Floating Along in the Kitchen Cabinet of Jeff Sessions, Plus a Good Read

In 2013, we took a cruise up the Inside Passage of Alaska, seven languid days of being waited on and seeing some truly beautiful scenery.

 In our usual mode of Antisocials at Sea, we talked to almost no other passengers, but kept to ourselves, which was just fine.  Shipboard socializing isn't our thing (although we make exceptions for Aussies and Brits, especially the ones we meet in bars).

 The Anti-Socials at Sea

But one morning as the ship cruised the Tracy Arm Fjord, which is startlingly beautiful, dotted with floating blue chunks of ice, we chatted with a pleasant American couple with accents that betrayed them as Southerners.  They seemed smart and funny, with a winning irreverence, and eventually they invited us to join them at lunch on a terrace where we could watch the action.

 The pale blue ice of the Tracy Arm Fjord

Everything went along fine  until the end of the meal, when the husband mentioned that he was in the kitchen cabinet of Senator Jeff Sessions.

"He goes to our church," added the wife, by way of explanation.  That would be a church in Mobile, Alabama, where they live.

I thought, Wait, that's one of those awful southern senators I shout at every time he appears on TV.  Wow.  

They went on to say that Sessions was "such a nice guy," and so principled that he wouldn't let the husband, a chemical industry consultant,  pay for a cab the two of them shared,  because it might look like a conflict of interest.

At this point, I assumed another layer of social insulation.   We wound up saying good-by very cordially, but we never chatted with them again.  Later, Jerry asked me why I thought they'd brought up an association with a Republican senator.  They knew we lived in Berkeley.  Hadn't they ever heard about Berkeley as a bastion of liberalism? 

 The Ashland Place Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama, attended by Jeff Sessions and our cruise-mates

Now that Sessions has been nominated to be Attorney General and he's all over the news, I'm learning that he's even worse than I thought, the epitome of a rigid, old-time southern stalwart, with a history of opposing civil rights (and gay marriage and abortion rights).

"You won't find a nicer guy," protested a friend of his who was interviewed on NPR this morning.  "He's courteous and respectful."

"Of whom?" I shouted at the radio.

* * * * *

I just galloped through a novel I read about in The New Yorker, and I recommend it highly:  The Spare Room by the Australian writer Helen Garner.   A woman in her sixties invites a terminally ill friend to stay with her for three weeks.  The narrator's empathy, anger, and exhaustion are beautifully articulated, I thought.

* * * * *

For anyone thinking buying the  hand cream I recommended recently:  It's much cheaper on Amazon.   My nails are still doing well.

* * * * * *

Thanks to everyone who sent e-mails or called about my post on atrial fibrillation.  It was heartening to hear how many people live for many years with this affliction.

So much of life is figuring out how to manage it (meaning: life). This diagnosis threw me for a couple of weeks, but I think I'm making peace with it now.

   

A Tale of Three Totes, Five Suitcases, and Two Free Tickets

First the trip was on, then it was off.  Now it's on again but cut in half.  We lopped off Spain.  Good-by Barcelona, hiking in the Pyrenees, and the Bilbao Guggenheim.  Oh, well.

At any rate, we're leaving in a week.  We have free Business Class tickets thanks to frequent flyer miles and our genius travel agent.  We fly to London, travel via ferry to Normandy, then back to England, and home from London.  We'll see the D-Day Beaches, the Bayeux tapestry, and my English cousins.

You'd think after four trips to Europe since 2008, I'd have it down pat, but I've been obsessing about what to take and what to take it in. I always travel with too much stuff, because you never know.  That's the bliss and the curse of travel.

Anyway, if you're a person who makes it all work in a single backpack,  read no further.

Dilemma 1.  Will it be hot or cold?  Based on past trips, I assumed fall temperatures would be cool, and I came up with pants and long-sleeved tops on the theme of black, gray, and white.  Everything would go with everything else,  and I was going to travel lighter, by God.    All I'd need was a small roller bag to check and a tote to carry on.

 Here's what I planned to take; note the long sleeves.    

A few days ago, I checked the weather in England and Normandy.   It's hot there now,  and it's projected to be hot when we arrive.  What's up, Europe?  I have FROZEN in France in September.

Now what?   Shall I wedge in a skirt and short-sleeved top and wear them every day until (if) the weather cools down? 

Dilemma 2:  Which suitcase?

 Current options are, from left,  a) too small;  b) bigger but a bit small; c)  big enough but way too heavy. 

The bag on the right weighs 12 pounds EMPTY.  Try filling that and then hauling it on and off trains.  After two weeks of wrestling with it in 2008, I threw it on the platform when we arrived in Paris.  I didn't care what happened to it.  (Nothing; it's built like an armored car.)

Since then, I've researched and ordered and auditioned, and I ended up buying (for the two of us): two more 22" roller bags; a 25" roller bag; two roller carry-on bags; a duffel carry-on that doesn't roll; and a dud 24" roller bag from Ross, which lost a wheel and a handle on its first and only trip. Now there are way too many choices.

 Dilemma 3:  Which tote bag will be big enough but not too heavy?

 Tote candidates:  All three are Baggalinis.  (I read recently that Baggalini was founded by two flight attendants, who now must be very rich and no longer waiting on people on planes.)

Left:  That one's okay, but it has no pocket for my computer, plus it's so roomy that I load it up with stuff  and then stagger under its weight.

Middle:  Too small, but okay for short domestic trips. I had an idea that it coordinated with the dud Ross suitcase. 

Right:  A bag I just bought but worry may be too small.  It does have a pocket for my computer, though, as well as a long strap so that I can wear it cross-body.

Further  complication:  Flying over, we're going to be sitting in the hump of a 747.  I love the small cabin and better service, but there's no place to put much during the flight.  Sizable carry-ons get piled into a giant closet.  How can I corral what I'll need--book, slippers, notebook, Walkman, camera, and reading glasses--into a smaller bag-within-a-tote to have with me at my seat?  Because you never know.

Upper Deck seats:   Roomy for stretching out, but the shelf is for your feet, not your belongings,  and nothing's allowed on the floor.

I know--all gold-plated problems.  But travel is an undertaking I never take lightly, no matter how many times I do it.  I'm never blithe. I leave that to Rick Steves.

The last time we went to Europe, we stopped in Boston for a graduation (hot); stayed in an apartment in London (cool and rainy); in a hotel in Oxford (much rain); and proceeded to the Swiss alps (anticipated snow).    To cover all possibilities, I took this:

That would be two pairs of jeans, a fleece pullover, a raincoat,  and waterproof shoes just for the Switzerland leg.

My cousins looked horrified when I showed up with all this stuff, and I had to do a massive sorting  in an English hotel room before we all left for Switzerland:

 The pile on the right (sans the hotel's furry pillow) didn't go to Switzerland with us but was stored in a car at Heathrow.

And then it didn't snow in Switzerland:

Wildflowers underfoot, snow on the peaks, and fleece pullover tied around my neck because it was too warm to wear.

Now, don't get me started on comfortable shoes.

* * * * *

I'm going to write blog posts while we're away, which will appear on Travelpod .  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll probably be on the e-mail list for notices/links when I've written a post. Do NOT feel obligated to read it!   Or in mid-September you can go to travelpod.com and type in "LRandal."

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

A Wall of Denial

 Jerry and I still talk about an encounter I had in New York City in 2006.  He wasn't with me--I had taken a train from Washington, DC, where we were staying, to Manhattan to go to art museums.  First, to the Museum of Modern Art, then to the Whitney, and then, tired but game, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  All in one day.

Didn't quite trust the map

The Metropolitan Museum is only a short walk from the Whitney, but I hadn't been to New York for years, and I was a bit confused about where I was going (cross Fifth Avenue, turn right).  Walking up Fifth Avenue, I saw a couple who were easily identifiable as tourists:  Overweight and dressed in shorts on an October afternoon.

"Is this the way to the museum?" I asked.

"Yep, we think so," the woman said.

We walked along.  They were jovial and talkative.   They told me that they were from Florida.

I'd just seen Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and I remembered that Florida was particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels.  I asked them if they were worried about that.

"No," said the woman.  "We're red-staters."

That was probably the first time that I realized science could be seen solely through a scrim of politics.

I offered that my husband was a scientist and that every scientist he knew believed that global warming was a fact.

"We live 30 miles inland," the man laughed.  "If it happens, we'll have an ocean view."  

There was really nothing more to say.  We climbed the steps of the museum and went our separate ways.

When I got back to Washington, I told Jerry about it, and he was both disbelieving and amused.  It was one of the best stories he'd heard yet on the subject, he said.   Over the years, we've joked about that couple getting their ocean view.

 Now it doesn't seem so funny.

This came to mind when I read Paul Krugman's column  today's New York Times.  The deniers are still out there, even with shrinking polar ice packs, extreme weather, and rising oceans.  Sometimes I wish I could ask the Florida couple what they think now--is it still a political ploy?

Something tells me they'd still say yes.

* * * * *

I can't even address the matter of gun control.  Guns kill, but that's something to be denied, too. 

A telling fact: I've had a frivolous post ready to publish for over a week, and each day I plan to click on "Publish," there's another mass killing, and it seems insensitive and utterly beside the point to go through with it. 

I'm taking BART to San Francisco today,  and, honestly, I'm a little worried about being on public transportation.  Is this what it's like to live in a war zone?

Travel of any kind feels more perilous these days

How Scared Do We Need to Be?

Yesterday our travel agent sent an e-mail saying that Business Class tickets from London to San Francisco, free with frequent flyer miles, just became available for next October and did we want them? 

I'd been dreading this.  A few weeks ago, Jenny has managed to get us free tickets to London, and I knew that it was about time for the return tickets to become available.  In the meantime, ISIS had blown up a plane in the Sinai, killed 43 people with a explosives in Beirut, and massacred 129 in Paris in a multi-pronged, nightmare attack.

No time for dallying.  She needed to act right away if we wanted them.

What I really wanted to do was to agonize with Jerry, but he wasn't available by phone, and the travel agent was going out at 5 pm.   After that, the tickets almost certainly would be gone.

Keep in mind that I didn't fly for five years after 9/11.

I started traveling again in 2006, because I was tired of missing out.

I paced around the house.  I thought about an interchange I'd had with my neighbor, Laura, last weekend.  I told her that between terrorist attacks and the impact of thousands of refugees (increased security and other possible logistic hassles), we were thinking of cancelling the trip.

"Oh, no," she said.  "We have to go on with our lives."  She's a therapist, and she just got back from Africa.

That very morning,  Paul Krugman had written a column in the New York Times titled,  "Fearing Fear Itself."  He was addressing the larger issue of military retaliation, but he also said, "The point is not to minimize the horror. It is, instead, to emphasize that the biggest danger terrorism poses to our society comes not from the direct harm inflicted, but from the wrong-headed responses it can inspire."

Wrong-headed responses, even on a personal level.  If we didn't go on the trip, I'd miss seeing my English cousins for possibly the last time (due to age, finances, and hassle, our Europe-going is nearing its end).   I'd probably never make it to Spain and Scotland. 

 With my cousins at a family reunion in 2013

Just before 5 pm, I e-mailed Jenny and told her to go ahead and reserve the tickets.

Within minutes, she e-mailed a receipt and e-tickets for tickets for next October 12.

When Jerry got home, we made a pact.  If any transatlantic planes are blown up between now and September 14, when we're supposed to leave for London, we'll cancel the trip.

"What if British intelligence heads off a terrorist attack on a plane between now and when we leave?" Jerry said. "Will that count as a deal-breaker?"

 "Maybe."

"What if a plane's bombed while we're in Europe?"

"We come back by ship?" I suggested.

We agreed that we'd do that, even if it meant a week at sea, which we'd hate.

So that's where it stands with two thoughtful (?) Berkeley liberals at the moment.  Are we being prudent or paranoid?  Any number of terrorism experts have predicted attacks on transatlantic jets heading for the U.S.  But there are hundreds that fly every day.  What's the likelihood of ours being targeted?

Does logic have a chance?

Maybe.

Home Again and a Quilt Show

We've been home from our vacation for 12 days, and only today do I feel my back-in-the-saddle equilibrium.    Inverness was a wonderful break, mentally and physically refreshing, but I'm glad to be home. 

Finally.

For the first week, I thought, why in the hell do we live HERE?  We have no big vista, no dozens of spectacular nearby trails, no un-smoggy air.  Plus traffic.  Nuts.

 Water view from Elisabeth's house

 Water view from our house

Our house felt so boxy and uptight when we got back. I wanted to take out all the walls downstairs.

Me:  Let's knock down all walls!

Jerry:  What will hold up the house?

Me:  Steel beams or something.

Jerry: 

Now I'm used to the house again--having neighbors' houses on both sides and  a closed-off kitchen.  Most of all, I'm reveling in my community of friends.  That's what I really miss when we stay in West Marin.

* * * * *

A quilt show at the Oakland Museum revived me yesterday:

All 20 quilts are part of Eli Leon's collection.   An Oaklander, he got interested in collecting quilts when he was foraging for "green things" at local flea markets (see below). I'd seen many of the quilts in other shows and in books, but they are worth a second (or fourth) viewing.

Chair with embroidery and applique, Rosie Lee Tompkins, mixed media

Four Patch Half Square Strip, Rosie Lee Tompkins, rayon, synthetic cotton, and mixed fabrics, 1994

Mamaloo, Arbie Williams, cotton, synthetic, and metal

Double Strip, Mattie Pickett, cotton and synthetic fabrics

Double Medallion, Sherry Byrd, cotton, synthetic, and mixed fibers

Brass Buttons, Arbie Williams, cotton and synthetic fibers

Part of Eli Leon's extensive "green collection." 

Checker Board Green and Black, Rosie Lee Tompkins, 1990

For the love of green:  even the gallery stools

Yo-Yos & Half Squares: Contemporary California Quilts, Oakland Museum of California, September 1, 2015-February 21, 2016.  Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month.

Afterwhile, Everything in Bolinas Looks Like Art

Sunny Bolinas

Yesterday reminded me yet again why we didn't move to Inverness:  Fog!  All day long, except for about five minutes at 4:30.

Rural fog gets to me in a way that city fog doesn't.  There are more places to go in the city when the weather's dreary, more diversions.  Here I feel stuck in the house, antsy and vaguely claustrophobic, which is why we didn't move here about twenty years ago.  After a month-long trial run a rental house in Inverness during the winter, we decided to stay put in Berkeley. Couldn't take it.

Confronted with socked-in conditions yesterday,  we gave up on a hike and drove down Highway 1 to Bolinas in search of sun and lunch.

It was sunny there, and I perked up, although  I always feel a bit out of it in Bolinas,  because it's a hippie outpost, and I am not a hippie but a tourist, and the place radiates Ambivalence About Tourists.  Houses are as wildly expensive as other places in the Bay Area, so I don't know where the hippies live, unless a certain number of locals are impersonating hippies and own a million dollar house.  Or a house worth a million now that they bought when it was $75,000.  Who knows.

But the sun was shining, and we had a good lunch at the Coast Café and then walked around the town.  Here's what we saw:

 The Coast Cafe:  Note surfboards hanging form ceiling and the stolen road sign over the bar

A local house.  Note the  "Playground" sign under the balcony, two Coke ads,  a hanging bicycle, and an old-fashioned scooter in upstairs window, plus:

 On the land side of the house: a fence decorated with old glass doorknobs

Another fence, which reminded me of a quilt

...and its shadow

 A sign near the small beach:  I always wanted to be loved by a crab

 Afterwhile, everything in Bolinas looks like art

330 Steps But Who's Counting?

We were.

 They loom, don't they?  Especially going up.

Yesterday we drove out to the point of Point Reyes--us and all the out-of-state tourists freezing in the fog and stiff breeze--and walked the steps down to the lighthouse and BACK UP.

I've done this only once before, when I was considerably younger, but this seemed to me one more of Jerry's let's-prove-we're-not-that-old challenges, so we did it. 

The weather was clear in Inverness when we left on our drive but quite foggy at the Point:

Going down the steps to the lighthouse was easy, and the lighthouse and a couple of other buildings are open to the public.

Built low on the rocks so its signal wouldn't be obscured by fog

The lighthouse keepers were isolated and hard-working, which led to escapes to town to get drunk.  Sometimes they drowned on the way back to the lighthouse.

January 30, 1889:  Who would not go crazy?

That many consecutive days of fog would drive anyone mad.

Afterward, we stopped by the tiny Park Service Visitors Center and chatted with the ranger on duty.  She lives out there in a building I've always thought looked a bit grim (is her fridge full of alcohol?):

Stuck out on a foggy point, miles from town

She said, no, "it was cool," although she had only two neighbors and hardly ever saw them.  She assured me that she had a car (see photo, above).  The old-time ligh keepers had to endure a long horseback ride into town.

Historic photo of the lighthouse down on the rocks (center/right) and the steps leading up to what's now the Visitor's Center (upper center)

We climbed on our horse (Subaru) and rode back into Inverness, where it was clear and warm. I deadheaded Elisabeth's dahlias, and then we went off to town to buy more ice cream.  (Weight????)

Antidote to Foggy Day Angst

Some images from what we've been up to:

Yesterday it was foggy all day, uninviting to be outside.What to do?

Quilt.

Then, a two-hour hike in the fog at nearby Samuel P. Taylor State Park:

Very state- or national park-ish.  Jerry checked the lights in 4 campground bathrooms and found 11 species of moths.  I was a decoy for the Women's side.

Definitely fall

Where the trail's been washed out for about five years.

Jerry speculating why on earth they haven't been able to fix it in that length of time. Surely, a drain pipe and some asphalt is all they need?

Today it was sunny when we got up, hurray!  We drove out to what used to be the site of Drakes Bay Oyster Company, the subject of the book I just finished.  Not much there.

The buildings are gone, and in their place:

A small beach

 A giant parking lot

 Fragments of oyster shells

An interpretive board

A regulation National Parks bathroom

A new sign at the road

In the afternoon, we hiked at Muddy Hollow for an hour, until the wind picked up and clouds gathered.  Supposed to be rain tonight.

In the parking lot,  I saw what looked like a large handbag hanging on a truck:

A feedbag for horses:

Dahlias brought in ahead of the storm: