is shaping up to be a mega-trip: Boston, Switzerland (Alps), and England, including London, Oxford, and the moors of the West Country.

I made it to Paris by sheer luck when I was 9 (my parents won a Cadillac  they sold to finance the trip).  When I was 59, I made it back to Paris, a sentimental journey.  See photos below.  This was better than a Prius and granite countertops.

My sister and me in the Tuileries garden in Paris, overlooking the Place de la Concorde, 1959

Fifty years later in  approximately the same spot

Getting Away from the Airwaves

My house seemed full of bad news yesterday.  In my studio, where I listen to NPR, it was all about the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which was  cutting up very badly,  aided in full by the Republicans, who, as Jerry says, are never satisfied just to let people be.

I switched to TV, and there was Leon Panetta speculating that Israel may attack Iran in the spring, very scary.  After lunch, I got in my car and sped away from it all. 

First, I drove to Office Depot, where I bought a package of ten lanyards.  This didn't do much for my spirits, but it got me out of the house, and I learned what lanyards are (cords you wear around your neck attached to a plastic nametag).   Then I went to North Berkeley farmer's market where  I bought two bunches of calendulas for $5.00.  The woman who wrapped them up assured me that I could put them in salads. Instead, they're on the kitchen windowsill.  Thanks to Susan G., I am now boycotting pink. 

The Bucket Book

Pulse-quickening

...that's what they ought to call this brochure.  It arrived yesterday.  It is fat (113 pages), glossy, and  expensively produced.  I flipped through it in the late afternoon when my blood sugar was a little low and I was dragging, but soon my pulse had quickened and I felt a yearning so strong that I couldn't understand why other people (Jerry, for example) didn't also feel they have to drop everything and go to Zanzibar.  Seriously.

Even though it was only last April/May that we took a cruise on this very cruise line, when we spent thousands of dollars to ride around the boot of Italy,  when we disembarked in Venice swearing we'd never, ever take another cruise.  In fact, I said they couldn't PAY me to take a cruise.

Now this.

By the time Jerry got home, I was buoyed by possibilities.  How could anyone die without having been to St. Petersburg?  Ireland? Hong Kong? Not so much Mumbai or Greenland, perhaps,  but Mont Saint-Michel?  How could anybody face the possibility of an ICU and tubes and monitors, without memories of seeing the Colosseum and Red Square and Cape Town? 

I ran this by him.  Not impressed. I could persuade him to go to Costa Rica, possibly the Panama Canal (again, the ship) and Alaska.  No interest at all in sailing down the Volga from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  Unmoved.  Would rather join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

But me?  Again, as I was a year ago,  I was seduced by the brochure:  all your needs taken care of, a floating hotel, room service, delicious food, nannying. 

And then I remembered:  On a ship, you're in port only so many hours.  You live by the ship's schedule, not your own, even if the slogan of this cruise line is "Your world, your way."  We had only five hours in Florence.  You take a chance on being on a reunion cruise of Texas A&M and Auburn alums who talked loudly and seriously about Newt Gingrich.   Among your fellow passengers is a woman who turns up her nose at your borrowing the stewardess's vacuum cleaner to clean Boboli Garden dust off your shoes.  Alas, it all sounds so good.  LOOKS so good.

Here's Zanzibar.  (Maybe I should just make a quilt with these colors?)

Is anyone else seduced?

It's Not Optional!

This morning, reading about the Penn State coach who  (allegedly but there is much evidence) sexually abused numerous young boys, a practice that apparently went on for years even  after campus officials were notified, I asked Jerry if  really it wouldn't be best if this person were marched out and shot.  A more wicked crime I can hardly imagine.  Once again I tried to understand how anyone could hear of such incidents and not immediately call the police.  I have had this thought many, many times while reading about child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and how bishops repeatedly looked the other way.

I think Penn State should now pay for unlimited therapy for these victims, the administrators involved should be fired and perhaps imprisoned, and even the venerable Joe Paterno should go.  Somewhere.  And think about what happened because he didn't follow-up on what an eyewitness confided in him.

These children will never be the same.  They have been violated and robbed.  When is it going to be beyond question that such predators are reported to police?  I just don't understand.

Responses

The response to my question about traveling vs. socking money away has been tremendous, especially from the No Problems, the Quilt Minigroup of Great Reason and Good Sense. Virtually no one votes for socking away money at the risk of missing joy/memories/adventure, within reason, of course. You have to make your premiums and your co-pays.

Of special note: I have two friends who are recently widowed and both are overwhelmingly in favor of building memories NOW. Another friend adamantly opposes supporting her dentist's second home at Tahoe. I don't have a very complete survey, but in general women to be more in support of the enjoy-it-now approach than men are. Statistically men die first: does this make them protective of their wives or just contrary?

The way the voting played out makes me feel better about a secret I'm harboring. We're using miles to upgrade to Business Class on international routes, and that now requires a hefty co-pay. I called United Airlines to find it out if I really have to commit the co-pay act right under Jerry's nose at the airport the day we fly. They said yes. My travel agent said no. I think a woman ticket agent may be the answer.

Time

We're in a bit of a fry-up here regarding the outlay of money to take a cruise. We've just had to make the final payment.

The question is: Do you save every last cent for what might befall you in old age? Or do you spend like a demon and end up destitute before The Final Check Out? My dad always said my sister and I would inherit not much, due to all his and my mother's money going to "enema bags" in their old age; in fact, they had some left over, which my sister and I were grateful to receive.

Jerry, the fiscal conservative, feels that we should spend no money that's been tucked away, ever. Saving is a goal unto itself. He's thinking no more trips for a couple of years after this one. I say, but in the mean time the clock is ticking.

I'd appreciate some votes on this matter.

A related story: At the hairdresser's the other day, the man who cuts my hair motioned for me to look at the woman in the next chair, a small, older woman. He said she had worn the same jeans and Nike shoes to weekly hair appointments for 15 years. When the woman left the chair, he beckoned to her haircutter, and asked him to verify that the woman had indeed worn the same jeans and shoes for 15 years. Oh, yes, said the man. It's true. And she's quite wealthy. Recently, her 37-year old Maytag washer had given out. This lady had done a calculation and figured out that at her age (69) she would do better to go to a laundromat the rest of her life than to pay for a new washing machine.

I was stunned. Had she looked at an actuarial table? And had she ever taken a cruise?

The Queen Mum and the Big Red Bus

Just finished a 943-page biography of the Queen Mum, mother of Queen Elizabeth II. My favorite part is on p. 922, her theory of the Big Red Bus. It goes like this, as the QM explained it to a friend:

"Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you don't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say 'Oh, my God, I could have got so drunk last night!' That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus."

What I love is "I could have got SO drunk." A hedonist in draped chiffon, high heels, handbag on bent arm held close to her body because she thought it made her look less stout. She adored gin martinis, French champagne, and off-color witticisms from Noel Coward, and she danced well into her nineties. She lived to be almost 102, when the big red bus came to pick her up.

You gotta love the girl.